THE GOD'S WIFE (9 page)

Neferet pulled back, her muscles rigid.

“What did they do?”

“I had finished my washing up and was putting things away to relax, when someone crept up behind me. It was not someone who knows of my warrior background, or they wouldn’t have tried. I saw him in the corner of my eye and flipped him over like brush. The other man I rammed in the stomach. Then I yelled for the guards.” Neferet could still hear his breathing from the exertion.

At the same time, she felt cold river water in her gut as she tried to make sense of the timing. Why tonight? Why now? As Neferet fretted, balling her fists and pressing her knuckles together, Kamose held her by the shoulders and spoke in a low, calm voice.

“This wouldn’t be the first time someone has tried to kill the crown prince. Why do you think I have so many guards attending me?”

The captain bowed his head in Neferet’s direction, getting her attention. She nodded, indicating that he might speak at will.

“If I may be so bold, my lady, I will put extra guards around your residence, as well,” he said. “We are not sure, but we suspect those beasts were looking for you, too.” He nodded toward the bedroom, where torn linens hung from the windows and mattress feathers blew about the room.

“They attacked the bed?” she guessed, incredulous.

“Yes, but it was unoccupied,” the captain said, bowing again in her direction. “They clearly expected someone there.”

Neferet locked eyes with Kamose. Someone must have overheard them at the end of the state dinner. Kamose’s spies weren’t the only ones working overtime at that feast. Another brand of snoops knew she’d be staying the night with her lover.

“Where is Zayem?” Kamose demanded, crossing his sturdy arms over his chest. She noticed he was still perspiring, more from nerves than from exertion.

“I sent my fastest sentry out to look for him,” the captain answered. “If he were in the palace, we’d have known by now.”

“So, he’s out there,” Neferet said, looking at the sleeping city that lay at the feet of the palace. “And I’m afraid to go home.”

“We will escort you to your apartments. Your rooms will be well guarded tonight and for many nights onward. Have no fear,” the captain said. “You should have no trouble sleeping tonight. By morning, we’ll have found the rascals and tossed them in jail.” He lifted his jaw in jaunty confidence.

Neferet turned to go, but spun around one last second to look into Kamose’s eyes. He stood solid and unafraid. They traded one unspoken thought: Zayem was no longer satisfied with rape and mayhem. Now, murder was on his mind.

They made up their tiff over a box of pizza in front of a Chicago Cubs game on television. This early in the season, Jonas hadn’t turned into Mr. Cub on her yet, and conversation was easy. After they cuddled and got the small talk out of the way, Jonas stressed that she needed to tell Randy about her blackouts.

“You owe it to the show,” he said.

“But I’ve never blacked out when dancing. In fact, when I lose touch with time, I dance better than ever. Emmylou says so.”

“Does
she
know about the blackouts?”

Rebecca shook her head and stared as the opposing team turned a quick double play.

“Why do you stay awake and dancing when this … this fit hits you, but you collapse into a heap otherwise?” he asked. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“I don’t know,” she said, eyes sliding to the near-empty pizza box. “Maybe the dancing energizes me. I just feel like I’m getting the inspiration and the power from somewhere else.”

Jonas’ eyes took on a befuddled look, with his eyebrows all scrunched up and his eyes pinched together. She wanted to stifle a laugh.

“Oh, there’s no way to explain it,” she said. “It’s from the earth. Energy surges straight from the ground through my feet.”

He frowned and shook his head, wolfing down the last triangle of pizza. They had agreed to call this series of fainting episodes hypoglycemia for a while, and he encouraged her to stay on a high-protein diet, but it looked like they would have to start their experiment tomorrow. Pizza had too many carbohydrates. To be on the correct diet, Rebecca must have no sugar, which meant no spikes in insulin production and no corresponding plunges in blood sugar. That should eliminate the blackouts. For moral support and to act as the experimental control, Jonas planned to eat the low-blood-sugar diet along with her.

Rebecca sighed as she thought of the regimen. Jonas always did things by the book. His job at the medical association required that sort of rigid thinking. Left-brained, logical Jonas. He always made so much sense — sometimes too much sense for her creative self. However, by intuition, Rebecca knew her condition was something that no physician could diagnose. So, she would be game and play guinea pig to Jonas’ armchair experiment. She toyed with telling Jonas the full scale of her malady, about the invisible presence that looked over her shoulder now and then, and then shook the idea off. He would never get it, never.

For a man who played guitar with such thoughtful sensitivity, he was singularly tuned out when it came to matters of the spirit. He could appreciate a dance, a blues concert, the opera or modern artwork, but he could not understand the mystical feelings that often rocked Rebecca’s inner mind. This connection she had with her inner Egyptian — that would freak him right out. Jonas might love her to her soul, but how could she get him to see into her inner world?

“Okay, I’ll talk to someone tomorrow, either Emmylou or Randy.”

Jonas reached out to take her hand, which he caressed.

“Babe.” That said it all. Pride. Love. Concern.

Rebecca felt a surge of pleasure rising through her chest. He gave her a reaction to her art that she never got from her Iowa home life. She craved this sort of adoration.

“Jonas ... I ...”

Rebecca nodded her head but then dropped her gaze, looking down at her plate in an awkward silence. How could she love this man so much and still not trust him with the truth about her connection to Egypt? There would have been no better time to tell him of the mysterious twin soul that lurked in her dreams, but she let it slip away in a moment of fearful indecision.

“What?” he asked, brushing aside her hair with tenderness.

“I ... love you,” she said and buried her head on his shoulder, defeated.

#

Tulle, taffeta, velvet and lace filled the costume shop with an elegant disorder. Fabric has a way of casting a magic spell over onlookers, and it can completely transform a mere human who’s dressed in intricately woven material. Rebecca loved to hide in this burrow of fine textiles. Disguised by the long, hanging sheets of satin, she could think and dream without someone finding her.

The theater shared space with a few other dance companies, so there were tutus stuffed in high cabinets and tiaras teetering on a shelf by the far wall. A wizard’s cap sat on a stool, and shoes of eras long gone stuck out in messy rows at the back of the room. The pointe shoes, which Rebecca loved to look at, hung from ribbons suspended from the wall. Famous ballerinas signed some; others, from dancers unknown, were in tatters from full-out performances.

The costume shop felt like another land, and Rebecca reveled in the disconnect from her own world. She sat amid the bolts of linen the costume designer had planned for “Aïda.” The finely woven flax draped across her discerning fingers. It was delicate enough, but some of it was dyed in bright colors. This, she knew, was wrong. The Egyptians wore white linen almost exclusively during the thousands of years of their civilization. It marked who they were. The Hittites, the Hyksos, the Nubians and others all wore different hues, depending on what dyes they could acquire. But the Egyptians wore starchy white linen, often heavily pleated but seldom embroidered. There were a few cases of colored robes and shawls that were worn over the white base layer, but those were reserved for royalty or the priesthood.

Elsa is not going to like it if I tell her this, Rebecca thought. She’s got half the costumes sewn up and ready for alteration. Some of the dresses and kilts matched the color scheme of the set. To be fair, most of the linen apparel shone in white. But on the whole, the wardrobe lacked accuracy.

If I tell her, she’ll throw a fit. Should I tell Emmylou or Randy instead?

She heard the wardrobe-room curtains part, and someone entered. The tall, thin shape was Raven, without a doubt. Rebecca jumped out of the pile of linen to greet her friend.

“Hanging out with the rags now are you?” Raven said, gesturing at the mess of threads and cuttings all over the floor.

“They’re wrong.” Rebecca pointed at the scraps of fabric.

“What’s wrong?” Raven lifted one of her arched eyebrows and penetrated Rebecca with one of her patented stern looks.

“The costumes for the show. They shouldn’t be in color.”

“Try telling Elsa that. I guarantee you’ll be shredded like this poor fellow here.” She held up a pants leg that had been slashed several times around the thigh. When the costumer made a mistake cutting her patterns, she got vicious with her shears. It was a good thing no one had been wearing those trousers.

“Listen, I’m hiding out because I’ve got a real problem here. You’re the only one I trust to hear this, so please try to understand.” Rebecca sagged again against the fabric.

Raven moved to her friend’s side, putting an arm around her slumped shoulders. “What is it? I promise it will be just between you and me.”

Rebecca laughed with a grim sound. “Yeah, and you play my nemesis in the production. Plus, you’re my under-study. That’s a great background for trust.”

Raven spun her around till they stood almost nose-to-nose. “I’m also your best friend. Dance roles don’t get in the way of that.”

With that, Rebecca flopped back down to a squatting position in the midst of the discarded linen. She sought for a way to describe her predicament. “It’s like those mirrors they have at the museum.”

“What mirrors?”

“You know, at the Field Museum. If you look in them long enough, you see what you’d look like if you were an Egyptian.”

“Oh, yeah. My God, I haven’t been there in about seven years. I’ll bet you go almost every day you can get time off.” Rebecca nodded, and Raven continued. “What do you see there?”

“Well, no, this is not about what I’m seeing at the museum,” Rebecca said. “It’s just a similar sensation. When I dream, I see myself living there, in Egypt, way back then. And it’s so real, Raven, I can almost reach out and touch the papyrus plants.”

“So what’s wrong with that? You’ve researched this role until it has become the real thing to you.” The furrow in Raven’s forehead was deep and her voice husky.

“What’s wrong is that I’m not alone. There’s someone with me. A woman just like me. Have you ever felt that? That you aren’t alone in the world and a … a ... you know ... a doppelganger, a copy of you, is living a life just like yours?”

Raven shook her head, and her eyebrows formed a deep V. She took Rebecca’s hands and held them with a fierce grip.

“Honey, none of us is alone. We are all one. I know that I will never let you go.”

Rebecca felt her eyes go glassy. Raven thought she was talking about a spiritual crisis.

“No, no. It’s not that.” Rebecca stomped a few steps away and punched at some bolts of cotton. “She’s right here with me, and I’m with her. And somehow, everything one of us does affects the other. And she’s in great danger. This is what I see at night when everyone else thinks I’m unconscious.”

Raven cocked her head as if deciding something.

“Let’s go over to Starbucks, and you can start all this from the beginning. Maybe then I can decide if you are just reading too much science fiction.”

Rebecca let out a half-sigh, half-laugh. “Just as long as I get a latte with no sugar.” Raven would hear her out. She’s the only one who could.

#

Rehearsing the first love scene with Ricky Ramon thrummed like flying with wings of a hummingbird. Fast. Fluid. Darting in and out. Rebecca felt herself carried into positions high above Ricky’s head. At one point, she thought she’d ascend straight into the theater’s rope rigging near the ceiling. A pas de deux with Ricky rested on a foundation so sure and steady, so heady and steamy that Rebecca almost forgot he was gay. When he cradled and caressed her head at the end of the movement, she wanted to whisper, “I love you, too.” Because, at that moment, she did.

However, once the music stopped and Randy clapped his hands announcing a break, Ricky sauntered off with his new boyfriend. Rebecca remained sitting on the floor, remembering the sheer silken wonder of the dance.

Emmylou declared the entire production would be danced in Egyptian style, despite the fact that Aïda had been captured from Nubia.

“I’m not turning this whole thing into a race issue,” she said with her famous long nose in the air. This meant Rebecca didn’t have to learn some obscure Nubian movement — which was convenient because Nubia is modern-day Ethiopia, a land perpetually at civil war and probably not too friendly with researchers from the United States. It also meant Rebecca could dance the steps that emanated from her soul. The steps she learned overnight. Every time she stepped into character, she became Aïda, a fact the directors noted with regularity.

Could this be the time to tell Randy of her problem? It seemed hardly likely, not when things were working out so well. Then she caught sight of little Lenore staring her down like a petulant teenager with her lower lip sticking out.

What if Lenore gets to Randy first?

Rebecca got up on legs that wobbled a bit and remembered ballet class with the hated Buckley came next. Even in the midst of rehearsals, the dancers were required to take class. After bending herself into those Mediterranean/African shapes, the idea of doing delicate piqué turns in pointe shoes struck Rebecca as ridiculous. A chat with Randy could legitimately get her out of at least a half hour of torture at the hands of the ballet master.

She took a leap of faith.

“Randy,” she called to the figure retreating into his office. “Can I have a few minutes?”

#

“That’s what you wanted to tell me, that you pass out now and then?” Randy was sitting behind his desk, laughing, while catching his reflection in a mirror near his desk. He whisked a stray hair off his forehead. “You can’t seriously think this will jeopardize the production.”

“Well, I’ve never blacked out while dancing,” she said, twisting her hands in her lap. “In fact, all this seems to make my dancing better.”

“So I’ve heard from Emmylou. She has nothing but praise for you.” Randy fixed her with those laser-beam eyes of his. “I think you’re nothing but a worry wart.”

“Well, enough people are concerned that they made me promise to tell you — in case I collapse in the middle of the high point of the pas de deux or something like that.”

“It won’t happen. And Raven is a superlative under-study, although that darn Lenore …” Randy stopped talking and peeked out the window of his office door. He straightened in his chair, so he must not have seen anyone.

“What about Lenore?”

“She wants the understudy role. God knows she’d never be able to handle it, but she’s been in here at least twice lobbying for the job. And, come to think of it, she made some veiled comment about how I might need her if you are … what did she say?” he tapped his fingers on his cheek. “Ah, ‘incapacitated.’”

That little bitch. It’s a good thing I got in here when I did.

Randy drummed his manicured fingers on the desktop, as he pondered the issue.

“You know, she’s not only unsuited to be an understudy, she really can’t do the corps dances very well. Sometimes, I wonder why I even took her on. And with that ungodly purple hair, we’d have to make a special wig for her. Can you imagine if it fell off ?” Rebecca started to laugh, but Randy’s attention went again to the mirror, where he probably hunted for a stray gray hair.

“Well, as long as you aren’t worried,” Rebecca said. “I’ll continue as usual. I just felt I had to tell you —”

“She hates you, you know,” Randy interrupted. “I can tell by the way she looks at you. Are you sure she’s not putting something in your coffee or something? Like a Lucrezia Borgia?” He chuckled, pleased with his own witticism.

“She doesn’t bring coffee to me, Randy. And frankly, I don’t have anything to do with Lenore. If she hates me, it’s not for anything I did to her.”

Randy let out a theatrical sigh. Everything he did was suited for the stage, but this time, his back bent as if he bore an intolerable weight.

“Oh, it’s all part of running a company. These little petty wars. I’ve got a few romances that went sour, and now some dancers don’t want to work together. It’s a good thing that Ricky is …” he cut himself off.