Book of the Dead

by Michael Northrop

  The last time they’d been in this room, it was bare, waiting for the new treasures to arrive. Now, the walls were covered with thick glass cases.

  The sensation in Alex’s body was amplified now. But it wasn’t pain shooting through him this time.

  No. It was fear.

  Breathe.

  Breathe.

  Inside the glass cases were swaths of material — time-yellowed linen or ancient, brown-edged papyrus.

  Alex only recognized a few of the hieroglyphs on the papyrus, but immediately he knew what this was. He could feel it calling to him in his bones. Crawling through his blood.

  This was the Book of the Dead.

  Breathe.

  Ren could tell something was wrong.

  “What?” she asked. “What is it?”

  Alex got his breath back. He pushed down the fear and pain.

  “It’s the Book of the Dead,” he told her in a low voice.

  “Doesn’t look like a book to me,” said Ren.

  She could joke, because she didn’t feel the same fear that he did. He’d spent his life standing on the brink of death, and these ancient words seemed to be calling to him from the other side, pulling him forward.

  “That’s the modern name for it,” said Alex. “Because ‘Bunch of Scrolls and Scraps of the Dead’ doesn’t sound as good. It’s like a cross between prayers and spells.”

  “For the dead?” said Ren.

  Alex nodded. “To help them cross over into the afterlife.”

  Ancient Egypt was his mom’s specialty, and Alex had picked up a pyramid-load about it over the years. When you think that you might die at any moment, you start to pay attention to what’s written about death. And the ancient Egyptians were obsessed with the afterlife.

  Steadying himself, Alex walked up to get a better look. Hieroglyphic writing in neatly printed rows covered the first third of the longest stretch of linen before giving way to a small painting.

  It depicted a large set of scales surrounded by figures with animal heads — Alex immediately recognized Anubis, the jackal-headed guardian of the underworld. Everyone in the picture was looking at the scales. Alex looked at them, too. On one side was a feather, on the other …

  He leaned in closer.

  “A heart,” he whispered.

  There was an information plaque on the floor, waiting to be hung, and Ren knelt down to read it. “That shows the weighing of the heart,” she reported. She pointed to the sole figure in the scene with a human head. “That dude just died, and he’s waiting to see if his heart passes the test. If it’s not weighed down by bad deeds, it will be as light as the feather, and he can enter the afterlife.”

  “What if it’s too heavy?” Alex asked.

  “Then they feed it to that thing,” she said, standing up and pointing to a large, crocodile-headed creature at the bottom of the picture.

  “They feed it to him?” said Alex.

  Ren leaned back over and double-checked the plaque. “Her,” she said. “Her name is Ammit. Nickname: the Devourer.”

  Alex didn’t have to check to know Ren was right, and not just because back in school her nickname was “Plus Ten Ren” for all the extra credit she did. He could almost feel Ammit’s hot, hungry breath on his neck.

  Ren peered into the case. “Look, the cloth is covered in little stains.”

  This time, Alex knew why. He tried to keep his tone light, but the words still chilled him.

  “It’s from the dead guy,” he explained. “The one in the painting. A lot of times they printed the Book of the Dead right on the mummy’s wrappings.”

  They both looked at a stain near the edge of the text: a red so dark it was almost black.

  Blood.

  Alex slowly backed away from the Book of the Dead toward an empty case in the middle of the room. That seemed safer. The only description was on a small tile inside the case:

  EXHIBIT 7A6

  “Huh,” said Ren, turning and sizing up the empty case.

  Alex leaned in for a closer look.

  “Watch out,” said Ren. She grabbed his arm with her right hand and pointed to the ceiling with her left.

  Alex looked up and saw a black metal disk directly above the case, ringed with small lenses. A laser security system.

  “Is it on?” he asked. This was more Ren’s area of expertise, because of her dad.

  She squinted up at it. “Not sure. The beams are invisible.”

  They looked down at the case. The high-grade acrylic glass was unusually thick. Ren’s dad had told them that half an inch of the stuff was bulletproof. This was at least three times that: bombproof.

  “Well, we still don’t know what they’re so worked up about,” Alex said. “But whatever’s going to go in there is getting the star treatment.”

  They heard voices again — coming closer.

  “It’s here too soon,” Alex heard his mom say. “We’ve never dealt with something like this before — and we’re not prepared to protect it.”

  A man answered in a low and guarded voice.

  “They’re in the next room,” Ren whispered.

  “Okay, let’s go,” said Alex, more than ready to leave.

  He usually felt at home in the museum, but there was something different about this new exhibition. There was too much death in these rooms now. Even if Ren couldn’t feel it, he could.

  The master spies slipped back through the curtain, leaving the room exactly as they’d found it — with one small exception.

  On the Book of the Dead, something was changing.

  The drop of blood they’d been looking at was 3,300 years old — but it began to glisten now.

  Alive.

  Again.

  The humidity was swamp-like as Alex and his mom waited for the crosstown bus the next morning. Everyone was sweating and impatient. Alex knew that when she was by herself, his mom walked to work. But in the last year, the trip had become too hard for him on bad days. In this heat, it was out of the question. So his mom pretended she liked the crowded, loud bus. She tried to make it an adventure, just like when she used to stay home and read to him when he couldn’t make it to school, calling his sick days “story days.” He could see right through it, but he played along.

  When they’d gone home the night before, he’d wanted to ask her about the Book of the Dead. But he couldn’t find the words to express exactly why some old rags haunted him so much.

  “What’s that on the horizon?” his mom said, reaching down to nudge him.

  He sleepily poked his head out over Eighty-Sixth Street and peered into the distance. It always took him a long time to wake up in the morning, and today the sticky heat felt like a web he had to push through. He looked out at the traffic and finally saw what his mom was talking about. “Bus,” he said.

  At the sound of this single word, a pair of old men in worn-out suits roused themselves from the bus stop bench. Alex’s mom leaned down and whispered, “You have powerful magic, my son. You have summoned the Ancient Ones!”

  Alex managed a laugh despite his aching chest, and his mom leaned farther out to check on the bus’s progress. As she did, her Egyptian scarab necklace swung out and caught the morning sun. The polished blue stone shone softly and the refined copper borders gleamed. She reached out instinctively with her right hand and pressed the winged beetle back to her chest, as if pledging allegiance. It was just about the only piece of jewelry she owned, and Alex had never seen her without it.

  As they climbed aboard the bus, the cranked-up air conditioning washed over them. It felt nice, but Alex stared out the window the whole way, imagining not just walking alongside the bus, but running. These daydreams never worked out for him. At recess he used to fantasize about hitting a Wiffle ball high off the wall only to end up striking out — and hurting himself on the swing. But his body felt like a prison sometimes, and daydreams were a look out the window.

  The bus hit a pothole and jarred his brittle body. The dream ended. His tho
ughts returned to the real world.

  “Is the exhibition opening today?” he asked.

  His mom shook her head. “Tomorrow. There’s still one last artifact we haven’t installed. So we’ve got a ton of work to get done today to get everything ready.”

  Her voice was tense. Whatever this thing was, it was important.

  Soon enough, Alex and the rest of the world would discover what belonged in the case for Exhibit 7A6.

  Alex looked for Ren in all the usual spots once he got to the museum. Finally, he gave up and texted her. The reply was quick and disappointing. She was on her way to the big Costco on 117th with her mom.

  It figures, Alex thought. With two parents, his best friend spent half as much time at the museum as he did.

  He disliked battling the crowds during the day, so he hid out in the office and played video games for hours, slipping into a trance where he could forget about his own achy body. His avatar leapt over obstacles, swung heavy objects like they were pillows, and had a special victory dance where he flexed his bulging biceps, which Alex thought was particularly impressive.

  His mom came by around noon and they went to lunch at a diner. It was a short walk, but the air was hot and sticky and thick and it took Alex a long time. He’d noticed that whenever his mom had to slow herself down for him, her energy burst out in other ways. Today she fidgeted with her hair — first unclipping it from its tight bun and letting it fall down past her shoulders. Then she plucked a thick rubber band from around her wrist and put her hair up in a ponytail. His mom always had office supplies on her — literally on her. If it wasn’t a rubber band on her wrist, then it would be a few paper clips fastened to her shirt pocket or a pen behind her ear. Sometimes it was all three.

  The ponytail bounced as she walked, and if Alex ignored the dark circles or lines around her eyes, she looked as vibrant as any of the Manhattan go-getters around them. She’d been young when she had him: young and in Egypt. Now she was a month and a day away from turning thirty-seven. Alex had picked out her present but still needed one more week of allowance to pay for it. He wondered what her life would be like if she didn’t have him to worry about. A single word slipped into his mind: soon.

  He gave his head a quick, fierce shake, trying to dislodge the thought.

  The pinpricks started up again as soon as they got back to her office. They felt stronger than usual — sharper and more electric — but he held them off by secretly taking a few more pills. As soon as Alex’s mom left to head down to the exhibit, he curled up on her office couch and napped.

  At the end of the day, the crowds cleared out and Alex went straight to the Egyptian wing to find his mom. He was sure that’s where she’d be, but he made it through half a dozen rooms without seeing her. He decided to stay away from the Book of the Dead and moved in a different direction.

  It was time to visit the Stung Man.

  A large sign outside the room read:

  SPECIAL PREVIEW OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART’S EXCITING NEW EXHIBITION. BE QUIET, PLEASE. THE STUNG MAN IS SLEEPING — FOR ETERNITY.

  The last part was new. Alex didn’t blame the museum for showboating a little. People loved the story. Alex knew it by heart at this point.

  The Stung Man had been a master thief, operating for years without being caught. Alex imagined that if they’d had “wanted” posters in ancient Egypt, this guy’s face would have been all over them.

  Eventually, the thief was pursued by the pharaoh’s men into the desert, where he hid in a small cave.

  Alex always imagined what that must have felt like: that brief feeling of victory, of having escaped a terrible fate.

  And then …

  The Stung Man wasn’t called the Stung Man at that point, not yet. Everyone gets their nickname for a reason.

  As the pharaoh’s men searched outside, the thief discovered that his hiding spot was full of scorpions.

  Alex tried to imagine it. Was there light in the cave, or was it the sound of skittering legs that first alerted him to the fact that something was wrong? By then it didn’t matter, because they were on him. The thief was stung again and again, all over his body: his legs, his torso, his arms, his neck. His face.

  He refused to call out.

  He chose death over capture.

  When they finally found him, he was swollen past recognition. His stubborn courage earned the pharaoh’s grudging respect. The Stung Man was given a lavish burial and a story that would last for thousands of years.

  Standing in front of the thief’s mortal remains, Alex shuddered. He was no stranger to stinging pains himself — and he knew what it was like to bite down on your tongue so no one would hear you cry out.

  The massive stone sarcophagus was decorated with dozens of images of scorpions. The pharaoh, apparently, had a twisted sense of humor. Alex walked right up to the exhibit and looked at the scorpions. They were painted with real, untarnished gold. When the light struck them, it made the scorpions appear to move.

  Alex knew the sarcophagus was only the outer case, heavy enough to fend off everything from rats to grave robbers. Inside, there would be an elaborately decorated outer coffin, and then a smaller inner coffin. And inside that … the Stung Man himself, embalmed and wrapped tightly in linen.

  Four canopic jars sat outside the sarcophagus, ceremonial alabaster vessels that contained the Stung Man’s internal organs: the lungs, the stomach, the liver, the intestines.

  Only the heart would be left inside the mummy itself. Left inside so it could be weighed and judged.

  As Alex examined the jars, he got the creepy sensation of being watched. He swung his head around but saw nothing.

  He shook it off and looked back at the jars. The tops were carved in the shapes of different heads: a baboon’s, a jackal’s, a man’s, and a falcon’s. “Every god has a job,” his mom liked to say about ancient Egypt, and Alex knew these four were in charge of pickled people parts. He leaned in for a closer look at the falcon and immediately got that creepy feeling again, like an icy finger on the back of his neck.

  “Hello, young man.”

  Alex jumped about three feet. When he landed, he held his breath and stood absolutely still as the adrenaline drained away.

  Surprises were not good for him.

  He looked at the man who’d spoken. The first thing that jumped out about him — hopped out, really — was that he looked a little like a toad. He had big protruding eyes and no chin to speak of. He was wearing a crisp black suit with a staff pass pinned to his jacket.

  Alex had never seen him before.

  Breathe.

  “Sorry,” Alex said to the man, trying to cover how shaky he felt. “You scared me.”

  “I’m very sorry,” said the man, in a way that didn’t sound sorry at all. Alex was pretty sure he recognized the accent.

  “Are you German?” he asked.

  “I am, in fact,” said the man.

  “Thought so. You sound like my grandmother. I mean, not like an old woman, but … yeah.”

  A pained look flashed across the man’s face. “I am Dr. Todtman, from Berlin. And who might you be?”

  “I’m Alex … Alex Sennefer.”

  “Sennefer, yes,” said Todtman, a hint of actual interest in his voice. “The Keeper of the Seal.”

  Alex was impressed that the man had pronounced his name perfectly, with the emphasis on the second syllable: sen-NEF-er. That took most people a few tries.

  But as for the rest of it … Alex had no idea what the man was talking about.

  “The what?” he said.

  “Sennefer, the Keeper of the Seal,” said Todtman.

  “Keeper of a seal? Like at a zoo?”

  “Like at a palace,” said Todtman. “In the eighteenth dynasty, Sennefer was the keeper of the pharaoh’s seal, an important man.”

  “Oh, right,” said Alex. “That kind of seal.”

  “I thought your name would be Bauer,” said the man. Alex looked at him carefully. He h
adn’t mentioned his mother.

  “It was my dad’s name,” said Alex. “Is,” he added quickly, and then felt stupid. He honestly didn’t know.

  “I’m surprised she didn’t tell you,” said Todtman, his expression unreadable.

  “Tell me what?” Before Alex had even finished the question, he heard his mom’s footsteps. He turned around and saw her stride quickly into the room. The ponytail was long gone; she was back in business mode.

  “Alex, honey,” she said. “We’ll just be a few minutes. Why don’t you go wait out by the temple?”

  “But” — he tried to think of some way he’d be allowed to stay — “I was just talking to the doctor.”

  “I’m sure you were,” said his mom. “Now off you go. We have some important work to do here.”

  “But …”

  “Shoo!” She said it with a smile, but she said it nonetheless. If Alex didn’t know better, he’d think she didn’t want him to have anything to do with this man. He gave him one more look: black suit, froggy features, and the icy eyes that Alex had felt burrowing into his back.

  Stepping out of the room, he pulled out his phone and texted Ren. No response. He sat there and thought about what the man had said. Alex didn’t know much about his father, except that he didn’t know much about his father.

  He did know that his father was Egyptian. And now he knew something else, something about his name. It was just a scrap of ancient trivia, he figured. Still, it was a nice addition to a very small collection.

  He knew he was supposed to head out of the exhibition, back to the temple or his mom’s office. But despite his earlier reluctance, something was drawing him back to the room that held the Book of the Dead.

  The case for Exhibit 7A6 wasn’t empty anymore.

  The lenses of the security system shone now with bright pinpricks of red light. The lasers were on. If anyone broke one of the beams, the whole room would turn into the Fourth of July: flashing lights and blaring sirens.

  Carefully, Alex leaned in.

  It was a linen scroll covered in gold hieroglyphs.