The Chaos of Stars (5 page)

After pulling no fewer than four wrong suitcases, I finally find mine. Sirus grabs it and we head outside. It’s dark, and my stomach is unsettled from all of the change and startling revelations. The air is cool, wetter than I’m used to. I can feel it on my skin, pawing at me, and I don’t like it. I look expectantly at the sky, needing to see my stars.

“It’s cloudy,” I say, my voice small and sad.

“June gloom,” Deena answers. “San Diego has amazing weather year-round, but June has almost constant cloud cover. Still, it means the beaches aren’t as crowded.”

I nod, not caring about the beach, and we find Sirus’s tiny Mini. It’s sky blue, old but perfectly maintained. I love it. I’d paint it cherry red with racing stripes. It makes me happy that even though he runs a fleet of limos and taxis, my brother drives this.

“Sorry about the space,” he says, opening the back to shove my suitcase in.

“Poor Sirus,” Deena says, a smile pulling at her lips. “He’s finally going to have to give up driving his baby because he’s having a baby.”

“I still say we could fit.”

“I’m not dealing with a car seat in a two-door.”

Sirus sighs heavily, opening the passenger door and flipping the seat forward so I can climb into the back. “Want a car, Isadora?”

I laugh, nervous, as I buckle my seat belt and try to fold my long legs in such a way that they won’t be slammed up against the driver’s seat. “Umm, I’ve barely even ridden in cars. I don’t exactly know how to drive them.”

“We can work on that. In the meantime, Deena has a bike she’s not using.”

“Thanks.” I don’t know how to ride a bike, either, but that has less potential for killing innocent bystanders.

He starts the car but pauses to take Deena’s hand and pull it to his lips in a surprisingly intimate and affectionate gesture.

I look outside, uncomfortable. This isn’t how it was supposed to be. I don’t feel free; I feel nervous and edgy and out of place. Sirus wasn’t supposed to have his own family.
I
was supposed to be his family. Instead I’m just going to be another footnote to someone else’s story.

I’ll be fine. I’m always fine. But I’m disappointed. Not even Orion is around to care about me here.

The blank whiteness above sends me into a momentary panic. I’m in another nightmare. No. Sirus’s house. I was so tired when we got here last night, it was all I could do to take my boots off before collapsing into bed.

Floods, the ceiling is
so white
. I push back the heavy comforter and am greeted by a seeping chill in the air. Apparently Southern California is not as warm as I thought it would be. I brush my arms, feeling like they should be wet, but they’re just cold. Shivering, I wrap up in a soft blue throw draped on the edge of the bed. My bare legs stretch out about a foot past the bottom of the blanket, but it’ll do for now.

Sirus and Deena live in an area called Ocean Beach—or Pacific Beach—or Something or Other Beach, which I suspect could be the name of every community here. It’s a mess of homes built into the hills, and theirs is a great gray rambling wood confusion of a house.

The whole thing is pleasant but a complete
nothing
designwise, all white and beige, and already my mind is spinning with the potential. I think this will be the beach room. The dark wood floors I’m not touching—they’re perfect—but I want a seaweed-green throw rug, the walls palest yellow, and a light sea-green ceiling.

The accents will all be glass. I’ll troll the local shops for glass artisans; surely they have that type of shop here. Blown-glass vases, or ideally some sort of abstract art that looks like kelp. Maybe a painting or two in ocean blues and greens. The bedspread I’ll keep white, but with a shock of bright coral-orange pillows.

I’m totally going to earn my keep. My feet pad along the cold wood floors with an extra spring. None of last night’s melancholy will be allowed—today is mine. Tomorrow is mine. Every day from now until I die? Mine.

“What do you mean I have a
job
?” I stare at Sirus in horror.

He clutches the newspaper in front of him like a shield. When I walked in and saw him sitting at his (awful, awful maple with Queen Anne chairs) table reading the paper, the resemblance to our father was uncanny. Except Sirus has no mummy wrappings. However, the momentary surge of affection I felt for him has entirely disappeared.

“I thought she told you.” He takes off his glasses and rubs the space between his eyes. “When she asked if you could stay with me, she had some rules.”

“SHE IS NOT HERE. SHE CANNOT CONTROL MY LIFE.”

“Isadora. Sit down and hear me out, okay?”

I slump into a chair across from him, deflating. I shouldn’t yell at him. It’s not his fault our mother can’t understand that not even
her
divine apron strings can stretch all the way from Egypt to San Diego.

“Okay, hit me. What does the Queen of Heaven think I should be doing?”

“Pancakes!” Deena says, sashaying into the dining room. Her hair is even wilder this morning, curls everywhere, and everything about her seems to imitate them—she is all movement and light and energy. If it weren’t for that
thing
in her belly and the fact that she stole my brother from me, I’d think she was awesome.

I kick Sirus under the table for good measure.

“Hope this is okay.” Deena sets a plate down on the table and then sits with an ungraceful
oof
. “And don’t get used to it. Weekdays I am gone by seven and you are on your own.”

I’ve never had pancakes before. I wait, watching what Deena does to prepare hers, my stomach growling. This is not the wholesome, basic fare my mother insists on. I spear a golden pancake and plop it onto my plate, then drench it in syrup. I can smell it—pure sugar and artificial flavoring. My mother says if you can’t pronounce all of the ingredients, it shouldn’t go in your body.

I say,
Sugar, yay!

The paint here is white, again, some more. Cutouts in the wall open to the kitchen. I like those. But I want to curve the top of them so they’re arches, not rectangles. I don’t think severe and modern is the right fit for Deena and Sirus. They need a warm home, a soft home, a home that is beautiful and safe and a bit funky.

The kitchen has nice appliances, dark granite counters. I want neutral pale-green tiles as backsplashes on the walls between the counters and cupboards, which need to be painted either cherry or white. White, I think, once we get rid of all the rest of the white. We’ll shop for handles and put different ones on each cupboard. Pewter, or dark silver.

“Do you work a lot?” I ask Deena around a sticky-sweet mouthful. I can feel it coating my throat, clinging there, and it’s actually a bit overwhelming but I soldier on, determined to enjoy eating something Mother wouldn’t approve of.

Deena nods. “Not as much as I would if I were at a firm, but I keep busy.”

I have no idea what a city attorney does, but it sounds cool. And very . . . worky. No wonder he kept her secret. My mother is all about industry but utterly and completely opposed to married women in the workforce. She’d never approve of Sirus’s choice if she knew that Deena was employed at anything other than perfect domesticity.

“Awesome. Speaking of jobs?” I jab my fork toward Sirus. Might as well find out.

“Oh, right. Mom loaned a bunch of stuff to a new exhibit at a local museum. She set you up with a job there to oversee everything.”

I snort, choking on a piece of pancake. “Oh, that’s perfect. I finally get away, so she plots to have me spend all day every day staring at pictures of her and Father?”

Sirus widens his eyes at me, and I look at Deena who, fortunately, is tapping out a message on her phone. Whew. “I mean, staring at pictures they donated? Ha. Like that’s going to happen. I wanted to talk to you about which room I can start on. Maybe this area? I love how open everything is. How do you feel about a slowly shifting palette that will incorporate movement—almost like a tide that carries the eye from the entry to the family room to the dining room? Also, how attached are you to this table? Because I’m thinking bonfire.”

Sirus shakes his head, black eyes crinkling up with a smile. “Umm, no fires. But I’m serious about the job thing.”

“And I’m serious that Mother’s crazy. She’s not here, I’m not doing it.”

“She said you’d say that. And she told me to say—and please remember that I am only passing this along because you are a minor and I don’t have legal custody—that if you don’t do the job, she’s taking everything out of your bank account.”

I play with the remaining of syrup on my plate, stirring it around with my fork. “So what? I’ll get a real job. I’m not afraid to work.” I don’t care what it is. Anything’s better than what
she
wants me to do.

Deena looks up from her phone with an apologetic frown. “You can’t get a job, not legally anyway. You don’t have the right type of visa. And while there are a lot of jobs for illegals here, I really doubt you want to stand on a corner at Home Depot and get picked up for daily construction work.”

I frown, torn. I
am
pretty strong. Maybe I could. . . .

“Don’t tell her that’s an option,” Sirus whispers, doing the kill motion across his throat.

“If you violate your visa,” Deena continues hurriedly, “you risk getting kicked out of the country permanently. Plus Sirus and I would be breaking the law if we helped you work illegally, which frankly wouldn’t look good on my record.”

I throw my hands in the air. “Then how is it okay for me to work at the museum?”

Sirus shrugs. “Because they aren’t technically employing you. You’re a volunteer. With regularly scheduled hours. And mandatory attendance that will be reported directly to Mom.”

“And that’s the only way I have access to any money at all.”

“Sorry, kiddo. We’d support you, but—”

“No, I don’t want that.” I scowl and trace the grain of the wood on the table. “I don’t want to be any sort of burden on you at all. I’ll do the stupid job.” I stand, and I can see the mixture of relief and regret on Sirus’s face. “But seriously? I
am
going to burn this table. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get some air.” It’s hard to breathe with my mother’s tentacles reaching out to strangle me from across the world, after all.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

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I
stare at the mural of my parents’ creation, Grandma Nut arching across the sky. I reach up, standing on my tiptoes, to trace my finger along her length. I don’t understand why I can’t visit her, can’t see her like I can so many aunts and uncles.

I turn to go back to my room when I run into a pair of legs and look up to see Set. I freeze, terrified as always.

“Hello, child,” he says, and his voice is soft and calm as he bends down to be eye level with me. He looks so much like my father, except Set’s skin is healthy brown, not corpse black like Osiris’s.

I swallow and stammer hello, which embarrasses me because I’m nearly nine and I don’t stutter now.

“Why are you sad?” he asks.

I’m not sad, not anymore. Now I’m scared. But I answer, “Because Grandma Nut isn’t here and I can’t see her. I don’t understand why.” I scowl, try to stand taller in defiance. It’s not fair. “Why are you still here, but she isn’t?”

Set’s smile is in his eyes. “Do you understand that only the gods who are remembered or worshipped—even inadvertently—are strong enough to remain in physical form?”

I nod, but I don’t know what inadvertently means.

“You should study current events,” he says, standing tall again. “Then you will know why the god of chaos still walks the earth and never needs to fear oblivion.” He smiles again, and it frightens me.

I turn to run down the hall to where my mother is, but it’s blank, an empty black space, and I know she won’t be there. I back slowly away, past Set, past the mural, where my mother’s image has been erased.

Everything is wrong. This is all wrong.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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Set was not well pleased with his brother’s ascension to god-king of Egypt.

“A game,” Set declared, bringing out a beautiful chest. “We will see who fits the best.”

Osiris was a perfect fit. Unsurprising, because it was a coffin specially made for him. Set seized it, sealed it, and condemned Osiris to a slow death. He dumped the coffin into the Nile, surrendering it to the depths and denying Osiris a proper burial and entry into the afterlife.