*

*

She awoke knowing she wasn’t alone.  Faint moonlight slid through the gauzy summer curtains.  Her heart struck like a gong.  A dark shape, a figure in the corner, appeared as a darker outline where the closet met the wall. 

She pulled the sheet up under her chin, hands trembling.  “Who-who are you?”

The figure moved slightly, emerging into the thin, dim light. 

She saw the feet first, bare, and then cloth wrapping to shoulder, bare arms and hands, a stack of bracelets, an armband. 

The head remained obscured, but even in the dimness, she could tell it wasn’t human.  Large and square, with a huge, curved beak.  A glittering eye reflecting moonlight.

“Who am I?” the reply came in a scratchy, unused whisper.  “You should know.  You called me.”

The one in the bed drew back further.  “I-I called?”  Flashing thoughts reviewed her most recent phone calls and texts.  Nothing.

“In prayer,” came the crackly whisper.  “You called for a healer.”

True.  She had prayed, just that night, for help.  Help with the unraveling health, and guidance.

“Can you help me?” she asked.  “Heal me?”

“Where I come from, no one would ask that question.”

“Where do you come from?”

“Saqqara.  Egypt.  From the time before the desert, from the beginning.  From the green Nile and the rains making furrows in the holy Sphinx.  From those who read the stars and moved great stones.  They called me Horus.”