WHO Anubis & Qebhet WHEN Thursday, 9 July, late morning WHERE His funeral home WHAT A concerned homecoming WARNINGS tba
Although the humidity was completely different, the heat of Georgia somehow reminded Anubis of home. Not New York, not the place that he had come to make into a home base, but his truest home: that stretching land of Kemet, with the blue waters of the Nile lapping at fertile black soil and lush green lotus, pink-flowered tamarisk, and crimson fruited pomegranates. The greenery fading as all extended into the golden red of the sands, and beyond that to the bleached chalk of the white desert.
He knew that people pictured his ancient kingdom as nothing but monochromatic sand, but to Anubis the colours of his memory were vibrant and irreplaceable. The red maple and flowering dogwoods outside the Georgian home he had been staying in could not compare, lovely as they were.
But they seemed to bring joy to the old woman who slept fitfully in the bed, ninety-eight years old and with few people left who knew her.
But Anubis knew her.
Anubis had, many years ago, loved her grandmother so greatly that they had made a child: a rare occurrence for a Lord of Death, but not an impossibility. He had a single immortal daughter, and in the many thousands of years since her blessed birth he had only brought a small handful of mortals into the world.
It was too complicated in many ways for Anubis to remain with the families for very long, although it grieved him to not continue in the role of father. But, perhaps it could be said, he was a better father to the dead than the living.
Even though these families lines could not know who he was as they lived, he always made sure to return to them when the end was near. And he always knew when that was, always felt the tug of his own blood so close to the breath of the Duat.
And so he held the hand of his grand-daughter and spoke the same incantations he had spoken for millennia, the same actions, the same thoughts and movements. There was an elegance to the process of death, and Anubis had loved nothing in his life so truly as he loved death, whether it come by sharp grasping hands or a quiet final breath. To be in the presence of death was to be in the presence of creation. Nothing was ever extinguished; it was only transmuted.
With a last twitch of her fingers, Anubis' grandchild passed. Energy changed, not destroyed.
And although she was a Christian and would not go to his father's lands, Anubis' prayers would still serve to lead her where she needed to go.
Over this body he had no domain, though. The human laws in place meant someone else must care for this shell now. Before they would come to collect her, Anubis respectfully undressed the mortal and cleaned her body with a damp cloth, his incantations continuing.
You have opened up every path which is in the sky and which is on earth, for you are the well-beloved daughter of your father Anubis. You are noble, You are a spirit, You are equipped; O all the gods and all the spirits, prepare a path for you.
He washed her arms, her shoulders, her breast, her stomach.
Oh my heart which you had from your grandmother! O heart of your different ages!
He washed her genitals, her thighs, her knees, her feet.
Do not, Heart, stand up as a witness against her, do not be opposed to her in the tribunal, do not be hostile to her in the presence of the Keeper of the Balance.
He redressed her in a simple gown of white and called the local funeral home.
Although Anubis didn't like to fly - there seemed too little control in it - he took the first flight back to New York, with the feeling that something was wrong. As he got closer to the city the feeling was unfocused but loud, like someone who playing a sistrum in an echoing temple with no sense of rhythm.
With each step towards the Western Funeral Home, the sense grew stronger.
When Anubis pushed through the door it was with a frown on his features. He called out his daughter's name, sure he could feel her in the building.