The Tears of Nepthys
THE FIRST TEAR: ISIS
Kevin Andrew Murphy
SUNLIGHT GLINTED ACROSS THE waves, postcard perfect for a Nantucket summer. Ellen’s mother had loved mornings like this, watercolor mornings she’d called them, time to take the paints and easel and a flap of Bristol board and a daughter by the hand, and drag them off to Brandt Point by the lighthouse, sketching the sailboats like the one Ellen lived on now.
An easterly wind was already wisping away fingers of fog as Ellen let go of the ladder. She settled herself into the dinghy, then paused, one hand on the mooring line. She raised her free hand to the cameo at her throat, her mother’s brooch, resting a fingertip on the velvet band.
She decided against it. Today was her day, Ellen alone. She let go of the line, unknotted the rope, and slipped the oars into the water. She rowed in silence, passing the sailboats of the purists, and on past the cabin cruisers tied to mooring posts. The latter waited like wallflowers at a dance, all but three bearing FOR SALE signs faded to gray and Nantucket red.
Ellen sculled the water until the smooth lee gave way to the rough rippling of open harbor. A gust sprang up and the salt wind stung her eyes, threatening to start tears. Even the most beautiful morning was nothing if you had no one to share it with. The gulls cried mournfully, gabbled and shrieked, some skimming near her, hoping she were a fisherman with lost bait or a tourist with spare bread, but all Ellen had was a rueful smile. Nothing to a gull.
She found a space at the end of the pier, pausing to check her outfit before she stepped into view: a pair of ivory clam-diggers, nicely cut but unremarkable; a blue-and-white-striped nautical pullover, equally classic and unmemorable; and finally Top-Siders, standard footwear among the yachting set. As for herself, a willowy blonde on the inner cusp of forty might still turn a head or two, but one virtue of classic features was their anonymity, a face glimpsed in a gallery of old masters and fin de siècle poster art, and forgoing makeup was its own disguise. Sun and salt had bleached her wavy hair a shade lighter than the honey blond most would remember, and scrunching it back into a ponytail was not what most would expect of her, either.
About the only thing anyone looking for Ellen Allworth would expect was the cameo, the one whose profile she usually consciously styled her hair to mirror. But despite being anonymous in its beauty, black and white carved portrait jewels were no longer a popular fashion item, and the only woman known to wear one as a constant was her, Cameo.
She could always take it off, of course, but then again, Ellen could always cut off her left arm. Instead, she reached into her satchel and withdrew a long red Isadora Duncan–style scarf, looping it once around her neck, concealing the heirloom and source of her ace name. The scarf trailed like a pennant as she came on the dock, an anonymous fashion plate from a yacht magazine.
There was a peculiar smell in the air. Incense, Ellen realized as she got her land legs and looked for the source. Nearby, uncomfortably close to the gas pumps and their extremely hopeful OUT OF GAS—CHECK BACK NEXT WEEK sign, was a bowl filled with sand, a dozen sticks planted in it, embers glowing like jacinths in the morning light.
Beyond that, a dark-haired woman knelt on a prayer rug. In her right hand she held a musical instrument that looked like a tuning fork, gilt brass crossed with jangling metal bars—a sistrum, Ellen remembered dimly from the memory of one of her ancestresses; they’d been all the rage back in the twenties, part of the Egyptian Revival when they’d cracked King Tut’s tomb. The woman holding the sistrum looked like she’d have fit right in back then, garbed as she was in a long linen gown with an elaborate scapular beaded with faience and gold. Given the current tensions with the Caliphate, wearing that outfit took either guts or religion.
Ellen took a deep breath and reached into her satchel as casually as she could. She and her ace had been in hiding ever since Cardinal Contarini and his mad monks had called a hit on her, and given the cardinal’s fondness for ace assassins and their fondness for odd getups . . .
Her fingers closed around soft felt, and in a practiced motion, she donned Nick’s fedora.
“What . . . ?” Nick began, looking around.
Quiet, Ellen said in the back of his head, her head. That woman. I think she’s an ace.
Nick looked, noting the sistrum and prayer rug. “Elle,” Nick said in a soft undertone, “if that woman’s Catholic, then the Pope’s a Unitarian.” He sighed. “If the Alumbrados ever do send anyone, it’ll probably be a guy in an I AM THAT MAN FROM NANTUCKET T-shirt.”
Nickie, I’m not being paranoid. . . .
He grimaced, all the response she needed. “Elle, please, just live a little. For both of us. It’s not like being up the sleeve ever did me any good. No one but you even knows who Will-o’-Wisp was, or even remembers half of what I did. And in the end, I still got killed. . . .”
Before she was born, Ellen knew, but before she could respond, Nick took the hat off and she was alone inside her skull. Again.
Ellen clutched the worn fedora for a long moment, then slipped it back inside her satchel, shouldering it as bravely as she could, and soldiered on, wind stinging her eyes. Nick was right. Live a little. She smiled and nodded to the woman on the prayer rug and walked on past.
The woman stopped shaking her sistrum and stared at Ellen’s throat. “Kamea.”
Ellen paused, her free hand coming up to where the wind had whipped the scarf aside, almost touching the exposed brooch. “Excuse me?” she asked, stepping back a pace.
“Kamea,” the woman repeated, a word in what sounded like Arabic or Hebrew, then gestured to Ellen’s cameo with her free hand. “You bear the charm, the face of Nepthys, the white goddess in the black night. You are her avatar and my prayers have been answered.”
“Nepthys?” Ellen echoed, trying to place it as she fumbled for Nick’s hat.
“The wife of Set,” the woman supplied, “the mother of Anubis and the sister of Isis. And, oh, my dear sister, I am Isis. Isis of the Living Gods. My brother-husband, Osiris, he-who-rose-from-the-dead, had a vision that the avatar of Nepthys would arise at dawn on this morn from the waves at the whale road’s end.” She gestured with her sistrum, bars chiming softly, indicating Nantucket. “Nepthys would rise, surrounded by the dead that walk and the wind that wails.”
The morning wind was brisk but not yet wailing, and as for walking dead, at this hour, there weren’t even any hungover tourists. Ellen raised an eyebrow. “See any of those?” she asked, her hand inside her satchel, a death grip on the dead man’s fedora.
“No,” Isis admitted. “My brother-husband’s visions are sometimes confused. I’m afraid he was a little drunk when he had this one. He gets free drinks at the Luxor. I believe his exact words were ‘zombies and hurricanes.’ ” She covered her eyes. “I’m sorry, my daughter has died and I have been clinging to Hope’s slimmest thread . . . .” Isis fell to her knees, her sistrum vibrating in a white-knuckled shake. “O Nepthys, send me a sign!”
Ellen bent down, hugging the woman hard before she started ululating. “Hush,” Ellen hissed, then whispered in her ear, “I’m the ace you’re looking for, but please, I’m up the sleeve.”
“O Nepthys be praised,” she breathed. “Thank you, O sister.”
“I can’t promise anything. Just get your stuff and follow me.” Ellen rubbed at the bit of Isis’s makeup that had smeared on her own cheek and led her back to the dinghy, placing her satchel with Nick’s precious hat by her feet. “We can speak when we get to my boat.”