Chapter 6

Alex paces the room. He holds one of his notebooks in front of him and reads from it, though he doesn’t need to by this point. He’s gone over the words so many times, he’s memorized them.

“Survival beyond night calls,” he says out loud, “and one voice summons. The sacred goddess of life and death walks among us. We humbly beg that we must retain existence with her. Spirits, stay our passing until evil is behind.”

He reaches a wall, turns, goes back the other direction. “Goddess of life and death. Nephthys?” he asks out loud. “But how does she walk among us? Evil is behind? The police?” He often speaks to himself, but it’s different. He feels like the house can hear him. As if it might answer. Five steps. Six. Seven. Eight. Turn. “And the scarab beetle? Could that be connected? Rebirth and day and night?” Five steps. Six. Seven. Eight. Turn.

He says it out loud again. Word by word. Slowly. And then, he trips over something.

Alex is sure he put that book back where it was. Carefully, on the shelf. He recalls reading the gold title on the dark blue leather cover. “Heka: The Art of Egyptian Magic.” He had thumbed through it, just as he had looked through all of them, just hoping something would seem relevant, something that would hint at a potential connection between ideas. Any unifying thread. Pages were covered in notes and scribbles, but nothing seemed clear and meaningful. And he’d put each one back carefully, in the same spot, because everything matters. The placement of the books and objects could be a clue.

Then how did this book fall off the shelf? He must not have been as careful as he thought. Alex scolds himself before going to pick it up. It sits open to a page covered in circles and notes, much like any other, but in the corner, in a careless scribble, something significant, something he must have missed when he was looking at hundreds of pages for a clue. Of course it’s there. It makes perfect sense. Holy shit, could that be a clue? The doorknob turns and Charlotte enters.