We were Up North visiting relatives in a spider filled house.
Dad, the boys and a little me went for a walk.
Soon they returned, and handed me a package made of woven papyrus.
I pried the top apart,, and pulled out sheet after sheet of exquisitely preserved papyrus, the clear cut hieroglyphics on them as ink black as the day they were written.
Lying at the bottom of the package was a hnd sized statue of Anubis, god of mummies, embalming, and the newly dead, colorfully painted with big, sorrowful, pleading eyes. It was entrancing and abolutely fascinating.
They refused to tell me where they found the packet.
Then, it was time to go. we packed up everything and drove away, turning onto an old road near the fairgrounds and pulling up to the farmhouse at the end of it.
We got out and stretched our legs, and a crowd of people began to gather.
A man noticed the statuette. "Whose is it?" he asked.
"Mine," I said.
People murmured, he gave me a dtrange look, pulled out a sheet f papyrus, and challenged me to read them.
I read it aloud, haltingly, in English - a Scripture verse. Another line - more Scripture. The entire sheet was Scripture.
Suddenly, I noticed I wasn';t speaking English anymore - the sounds I was making could only be a language that hadn't been spoken on earth for nearly a thousand years - ancient Egyptian.
The crowd was silent. The man fell to his knees and took my hand - "The one who will return the gods! we have waited long for you!" i tried to protest - I didn't even knpw what I was doing.
A chant began, and I was dragged away, to a platform with an altar. The man laid out the sheets I ha to read.
And I began to read them, strange syllabuls flowing from my lips.
But I"mm Christian, I thought. I'm atholic, and whether I am a reincarnated priestess or not, I'm NOT one now, and I WON'T do this. I'm NOT intersted in bringing about the end of the world.
I started praying, shouting over the crowd, using a formula the priest uses to consecrate the body and blood at Mass.
God, don't abandon me, don't let them kill me, be on my side for this, please....... A mantra of begging went thru my head as the crowd's chanting began to get more intense.
I crumple to the platform, pathetic, helpless and scared.
A whisper from behind. I turn and look at familliar eyes - thank God - take his hand - RUN....
... And snap awake.
I pull my cat closer - cats, the guardians of the underworld, nothing can touch me - and feel much safer.
Reincarnated priestess or no, I must have some pretty bad karma.
