Appellere

Appellere, "drive to" or "come ashore"

CLXXXVI: Hymn to Hathor

"Hathor, lady of Amentet, dweller in the land of Urt, lady of Ta-sert, the Eye of Ra, the dweller in his brow, the beautiful Face in the Boat of Millions of Years..."

VII.
~

KITTY

Morning, again, and Irene and I are back to work.

"It doesn't make any sense."

Irene sighs. "I know, Kitty. I know that."

I start pacing. We've been looking at the one page for over an hour, now. It's all ranting about Thor, and Odin, and winter-- none of it makes sense. She flips past, to where I had written her down, and points. "There. Something else about Thor. And a boat."

I slam a fist against the table. "The boat keeps coming up. But I don't know why. That's, what, the eighth time in a month of your visions?"

"Something like that." Irene closes the pages carefully. "I'm beginning to think that my mutation is... digressing."

She sounds very worried. "What?"

"Well," and I can just tell that she's loathe to even say it. "Things aren't making sense. At all. I can't just ignore the possibility that... something's going wrong."

I just won't accept that.

I say sharply, "I won't accept that."

"Kitty--"

"No. I know how this is, Irene. I know how it goes, and I know that we'll figure it out eventually."

She sighs, but opens the pages, shuffling them. "All right. This is from about a month ago..." Her voice is tired. Irene herself is tired-- starts quoting, but pauses. "Kitty."

"Just read it to me again," I say, and close my eyes wearily.

I can hear her doubt. "Are you sure you want to go about it like this? Before, you were looking at sketches, drawings, words..."

"And this time, you're mumbling. Read it to me again?"

"I can't."

I can see the page from where I'm sitting-- it starts with, <Triple winters and the wolf, prowling among the stars.> Continues in a language I've never seen before-- the huge hieroglyphic of the Eye of Horus in the center of the page. Impatient, I ask, "What? Why?"

Her voice is small. "I can't see it."

"All right," I tell her, "give it to me, I guess."

She hands it over, and her fingers shake. Irene asks me, "Are you sure we're getting anywhere?"

"No," I say bluntly. "But we keep going."

NATE

We need to go hunting again, meat resources down low. It'll be a relief to get the hell out of here for a while. I've just about had it with the tension around here. It'll be good to just get away. Hone the skills. Do nothing but use the primal instincts I was born with.

I can admit the real reason. I can't face up to any of this shit right now.

I have to go back to the house, though, before I leave, because Franklin will throw a fit if I don't tell him we're leaving. Just me and Patrick and the boys. A few of the kidlets are just about old enough to come with us, for a day-trip, so we're going to drag them along and toughen them up.

Her and Irene are in the kitchen, as always, and playing with their pieces of paper. It used to be circuitry; now it's hard-copy.

I grunt, try and avoid bringing them into conversation. Kitty nods, and then says, "Look. Nate."

It's an apology that's she's not going to voice. I can accept that much. I wouldn't say it either. I nod back. "Yeah."

"Okay." It's a kind of truce. "Where's Franklin, anyway?"

She doesn't look up. "Oh, he had to, uh, go play with plumbing for one of the shacks. Apparently the well's getting dry again."

"Ah."

Domino wanders in, and pointedly doesn't say anything to any of us. She peels potatoes and every once and a while swears as she nicks her knuckles. Irene tenses up as soon as Dom enters, leaves quickly, but Kitty sets her jaw, and resolutely stays sitting down and casual. Oh, yeah. We're just one big happy family.

I can't wait to get the hell out of here.

As I'm sharpening a hunting knife, Kitty makes an excited noise, and I turn around to see her grinning. She says, "I see it, now!"

I blink at Kitty, ask without thinking. "What?"

She looks at Domino, and then me. "I think I've got it. Here, Irene's prediction about the creation of the Oasis." She holds up the most recent work that Irene did. "Here's me, right before the first Twelve." Another paper flies into Irene's lap. "And here's-- no, where is it?"

I watch her, with dread, as she pulls out the paper I crumpled up. Kitty quotes in a clear voice. "'I have brought unto thee the thigh, as the Eye of Horus, and the Mother, waiting and beating her breast, gives up the precious gem of her womb in a swathe of blood--'" and Dom, and a scowl. I remember that one all too well. It's all about that Magneto I had to kill, right after he--

This is a load of symbolic bullshit, and yet, I can sense her thoughts buzzing around about Egyptians and tombs and mummies and sacrifices. Kitty's eyes are excited. "Don't you see? What the thigh represents? The Eye of Horus-- We've finally unlocked a piece that might lead to the rest making sense..."

My face stays blank, but Domino is suddenly feeling horrified. Dom forgets her mental resolve to stay silent to ask, "You don't mean it. You couldn't mean it."

Kitty nods slowly. "She wrote this one first. Of course, we didn't know what it meant, because we couldn't see. And you never told us." Softer.

I'm feeling very stupid, all of a sudden. I don't like it. "Tell us what?"

Dom's quiet, and angry. "We couldn't understand that vision because I never told anyone I was pregnant."

Kitty fished around in the folders on the table, while I tried to let all of this sink in slowly. I still don't really understand what Dom and Kitty are talking about.

Dom tilts her head a little bit. <<That phrasing. The Eye of Horus. It's-- it's a mythological thing. It's supposed to lead the dead to Osiris. When the Egyptians mummified their dead, they had to make sure they could make their way into the west and find Osiris, and be protected in the afterlife. The Eye of Horus was part of that ritual.>>

Her mental tone falters. <<It's also a sacrifice.>>

Sacrifice.

We give up so much.

FRANKLIN

They're at each other's throats when I walk into the kitchen. Mikhail wanted a glass of water.

How simple, the needs of children are.

I send him out again. "All right, what have I missed?"

Nate's eyes are blazing. "Why don't you tell him, Kitty."

Her face is in her hands, and she looks very upset. But she speaks, strong. "I think I might have figured out why Irene's visions are all out of order and not accurate."

I know it took a lot out of her to say even that much. "Where is Irene, anyway?"

The three of them look up, and I know, deep in my bones, that they've been talking about her, her talent, her visions-- and they don't have a clue where she is. Domino shrugs. Nate stays silent. Kitty starts shuffling papers and notebooks around. I sigh to myself.

Fine, I think. I'll ask, I'll be the grown-up, I'll play your game. "Why?"

They freeze. Kitty, tense, and worried. "Because, somehow, being here has affected things. She's seeing... in more than 3d. We think."

"I knew that. I think, if I remember, I was the one that pointed that out to you."

Kit nods. "But, she's going backwards in time." That's new. I digest this slowly. She shrug, helpless. "Oh, not completely. But, the general direction is backwards."

"So she's already predicted the end, and we're at the beginning?"

"Mostly. Except, time isn't working quite right anymore-- as you know-- so she's having troubles seeing things. It'd be like seeing snow, and in order to get a picture, you'd have to lose about 50% of the information. You get a visible picture, but you lose a lot too." Softer. "Like other predictions. Other universes."

"Did she tell you that?"

"This morning, yeah."

There's a pause. I get the feeling that they've been arguing this for quite a while. And that they're not telling me everything. Nate growls, eventually, "Tell him the best part, Kitty."

I look at her, confused. She shakes her head, futile and upset. "There's a, a line in one of these, that tipped me off. It talked about-- a sacrifice." She holds it up. "The next page is a timeline, that isn't a line."

Domino looks grim, and cuts off any more scholarly explanation Kitty was planning with, "It was my goddamned baby."

I stare. Dom continues, "When I went out to stop Nate, Irene saw what'd happen the minute I left." She took a breath. "It's dated and everything. The same instant. It's the turning point, the predictions swing back and forth from that day. Kitty's --solved it."

Last night, I dreamed about a ship-wreck.

God knows what I'll dream tomorrow.

LORNA

"Are you sure this is what you want, Irene?"

She smiles at me. "No, I'm not." She shrugs. "But they're not going to be happy with me, in the end, so I'm going to find my place."

The flowers smell dry, and mildew-y. I have to water them. She looks old and tired, has a walking-stick because her cataracts are so bad she can barely see. "G-good... good luck, Irene."

She seems a small person, and her hands shake when she gives me the paper. "I think, you can tell Kitty that's page one."

I ask her, hesitantly, "What do you want me to tell them it means?"

"Damned if I know."

I look down at the paper. It's a beautiful sketch, of a tall-ship, and poetry in every blank space. One line says 'damned the fools that ride in blind!'... one part says, 'I'm sorry, Kitty,' and I'm pretty sure that has nothing to do with the future.

I tell her, "I didn't know you were an artist."

She shrugs. "One of me has to be. I saw it, didn't I? One of me did."

DOMINO

I can feel all the blood pounding in my vessels.

I can hear Nate's barely-contained rage.

I could get up, right now, and throttle the little bitch.

I say, "She dated everything according to Kitty's calendar. It was right after I left that she saw it. It was the first time we followed her advice, and the fact that it didn't work... it could have been anything, but it was me."

Nate still doesn't fully understand the implications. My baby, my little girl.

People don't know that I studied mythology, that I actually retained some of the knowledge from those textbooks. I actually enjoyed, for a brief period, studying the pantheons of gods.

More fool was I.

Franklin is staring at us. "You mean, because you were going to have a baby, it was going to change things, bring about change--"

"No," I interrupt. "That's just-- it could have been a boot, or a bicycle. It just tipped Kitty off." Softer, so maybe they can understand. I know Kitty does. "It pointed the way. Like the Eye of Horus showed the way to the after life. Irene's visions weren't accurate-- and I was the one to show her. It's the point in time that the rest of these damned papers circle around."

Franklin frowns. "Irene saw your pregnancy?"

I nod. My hands are clenched into fists under the table. "And the miscarriage. She-- put it in metaphorical terms, though. Of course."

Kitty jumps in. "It meant that I could figure out what order she was writing in. I'm still working on a lot of it. Some things are probably still misplaced, or just lost. She had multiple visions at once, several times, and we couldn't catch it all. But, that step was crucial-- now I've got a timeline, I might be able to piece together the rest of these prophesies..." Her voice trails off at my angry stare. She adds, "We know how to use these new Books of Destiny, now."

Nate says, "If we should trust them at all. This is probably just bullshit."

The link tells me he's angry, as usual, but is having trouble believing even half of this, so he's reserving that white-hot Nathan rage for a time when he's not in denial.

Franklin's pulling naive crap. I don't think he approves of us talking about the witch like she's not here-- but she's not here. I was a mother, and now I'm not, and I have a right to be fucking angry and mourn.

Lorna creeps in. She frustrates me, the way she's always creeping. Like she prefers the dark. I snap, "What!"

She jumps. "Uh. Irene wanted me to-- to. Here." She thrusts a piece of paper at Kitty, and slinks to the wall. Kitty's face goes white.

Lorna says timidly, "She wanted to tell you, she thinks it's page one."

I glimpse a sail, caught in the wind, and some hieroglyphs. Fucking Egyptians. Franklin's the first one to figure out the right question to ask. "Wait. Where is Irene, anyway?"

Lorna gulps. "She, she left. She couldn't handle the guilt-- and with the baby--"

We're all stunned, quiet. Kitty can't move.

My poor little girl.

I shake my head. It feels like Sunday, the time when prophets come forth to speak. We shall drink wine and eat bread and make merry. --My degree was a long fucking time ago, okay?

Franklin sits down at the table, and takes Kitty's hand. He says, quietly, "But, where could she go? She couldn't--"

Stops, face pale. But we all know what he was going to say.

"She couldn't see."

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