After The Opening of the Mouth Ceremony, in which a blue faience vase shaped like a hieroglyph was used to pour liquid into King Tut’s orifice so that the god Ptah would help him breathe, eat, drink, and speak in the underworld, a miniature wooden boat would ferry the king to his destination—the eastern sky. The oars of the boat were the fingers of the god Horus, and the sail was Horus’s grandmother, the sky goddess, Nut.

Aurora turned her eyes from this. Nut. Sky. Aurora did not want to read her name.

The boat would take the deceased to the temple of Horus’s father, the great god Osiris’s temple.

Aurora did not want to read the forty-third spell from the Book of the Dead written on the museum wall for it commanded that the head of Osiris should not be taken from him and that the head of the deceased should similarly not be taken. The head was important to the Egyptians, second only to the heart, and must remain intact. Decapitation was considered the worst punishment. King Tut’s head had rested on a stand of blue faience like a piece of sculpture. In this way, his soul, his Ka, a bird with the king’s head, could fly to the land of the living each day and, at night, return to the mummy underground. Isis had restored Osiris’s head, put him back together again so he could return to her.

Keaton, continued to chortle-coo through all of this. He did not seem disturbed by the darkness or the objects looming out of it. If anything, he seemed comforted. And Jack still remained quiet.

But then Aurora saw the king.

He is made of wood, then gilded. His face is broad with eyes in the shape of fish. His features feminine, as is the shape of his body with the swelling chest, the narrow limbs, the forward-striding feet. He wears a high hat, pointed toward the heavens, a pleated, form-fitting kalasiris and sandals. He carries a crook. Here he is again, riding a black panther into the Netherworld. Here he is, colossal quartzite faintly traced with memories of turquoise-and-carnelian-colored paint, missing limbs but with a face of still-leonine beauty. Is he King Tut? Or is he something more? Is he the god, Osiris? Was this Tut’s tomb or Osiris’s sacred tomb?

“Osiris, Osiris,” a recorded voice whispered.

Only then, did both babies cry out.

Aurora had to leave this place. She could not breathe here. It might as well have been an actual tomb. But a tomb that promised no resurrection. Or, perhaps, endless resurrection at great cost.