The shabti

A short story

“Would you do anything for me?” 

“I love you. I would do anything.” 

“Anything?” 

“Name it, and it’ll be done.” 

One grey, drizzly morning of March, 1940, a large rickety van rolled onto the long, uphill driveway of Helsby Hall, the glazed gravel crunching beneath tired wheels that rolled along it. Mr Eckland, a greying man in his late forties, had asked to be wheeled to the front of the house where he waited to see the treasures that had been bestowed upon him for safekeeping. He waved to the driver of the van and the black car that followed it to the front of the great country house. Both vehicles parked up with the screeching of brakes and the ratcheting krrrrr of the handbrake finishing the job. 

Out of the black motorcar came Mr Richards, holding a cane. Injured during his army training, the young academic sought solace in his research, working for the World Museum in the city. Using the cane, Richards confidently strode over to Mr Eckland and held out a hand. “Mr Eckland! Thank you for waiting for us.” Eckland took the hand and shook it firmly. 

“It’s not a problem. We’ve cleared one of the rooms downstairs, just for the artefacts. My wife will show you where to go.” He turned to look behind him and found Felicity Eckland descending the front steps, her heeled shoes click-clacking on the sandstone beneath her dainty, shapely feet. For a brief moment, Mr Richards had to make an effort to close his mouth. She wore a figure-hugging knitted tank over a low-cut blouse. Her skirt, although coming down to just below the knee, showed off enough of her shapely, slim legs to draw his eyes. Without meaning to, he looked from husband to wife. There was a clear age difference, but he couldn’t tell what it was. Her face was timeless: beautiful.

“I’m Felicity,” she said, holding out a hand. He took it: it felt soft in his. 

“I’m Warren Richards. Thank you for both agreeing to take the artefacts.” 

“Oh, we didn’t,” she said with a slight curl on her carved lips. 

“Felicity was using the space as an art studio, Mr Richards,” her husband said with a patronising smirk. “I told her this was far more important than some sketches.” 

Mr Richards, feeling that he could have cut the air with a knife, pulled in a deep breath and said, “shall we?” 

“We’ll get out of your way,” Eckland said. “Fliss, take me inside please.” 

Dutifully, she grabbed the handles of his wheelchair and turned Eckland around, pushing him towards a paved path at the back of the house. Richards watched her struggle across the gravel and turned away reluctantly. 

“It’s a thing of beauty,” Eckland said as he admired the wooden sarcophagus in the middle of what was once the art studio. 

The tall, Georgian windows were open, allowing beams of mid-morning sunlight to warm the room. “There’s a bit too much light in here, but one would hope that it won’t be here for long,” Richards said.  

They were all silent for a moment. Felicity scanned the length of the painted coffin with her eyes. The sarcophagus’ wide, open face was slightly scratched across the eyes and nose, leaving only traces of heavily painted eyelids and rounded, smiling lips. 

“Who is this for?” she asked. 

“We’re not really certain, but it’s definitely for someone of noble birth, as it’s been painted with their likeness. There are some things in this box that were found in the same tomb…” he reached for the small wooden crate and unlocked it, “would you like to see them?” Felicity nodded, but not before shooting a glance in her husband’s direction. He nodded too. 

Inside the straw-padded box were a few stone jars lidded with various animal heads, and something that caught Felicity’s eye. “What’s that little one?” she asked. 

Richards carefully parted the jars and lifted the figurine out of the box. “Oh, I didn’t realise this was in here,” he said, frowning. Like the face of the sarcophagus, the visage of the figurine was slightly damaged, but it was the figure of a black-haired female, wrapped in the same linens as a mummy would have been. “This little thing is called a shabti, Mrs Eckland.” He held it up in the light. “This one is made of pottery, while a lot of the others we found are made of stone and wood. Rare. This one has even been painted. Whoever this belonged to, they wanted their shabti to be well presented in the afterlife.” 

“Why?” Felicity was like a child with her fascination for the little object. 

“Oh, well,” Mr Richards beamed, “the nobles who died… in life, they’d had slaves and servants. It was all they knew, and it was the same in the afterlife, you see. The ancient Egyptians believed that in the afterlife, everybody had to help with farming in order to stave off hunger and thirst. Nobles didn’t farm, so they had the shabti or ‘the answerer’ to do the work for them. The shabti was happy to. It was their purpose in the afterlife: to serve.” 

Eckland looked down at his disused legs. 

“That’s fascinating,” Felicity said. 

“If you’d like, you can keep this in a case. It doesn’t have to be locked away as long as it’s cared for.” He didn’t know why he had broken the rules for an undocumented artefact. The protocol was to add it to the catalogue immediately, but he was overcome with the desire to please her. “I have a case in the van, actually.”

Felicity’s eyes lit up. She looked at her husband who remained stony faced. “What do you think about that, Frank?” 

“As long as the children don’t touch it,” he said, gruffly. 

“You have children?” Mr Richards couldn’t mask his surprise. The house was silent. Eckland eyed him scornfully as Mrs Eckland blushed. 

She waved a hand. “Evacuees, from the city. They’re not ours.” She tugged at the bottom of her top. “We don’t… we weren’t blessed with children.” Felicity added quietly. “We can give these ones back, so that’s a bonus.” She smiled. Richards caught on and laughed. 

“It is. Well, I’d better be getting back. The museum is almost empty.” 

“How could they do such a thing, bombing these wonderful things?” Felicity asked, shaking her ringleted head. 

“They’d bomb people too, you know,” Eckland said. 

“Of course. I just mean… oh never mind.” 

“It’s just a precaution, Mrs Eckland. It may not even come to that. The war could be over in a month, for all we know,” said Richards. 

“Let’s hope so,” she said with a coquettish smile. 

Richards made his farewells and waved goodbye to man and wife as they watched from the steps of the old house. He looked away, thinking of Felicity Eckland for only a moment before something else caught his eye. Coming down the driveway, he passed a beautiful young woman, with caramel skin and rounded, black eyes. Her braided hair hung down to her petite waist, revealing full, curved hips that her dress outlined perfectly. As though she knew he was looking, the girl smiled flirtatiously and gently waved as he passed. He caught the rest of her in the rear-view mirror and regretted having left so soon. 

---

“Frank, I’ve finally found some help for Mrs Carter…” Felicity blushed and turned back to look at the girl. “I’m so sorry– it was Femi, wasn’t it?” 

“Femi, yes,” she said with a thick mediterranean accent that Felicity couldn’t place. Just as she was about to ask Femi where she came from, Felicity stopped and felt her face redden. Her husband was staring at the young woman with hunger in his eyes that she’d never seen when he looked at her. 

“Femi will be working for us, seen as nobody else applied,” she said, turning on her heel. “Femi, come with me so I can show you where everything is.” She sounded more curt than she had meant to, but she didn’t apologise and led the girl out into the rest of the house. 

Frank watched longingly as she left the room, inhaling the remains of her scent as it lingered. 

“I’m glad you’re here, Femi,” Felicity said, softening. “Mrs Carter hadn’t meant to get so old, but it was near impossible with just Mrs Carter in the middle of a war with the children here also. I almost gave up hope.” 

“I understand, Mrs Eckland. How do you say? ‘I am sorry for this.’ I do not know.” 

“Sorry for your loss, you mean?” 

Femi nodded with a wide, beautiful smile.

“Oh she hasn’t died, dear– she just needs a hand around the house.” Felicity could hardly be angry about the girl’s beauty. She was a ray of sunshine in an otherwise gloomy old house. Femi was exotic and proportioned like a sculpture: Felicity was tall and thin. “There are extra mouths to feed now. Do you like children, Femi?” 

“Children?” 

“Yes, children. Little people. Kids?” Felicity pointed at the brown-haired children playing outside on the lawn. Frank didn’t like them trampling on the grass, but Felicity didn’t care. She was glad to have the company. 

“Kids, yes.” Femi nodded. 

“That one– the girl– that’s Pauline, and she’s seven. The boy is George, and he’s six.” 

“Pauline. George.” Femi nodded. 

“They’re a bit rough around the edges, but you’ll get used to them, I’m sure.” 

Femi lingered at the window, watching them play with her head cocked. Felicity, wanting to move on, coughed politely. “Well, let’s go and find Mrs Carter, shall we? I’m sure she’ll love you.” 

---

Two days later, some time after the makeshift family had eaten their dinner in dim, war-induced candlelight, Mrs Carter silently shuffled into the dining room to clear away the plates. The children had been sent upstairs to wash. Felicity folded her napkin and stood up. “I’ll run the bath, Frank.” 

“That won’t be necessary,” he said flatly as he drained the remainder of his beer. “Femi will do it.” 

Before Felicity could object, Femi, as though she had heard her name, sailed into the room and reached for the handles of Frank’s wheelchair. “Thank you, Femi,” was all she could think to say. Mr Eckland’s personal care had not been included in Femi’s duties, but Felicity wasn’t about to fight over a job she hated doing. “He’s all yours.” She quickly went upstairs and lingered in the shadows, waiting for them to pass the staircase. The sound of Femi’s velvety laugh made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She edged closer to the wall, so they wouldn’t see. 

“You make me feel young again,” she heard Frank say softly as she pushed him to his room. Felicity twitched, watching their shadows growing smaller until the light of Frank’s downstairs bedroom faded away with the closing of his door. 

Before she could listen any more, the bedroom door behind her opened with a resounding bang, followed immediately by George saying, “What are yer doin’ in the dark Missus Fliss?” Felicity, since meeting the boy, had decided he was in need of a volume dial as standard but on that night, his voice seemed to bounce off the panelled walls with panache. 

“George!” she gasped as she held her chest. “You gave me a start. I came to read to you.”

“Why din’ yer just come in?” The little boy asked with a face scrunched up in bafflement. 

“Shhh, come along now. Time for a story.” 

---

The following morning, Felicity sat across from the children at the kitchen table watching the clock. She had knocked on her husband’s bedroom door on her way down, but he hadn’t answered. He had a bell to ring if he needed her, so she decided to leave him be. By nine o’ clock, Felicity saw Femi enter the kitchen, arrange a tray of breakfast items and leave again without saying a word to anyone. The girl’s wavy, chocolate hair had been loosely flowing down to her waist as she hovered over the fruit bowl and the bread items. Felicity watched a slender, feminine hand grab an apple and gracefully take it away. She smelled of her usual floral perfume– the one that infuriated Felicity and intoxicated Frank. Stalking her from the doorway of the kitchen, she spied the girl hurrying into Frank’s room, closing the door behind her. Gripped by curiosity and unable to stop herself, she followed without a sound and leaned in to listen behind the door. The voices were muffled, but she felt that any sentient creature could feel the tone of the words. They were lovers, and she couldn’t do anything about it. 

---

“That’s the shabti, George– careful with it.” Felicity took it from the boy’s hands gently. Her red nail polish gleamed in the candlelight as she handled it carefully within her slim white fingers. 

“What’s it for?” asked George.

“It’s a servant, of sorts. The Egyptians believed that in the afterworld, there were endless fields of crops and some labour was required to harvest those crops.” She tried to remember the words of the lovely Warren Richards. “The wealthier members of society were buried with one of these,” she held up the little figure and gently turned it in the candlelight, “to do the work for them.” The children studied it for a moment. 

“What if they didn’t want to go?” asked Pauline. Mrs Eckland rolled her eyes slightly and scoffed. 

“There was no say in the matter, you know. It was just… what they did.” Felicity placed the shabti back in the glass case and locked it with the little key that Mr Richards had entrusted her with. She placed it in her pocket. 

The children shuffled around on the rug in front of the fire. Pauline stretched her bare legs out in front of her and yawned as Felicity said, “it’s time for bed, anyway,” clapping her hands together. “We’ve work to do in the morning. I’m sure your mother will want you to write her a letter.” 

She escorted the children to the foot of the staircase and said goodnight. They went to their bedroom without a word, closing the door behind them. Felicity Eckland smiled. It had been a good day. The silence of the large, ornate hall was comforting, until she heard whispers coming from her husband’s room. She removed her shoes quietly and crept to the room behind the staircase. The door was ajar. 

She overheard her husband talking earnestly again. Felicity dared to edge closer, bringing her eye to the gap in the door. Much to her disappointment, the man speaking softly was Frank, and he was still fawning over the girl. He was sitting on the bed half dressed, talking to someone on the other side of the room. She hoped it wasn’t Femi. Felicity held her breath and listened. 

“Would you do anything for me?” It was Femi, speaking English without any pauses this time. Felicity moved over to see if she could see Femi’s reflection in the mirror by the bed. She could. Femi was standing by the window, undressing. Felicity stifled a gasp. 

“I love you. I would do anything.” His words struck her, knocking the breath out of her lungs, flattening what was left of them. Still, she couldn’t back away. 

“Anything?” 

“Name it, and it’ll be done.”

“I want you to get rid of her so we can be together… forever.” 

Felicity crept away from the door, covering her mouth. She rushed to where her shoes were and scooped them up. She waited until she had returned to the sitting room to put them back on and walked back into the hall, her heels clicking against the polished wood flooring. Straightening and clearing her throat, she stopped halfway between the foot of the stairs and her husband’s room. “Frank, I’m going to bed now. Do you need any help?” 

There was a long, agonising silence before she heard him speak. “No, thank you. I’ll see you in the morning.” The door slammed shut.  

Felicity blew the candles out, grabbed a knife from the kitchen and went to bed, locking the nursery door before locking her own. 

---

The following morning, the children woke to find Felicity already up and about. She had laid their clothes out on the bed and asked them to wash before breakfast. They rolled out of bed with hair on end and blurry eyes, but did as they were told. The children liked her, and she liked them. Like her, they didn’t like Frank. His perpetual glumness permeated like damp on the walls; they thought best to avoid him as much as possible, for the sake of their happiness and health. 

At breakfast, Mrs Carter had laid out boiled eggs and toast for everyone. Felicity poured tea from the pot and passed a cup each to George and Pauline, who were fighting over the sugar bowl. She almost scalded her mouth on her own cup when Femi walked into the kitchen. “Is that my barrette?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at the twinkling flower in Femi’s sleek, midnight hair. 

“I said she could have it,” said her husband. Frank, to his wife’s amazement, walked into the kitchen unaided. Felicity’s heart stopped. Mrs Carter, after doing a double take, also stopped what she was doing and dropped the crockery into the sink, her mouth agape. As though the knife hadn’t gone in far enough, Felicity watched her husband slip his arm around the girl’s waist. “Femi can have whatever she wants.” 

“Frank, you’re walking! What—?”

“It’s a miracle, isn’t it?” he said with a smile on his face that was so rare it seemed unnatural. “It must be the power of love.” He leaned in and kissed Femi on the cheek. She looked directly at Felicity with her sweet, charming smile. “Anyway, we’re off out for the day. See you later.” 

Felicity watched the wheels spin and roll away from the kitchen window. All she could do was watch. 

The headlights of the car flickered through the slits in the curtains, breaking Felicity’s evening meditation. She had waited in her unlit bedroom, ruminating. As soon as she heard the familiar screech of brakes and the slamming of car doors, she decided to wait for the offenders in the hallway. 

“Is it a divorce you want?” she asked as Frank came into the hall, still in his hat and jacket. Surprised by her presence, he stared at her for a moment before she continued. “I heard you talking. You said you would get rid of me—” She sensed something wasn’t right. “Frank… where is Femi?” He did not take his eyes off her. “Frank?” 

The sensation of liquid running down her shoulder came first, then the sting of punctured flesh, forcing her to the floor. Felicity cried out and turned around to find Femi holding the knife. “You must do it now, my love.” Femi’s eyes were unnaturally bright, glowing in the gloom. Felicity looked up at her husband, who was holding a gun. 

“Frank?” she asked, pressing down on her wound with her hand. Blood trickled onto the floor as Felicity pressed as hard as she could. Frank’s hands were shaking. 

“Say the words, Frank. She will be gone forever, taking my place. Say them, and we can be together, forever.” 

Frank didn’t get the chance to speak. Femi let out a monstrous scream as her hands started to fade, dissolving into a black hole behind her. Frank, dropping the gun, ran to her and held what remained. “Femi!” he cried, holding her tightly. Felicity covered her eyes from the blinding storm before her as she heard them both scream. When she dared to peek through the gaps in her bloodied fingers, she saw the lovers fading, shrinking, sinking into nothing until she was the last person remaining in the hall. She looked around, bewildered. Her wound had gone, as had the blood on her hands. 

“Missus Fliss,” came a voice from the sitting room. It was George, looking sheepish. He brought his hands out from behind his back. “I know you said be careful. I’m sorry.”

Felicity’s eyes narrowed, surveying the pieces of pottery in his hands. After observing a minute or so of silence from Mrs Eckland, the boy jumped when she started to laugh uncontrollably, kissing his cheeks and squeezing him tightly, with tears in her eyes. “Thank you, George!” She lay on the floor and wept. The shabti had been smashed in two.