Beyond His Sight
Atum called his son’s name into the dark.
“Shu.”
Water moved against the little ground beneath his feet. He waited for the answering voice, then called for Tefnut. He had brought them both out of his own body. He knew the sound of each. Now the waters held them somewhere beyond his sight, and neither answered.
There was no shore to search, no track left in sand. All around the place where Atum stood lay Nu, the deep water from which he himself had risen. Darkness rested on it. He turned slowly, looking for the movement of a hand, the pale shape of a face. The water closed over every shape he thought he saw.
He stretched out his arms. Once there had been a child against either side of him. His hands came back empty.
“Go farther,” he told his Eye.
She shone in his face, his sight and yet a living power of her own. At his words her light gathered, drawing itself into a brightness before him. There was no hurt in her leaving. Only the strange cold of the place she had filled.
“Find Shu. Find Tefnut.”
The Eye turned towards the water.
Atum watched her light move away until it was a narrow gleam. Then even that was gone. He stood with one hand still lifted, long after there was nothing left for it to follow.
A Light in Nu
The Eye went where Atum’s gaze had failed.
There were no distances she could measure. Darkness opened before her and closed behind. Water lay in long folds, each like the next; whenever she passed through one, another waited beyond it. She searched above and below, carrying the two names with her.
“Shu.”
Her own brightness touched the water. No face appeared.
“Tefnut.”
She moved on.
She had left Atum looking after her. Now she could no longer see him either. There was only the task he had given her and the deep through which the children had passed.
Then a light appeared that was not her own.
It did not spread across the whole abyss. It opened a space within it. A hand became visible, then an arm, then a face turned towards her. Shu stood in the brightness he had made. Beside him was Tefnut, her fingers closed around his.
The Eye drew near. The light reached across Tefnut’s cheek; she raised her free hand against its sudden strength. Shu lowered his arm, and the brightness held. The two of them remained clear where a moment before there had been nothing for the Eye to see.
“I have found you,” she said.
Tefnut let her hand fall.
“Our father?”
“He sent me.”
Shu looked into the distance behind her. There was no path there, no familiar shape by which to recognize the way. The Eye turned with him, casting her light across the dark water.
“He is waiting.”
Tefnut’s grip tightened on her brother’s hand. Together they came towards the Eye, and together the three went back through Nu.
The waters stretched on either side. Shu’s shoulder, Tefnut’s face, the brightness travelling with them: these remained distinct as the dark folds slipped past. They did not vanish into them again.
The Hands That Returned
Atum saw the light before he could distinguish who was coming.
He leaned towards it. A ripple passed across the brightness, breaking it into pieces. When the water settled, it was whole again, and nearer.
“Shu?”
This time his son answered.
Atum went to the edge of his standing place. He saw two figures beside the Eye, and Tefnut lifted her arm. He reached for her before she was close enough to touch. His fingers closed on air.
Then she was there.
He caught her hand with both of his. Water ran from her wrist over his knuckles. For a moment he could do nothing but hold it. Shu stepped up beside her, and Atum drew him close as well, one arm around each, their bodies warm against the places that had been empty.
He bent his head between them.
“I called,” he said.
“We have come back,” said Tefnut.
The Eye’s light lay over them. Atum drew back just far enough to see both faces. Shu’s hand rested on his arm; Tefnut still held his other hand.
He did not call their names again. When he turned towards either of them, there was someone there to answer.