The House of the Rising Sun

Chapter Fifteen: An Unwanted Proposal (Anubis Roots for Us Again)

Chapter Fifteen: An Unwanted Proposal (Anubis Roots for Us Again)

Selene

It had been three weeks since Alexander left Egypt, and each day I missed him more. I always kept track of when we would meet at the House of Khepri, although he hadn’t yet come back, like he promised he would. Sosigenes had returned, however, and that made me happy again. I missed the old man dearly, and he brought me back a golden ankh necklace. He said that they were going to travel to Karnak soon, and that saddened me. I didn’t have Alexander to keep me company, and although I loved Amenemhet with all my heart, I don’t know if I could continue to beat him in Dogs and Jackals. The game had gotten old.

I walked into the main hall where I saw Sosigenes packing up some scrolls and tablets.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“I’m going to the Library,” said he. “There’s something in the stars, and I want to see what’s going on. Something of great importance has recently happened. I can see it.”

“Well, okay then,” I said. “Have fun.” Although I wasn’t entirely sure how much fun you could have at a library, I let him go.

“Good-bye, Selene. I’ll see you tonight.”

“Bye Sosigenes.”

Sosigenes left our house with millions of scrolls in each arm, and I laughed at the old man. Sosigenes had all the energy of a young pharaoh, and all the sternness that young pharaoh needed to keep Egypt under control. Age was nothing on Sosigenes.

I sat down. Sosigenes had always been there for me. He was like a grandfather to me, and we loved each other like the sea loves the sand. So where were my parents?

My parents’ story is nothing short of awful. My mother was a scribe. No one knew, but she knew how to read and write hieroglyphs, demotic, and hieratic. She was pure Egyptian and had travelled all over. She had seen the Pyramids of Giza, and Ramses’ temple at Abu Simbel, and everything at Karnak. Definitely well traveled. She worked as a priestess, however, because a woman scribe was looked down upon. My father was not an Egyptian, but a Hebrew slave. He worked in the same temple as my mother, and that’s how they met. They quickly fell in love. But as I mentioned earlier, my mother was a priestess, and it was blasphemy to choose a husband after choosing service to the gods. My mother begged the high priests to let her quit and marry my father. They wouldn’t let her. My father believed that his God, just one, Almighty God would understand the situation, but my gods, my mother’s gods, wouldn’t. She didn’t care. My mother and my father wanted to be together. The priests showed contempt to the request, and my mother continued her duty in the temple with sadness…until she found out she was pregnant with me. The priests screamed blasphemy at my mother and father and ordered their deaths. But how could they kill a mother and an unborn child? So they waited. And waited. They waited nine months for my birth, and when I came, my father held me and he named me Selene. Then my mother held me, kissed my forehead, and I was taken away from her and put in Sosigenes’ arms, who had been there for the sudden adoption. My mother and father cried when they saw Sosigenes (who they knew was a good man) take me away, but it wasn’t over yet. They still had to pay for their blasphemy.

I left the main hall and walked to my room, where I changed into a white strapless dress and lined my eyes with kohl. I looked over to my khopesh and scimitar blades, and then to the dagger by my bed. Ra forbid the day I ever have to use them to hurt someone. I grabbed my khopesh sword and went back to my bed and studied it, the golden hieroglyphs glittering slightly.

“Hello?” I heard someone call from outside. It was a male voice, someone my age or a year older, and he or she wasn’t menacing. Oh the things you can hear from a person’s voice.