“Right.” Her father seemed unconvinced, though she knew he wouldn’t push. He never did. “Well, dinner will be at six.”
Natti nodded and entered her room. She scanned the empty soft blue and white striped walls. Moving cartons were piled by the box window, preventing the sunlight from entering the room. Her desk was set up on the opposite wall in front of her; her laptop rested on a pile of homework, papers, and notebooks. Closing the door behind her, Natti walked across the room and tossed her backpack by the denim, swivel desk chair. She turned around and leaned back, examining the rest of vast empty space. About two feet from the doorway rested her side table and new cherry four poster bed; her kitten curled up on her soft green, floral comforter. Along the adjacent wall sat a new matching dresser, her mirrored closet, and the door to her bathroom.
Not ready to take on her homework, she smacked the compact stereo to life, filling the room with heart-pounding rhythms. Letting her day’s troubles fade into the background noise, she swayed to the beat. She flipped a letter opener from the desk top into her palm and marched to the first box. She sliced it open and pulled back the cardboard flaps to find her assortment of young-adult novels. Glancing at each title, she organized them onto the white, built-in shelves around the window nook.
After collapsing the box, she broke the seal of the next one, finding her little trinkets. Many had been gifts from her grandmother. Like the small, hand-painted glass perfume bottles from Egypt; Natti removed them from their bubble wrapping. Perfect for this town’s setting.
Back in London, her grandmother had tried to get Natti wrapped up in ancient Egyptian art and culture: taking her to museums and touring private collections. Natti just couldn’t connect. It wasn’t that it was all bad or anything. It was just every time she saw a sarcophagus or anything in relation to the Egyptian afterlife her mind spun with images of her mother’s death. But now, the trinkets were like a remembrance. Something of her old life. A memory of her grandmother. Carefully, she lined them up on the shelves, where the light could paint their colors on the back wall and ceiling.
Over the pounding music, she heard something collapse behind her. The carton Natti had been emptying tumbled onto the dark, hardwood floor, and Bastet frantically skittered under the bed. Natti rushed forward, less concerned about the box than she was about Bastet. She knelt down and looked at the kitten shaking in the shadows.
“Okay, Bas?”
Bastet blinked then turned her focus to the box. Natti followed the cat’s line of sight, seeing her things spilt out on the floor. Natti scooped the rest of the items and placed the box by the bed.
“Here.” She smiled. “Your own personal fort to play with.”
Bastet poked her head out, stared intently at the cardboard box, and charged for it. A loud thump resounded when the kitten crashed through the top and shuffling and scratching rattled from inside.
Natti laughed and sifted through the items. Her body tensed when she came across a cedar box with an Isis carving tipped on its side, lid open. It had been an heirloom and the last thing her grandmother gave her, other than Bastet. On her seventeenth birthday. She’ll never forget that moment:
Zofia strolled into the far corner of the library where a cedar box rested on a granite pillar. She placed her hand on top of the box, bowed her head and muttered a few words Natti could not hear. Zofia then stroked the fine wood, lifted it up, and returned to Natti’s side.
“Sit down, darling.” She motioned and placed the box on the small table.
Natti sat, letting Bastet crawl into her lap while she watched her grandmother raise the lid. “This is very old,” Zofia whispered, “and has been passed down for many years. It would have been your mother’s, and now, I wish to give it to you.”
She took out a smaller box from inside, also made of cedar with mother-of-pearl boarders and painted images. A carved relief of Isis, kneeling with her wings spread out, spanned the length of the lid. Natti carefully took the box and opened it. It was empty, only lined with fine maroon velvet. She closed the lid and rubbed her fingers over Isis’s image.
“She has always protected our family,” Zofia told her. “And we have always been careful to protect her in return.”
Protected, Natti snorted and picked the box up gently and tilted it upright so she could look at the relief. Then why was her grandmother dead? Murdered in her own home?