“Answer me, please?” I breathe out, stare up at the ceiling. My stolen Kha belongs to that of a man, not the… It was supposed to be a girl, my treacherous memories inform me, locking into place. Her name was Catherine van Vuuren, and she was three years old. She fell into a coma after drowning in a swimming pool. You were supposed to have her Kha when her Ka and Ba fled for judgment.
“There’s been a mistake,” I tell the woman at my bedside. “I’m not the right…” Stupid fool, I can’t tell her. I clamp my lips shut and keep my gaze firmly on the strip-lighting on the ceiling. How does one explain the existence of the Inkarna—Those who Return?
We are the few who remember, who refuse the lure of the Sea of Nun and its promised cycle of eternal forgetfulness.
“There is no mistake! How can you say that? You don’t remember anything?” Hysteria tinges her voice.
I close my eyes then inhale. Exhale. “No, I don’t remember a bloody thing.” What else can I do but play dumb until I figure out what the hell is going on? Per Ankh, so distant, remains a blur.
Richard wasn’t there. No Siptah. We don’t know what happened to his blessed Akh after his last Kha perished.
That recollection brings a hot stab of pain and this time I sit up, despite the physical body’s weakness. He wasn’t there. He never returned to the Tuat and never entered through the pylons of Per Ankh. Some misfortune befell him as he passed through the Black Gate. And now this.
“My god.” I try to swing my legs around but my limbs won’t respond, my arms straining to keep me in a seated position.
The young woman lets go of my hand and staggers back against the wall, her features pale and her eyes white-rimmed. “I’m going to get the nurse.” She dashes out the room, leaving me to my own devices, which is a good thing, for now.
With the assumption I’m not going anywhere in a hurry, I slide back down onto the bed and peer about the ward in search of clues. Two of the other three beds are occupied. A thin Indian man with a clear plastic pipe crawling out of his nose is attached to a variety of machines I can only imagine are there to keep him alive. The soft hiss of oxygen accompanies the steady rise and fall of his chest.
The old man in the bed opposite mine watches me with bright, beady eyes. “She’s been sitting at your bedside for four months now,” he says.
“Four months?”
He nods, offering me a toothless grin. “They took you off life-support yesterday. Pumped you full of morphine. Even had some minister here to offer last rites and all a big fuss. But you didn’t die. She’s been sitting here the whole time, praying and pleading, though for what reason I’m not sure.”
“Who’re you to pass judgment?” A small twinge of annoyance makes me snap out the words. I have not killed, I have not coveted my neighbour’s possessions.
He shrugs. “Been listening to the arguments between the gal and your poor parents. They’ve gone through hell with you, it would seem.” What’s with this man’s smug tone?
The idea that he knows more about my Kha’s past than I do rankles. “How so?”
“The way I see it, you’d be doing them a favour if you’d just gone and died.”
I don’t have an answer to his words and resume staring at the ceiling. What went wrong? Why am I here? Now. “What year is it?” I ask him.
“It’s two thousand and twelve. What, you remember nothing?” His laughter is dry and raspy, as though he’s gargled thumb tacks. I almost smile when his laugh turns into a hacking cough.
“Oh.” It was supposed to be 2007. Play stupid—memory loss, the best card until I have all my scattered marbles. The nothingness obscures the turning of five years.
Damn, a man’s body. What went wrong? I’m too scared to touch my face. I don’t want to know.
The girl arrives with an overweight matron in tow. It’s easy to lie back; allow my muscles to go slack while the fat woman pokes at me, takes my pulse and gauges my temperature.
“Glad to have you with us, Mr Kennedy. You’ve had your girlfriend and folks worried.”
Girlfriend? I look at the auburn-haired girl and a wave of sickness washes over me. This man—black scribbled lettering on a whiteboard above my bed catches my attention—Ashton, he must have slept with her. If he has tattoos like a ruffian then he must have… Oh. My. God.
“I’m glad to be back.” I try to muster cheer I don’t feel. My smile is pasted on, the body’s facial muscles slack from disuse.
My…girlfriend…grimaces. This is going to be difficult. She is a stranger to me and I think she’s beginning to realise that, likewise, I’m not the person she knew.
Sister Elton—for that is what the matron’s nametag proclaims—pushes the hair back from her face. “Your vitals are…stronger than expected. It’s still early days but I think you’ll make a full recovery. It is most remarkable.” Are those tears in her eyes? Well, I’ll be damned.
“W-what happened?” I ask. “I’m afraid I don’t remember…much.” That part isn’t a lie.
“You were brought in four months ago. Severe head trauma after an em-vee-ay. You’ve been lying in a coma ever since then.”
“Where is here?”
“Groote Schuur hospital.”
I want to ask what an MVA is but I don’t want to let on exactly how ignorant I am. For now I’m content to know my name, my new name, that is. I don’t really want to know too much about this body. Not yet, at least. It was 1966 when I died. This means Leonora would be an old woman of eighty. That’s if she’s even still alive. A horrible strangling sensation closes my throat and hot tears prick at the corners of my eyes. House Adamastor hadn’t had the gathered daimonic strength to punch an Inkarna through sooner. Our inability has been a great source of worry. And now this.
This time I turn my face away, preferring to look toward the comatose Indian man. “Leave me,” I say to the two women.
The memories flood me and I remember everything, and it burns with a cold fire, of loss and the distinct realisation that a lot more has gone south. If I’m not in the right body, who is? I pray the chapter house is still standing. House Adamastor was never supposed to have more than one full Inkarna in the material plane. That was drummed into me upon my arrival in Per Ankh. Who inhabits the Kha of Catherine van Vuuren? Or did that Kha pass and this is why I’m here now? Is this why it has taken me almost five years to return?
* * * *
On the day I am discharged, I wake screaming from the same recurring nightmare that has plagued me for the five days I have been stuck in this Kha. The grey, the nothingness of oblivion, is a vast pool I flounder through. It is each time when the waters of the Sea of Nun close over my head and I cannot draw breath, and begin the slow descent into darkness that I jerk upright, a terrified cry escaping my lips.
This Kha is still too weak to walk unaided, its muscles atrophied from months of being supine. It is embarrassing the first few times the nurses help me to the bathroom now that the catheter is removed—all this flesh and appendages that are in the wrong places. The first few times I urinate I want to shrivel into myself from the mortification of inhabiting a man’s body. This is so wrong.
Yet it is also utterly fascinating, this heaviness of flesh, of gravity tugging at my limbs as I stretch, watching skin slide over muscle. This is my Kha now. Being able to move fingers, watching flesh twitch at the simplest command of a thought. This is a wonder in itself.
Ashton Kennedy would have been a comely man if it were not for the tattoos covering both arms. Oh, and the hair. A vain creature, he was, his hair long and black, all the way down to his buttocks. Marlise—the girlfriend—takes great pride in the fact that she didn’t allow his… No, I must now consider them my… parents let the nurses shave my head. She seems to think long hair is important to me and bemoans the small section they had to shave when I was first admitted. Long hair on a woman, perhaps, but on a man? I look like a savage, not to mention the tunnels in the soft flesh. Tribespeople in the Amazon would stretch thei
r lobes with discs. The few times that I face the mirror, for really, I cannot accept this face yet, I creep a pinkie finger through the shrivelled flesh where Marlise tells me the disk went. It seems unnatural for my digit to fill the space and to tug. A shiver crawls down my spine.
Nine millimetre tunnels, she’d told me proudly, and all I can think of is what sort of surgery must I undergo to close those holes again. She brings me plugs before I’m discharged. Rubber things that stretch the skin back to about six millimetres, and I spend most of the evening tugging at the alien objects. It’s easier to play along with others’ whims until such time as I can figure out the way forward.
I don’t want to argue. I am like some sort of doll and allow her to fuss over me, brush the hair while I stare at the television screen, at the tiny figures in the illuminated box. It doesn’t matter what they do, just so long as there is movement to distract me from this entire situation.
But I have to admit there is something strange and wildly beautiful about this man, his patrician nose, the high cheekbones, the cleft in the chin, the narrow face and those cold grey eyes that cut into the very depth of my heart when I stare into the mirror. My eyes.
Who are you?
I ask myself that question over and over again, fascinated by the musculature, tracing the hard lines of sinew in the wrists. Beautiful and arrogant, Ashton Kennedy, and you knew it, didn’t you? And you used it to your advantage, you sod.
Of my old powers, there is not a trace. Maybe it’s too soon. That doesn’t mean I don’t try. I wait until late on the last night, when the nurses dim the lights to cast everything in a dull amber glow and it’s only the hiss of the machine keeping the patient next to me alive.
The man in the bed across from me snores softly, and I’m fairly certain no one is awake. My eyes closed, I pull at my surroundings, questing with my thoughts at the electrical energy, the residual motion of the world, but it’s like bumping into a wall. Nothing budges, and a terrible dull throbbing starts at my temples. In a last-ditch attempt, I glare at the chair next to my bed, willing it to shift even half a metre to the left. Nothing.
I have to choke back the strangled cry that forces itself to my lips, instead biting the soft skin on the inside of my hand. Encased in strange flesh I am stripped of my powers and prestige. Lost. What came easily to the aged Lizzie Perry proves impossible for Ashton Kennedy, and suggests another reason why Inkarna would never seek out a mature body for a return. It’s too early to get upset by this. I need time.
Mr and Mrs Kennedy visit every day, a thoroughly unremarkable pair. They have worn themselves grey looking after this son. The only similarity I can see is Mrs Kennedy’s eyes. They are the same storm-blighted shade as mine. There all resemblance ends. The father is stooped and says little, preferring to stare out the window while the mother natters on about someone else’s past and how glad she is I’m awake. I play the amnesia thing to the hilt, offering minimal words and gazing into space with a blank expression whenever they are near. The doctors say there is always a chance for some sort of impairment after a prolonged coma. I can use this to my advantage while I gather my strength and figure out the dynamics of this new life. The doctors are just surprised I have so much control over my motor functions. Most who awaken are lucky if they can move their hands or speak without some sort of impediment. Although doddery, I can walk unaided. I speak without slurring my words. If only I didn’t have these nightmares. My fellow patients complain bitterly, and the sleeping pills the doctor prescribes help not one whit.
I should be happy I’m alive.
Instead I spend hours recalling Per Ankh, my friends I have now left behind, drawing on the memories of the Blessed Dead I encountered. So many lives. So many stories. My first triumph is tapping into my first Blessed memory, a fleeting thing, a child’s fears of this very hospital, of visiting a sick relative. There is hope my other powers might return.
“I’m sorry we had to sell the house, Ashton,” Mrs Kennedy says. “We didn’t really have a choice, but we’ve kept some of your things from where you stayed in Observatory. You may want to look through them.”
Oh God. At these words I fix my gaze on the ceiling, not wanting to maintain eye contact. I am an interloper, a cuckoo’s offspring. Why don’t I feel love? I should be grateful.
Instead Ashton’s mother grasps my shoulder and squeezes, as though she gives me comfort and all I want to do is rip myself away from any physical contact. I want to tell her, You are not my mother, but those words blessedly, remain a mere thought.
What prospects do these two people have now? Their only child is a miserable failure by anyone’s standards. Marlise tells me I’m a barman and a musician?
And they’ve given everything up to keep this alive?
I’d box the young man’s ears if he were still around. To the people who tend me I’m pleasantly vague without committing myself. The clothing they bring doesn’t fit me properly, the jeans baggy about the waist, the t-shirt and fleecy top gaping at the neck. I allow them to push me out to the parking lot in a wheelchair.
While I’d been awaiting discharge, I had pointedly not gone to the window. Besides, the vertical blinds had been drawn most of the time. One trauma at a time, I’d reasoned.
The world outside the hospital is the first shock to my system. The few memories I can draw upon, of my time in Per Ankh, I’d been aware, to some degree, and informed, about how society and the environment has changed during the intervening years. But even these remain, unfortunately, in fits and starts. Yet, in our designations as Inkarna, we’ve often waylaid the Blessed Dead to learn of the world we’ve left behind, before they forget, their knowledge lost for eternity. It’s the only way we can initiate a return without wasting precious time.
Nothing has prepared me for how much my city had grown.
First the roads, so much bigger, the cars sleeker and faster than I could ever conceive. It is one thing delving into a person’s memories, it is quite another faced with the stark reality. Gleaming monsters roar past at astonishing speeds on a highway near the hospital grounds. I try not to gape, conscious that Mr and Mrs Kennedy, and my ever-present shadow, Marlise, watch me intently as they wheel me through the parking lot.
And it is so cold, the sky low and heavy with cloud, the wind biting through my jacket and reminding me of my death day. It was winter when I first shuffled off this mortal coil. My gaze follows the contours of the cars, seeing the wheels of my chair turning in the chromed hubcaps and metallic paintwork of vehicles almost alien compared to the ones I recall from so long ago.
Lizzie never learned to drive. What must it be like to be behind the wheel of these monsters? Could Ashton drive? I assume so, but there is no way for me to access those memories with the spirit fled.
It is Marlise’s car in which we go home, a battered hatchback with more patches to its paintwork than its original white. Mr Kennedy sits ramrod straight in the front, a scarecrow of a man, while Marlise drives and Mrs Kennedy is seated in the back with me. Ashton’s mother keeps touching me, as though to remind herself I’m real, that I’m breathing and functional.
“I’m fine, Mother, really,” I say for the umpteenth time then content myself to stare out the window. What I really want to say is if you ask me one more time whether I’m all right, I won’t be.
This new world is Cape Town but it’s not. Old houses lining the highway have been renovated. Some demolished. Some buildings are new, their lines stark and alien. Marlise pulls up in front of a residence in one of the older parts of Newlands, blessedly familiar. Progress hasn’t touched the stately homes here built during the early nineteen-hundreds. Only the trees are different: some missing, others larger. I can only handle so much strangeness in one day. Thank goodness for some permanence, even though these people have essentially imprisoned themselves. Many of the properties have six-foot-high walls topped with spikes.
Marlise takes the key out of the ignition and turns to look at me, her dark eyes full o
f concern.
I want to tell the girl I’m fine. She’s not Leonora and I don’t want to need her. They’re all strangers and they’re nothing to me, and I know I must not feel this deep-rooted resentment at their fuss. A smouldering ember is banked deep within me. The need to lash out grows and is liable to burst into full-blown rage at the next bit of provocation. Please don’t touch me. I shrink from their hands. I turn the emotion over in my mind, tasting it. I try to recall whether Lizzie carried any anger within her or if this is residue of Ashton’s.
But I am Lizzie, am I not?
You are Nefretkheperi, my logic tells me. Lizzie is but the Ka, the double. The Ba has taken a new residence. In the eternal cycle of death and rebirth you will have many Kas. You know this as a truth. The blurring of identity makes my head ache.
Instead of protesting, I clench my fists as I’m guided down a dark passageway into a home where all the windows are covered with heavy drapes.
“Here is your uncle, Ashton. Do you remember my brother Stanley—Stanley Rodgers? We’re staying in his house until Father can sort out the finances,” Mrs Kennedy says.
Uncle Rodgers is older than his sister, bald and stooped, and it’s glaringly obvious he despises Ashton—me. He stares at our party in the hallway before disappearing, into what I take as a study, without a word. I don’t need heightened Inkarna senses to tell me exactly what he thinks of his nephew.
For a moment we pause, Marlise drawing her breath with a hiss, her grip momentarily strengthening on my wrist.
Mr Kennedy stumps up the stairs ahead of us, as though this exchange never took place. From the corner of my eye I see Mrs Kennedy shake her head, an almost imperceptible movement.
“We have two rooms on the third floor,” Mrs Kennedy continues, as though the air of dysfunctional relations doesn’t weigh down the atmosphere. “You’ll like your room. It overlooks the garden.” It’s as if she’s insinuating that I must like this room, and this entire arrangement. Begging. Pleading.
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