They stayed on the path as it cut through a field of waist-high barley. With one hand still wrapped around his scarab, Alex reached out with the other and brushed the top of the nearest stalks. All around them, the light continued to shift and swirl, shapes and colors ornamenting the heavy air. He saw rosy red light pooling in the air ten feet in front of him, forming a perfect circle, like the pupil of an eye. It drained away a moment later, leaving nothing but the vague sensation of being watched.
As his ears adjusted to the steady hum all around, he heard other sounds rise up. Some were faint: airy exhalations that might have been the wind, but sounded more like an old man breathing his last gasp; distant roars that might have been thunder, had the golden sky not been cloudless. Others were louder: A chorus of wailing voices rose up off to their left. Alex whipped his head around, but all he saw was shifting grain.
“Did you guys hear that?” he said, but the voices had already stopped.
Both of them turned to Luke, who shrugged. “I thought it was you two.”
Alex turned back toward the fields. Whether or not his ears were playing tricks on him, his eyes were telling a very clear story. The figures working the fields were closer now, the nearest no more than twenty yards away. Their broad backs were slightly stooped and their strong shoulders swung from side to side. Alex couldn’t see the blades of the scythes they were carrying, but he knew they were harvesting the grain. Golden stalks disappeared with each swing.
Shesh shesh shesh went the blades.
“Are they dangerous?” asked Ren, walking a little closer.
Alex shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. The figures hadn’t so much as glanced in their direction.
“So those guys are, like, one hundred percent dead, right?” hissed Luke. “And that’s why they look like that?”
They were close enough to see them clearly now. Some had skin the color of stone, but most were shades of blue. They wore simple clothes but regal headdresses that seemed oddly out of place in the sun-washed fields.
“They’re shabti,” said Alex.
“Yeah,” agreed Luke. “They’re definitely shabby.”
“Shabti,” corrected Ren. Then she turned toward Alex and added: “But, uh, you better tell us — I mean Luke — what those are again.”
Alex managed half a smile. He knew that Ren liked to know what was going on, and that a little information might help keep her calm in this strange world. Still, he pretended he was explaining it for Luke’s benefit.
“The ancient Egyptians believed that the afterlife was just, like, an extension of everyday life. There was no sickness or death, I mean, obviously. But you still had to work, to grow crops and stuff. So they put these little statues in their tombs. They’re called shabti, or answerers. Each day, when the dead were called to work, they could send out one of their shabti to answer for them.”
Alex told the story as they passed by the first of the silent laborers. Shesh shesh shesh. He could see the long, sharp, curved blades of their scythes now, but still the enchanted laborers ignored them. Alex concentrated on keeping his voice calm and steady and willed his feet not to break into a panicked run.
Soon, they passed by the shabti. Now the fields on either side of them were cut low, piles of barley awaiting collection on the ground and little bits of it floating lightly in the golden air.
Chooo!
Ren sneezed and Alex jumped. She didn’t make fun of him, like she normally would have, though. He knew she was way more freaked out by all this than he was. “Your mom taught you really well,” she said instead. “I mean, about the shabti and stuff.”
“Thanks,” he said. With the fields cut low, they could see the river ahead clearly.
“Why are you thanking me?” said Ren. “I was complimenting your mom.”
Alex snorted out half a laugh, and that seemed so crazy that he snorted out a full one. Who would’ve thought it: laughing in the afterlife.
“I was just kidding,” said Ren, too freaked out to laugh but clearly wanting to join in the good mood. “You did a good job learning.”
“The thing is,” said Alex, “I didn’t realize I was learning. It’s just that every story she told, I was right there, listening. Every exhibit she worked on, I was right there watching. And … I … ”
His voice trailed off. He was lost in both memory and realization. He had learned so much as a sick kid trailing after his mom in the museum, and now he was using it on his own. He’d chased after her when she disappeared, and then moped when he thought she’d abandoned him. And now he was here leading this mission. Not abandoned, but independent. She’d given him what he needed to navigate this strange world. At least, he hoped so …
“Anyway,” said Ren, snapping him out of it, “I’m glad you know so much about it.”
“Me too,” he said. “That reminds me. See all this black dirt we’re walking on? That’s where the Nile flooded and then pulled back. That’s how Egyptians lived for thousands of years, farming the floodplains of the Nile. Before the big dams were built and the Nile stopped flooding.”
“Uh, no offense, dude,” said Luke. “I mean, I know you two are having like a nerd moment or whatever — but who cares about dirt?”
Alex didn’t deny being a little nerdy around the edges, but he still didn’t like to hear it from his cool jock cousin. “I was about to mention the crocodiles,” he said. “And the snakes. Those came with the floodwaters, too. Lots of ’em.”
Luke and Ren looked all around, their eyes suddenly a little wider.
Alex kept his eyes forward, staring at the massive expanse of the Nile, a legendary river flowing through two worlds at once.