The knife that cut my tongue was curled. Cut by the Nubians. After cutting off the sage, the ashes were used to stop the bleeding, and then they were thrown onto the solar boat and sold to the Pharaoh as a laundry slave.
They don't know that my sister was carried out of this palace three years ago with a hole in her stomach.
Pharaoh had a headache. The full moon was so painful that I couldn't kneel down. He locked me in a seven-story tower and came every night to listen to my breathing. He said the breath in my lungs could suppress the scorpions in his head.
I rummaged under the floor for three days and uncovered the third slab - nineteen broken nails. Each piece is engraved with words. The remaining piece belongs to my sister.
Three years later I came back wearing a veil. He sat in the medical office and rubbed his temples. I reached out to check his pulse, and he suddenly grabbed my wrist.
"The rhythm of your breathing," he raised his face, "is the same as that of the woman in the tower three years ago."
With my other hand, I had already put the needle on his Adam's apple.
"Pharaoh, the mark on your scepter is your sister's blood. You didn't wipe it off."
His fingers relaxed. I didn't let go.
This time, it was my turn to count his breaths.
The Nile does not support dumb people.
But under the palace of Thebes, there was a whole family of ghosts.
