Howard made quick work of setting up camp. He scoured the area nearby for sagebrush to bum, checked for suspicious rocks and animal burrows, made sure they were far enough from the road not to be seen. He set up around the car as if it were a covered wagon during the days of the pioneer trails-Glory was to sleep in the backseat, where she would have the comfort of the cushion and could protect herself from the elements by simply closing the door. Lovecraft and he would stretch out on their bedrolls on either side of a small fire.
At first they had decided against a fire, but then they succumbed to their instinctive fear of the dark and lit one, even at the risk of being spotted from a distance by anyone who might be following them. The night was too sinister to spend without relief. With the small campfire burning, Howard immediately fell on his bedroll and balanced his hat over his eyes. Within a few breaths he was snoring away in a deep sleep.
“I’m sorry in frightened you back there,” Glory called to Lovecraft from the backseat of the Chevy. “But a girl’s got a certain sense of modesty, you know.”
“I understand perfectly well,” Lovecraft replied. He made his way over and sat in the front seat with the door open. “I believe you are also correct about the nature of our imaginations, though certain license is clearly warranted given the events of the day.”
“I still have no idea what’s going on. Will you explain it to me?”
“Certainly,” Lovecraft said, “but I would prefer not to speak of such things tonight.”
“I understand.”
“But do feel free to discuss other topics.”
Glory stifled a yawn and tapped a cigarette out its pack. She lit it with a quick flick of a match and drew a small puff. “When I was younger,” she said, “I used to wish the sky would rain ink or snow ashes. Do you mind my smoking? I know it’s unladylike and all.”
“It’s hardly my place to enforce social conventions upon you. Please do as you wish.”
“I always wanted to take astronomy. My school had an observatory, and Professor Mitchell was always encouraging the girls to explore the vastness of the universe. It’s too bad I never got around to it, because sometimes I just like to sit alone at night and look up at the stars. It would be nice if I knew them better.”
“From the reference to a professor, I take it you attended a college? Though I must admit your appearance certainly belies such a conclusion.”
“I went to a girls’ school back East for a while. Three years. Never finished.”
“But surely, even if you did not complete your education, you must know some of the constellations and their stories?”
“Yeah, I know a couple. The Big Dipper, the Little Dipper. And I know how to find the North Star.” She pointed with the glowing tip of her cigarette. “That’s about all.”
“Those are otherwise known as Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, and Polaris,” said Lovecraft. “I once wrote the astronomy column for a local publication.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful!” It was genuine pleasure in her tired voice. “So tell me, what’s that over there?” She moved the tip of her cigarette again, and it bobbed up and down like the tail of a glowworm.
“That would be the Pleiades.”
“And that?”
“That is Canis Major, the Dog Star.”
“When I was little my mother told me that every star was an angel. But they’ve had names all along.”
Glory pointed off to the southeast at a string of stars. “And that?”
“Ah,” said Lovecraft, following the tip of her cigarette with his finger. “There, in fierce gorgeousness crawls the Scorpion, with its brilliant fire red star Antares. A fitting portent of the flaming scenes which await our warriors on the Hun-infested plains of France.”
“Why, you sound just like a professor, Lovey.”
“I was merely quoting from a piece I wrote some years in the past,”
Lovecraft replied, rather abashed.
“The Hun-infested plains of France?” said Glory.
“Well, many years in the past, if you’ll forgive me.”
“And what are those?” Glory asked, pointing north now, toward three bright stars in a line. “Those look like they should add up to something.”
“Ah, that would be the belt of Orion, the great hunter-Osiris, as the ancient Egyptians, the builders of the mysterious pyramids, knew him. With his consort, sister, and wife, who was known as Isis, his was the most revered constellation.”
“Osiris—he married his sister?”
“Yes,” said Lovecraft. “That was not at all strange for royal families in those times.”
“Why, that’s incest,” said Glory in mock surprise. “Must have had some ugly kids.”
“Actually, they did have progeny,” said Lovecraft. “He became the new god of the sun, but the tale of Osiris and Isis is a tragic one. In some sense, they are literally the star-crossed lovers.”
“How romantic. Tell me the story. I always liked bedtime stories.”
Lovecraft could hardly resist the invitation, nor could he have asked for a better audience. He began with a flourish, his fishy eyes sparkling in the firelight.
“The most enduring tale from the Egyptian mythos is that of Osiris and Isis. Osiris, the god of the sun and the father of agriculture and Isis his sister, wife, queen, and consort, his helpmeet, the moon. They were the ideal couple, who represented man’s primary connections to terrestrial cosmology, but alas their happy reign was not to last.
“Osiris had a brother named Seth, who was god of the desert and of dry things. Where Osiris was benevolent and kind, Seth was harsh and parsimonious. He was terribly jealous of Osiris, and he was terribly cunning; he wanted to do away with his brother and take his place as god of things fertile. He invited Osiris to a great feast and presented him with a wonderful and elaborately engraved sarcophagus with inlaid bands of gold and silver. ‘I have made this magnificent gift for you, my brother,’ Seth said to Osiris. ‘Won’t you honor me by confirming that I have made it the right size?’ Osiris could not refuse. Indeed, he was honored and flattered, and so he lay down in the sarcophagus, which Seth’s servants immediately sealed with bands of steel and threw into the Nile, down which it floated until it reached the sea.
“At the conclusion of the feast, Osiris was nowhere to be found. Isis began a quest, seeking her vanished husband to the ends of the earth until, after long labor, she found him at last in the land of Mesopotamia, the place between two rivers. This is the fertile crescent, the place which we now call the birthplace of civilization. She found Osiris’s sarcophagus entangled in the roots of a tree that had grown over it. She released him from the roots and brought him back to life with her healing arts and magic, which she had learned from the great Thoth.
“Upon hearing of Osiris’s return to the land of the living, Seth once again plotted his brother’s undoing, and this time he committed outright murder. He ambushed Osiris, killed him, dismembered the body, and scattered its parts across the four corners of the world. And once again Isis set out on a quest, this time to find all the parts of her dead husband’s body and to reassemble him.
“When she found him, with the help of her sister Nephthys, she sang this lament, which comes to us from the Coffin Texts.” Lovecraft looked over at Glory and noticed she had already fallen asleep. He sighed, and concluded his tale only for himself.