The sky was black - not a star twinkled, nor did the moon shine with its usual brilliance. It was pitch black - I stumbled upon a hiking trail after some time and followed it out of the woods, finding myself in the town's park.

My heart, in spite of my steady pace, felt odd. Too fast. Too loud. Like it didn't quite belong with the rest of my body - a puzzle piece shoved someplace it wasn't meant to be.

I kept walking, stumbling onto the sidewalk. Flickering street lamps were the only light I had, but it was enough to guide me home. The roads were empty and the town's buildings were dark. It was never like this here in Bent Valley - there was always someone. Something. The silence made it all the more easy to question everything that was happening.

How long I'd been gone for one. It felt like I'd woken up from an unnaturally long nap. Like I hadn't even completely woken up yet. I was trudging around in my skin, waiting for my mind to catch up with my body. Maybe it was just a dead person thing.

Was I zombie now? I had just come back from the dead. I wasn't one for sci-fi, but if I looked anything like the ones from those horrible movies, I would off myself before Anubis' so-called curse could kick in. The thought made me stop halfway home and inspect the back of my hands. Other than the dirt all over them, there were no obvious signs of decomposition.

I continued on my way, no longer concerned with my appearance and trying to keep the god of the dead out of my mind. There was no use in worrying over it. Over his curse. I just needed to talk to Gran. She would know what to do. She always knew.

Bent Valley was a perfect little suburb, a snapshot out of a real estate brochure. A quaint little town with an old-timey theater, diners left and right, and a community hopelessly obsessed with high school football. A safe place, a quiet neighborhood, a perfect little town for the All-American family.

Nothing happened here. Cliche? Absolutely. But it was true. Bad things did not happen in Bent Valley - that was just the way it was and nobody complained. I couldn't think of the last time someone got arrested for something other than underage drinking.

Yet here I was: dead girl walking.

Dead girl who'd been murdered.

I went up the porch of Gran's house, checking under the passive-aggressive 'go-away' doormat for the spare key. It was missing.

I rang the bell, bouncing up and down on the balls of my feet as I waited.

The door was flung open so hard and so fast I thought it might fly off its hinges. The woman who answered pulled me into the threshold without letting me get a word in before she strangled me in a hug, screeching incomprehensible curses and prayers in my ear.

When Gran pulled back, she was shaking me by the shoulders and blubbering, tears running down her face. She wasn't small or frail by any means - old, yes. But strong as an ox. Her shaking me the way she was made it feel like my brain was bouncing about inside my skull.

"I knew! I knew you'd be back!"

"How long have I been - "

"My baby was gone a week, but I told them, I told them! I said, 'she'll be back, you just watch.'"

A week. I'd been dead a week.

Gran called the police after sitting me down and bringing me tea. She wrapped me in blanket, chiding me about how cold I was and how I knew I'd get sick. The one thing she didn't do was let me out of her sight. I was seated in our living room, well within her view from the kitchen.

She didn't just call the police. She called relatives I didn't know and friends I'd never heard of. She phoned the whole damn neighborhood, so completely overjoyed that her granddaughter was back. She was happy, so, so, happy, that the feeling completely preoccupied her. She hadn't gotten around to asking me any questions just yet, but I knew she would.

I tried rehearsing a story, something that sounded like a sane excuse for disappearing without a trace.

What was I going to tell the police? That someone killed me? I could always try to say that somebody attempted to, but things wouldn't add up. Why I didn't go straight to them, where I disappeared to, who tried killing me. So many answers that wouldn't believe, so many questions that I couldn't answer.

Maybe that was my story. That I didn't have answers. That I didn't know. It wasn't really a lie. There was truth to it.

The doorbell rang.

I shifted, pulling the blanket over my head. I was taking up most of the couch, my head down on the armrest, legs up on the cushions. My dress was filthy and I smelled terrible, but Gran hadn't told me to go change. And I didn't want to - I just wanted to sit here in the warmth of tea and blankets and the sound of my grandmother's voice.

She opened the door and I knew it was time to talk.

Lifting one corner of the blanket, I peered out at the silver-haired man that came in, greeting Gran with a hug.

"Where is she, Akila?"

She pointed.

I emerged from the blanket like Aphrodite had from sea foam, but looking more like a she-demon than a goddess. "Hi, Sheriff Moore."

Sheriff Moore was a good man - never really gave anyone any trouble, even if they deserved it. Real man-of-the-people type. He was a legacy from a family full of cops, but the first to make sheriff.

He smiled and strode over, sitting down on the couch across from mine, "How you feeling?"

"Tired."

"You've been gone for a while. Want to tell me what happened?"

"I don't know."

"Well, do you remember anything?"

"I woke up in the woods. Found my way out. Came home."

"I see." He twisted to around to look at Gran. "Might need to get her checked out at the hospital."

"No, I'll be fine. I didn't hit my head or anything. Not hypothermic. I'm fine."

Gran hesitated, looking a little uncertain. "You sure?"

Sheriff Moore wasn't about to back down. "If not now, then tomorrow. But you really should go. Come to the precinct in the morning and then go right after. Maybe the doctors will know why you don't remember anything. And if you've been wandering around the woods for a week, you're probably not going to be well."

That was it. Why would there be more? It wasn't like this was technically official. He said his goodbyes and left us.

"Eat your biscuits," Gran chided, sitting down beside me. As I picked up another, dipped it in my tea and took a bite, she pulled the blanket off me. "This is the same dress you wore the night you disappeared."

I shrugged, mouth too full to speak.

"We both know you lied to that man."

I picked up my teacup and took a couple sips to wash down the biscuit. "I had to. He'd think I was crazy. But I did wake up in the woods."

"What do you mean?"

I hesitated before pointing to her bookshelf - it was lined with books on mythology. Things I'd always brushed off as stories. Her lectures about the gods as the ravings of an aging woman.

"Don't play with me, child."

"I was buried. A jackal dug me out."

She shook her head, but her dark eyes had gone wide at the mention of the dog. "The god of the dead doesn't send people back out of the goodness of his heart, child."

Even though I knew she believed me, the whole thing felt so absurd. But what was the use in questioning all this? What happened, happened. Driving myself insane with questions about my sanity would do me no good. "I didn't know I was dead until I saw him, Gran. He said there was a curse. I have to kill whoever killed me or I'll just die again. I have a week."

"You aren't killing anyone."

"I know that-"

"And who did kill you? Who did this to you?"

"I don't remember."

Gran massaged her temples, taking in a slow breath. "Shower. Go to bed. There's someone I'm going to take you to see in the morning - she'll know exactly what this curse is."

⁂

"You must be kidding me."

The building was small, in the middle of town. A little place with a single window that had gauzy curtains drawn aside. A light-up sign bearing the words PSYCHIC READINGS was in the middle of the glass. The door was open, inviting the young and naive to come in and get scammed. Beaded curtains lined the entryway, keeping whatever lay inside obscure.

The first thing we'd done was go to the police station and talk to them in an official capacity. My answers were a whole lot of I-don't-knows and I-can't-remembers. This place was on the way to the local clinic, so Gran had stopped walking and pulled me across the street. This was it. This was the place that she said would have the answers.

A psychic.

It was impossible to disguise my disdain.

Gran gave me a hard look, the kind she got when she was resisting the urge to whack me upside the head. "You just came back from the dead, little girl. You really think you're in a position to turn your nose up at this?"

What I thought was that this was an utter waste of precious time, but I wasn't in any position to argue. I thought she was wrong about a whole lot until I'd been proven wrong. If she was right about the gods, maybe she was right about whatever con artist awaited inside.

"Apparently not."

"Damn straight. Behave yourself in there. No nonsense."

The way she spoke to me would make someone think I was six, not sixteen. I bit my tongue as we went inside, pushing the beads out our way. One caught onto my hair and I stood there for a couple perilous moments, untangling myself.

"Neith."

"One second, I almost -"

Gran leaned over and yanked them apart, drawing a shriek from me as my hair was practically pulled out my scalp. "Get. In. Here."

I did immediately.

Mirrors covered the interior - my reflection was everywhere I turned. A variety of colored crystals were all around, this way and that. Copious amounts of wind chimes hung from the ceiling as if they were chandeliers - some made of metal, others made of wood, and couple even looked like tempered glass. Tarot cards were spread out across a table in the middle of the room.

A woman sat at the table, hair braided into a crown over her head, a couple loose tendrils hanging around her face. Her palms were resting on the surface, turned upward. Her eyes were shut - a swipe of shimmering blue shadow across her lids.

"The spirits welcome you," she said in a soft, dreamy voice. "We've been waiting for your arrival, my dears."

Gran snorted. "What sort of white nonsense is this?"

The woman's eyes popped open, their blue as bright as the makeup on her lids. She grinned at Gran like she was an old friend. "Nothing white about it. I got to reel the suckers in somehow, Akila."

Gran scoffed, joining her at the table. "So you can rip 'em off?"

"I call it financial Darwinism."

Gran shook her head before motioning for me to sit with them. "Don't you turn out like this one, Neith."

The woman's eyes shifted over to me as I took my place at the table. "Your granddaughter?"

"The spirits tell you that too?" I asked.

She grinned again, unoffended. It seemed to be a reflex for her. "What are you two here for? One Johnson in my shop is bad enough, but two mean there must something apocalyptic about to happen."

"My Neith just came back from the dead, Amanda."

Amanda leaned across the table, looking at me with newfound interest. "Looking good for a zombie. How'd you come back?"

Gran gave me a look when I didn't say anything. "Why aren't you talking? Since when do you shut up?"

"Anubis sent me back," I said. Again, I noted how absolutely delusional I sounded. "He said if I didn't kill whoever killed me, I'd die for good in a week."

"Anubis," Amanda whispered, not even blinking at the mention of my murder. "Egyptian god of the afterlife. The patron of lost souls. Now, why would he single you out?"

"He said it was some sort of a curse."

"A curse? That would explain the eye-for-an-eye thing." Amanda straightened up and gathered her cards, shuffling the deck as she spoke. "Doesn't match up with the mythology, really. He's seen as something of a guardian. Not really a ruler. Curse doesn't sound like his style."

I frowned at her. "What do you mean he's not a ruler? He called himself the god of the dead. It was like he was in charge."

"Well, Osiris is the ruler of the dead. It's his domain. The stories say that when he died, Anubis gave him the throne as a sign of respect."

"Can't he have taken the throne back? Maybe Osiris doesn't want it anymore."

Amanda fanned the cards out on the table and rolled her shoulder back. "Pick three."

I was incredulous - she couldn't possibly be serious. "Are you joking?"

"No. Pick three. And not thoughtlessly. Not carelessly. Feel something. Pick the ones you're drawn to."

"And if I'm not drawn to anything?"

"Then you're being close-minded. Now, pick three."

I sighed, staring at the cards. No harm in just going with it. I reached out toward them, letting my fingers brush their surface, desperately trying to feel something other than a sense of idiocy. My hand stopped suddenly - head filling with noise I didn't like. It was like static - loud, deafening. I pulled that card toward me and started again. The same thing happened twice more.

Amanda took the cards, flipping them over. "Judgement. Death. The Devil."

"The devil? Are you sure it's not a jackal? One peed on my grave."

Gran pursed her lips.

Amanda spared me a smile. "I'm sure."

"What does that mean then?"

"I don't know. It could be a number of things. But they are all connected." Amanda gathered the deck again, setting it aside. "I'll try to see why Anubis wants a curse. If we figure that out, maybe we'll find a way to get you out of it. Maybe we can keep you from killing or dying."

"Any way to find out who killed me in the first place?"

"That depends. How did you die?"

"Don't know."

"We have to go to the doctor's," Gran cut in. "Maybe she'll find something. Injury or whatnot."

"Possibly. You know where to find me if that's the case, Neith." She raised her hand, point a finger to the door. "And if you don't, my dears, I have clients with actual appointments."