Cleopatra Occult (14 page)

“Too late? I have the throne today.”

“Your sister and her witch are playing games!”

Ptolemy glared at her. “For now, just play the game Rome has for us. We can’t win if we don’t play with Rome and it must be played out in the open.”

“Small things become big things. Crush them now. Crush your sister while she is small.”

He argued, “Small things are small things and big things are big things. I’m the man. I’ll get the throne in the end. I am the big thing now and Rome will have to agree. Girls are always little things.”

She argued, “The image of the sandal strap became the ankh, the greatest religious symbol ever. Small things can become big things.”  

Ptolemy walked down the stairs into the driving rain, into the garden.

Watching him walk away, not wanting to follow and get wet, she moaned to herself, “I want my own army of men! I will be the queen of Egypt and I will rule the world with the greatest armies! Armies of cutthroats and thieves!” She stood and glowered. “I will control all men! I will burn all witches!” She walked the other way, set fire to a chair in the hall, and then withdrew to her secret room.

~

Six days later, Mark Antony and Octavian summoned Ptolemy to the throne room. Ptolemy sat on the throne and impatiently watched Cleopatra’s troops from Syria file in. As they stood at attention, a black cat sauntered in and meandered toward the throne.

Ptolemy watched in growing horror until he finally pointed at the cat and yelled, “That’s Cleopatra! She’s turned herself into an atrocious cat! She has new spells! She’s come to kill me with her witchcraft! Kill the cat, Mark Antony, kill it!”

Mark ignored him.

“You have to do it! Rome has to kill her so that it pleases Rome! Kill the cat!”

Mark shrugged. “It just looks like a cat to me.”

“No! She has great witchcraft!” Ptolemy leapt off the throne and chased the black cat around the room but it kept out of reach by often darting between the feet of her troops.

After Ptolemy fell to the floor, too exhausted to continue, a harp began to play. Cleopatra, a human, slowly walked down the center isle holding a bouquet of blue lotus flowers that were the symbol of Upper Egypt. Its long stems were intertwined with papyrus reeds that were the symbol of Lower Egypt—a classic representation of the political unification of the two different lands. She gracefully sat on the throne.

Ptolemy cursed her, and added, “That was no grand entrance. You just
walked
in.”

Cleopatra looked daggers at her brother as he got up off the floor. She replied, “It was your ludicrous exit.”

He grumbled, “You’re not a cat.”

“No, if you think I could turn myself into a cat you have a lot of growing up to do.”

Mark Antony asked her in a quiet voice, “Is that what it means to crash into repose?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said that to Caesar once. It made him laugh so loud. What does it mean? I just thought of it again the way you just sat on that throne with such loveliness.”

She smiled. “It takes hours of anxious work to make others think that you instantly have everything easily under control.” She gently sniffed at her flower arrangement.

Mark admitted, “
I
thought the cat was you, too. You bluffed like a queen.”

She grinned.

Ptolemy yelled, sounding childish, “You made me dream of the black cat and made me think this would be you! You made me think you would be a cat! You made me dream it first! You did it! You’re atrocious!”

Mark Antony said to Ptolemy, “Your time here is through. Time to fight for Rome at the Persian border.”

“No!” Ptolemy ran off into a dark windowless palace hall. Cleopatra’s men chased him but he disappeared.

Mark asked, “He had a magic trick to disappear?”

Cleopatra didn’t look concerned. “The halls have many escape passages. I hope you don’t need him at Persia anytime soon. You’ll be sure to catch him after he’s left the palace and he’s gone anywhere else in Egypt. He doesn’t even speak Egyptian. He’ll stick out. Cairo won’t be big enough to hide him.”

Mark nodded that he understood. “I just hope he doesn’t drown trying to cross the Nile.”

“The palace has a swimming pool—we learned to swim. But he doesn’t have to get wet—he has a big boat he finally gets to use. You’ll know what city he’s at by watching the harbor. It has a wooden statue of a hawk at the front of it.” 

~

Alone in her long narrow apartment hidden within inner walls of the palace, Sorceress Thrace said to the heat rising from her magical fire, “Mirage, mirage in my hand, who’s the fairest in the land?” The flames flashed with green. In the smoke, she saw Phaedra with a silk purse full of pebbles.

The flickering image of Phaedra said to her pebbles, “I didn’t see that coming at all when I cast my magic stones… and I paid so much for them. By the gods, I’m a dabbler.”

Sorceress Thrace furiously screamed at the smoke, “That idiot!” Sorceress Thrace mixed oils and added them to her fire. “Phoenix from the fire! Phoenix from the smoke! Phoenix from the heat! Phoenix from the ash! Sweet bird of youth, be reborn!” After her temper calmed, she had an idea. She laughed. She added bitter herbs to her fire. “Mirage, mirage be my guide. Make her commit suicide. Not with sight, not with sound, but let her lose her sense of ground.”

Sleeping in her own palace apartment, Phaedra had a dream that Iset was whispering into her ear, “I have the wind. Cleopatra has the water. Sorcerous Thrace has the fire. You have the earth.”

Phaedra questioned, “I have the earth?”

Iset clarified, “The stones.”

Phaedra felt sad. “That doesn’t sound valuable.”

“Where do you think we get our gold?”

“Wind. Water. Fire. Earth. What element is better?”

“All are necessary.”

Phaedra asked, “What is the strongest?”

Iset said, “It depends on the hour.”

Phaedra woke up, forgetting the dream, and began to think about how she was so far from home and she might never have the means to get back again. She felt abandoned. She began to cry that she’d never had a child to adore her. She sobbed at her own horrible childhood memories and how she’d felt abandoned. She knew she couldn’t bear to live one more hour in such a horrible world. “It’s all too much!” She stood on a chair, tied one end of a long scarf over a pole across the top of a doorframe and tied the other end around her neck. “Circe, I will miss you most of all. You were the only nice thing around. I still feel so much love for you…”

Circe’s voice said, “Oh dum ditty.”

Phaedra looked around but didn’t see anyone. “Circe?”

She heard Circe’s voice again, “You must think you’re mad as a Persian.”

“Yes I am!”

The voice said, “You’re not. Truth be told, it’s just a ghost. The ghost of me, your poor dead maidservant. I was killed by a witch’s plague, isn’t that an irony?”

Phaedra was confused. “A ghost only speaks in love.”

“Yes! I do! And all those horrible suicidal thoughts in your head were put there just now by an evil spell.”

Phaedra sniffled. “You lie! You lie to trick me! By the gods I really did have those horrible things happen to me as a child and nobody can take the horror away from me!”

Circe’s voice said, “Oh now don’t have me crucified. Calm down.”

“It was horrible!”

“The spell just gave them an emotion that is too strong.”

Phaedra insisted, “I
did
fall down the stairs at the temple school and spilled my lamp of sacred oil, and it was awful! The oil stain stayed on those steps for years so everyone could talk about what I’d done. But Mother never knew. She could care less! I was abandoned at that school. While Father was always in Spain to get more olives to sell, Mother wanted me away so she could live like a mad whore. That was my childhood. Worthless. I was in the way. I wasn’t wanted! I am nothing! Most the girls at that school were orphans. Everybody thought I was one of the orphans!” She sobbed.

“That is terrible indeed but not enough so you should kill yourself
now
for it. When you go back to Rome go visit her and make up with her.”

“She was murdered. How do you think I got all my money and gold jewelry? Most of it came from her. And then I lost it all at sea. I have nothing.” Phaedra blinked tears. “Circe? Is that really you?”

“Yes. My ghost on the wind, anyway. You know I’m dead and that’s not ever going to change.”

Phaedra asked, “The dead can come back?”

Circe’s voice answered, “Somewhat. In several ways, yes the dead can. But not for long. As the sun is your clock, the moon is ours. At some hour we must go on to the underworld to meet Isis. It’s not your time to die. Get down from there.”

Phaedra moaned, “I have no home.”

Circe said, “That’s what makes you a real witch. Even in Rome, even in the temple, you felt like an outsider. You never felt like you had a place to sit that was all yours. You are the element of earth and yet you always feel ungrounded. You are weird.”

“Yes, I feel better now.”

“That’s because I’m hugging you now.”

“Is that what that is?”

“I came in love. Now get back down on the ground. You don’t belong up here.”   

Phaedra tried to unknot the scarf but it was stuck. The chair shook beneath her feet all by itself until it flipped away. Phaedra hung by her neck.

Circe cried, “No!”

The scarf burst into flames and Phaedra fell to the floor.

A hidden door that was disguised in the square Greek designs on the wall opened by itself. Circe’s voice echoed softly, “Hurry! Get out of here!”

Phaedra stood, coughing and rubbing her sore neck.

Sorceress Thrace ran down a palace corridor with a glowing hot knife. Fire shot from its blade.

Circe warne
d
Phaedra, “To escape Ptolemy and the burning eyes of his witch, get lost in the streets of the city.”

Phaedra argued, “All the doors to the palace are guarded.”

“This door will take you out a secret passage to the stables. You will come up out of one of the hay chutes.” 

Sorceress Thrace ran into the room but it was empty and the secret door was closed. She furiously cursed. She glared at the secret passage door and walked to it. A jug of water knocked over and splashed across the floor putting a large puddle in the way. Sorceress Thrace slipped in it and after she got back to her feet she saw that her wet palms and knees had wrinkled. She cursed angrily again and ran back to her magic fire.

~

Sitting behind their plates of food on a dais at a loud festive palace banquet, Mark took a gulp of wine then turned to Cleopatra. He asked her, “Say something funny. You used to be so funny when you were with Caesar.”

“I’m not with Caesar… and I’m tired… so why bother.”

“You can only be funny for Caesar?”

Cleopatra gave a sad nod. “That was what he required.”

Mark thumped his chest. “And now that is what I require!”

She shook her head. “No, what you require is that everybody finds you desirable. So I remember to look at you now and again and linger my gaze long enough.”

Mark frowned. “Must you be cruel?”

“I apologize. I am
so
tired.”

He took another gulp of wine. “You need to enjoy your victory.” 

Cleopatra asked, “Where’s Phaedra?”

Mark looked around. “If you don’t know where she is, why should I?”

Cleopatra assumed, “I thought you were friends.”

“I guess she ended up being Octavian’s friend. But I have a lot of friends, too.”

Cleopatra rubbed her forehead. “I’m feeling unwell and I want her. She might have some healing spells.”

Mark ordered, “Eat something. Just relax and eat something. You won. Now you get to feast and enjoy being the queen again. When was the last time you heard such music and saw such dancing? That’s how it should be.”

“I’m too unwell this hour. I’ll just sit until I can slip away and find my witch.”

“Alexandria has doctors.”

Cleopatra gently poked at her eyes, trying not to disturb her dramatic black makeup. “I’ve never felt this way before. My bones hurt. I’m so tired.” She thought about how she was dressed up like a peacock—they were to symbolize flesh that never decays. She thought that through all her perfume she could smell decay. 

“You’re just nervous and upset.”

“That’s not it. I’m the queen of Egypt. It’s my job to be nervous and upset, regardless, anyway, all the time.”

Mark ate an oyster. “I’ll send doctors to you nevertheless.”

Cleopatra asked, “I want a healing witch. When was Phaedra last seen?”

Mark scanned the crowd again. “I wouldn’t know that.”