After-Life: A Mystery

Chapter 1

Minya, Upper Egypt 1204 BCE

She was taken to the ubi, a place of purification. The embalmers washed her body with richly scented palm wine and rinsed it with water from the Nile River. Then an incision was made with a fine flint blade to the left side of her body to remove some of the internal organs for preservation. The liver, lungs, and stomach were each washed and covered with natron for dehydration. Her heart was left intacted. It was the center of all emotions and knowledge and would be needed in her afterlife.

Her body was filled and covered with natron for forty days. The embalmers then washed it away and bathed her skin with exotic oils. The dehydrated organs were washed and wrapped in linen. Each was placed in its own canopic jar to be buried with her in the tomb. Again, they covered her skin with fine oils and wrapped linens tightly around her body. She was placed inside a coffin of pure gold adorned with her name in hieroglyphs inside of a cartouche. This was a symbol reserved for only royalty. The four corners of the sarcophagus were protected by the goddess Isis. Her brightly painted wings spread out along the coffin’s sides enclosing and guarding its valuable contents.

Princess Chione, mystical daughter of the Nile, lived and died under the reign of her father Pharaoh Mermeptah. Her death, by suspected poisoning, rattled the citizens of her kingdom. She was loved by the people. Upon her father’s death she would have been named Pharaoh to the dismay of her brother and husband, Nefru. Her younger brother became obsessed with obtaining this power of the gods and the need to be king. He despised her, but they had to be married for sake of the family and their place on the thrown.

It was a common practice in ancient Egypt to marry within a family. This insured royal blood stayed royal and commoners could claim the power of the thrown. However, Mermeptah was still King of Egypt and even in his frail state he refused to relinquish power to anyone.

“Why does she deserve a Phararoh’s burial? You are King, father!”
“She was to be Queen and Pharaoh of all Egypt, my son. That is all that is needed to be said.”
“Would you have done the same for me, father?”
“Her heart was lighter than the feather of Anubis. She has successfully entered the afterlife. You have a selfish heart, my son. To be a true king you need purity of heart and the strength of a fierce lion,” his father was sweating and shivering. “You show no promise with either of these traits. I have decided to pass the kingdom to your brother, Coseru. It was the decision made by the gods and cannot be changed, my son.”
“He is only six years old, father! I am the true heir and rightful king! He is the son of your whore! I have made sacrifices to the gods. The priests have accepted me as their new Pharaoh. I want to build monuments and temples.”
“Running a kingdom is what you do for its people, not your selfish purpose.” His father coughed and wheezed. “Water please, my son.”
His son watched his father’s pain with no response.
“Water, I need water.”
“You need water! You...need...water!” His anger was building. “I married my sister to have this kingdom! I killed my sister for this kingdom! Now, I will kill you for MY KINGDOM!”

With that, he pulled his sacrificial obsidian blade, encrusted with precious stones of alexandrite and arabian rubies, from his tunic and stabbed it through his father’s heart, killing him instantly. Then he ran away. With the help of his trusted servant, Katawu, he stashed the blade where it would never be found. Members of the household were gathered together, by the reigning King Nefru. They were questioned then immediately condemned and executed before anyone could reveal the truth of his father's demise. Nefru had gotten away with murder. He had fulfilled his destiny. No one knew of his father’s plans to make Coseru heir to the throne. Nefru was now Pharaoh.

The next morning his sister’s body was to be finally laid to rest. She was then placed inside a pink granite sarcophagus. It was tightly sealed with plant resin to keep her body preserved. She was transported by a lavishly decorated funeral boat to her tomb in the hills of the Valley of the Queens. Many gifts from her people were laid with her to take into the afterlife. There were jars of olives, barley, oil, clothing,and gold. One gift was given without love and respect, but with hatred and greed. Lying next to the mummified body of Princess Chione sealed in her tomb, was the jewel encrusted black obsidian blade that killed their father.


Chapter 2

South Western Pennsylvania 1898

The mysterious woman greeted her guests with a strange, unplaceable foreign inflection.

“Velcome ladies and gentlmen. Zee zpiritz are rezless…quickly be zeated!”
Their eccentric hostess, dressed in a jade Kosa silk sari with swirls of shimmering gold thread and matching Pagri turban headdress, suddenly rose puppet-like from her mahogany gothic armchair. A bell rang somewhere in the room. Their eyes widened. The hostess’s piecing green eyes appeared to roll back into her skull and she began to shake violently. Then she abruptly stopped.
“She iz ‘ere. I can feel ‘er zpirit. Your Molly iz ‘ere wiz uz.”
The room, lit by several beeswax candles, was shrouded in near darkness. The bronze ivy leaf wall sconces emitted the tiniest glint of pale ginger gaslight.

“Help…me…Mummy.”
It was the soft voice of a young girl.
“Molly is that you? Oh, my darling girl, is it really you?”
“Where...are….you…Mummy? I…need…you. I’m...scared.”
“I’m here. Mummy is right here,” cried a pale, thin, young woman sitting across the table.
She was exquisitely dressed in a Victorian black crepe mourning gown with a plain collar, broad weepers’ cuffs of white muslin, and a bombazine cloak. A handmade lace weeping veil draped the taut flesh of her face.
“I need to see you, Molly!”

The woman burst into a desperate, frantic sob. A well dressed gentleman, who was trying to comfort the young mother, spoke into the dark abyss of the room.
“I’m so sorry my darling girl. We tried everything, but it was too late.”
Materializing behind the apparently still possessed hostess was a faint trace of a figure clad in a long, flowing nightgown. She appeared to have an iridescent aura emanating from her body.

“I can see you! You are so beautiful, like an angel,” said the distraught mother.
Entranced by the angelic figure before her, she started to get up from her chair.
“Zit down, pleaze. Do not break zee circle. Zee vindow between zhat worlt and zhis worlt iz fragile and zee circle must ztay complete!”

The hostess’s assistant, that slowly paced the parlor ominously, gently placed her hands on the young mother’s shoulders insuring she wouldn’t move. The room fell silent. The five other anonymously invited guests stared at the ghostly image with pure terror in their eyes. Each dared not move for fear of spiritual retribution. Everything in their minds said this was the devil’s work. They should not be tampering with this black magic, but they were invited here for a purpose that was yet to be known.

The brass bell that was sitting in the center of the table started to hover above their heads as if it were enchanted by some mystic being. They could just make out the shine of its outline as it flew across the room. It landed loudly on the hard pine floor with a tremendous clang from its clapper. The large robust table began to vibrate vigorously. It lifted slightly from the floor then crashed down hard again. The beeswax candles blew out spewing wax onto a gentlemen’s cravat, narrowly missing his face. A loud gasp and a scream came from the other side of the room. Then a loud thump as one woman fainted, slumping in her chair and hitting her forehead hard on the tabletop. The elderly man sitting beside her tried to help.

“Let ‘er be. Do not break zee circle,” cried the crazed hostess. Her head was spinning wildly side to side.
“Zpiritz, come clozer!”
The light surrounding the ghostly figure brighten. The guests tried to shield their eyes from the blinding light.
“Do not break zee circle! Rize, my children!” She motioned to her guests.
With their hands still clenched together they rose from the table, still grasping to the woman that was passed out on the tabletop.
Madame Rousseau reached her hands into the air as if absorbing some intense invisible energy.
“Ztay wiz uz mighty zspiritz,” she shouted to the heavens.
The girl’s image slowly faded into the shadows.
“They…are….taking…me…away! Don’t…leave…me…Mummy.”
The young mother yelled in pure desperation, “Bring her back Madame, please! My little Molly, do not leave me again! I can not bare it!”

Madame Rousseau fell backwards, with the help of her assistant, landed squarely in her armchair. She let out a huge gasp of air and began to heave billowy clouds of grey smoke from her mouth and nose, as if expelling a dark force from her body. Her eyes rolled back to their normal placement in their sockets. The room lay still. The guests did not speak; they were paralyzed in their chairs.

The gas sconces along the wall lit brighter now. The room was left a disheveled wreck. The frighten visitors grabbed their belongings and tried to exit the parlor as fast as they could. The woman that fell faint was still resting unconscious on the purple silk cloth covering the table. As the room grew lighter the guest realized she would never recover from her horrific ordeal. The razor-sharp, jewel encrusted, obsidian blade of Nefru that pierced her neck insured her of that.


To Be Continued......