Chapter One: Sen Nen Ring
"Ryou, he's here!" my mother shouted to me.
I sprang from my bed and raced into the front hall. After all these years, my father was at last home! He had departed when I was seven, and I had not seen him since then. Now I was fifteen, in my first year of secondary school. Though a small part of me did not want him back at home, after half a lifetime of abandonment, I was still curious. Greeting a stranger from a distant land... That was all this reunion amounted to.
In the shadowy entryway, my mother and father loomed, dark silhouettes against deeper darkness. Something in my father's hand caught the light spilling from my bedroom, sparkling fitfully like firelight. Had he brought an artifact with him? I had to curb my curiosity long enough to shake his hand. "How do you do, sir?" I asked, my voice crusty. It was five in the morning, after all. Characteristically, Father was late.
"It's so good to finally have you back, dear," Mother said faintly. "Won't you have some coffee?"
"Sure," Father said. "Ryou! You've grown so tall!"
I bit down an acidic reply. After Mother bustled off to the kitchen to get the coffee, I motioned Father into the living room.
"Nothing's changed," he remarked. He surveyed the worn, comfortable furniture as if they were subjects in one of his precious digs, the musty, dust-caked trash of another age that so delighted him. He sat down heavily. For the first time, I noticed just how old he really was. Wrinkles sprouted across his face when he smiled like the roots of tiny plants.
"Ryou, my boy. I guess you share my enthusiasm for this sort of thing." He held the shiny object closer to the light.
Had the interest I had in the golden artifact been that obvious? I wondered, disgusted with myself.
"Here. You can touch it," he said.
My fingers brushed golden metal as icy as a two-day corpse's heart. I shivered. "What is it?"
"It appears to be an ostentatious piece of jewelry," he said. "Look at this eye right here. This marks it as part of a collection from the eighteenth dynasty of Egypt." He uneasily fingered the pointed golden cylinders that hung from the sides of the hoop. "I want you to have it." I wordlessly took the gold hoop from his hands. Looking closely, I could see that a triangle adorned the center. In the center of the triangle was etched a staring, lidless eye. Though the design intrigued me, the shape of the artifact reminded me of an oversized dream catcher. "Won't your boss be angry that you took this?"
"It didn't come from a dig. It attracted me in the bazaar, so I bought it. That eye steals my concentration, however." He crossed his arms. Subject closed.
I raised an eyebrow. What a ridiculous notion, I thought. I slouched in silence for several minutes while Father stared into space.
Mother appeared with the coffee. "Ryou," she said. "Go to bed. Your father and I have much to discuss."
I made a show of yawning loudly. "Good morning then." As I crossed the dark hall, my parents' soft voices rose and fell. In my room I closed the door and held the hoop up to the light.
The craftsmanship, I noticed, was especially fine. The ring was geometrically perfect, right down to the wide eye's pupil. I shrugged, figuring it was simply the cast-off of a local artist that Father had tired of.
I placed it on my nightstand, and shut out the light. For several minutes, I sat atop my bed, staring into the darkness. Though the encounter with my father had possessed a surreal, dreamlike quality, I was wide awake now.
Light from the street lamps poured into my window, a silent waterfall. Each ray seemed to dance in the ring, particularly in the eye. I expected any minute for it to blink. Like a sleepwalker, I groped for the ring. My hand closed over its cold metal.
I wondered how the Egyptians would have worn such a strange piece of jewelry. Perhaps women punched such rings through their men's noses so they could not wander the world as my father had done. Or maybe it adorned a slender woman's waist as a belt... Suddenly an idea sprang to my mind.
I pawed through the assortment of wordly trash that had accumulated under my bed. I soondrew out a rope about the thickness of my thumb. I knotted it around the top of the hoop. There was still plenty of slack. If I were to put it over my neck, it would reach just below my heart.
How did my addition to the oversized dream catcher look? Burning curiosity drove me to check a mirror. I laughed to myself softly on the way. I was as ridiculous as Father. Before the bathroom mirror, I slid the cord over my head. This close, the ring smelled of warm sand, spices, and another odor, sickly sweet, like that of decay. The rope was rough against my neck. I peered intently into the mirror, uncertain just what I expected to see there.
At that moment, I saw only my reflection. Wild, white shoulder-length hair framed my face, which still had not lost the gentle curve of childhood, something I rather resented. I did not understand the significance of my gentle brown eyes looking back at me until it was too late. I adopted a cynical scowl much like those I supposed would twist the visages of ancient pharaohs. Suddenly, my reflection shone at me as clearly as if full daylight burned through the blinds. Looking down, I saw that the shine emitted from the lidless eye. My heart seemed to trip, first speeding up chokingly fast, then slowing to deathly stillness. What was happening? I edged closer to the cool glass.
The presence of mercurial light in the dark room sent a band of shadows lurking about me. Horrified, I bit back a scream. The shadows were all about me, even blocking the door! They formed a circle around me, closing in slowly. Their features were indistinct, but I could make out their gleeful hissing, like the sizzling of flames. The blood drained from my face as they reached for me with clawed hands that protruded from their spindly arms. I frantically thrashed. My blood screamed, for my voice was locked deep within me. Despite my endeavors to escape, the shadows held me captive.
Then all of them converged into a formless man who held me pinioned in his arms. He laughed a laugh as dry as the dust of mummies. Almost tenderly his hand stole down the rope that bound the hoop around my neck. Heaving a deep sigh of pleasure, he closed his fist around the center triangle, after which I remembered nothing more.