The dead woman struck Imentet’s hand away.
The sound was small, a slap of palm against palm, but it stopped the others at the western threshold. A man with grave dust still caught in his beard looked back. Beside him, a little ba-bird folded its wings against a human breast.
“Go on,” Imentet told them.
They passed between the rocks. She kept her hand extended toward the woman.
Beyond the tomb entrance, the mourners were gathering their baskets. One shook sand from a cloth. Another lifted a jar against her hip. Their shadows stretched toward Imentet, but the living people who cast them could not see her.
The dead woman could. She stood in the narrow strip of light before her own tomb, barefoot, with clay ground deep into the lines of her fingers.
“Not yet,” she said.
“What are you waiting for?”
“My daughter.”
A young woman remained beside the offering stone. Everyone else had begun the descent toward the river. She was untying a bundle wrapped in linen, working at the knot with her teeth.
“She is here,” Imentet said.
“I know.”
The dead woman moved between the goddess and the light.
The Last Offering
Imentet lowered her arm. Around her ankles the coolness of the West lay deep as water, though the ground was dry. She had received kings who arrived shouting orders and old laborers who apologized for keeping her. Some took her hands before they knew her name. Others needed time.
She settled beside the offering stone.
“What shall I call you?”
“Tia.”
The daughter freed the knot. Something rattled inside the linen.
“Merit,” Tia said quickly. “Don’t drop it.”
Merit did not look up.
She uncovered a clay bird scarcely longer than her thumb. Its body was painted red; one wing was missing. She turned it over and rubbed the pale place where the broken edge showed.
Tia reached for it. Her fingers passed through her daughter’s knuckles.
For a moment she held her hand there, inside the living hand. Then she withdrew it and closed it hard.
“I made that when she was little,” she said. “She wanted it to fly.”
“Did it?”
“From the roof. Once.”
The answer came so promptly that Imentet almost heard the child laughing. Tia’s mouth moved toward a smile, then stopped.
“I told her I would mend it.”
Merit set the bird beside a loaf. She moved it again, a finger’s width nearer the tomb, as though there were one exact position that might make leaving possible.
“She’s put the broken side down,” Tia said.
Imentet watched the daughter’s thumb trace a circle in the dust.
“Will you take my hand while you wait?”
“No.”
Tia answered without turning. Imentet placed both hands in her lap.
The others were farther down the path now. Someone called Merit’s name. She raised one arm to show she had heard, but remained kneeling.
“I brought it,” Merit said.
Tia bent toward her.
“The little one found it behind the grain jar. I thought you had thrown it out.”
“No,” Tia said. “Never.”
Merit wiped her nose with the back of her wrist. Her other hand rested on her belly, rounded beneath the linen.
Tia stared at that hand.
“You knew?” Imentet asked quietly.
“She told me.”
“When?”
“The day we quarreled.”
Below them, the call came again. Merit pressed two fingers to the tomb wall, then touched them to her lips.
“Sleep, Mother.”
She rose.
Tia rose with her.
“No. Tell me first.”
Merit gathered the empty linen.
“Tell me you weren’t still angry.”
The girl turned toward the path. Tia followed, but Imentet stood in front of her.
“Let her go down.”
Tia’s face hardened.
“She has been alone here long enough,” Imentet said.
“I was here.”
“I know.”
“Then move.”
The Wrong Direction
Imentet stepped aside far enough to let Tia see her daughter descending. Each living foot left a clean print. Tia’s feet left nothing.
“Tell me about the quarrel,” the goddess said.
Tia tried to follow. Imentet did not seize her, but the narrow path bent under the woman’s feet and returned her to the offering stone. Beyond it, the western opening remained cool and wide.
Tia looked from the stone to the goddess.
“So that is what your kindness means.”
The words struck harder than the hand had.
Imentet released the bend in the path. Tia felt it straighten; her whole body leaned toward the slope.
“I cannot make her hear you,” Imentet said. “I will not tell you that I can.”
“You have not tried.”
“Neither can I give you the years you wanted with her.”
“I asked for one moment.”
The daughter stumbled on a loose stone below. Tia jerked forward. Merit caught herself, one hand against the rock, and laughed breathlessly at something a waiting mourner said.
“She never looks where she puts her feet,” Tia whispered.
Then she began to run.
The first few strides carried her easily. At the fourth, the edge of her heel blurred. At the fifth, sand showed through her ankle.
Imentet followed to the end of the tomb’s shadow.
“Tia. Stop.”
Tia glanced down. The sight frightened her, but the distance between her and Merit frightened her more. She ran faster.
“Merit!”
The living woman paused beside her companions. Someone offered to carry the empty basket. She surrendered it and took an older woman’s arm.
Tia reached the place where they had been standing. She tried to catch the last of her daughter’s shadow.
Her fingers struck the ground and opened into dust.
Imentet felt the loss through the soles of her feet.
She could have drawn the path back beneath Tia. She could have delivered the woman to the threshold like a bundle brought for burial. For an instant her hands lifted to do it.
Tia was on her knees now, holding the fading wrist against her chest. She looked toward the river, still trying to find her daughter among the living.
Imentet lowered her hands.
Behind her, the clay bird waited beside the loaf.
She went back for it.
The West Comes Near
The bird lay solid and sun-warm on the offering stone. Imentet passed her palm beneath it. The object stayed where Merit had placed it; its small weight came with the goddess.
At the edge of the tomb’s shade she paused. Beyond lay the bare slope. Those who sought her normally came toward the shelter behind her, and she received them with open arms.
Tia was still going the other way.
Imentet stepped onto the path.
Stone grated beneath the necropolis. The dark between the tomb’s doorposts stretched after her, thin at first, then broader. She took another step. The opening behind her narrowed until her shoulders ached with its weight.
Below, Tia tried to stand and fell. One knee no longer held its shape.
“Don’t come to drag me,” she said.
Imentet knelt at a little distance. Cool ground spread beneath the two of them. The dust stopped passing through Tia’s knee.
“I brought this.”
She laid the clay bird between them.
Tia reached with her sound hand. Her fingertips touched the red back. She gave a short, astonished breath.
“She kept it,” she said.
“Yes.”
“For all that time.”
Tia turned the bird so that its damaged side faced her. A little hollow remained where the wing had joined the body.
“I was angry about the kiln,” she said. “She had promised to help, and then she said she was going to her husband’s house. I told her she was always leaving work for someone else.”
The goddess waited.
“She tried to tell me about the child. I said I had no time for another mouth.”
Tia rubbed the broken edge. “I had time. I was only angry.”
The West pressed against Imentet’s back. Higher on the slope, a pebble rolled into the stretched darkness and made no sound.
“Will she come here too?” Tia asked.
“One day.”
“Soon?”
“I do not know.”
Tia’s fingers tightened around the bird.
“Then I will wait here.”
Her injured hand was disappearing again. The fingers had become five pale strokes against her dress.
Imentet took up the ankh that hung at her wrist.
Tia flinched away.
“Must I go with you for that?”
“No.”
The goddess held the sign of life before Tia’s mouth. She did not reach for the woman’s arm or move the road beneath her. She kept the ankh steady while Tia looked at it, then past it, toward the living figures shrinking on the path.
At last Tia leaned forward.
Her first breath made no sound. The second caught sharply. She gripped the broken bird and drew a third, long breath through her teeth.
The pale fingers darkened. Clay returned to the creases of her palm.
She looked at her restored hand, opening and closing it.
Imentet set the ankh down between them.
The two women sat until the last mourner passed beyond the rocks. Tia watched the empty path for a while longer.
“She put her hand on the child,” she said. “When she spoke to me.”
“I saw.”
“She used to put my hand there when she wanted me to feel it kicking.”
Tia pressed her lips together. She looked down at the clay bird, then held out her newly whole hand.
Imentet took it.
“Will I lose this?” Tia asked, lifting the bird.
“Bring it.”
“It isn’t finished.”
“I can see that.”
Tia gave a small, uneven laugh. She rose with the goddess’s help.
Imentet turned her toward the West. The cool opening widened at their feet. When Tia hesitated, the goddess stopped too; when she stepped forward, Imentet matched her step.
At the threshold Tia leaned against her. For the first time, Imentet could close both arms around the woman she had come to receive.
They passed inside together.
Tia carried the little bird cupped in both hands, leaving room for the missing wing.
