Bab knew Shoshan would never see her parents again. He felt hot tears stream down his new face. But there was no time for grief, because Andica turned her hateful glare upon Shoshan.

She focused her gaze on the Beard that hung from Shoshan’s chin, and leaped at her with a vicious snarl.

She sank her wicked teeth into the back of Shoshan’s head and . . .

SHHHHWURP!

. . . sucked out part of her brain.

“Yeowch!” Bab heard himself shriek in Shoshan’s voice. His head – Shoshan’s head – felt like fire and acid.

Gross! Bab thought. And majorly painful. This life sucks!

Bab felt Shoshan grow vague and distracted. She tried to fight back by casting a spell at Andica, but Shoshan could not shape her magic properly.

“I don’t want you dying on me,” Andica croaked, and cast a puff of purple magic that sealed the hole in Shoshan’s skull. “You must watch as the Beard stays with me for good.”

Once and for all, Andica had found a way to make Shoshan less smart than herself. And she wanted to enjoy it.

“Don’t worry about your brain, dear sister,” Andica taunted, holding up the squishy chunk. “I shall mummify the missing piece and hide it in a pot as a trophy. Hee-hee-haachhh!”

What a charming gesture, Bab thought.

He felt his headache ease as wisps of purple fog swept him to another place, some years later. Now Shoshan was visiting her sister’s shadowy throne room. But she stopped as she overheard the Unpharaoh plotting with her jackal slaves.

“One measly lifetime of being in charge?” Andica croaked. “It is not enough!”

“You deserve to rule Egypt forever,” agreed her chief jackal in a posh, silky voice. “What a pity you’re now extremely old and leathery.”

That’s Cainus! Bab realised.

“Perhaps,” Andica purred, “if I use the power of the Pharaoh’s Beard, I may one day return from death.”

Hey, Bab realised, this is the same plan I stopped in my original life.

Fog swirled and Bab’s new body felt old and leathery itself. Shoshan now stood in a much brighter throne room, talking to a young man who wore a splendid headscarf. The Pharaoh’s Beard dangled from his chin.

Bab realised this man had taken over. The Unpharaoh must have passed away to the Afterworld from old age!

“You must destroy the Beard, Pharaoh Sesostris,” Shoshan pleaded with the man. “Only the Pharaoh can do it. Otherwise my sister might return and claim it!”

The Pharaoh smiled sadly. “You were clever once, Shoshan,” he replied. “But I fear your missing brain chunk has left you a bit . . . bonkers.”

Bab heard the Pharaoh’s courtiers laugh at Shoshan. “Haw, haw, haw!”

Destroy the Beard!? thought Bab. Lucky Shoshan never managed to do that.

“I am still quite clever,” Shoshan muttered. “But not clever enough to become Pharaoh any more.”

Bab felt the turmoil in Shoshan’s soul as she turned and walked slowly home. “I am the only one who realises,” she mumbled to herself. “I am old, and it could take years to work out how to destroy the Beard. Even centuries.”

Then Bab felt Shoshan’s eyes widen as a thunderous idea struck her.

“I must live forever!” she declared. “I shall build a Spongy Void.”

Whoa, thought Bab, Shoshan is bonkers. But . . . I guess it kind of makes sense, if she has to guard the world against the Unpharaoh.

Bab now found his new body madly drawing diagrams. Bab watched through Shoshan’s eyes as her ideas gushed onto papyrus.

Her Spongy Void would be an empty room of impossible power. It would be linked to Shoshan’s ka, her life force. Anyone who entered would be turned into a hieroglyph on its walls, and their lifespan added to Shoshan’s own.

That way, Shoshan could live longer and longer, yet her body would remain fresh.

Bab felt Shoshan’s body shudder with a wave of guilt.

“Oh my,” she whispered to herself. “I mustn’t take too many lifespans. I must make the Void hidden, difficult to enter. And I shall lure in just enough people to keep myself alive. Then, after I destroy the Beard, I can cancel the Void’s magic and send the people back to where they came from.”

Hmm, so the plan isn’t all bad, Bab realised.

“I can’t make this mighty magic alone,” Shoshan went on. “I need someone’s help . . . ooh, I know who!”

But before Shoshan could continue, Bab felt a stabbing pain in his belly. His mind snapped again.