“You were born to make beauty in the slaughterhouse of the world. You were born to toil. You were born to love. Offer yourself up to the light of the golden eye of the sun, to the silver mouth of the moon, to the gods and goddesses of love. The god and goddess reside within, but do not forget them in others. Gather your passions like precious gems, polish and refine them and give them to the world. Loss is inevitable, but do not fear it. It is the corpse without its stomach, intestines, lungs, and liver. But these organs wait in canopic jars to be reclaimed in the afterlife. Only the heart remains. It is the hope that allows light and love to flood and enter the void. Live with hope, with imagination and purpose.

“Osiris said, ‘I have been imperfect. I have overlooked the goddess in my home. I have been lustful and full of fear. I have been ignorant. I have neglected the earth, I have neglected my beloved, and I have neglected myself. I have forgotten to kiss the dough and honey from my loved one’s fingers, kiss her lips and hair in the blue dawn. I have listened to death singing in the courtyard and longed to go to her—lusted for her like a lover.’

“‘See me,’” Jeb continued. “‘I am Osiris, imperfect, but bringing light to the darkness, bringing water back to the desert. I am Osiris seduced by a sibyl-sister, night lady with her eyes like a panther’s, her lips smeared in ox blood, her cloven hooves. I am Osiris rendered by a brother with his terrible snout, his self-mutilations blamed on the gods. I am Osiris, gathered up by a sorceress wife, with her eyes like grapes, her mouth like a pomegranate, her hair like a falcon’s wings, her sex like a fig, her skin redolent of hyacinth, of olives and honey. I am Osiris resurrected by a son with the head of a hawk. He will be raped, his eyes plucked out by his murderous demon uncle. Everything that is lost returns. I have shed my skin and bones like a cloak of rags, but my heart remains intact like a lotus beating in a jar. I will return. I will return.’”

Izzy tried to speak but found she could not.

“Don’t be afraid,” Sky said, coming into Izzy’s line of vision, leaning forward. “Every act of creation requires sacrifice. Art, sex, they all require giving up something of the body, of the self. Again and again the god is sacrificed so that he may arise again.” She wore a long white dress, cut low to reveal her collarbones and a necklace of carnelian, lapis, and gold. Gold and glass bracelets chimed at her wrists. “I want to help you,” Sky said.

“Help,” Izzy managed.

“All that matters is that you are here now.”

Izzy kept trying and trying to speak.