Fluorine uranium carbon potassium. Jane’s experiment really went wrong this time. After a fatal accident, teen scientist Jane becomes the first modern-day...mummy. Waking up in the Egyptian underworld without a heart certainly isn’t the best—especially when it means Anubis, god of embalming, has to devour her soul. Yuck. But when Jane meets the drop-dead gorgeous god, suddenly she's thinking this might not be the worst thing to happen. And then she is pushed to do the impossible—just time-travel and kill King Tut. Well, every experiment has variables which can end in disaster... Jane just wishes she could decide whether she wants to strangle Anubis or kiss him.
EXCERPT
Fact: The
last thing I remember is falling from my inner tube into the churning waters of
Skutz Falls and not being able to resurface.
Fact: I am
in a black desert, talking to the Egyptian god of the dead.
Hypothesis:
I drowned.
Experiment:
To be determined, because for the first time ever, I have no idea where to go
from here.
“What
is this place?” My voice sounds distant, as if I’m hearing it through a wall.
“The Duat.”
“What’s
that?”
“The
gateway before you reach the Field of Reeds.” I must give him a blank stare for he shakes his head
and says, “The resting place for pure souls. Paradise.”
“Paradise,”
I whisper and sit up. My wet swimsuit clings uncomfortably to my skin. “That
doesn’t sound too bad.”
The jackal
shuts his eyes. “To live where the sun rises from the earth, where food and
drink are never-ending, where every rush that springs from the ground shimmers
like gold...no, it is not too bad at all.”
I close my
eyes and replace the darkness with that image. At least that gives me something
to hold on to. The god approaches and motions for me to crouch down to him. He
sniffs my hair, arms, feet. Warm breath blows the wet strands of hair from my
face: the first breeze I’ve felt here. Then he lays his head against my chest,
its weight humbling.
“So sad you
will never see it.”
I stand.
“What?”
He squints
his eyes and sighs deeply, sadly. “How could I not have realized...?” Anger
surges in his voice as he says, “You don’t have a heart.”
I place two
fingers on my neck. No pulse. Check my wrist. Nothing. I stare blankly at my
pale skin. “A corpse doesn’t need a pulse.”
The hackles
on Anubis’s back rise and his ears flatten. “But it’s more than that. There’s
not even a heart inside you. You reek of
it...”
“Of what?”
I whisper.
“Emptiness.”
The jackal circles around me, teeth
glittering
in the light.
“Where is
my heart?” I grasp at my chest.
“It doesn’t
matter, but you can’t go to the scale now. You don’t have anything to weigh.”
“Weigh?”
Anubis
growls and slams his paw against the ground. “Keep up! You don’t have a heart.
That means you have nothing to weigh against the Feather of Truth.”
“I need my
heart...”
“How else
will the king of the underworld be able to judge you?” he says. “Your heart
determines if you are pure enough to enter paradise.”
No,
I can’t be trapped in this place! The golden image of paradise fades from my
mind, the nothingness creeping its way back. “There has to be another way.”
“There
is none.”
“So I’m
stuck here?”
“Oh no,”
Anubis says. “No one stays here forever.”
“So what
happens to me?”
“Well,
Jane Ezrael,” the jackal says with half-lidded eyes, “I eat you.”
JANE UNWRAPPED is a
young adult mythological fantasy, released by Entangled Teen Crave on October
12th, 2015. Join the authors for Egyptian-themed fun with videos,
art, and giveaways at www.leahkatewrite.com
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