The House of the Rising Sun

Chapter Thirty-Three: Where's Alexander?

Chapter Thirty-Three: Where’s Alexander?

Selene

About sixty days had passed since the death of my guardian and grandfather, Sosigenes. We, Amenemhet, Yocheved and I, continued to make funeral preparations. The Book of the Dead was copied for him and we had moved his belongings to his tomb.

And I had not seen Alexander once in all this time.

Needless to say, this worried me. Had something happened with his job back in Rome? Did Mark Antony not like the idea of us marrying, if he knew? So many things could be wrong, but for some reason…I trusted Alexander. I had a feeling that nothing could stop him from being with me. After spending a night with me, I could tell he was prepared to defend our relationship to anyone. Pharaoh couldn’t split us up. But still, I worried.

“Selene! Selene!”

I woke up from my reverie. I was sitting at the kitchen table drawing a picture on some old papyrus. I got up and answered the door.

“Amenemhet?” I said. He was panting very hard, his face was pale, and sweat lined his forehead. “Whoa, what’s wrong?”

He took a second to catch his breath. “Yocheved…she’s….she’s in…”

“Labor?” I finished, incredulous. He nodded, and I hugged him hard. “That’s great! Now what in the name of Isis are you doing here?!”

“I need your help!”

I didn’t second-guess him. I grabbed his wrist and ran out of there like Set was after us. Yocheved was having her baby! I couldn’t wait to see if she would bear a boy or a girl.

We ran through the streets like mad and made it to his neighborhood. When we reached his house, Amenemhet knocked once to signify that we were coming in and then threw open the door.    

“Yocheved it’s me!” he called. Then it was his turn to drag me, so he took my wrist and led me to his and Yocheved’s room. I could hear her cries, and Amenemhet pulled back the privacy curtain. We walked in the room and there was Yocheved on the ground and a midwife next to her. She gave us a look of annoyance, stood up, and swatted at Amen.

“Out! Out!” she said. She had an accent and light brown, messy, curly hair. Amen had a look of protest on his face, but he turned to leave, me following closely behind. “No,” said the midwife. “You stay.”

“Wha…?” I asked, but she grabbed my wrist and pulled me next to her.

“Se…Selene,” Yocheved said breathlessly.

“Yeah, I’m here,” I responded, and I moved her hair out of her face.

“I hear you helped Cleopatra birth the royal twins,” she managed to laugh.

“I did,” I said. “And I held the baby girl, Cleopatra Selene, in my own arms. She was beautiful.” I was trying to comfort her and tell her everything would be all right.

“Yocheved,” the midwife said in a commanding tone of voice. She then proceeded to give Yocheved what I guessed was a list of instructions in Hebrew.

“The baby is coming right now,” Yocheved whispered.

“You,” snapped the midwife to me. “Water.”

I nodded and rushed out of the room.

Amen was pacing back and fort by the room, and he looked up when he saw me leave.