Tawaret shifted nervously, her feet creaking on the pier boards. “Um, yes…”
“I’m hoping they’re a bit like secret names,” I forged on. “Since I can’t ask Bes where he keeps his shadow, I thought I’d ask the person who was closest to him. I thought you’d have the best chance of knowing.”
Seeing a hippo blush is quite odd. It almost made Tawaret look delicate—in a massive sort of way.
“I—I saw his shadow once,” she admitted. “During one of our best moments together. We were sitting on the temple wall in Saïs.”
“Sorry?”
“A city in the Nile Delta,” Tawaret explained. “The home of a friend of ours—the hunting goddess Neith. She liked to invite Bes and me on her hunting excursions. We would, ah, flush her prey for her.”
I imagined Tawaret and Bes, two gods with super-ugly powers, plowing through the marshes hand in hand, yelling “Boo!” to scare up bevies of quail. I decided to keep that image to myself.
“At any rate,” Tawaret continued, “one night after dinner, Bes and I were sitting alone on the walls of Neith’s temple, watching the moon rise over the Nile.”
She gazed at the dwarf god with such adoring eyes, I couldn’t help but imagine myself on that temple wall, sharing a romantic evening with Anubis…no, Walt…no…Gah! My life was horrid.
I sighed unhappily. “Go on, please.”
“We talked about nothing in particular,” Tawaret remembered. “We held hands. That was all. But I felt so close to him. Just for a moment, I looked at the mud-brick wall next to us, and I saw Bes’s shadow in the torchlight. Normally gods don’t keep their shadows so close. He must’ve trusted me a great deal to reveal it. I asked him about it, and he laughed. He said, ‘This is a good place for my shadow. I think I’ll leave it here. That way it can always be happy, even when I’m not.’”
The story was so sweet and sad, I could hardly bear it.
Down the shore, the old god Fire-embracer shrieked something about pudding. Zia was standing in the surf, trying to keep the two gods apart as they splashed her with lava from both sides. Amazingly, it didn’t seem to bother her.
I turned to Tawaret. “That night in Saïs—how long ago was it?”
“A few thousand years.”
My heart sank. “Any chance the shadow would still be there?”
She shrugged helplessly. “Saïs was destroyed centuries ago. The temple is gone. Farmers pulled down the ancient buildings and used the mud bricks for fertilizer. Most of the land has reverted to marshes.”
Blast. I’d never been a fan of Egyptian ruins. From time to time, I’d been tempted to pull down a few temples myself. But just this once, I wished the ruins had survived. I wanted to cuff those farmers.
“Then there’s no hope?” I asked.
“Oh, there’s always hope,” Tawaret said. “You could search the area, calling on Bes’s shadow. You’re his friend. It might appear to you if it’s still there. And if Neith is still in the area, she might be able to help. That is, if she doesn’t hunt you instead…”
I decided not to dwell on that possibility. I had enough problems. “We’ll have to try. If we can find the shadow and puzzle out the proper spell—”
“But, Sadie,” the goddess said, “you have so little time. You have to stop Apophis! How can you help Bes, too?”
I looked at the dwarf god. Then I bent down and kissed his bumpy forehead. “I made a promise,” I said. “Besides, we’ll need him if we’re going to win.”
Did I really believe that? I knew Bes couldn’t scare Apophis away simply by yelling “Boo!” no matter how ghastly he looked in his Speedo. In the sort of battle we were facing, I wasn’t sure one more god would even make a difference. And I was even less sure that this reverse shadow idea could work on Ra. But I had to try with Bes. If the world ended the day after tomorrow, I would not go to my death without first knowing I’d done everything I could to save my friend.
Of all the goddesses I’d met, Tawaret was the most likely to understand my motives.
She put her hands protectively on Bes’s shoulders. “In that case, Sadie Kane, I wish you luck—for Bes, and for all of us.”
I left her on the dock, standing behind Bes as if the two gods were enjoying a romantic sunset together.
On the beach, I rejoined Zia, who was brushing ashes out of her hair. Except for a few burn holes in her trousers, she looked perfectly fine.
She gestured at Fire-embracer and Hot Foot, who were once again playing nice in the lava. “They’re not so bad,” Zia said. “They just needed some attention.”
“Like pets,” I said. “Or my brother.”