The Jinn Daughter, page 3
Layala has been planting more, buying seedlings from the market and growing on every inch of earth she can around the house. I smile as a memory washes over me.
“What is your favorite color, Layaloon?”
She was three, almost four years old, and she was always playing in the dirt, in the grass, whispering to the wildflowers growing between our home and the woods.
“Green, maman,” she said, laughing, one tooth in the front loose. “Green like the grass.”
“Green?” I repeat, picking her up and throwing her up in the air. “Not blue like the sky? Or yellow like the sun?”
“Maman!” she giggled. “Green, green, green! Green because I made the grass go brown to green,” she said in her high child’s voice.
I set her down, my blood running cold. “What do you mean Layl? Brown to green?”
She takes my hand in her tiny one and leads me to a patch of dry grass under the shade of a tall and wide tree. She points at a tiny spot of green in the middle of all that brown. “Green,” she says. “I made it green.”
“What is it, kushtbani?” I use her father’s nickname for her: thimble. She was so tiny when she was born, she could fit into the palm of his hand if curled up.
“Nothing, maman,” she says with a sigh. “I just … I want to tell you something, but not now.”
She looks at me with her wide, dark eyes, eyelashes fringing them like tassels on a curtain.
“Tell me when you’re ready, kushtbani. I can wait.”
My heart aches at her beauty as she smiles at me. She doesn’t see it yet, but under those baby cheeks are a grown woman’s bones.
She pushes back her chair and steps over to her cot, and though she is just feet away from me, I’ve never felt further from my child. There are too many lies between us, and I must do something about it.
Night falls, and the next morning comes angry, with rain pelting the window, the wind howling through the trees.
I dash outside, gathering as many seeds as I can. Layala helps, grabbing handfuls of pomegranate and dirt and grass and shoving them into the basket. We run back inside, laughing at the downpour as we peel off our sodden clothing.
“I’ll get the fire going, maman.”
I sit down and sift through the seeds, setting aside the clumps of grass Layala grabbed. I juice the seeds, taking a sip to taste the mood. A sense of sadness washes over me, and I swallow the urge to cry.
“Is everything fine, maman?”
I nod, reaching for a lemon.
“Ah,” Layl says. “It’s sad seeds.”
“Very,” I say, squeezing the lemon into the juice and stirring. The sourness of the lemon masks the sadness of the souls, enough that I can drink without sobbing.
The stories shove around in my mind, snatches of sound, morsels of flavor. I get the whiff of warm cinnamon, the taste of cardamom in rice. The feel of a baby’s skin, the weight of a warm fur around a neck on a cold winter day.
The stories clamor for my attention, each one trying to be the next that gets written. Souls can be impatient, eager to move on. Eager to have their tale written to pay Mote, the final gatekeeper of death.
I try my best, the ache in my bones growing and the din in my head rising. A headache is coming on.
I sense Layala near me, then feel the press of a cloth to my nose. I must be bleeding again, the strain of storytelling too much.
“Maman,” she says, her voice sounding far away. “Take a break. The dead can wait.”
“No rest for the dead,” I insist, barely aware of what I’m saying. “No rest for the weary.”
A story floats toward me. I feel its incessant nagging, a whining sound that builds in my ears like the church bell in town on a Sunday morning.
A young man spent his days drinking and casting lots at the gambling tables. Every morning, he stumbled home and his poor father helped him to bed. The son would have vomit encrusted in his clothes, and his hair would be covered in sweat and dirt.
Fed up with his son, one day, the father tells him, “Ibni,”—my son—“how about you spend just this one night without getting sakran? Spend one night without drink.”
The son laughs, then says to his father, “Baba, for you, I will do as you say. Just this one night.”
The father considers this. “Come,” he says. “Take me to the place you like the most for drink. We will watch, and I will show you what I see.”
The two go to the son’s favorite tavern and walk inside. Men sit in chairs, slumped over from drink or arguing with each other in slurred words.
The son glances around and spots his friends, but he keeps to the shadows, watching them instead.
“See?” says the father. “This is what I see when you are sakran: a foolish man who can’t even string two sensible words together and who stumbles around like a babe just learning to walk.”
They stay another hour, when the drunken men begin fighting over quibbles or vomiting over each other. The son is disgusted and turns his face away from the tavern.
“Baba,” he admits, “you are right. I will mend my ways immediately.”
But his father is not so easily placated. “Ibni,” he says, “do one more thing for me. Go, go find the King of Gamblers, and see how he lives.”
The son grins and seeks out this King. He searches through villages and towns, asking for where the King of Gamblers resides.
The first old man he meets tells him to seek a shaman in the village over. He will know where the King is.
The son goes to the shaman, who tells him to seek an old goatherd who dwells in the valley. The son finds the goatherd, who tells him to find the medicine woman who lives in the forest.
The son finds the medicine woman, who tells him, “Ah, ibni, I know the one you seek. He is my brother, and he lives just up that mountain.” She points at the mountain in the distance. “Climb the mountain, and there you will find the King of Gamblers.”
The son spends days reaching the mountain. And more days climbing it. He stops at the first person he sees.
It is an old man with skin like leather and teeth stained with tobacco.
“I want to meet the King of Gamblers,” the son says.
The man looks at him and invites him into the simple tent he lives in. The son enters, finding a threadbare carpet laid on the ground and a rolled mat in the corner. There is no food but a bit of bread with green mold, and nothing to drink but a pot of tea.
The old man offers his food and drink, but the son refuses and offers his own food instead.
The man tears greedily into the dried meats and figs the son has with him, then leans back to watch him.
Then he says, “Why do you seek the King of Gamblers?”
“My father, he told me to search for him.”
“Ah,” the old man says. “Well, you have found him.”
The son flicks his eyes around him. The palace he expected to find is but a tattered tent. The riches, the women, the feasts he sought—he found none.
“Now I know why my father told me to find you,” the son says. “For the King of Gamblers is no king at all.”
I write the story and, as the last word is set, the soul snatches its tale and I am left with just the sour taste of the lemons.
Just as I turn to my daughter, an angry knock sounds at the door. We never have visitors.
I want to ignore the door and keep the curtains closed tight, but the knocking continues.
“Get behind me,” I tell her as I slip out of my chair and grab a wooden spoon from the table.
The knocks are angrier, and so are the voices behind the door.
“Open, Hakawati!”
“Layl, go through the roof,” I say, meaning the short ladder that leads to the flat top of our cottage.
“No, maman.”
This is no time for defiance, but I don’t have a chance to say anything before the door is kicked in and three men enter.
“Hakawati,” the first man says. “We’ve come for you and that ill-borne girl of yours.”
5
The men grab me, pulling at my arms.
Layala’s scream fills my head, and I spin around, kicking the man holding me.
“You let go of my child!” I yell and shove my way like a bull toward the man roughly handling her. He lets go, startled, and I push my body between him and Layl’s.
“Get out of my house,” I demand with as thunderous a voice as I can summon.
“Your girl threw animal shit at my boy,” the first man says.
“Your boy bothered my girl in the marketplace,” I reply. “She had every right.”
“Your kind is long gone, jinn,” the second man, the one who grabbed Layl, says. “We imprisoned your kind, killed your kind, and we can do the same with you.” He pulls a necklace from under his tunic and dangles it before me. It’s a small lamp, topped with a golden lid. “A jinn is stuck in here. This could be you, too. Only Sheikh Hamadi’s word keeps us from slitting your throats.”
“You’re going to regret not raising that girl of yours to show more respect!” the third intruder snaps.
I spit in his face then. He wipes the dribble away with his sleeve and snarls at me. “You will pay for this, jinn. You and your child!” He points a finger at Layala, and I resist the urge to bite his finger off.
“Leave,” I say, my voice a bit shaky. “And don’t return. You’re not welcome here.”
“You won’t be welcome here much longer,” the third man says. “Not if we have any say in it.”
“Without me, your land will be overrun with ghouls!” I say. “Without me, ghouls would snatch your children in the night, tear them limb by limb, and leave their bodies behind for the vultures. Is that what you want? Is it?” My voice is hoarse now, and one of the men’s faces is drained of color.
“There are other hakawati jinn,” the first man says. “You’re not the only one. We could drag another from the ends of the earth and let them manage our dead souls here. And perhaps,” he says, leaning closer to me, “perhaps these stories of ghouls are nothing but stories, stories you’ve woven to keep us from slipping into your home at night and ridding us of you.”
I blanch at the thought, but keep my chin held high. “My bloodline has long been killed off. I’m the last one on this side of the ocean. And the ghouls are as real as the blood in your veins and the lungs in your chest.”
“Then fulfill your role, Hakawati. There has been talk of a creature entering town. Stories are brewing that it could be a ghoul. Could be nothing but imagination, but if it is real, if ghouls are real, then do your job, Hakawati. Or we will find another who will.”
The man holds my stare, then flicks his eyes over to Layala, who is just behind me.
I wave a wooden spoon in their faces, threatening to slap them with it. They laugh but they leave, and that is all I want.
Without thinking, I run outside, wooden spoon still in hand. “Never return here again!” I shriek. “If you do, I will turn you into clay, and I will smash you into pieces as fine as dust. And then I will scatter your dust to the wind.”
The men stare at me, and one of them makes as if to grab me. But I slap him away with my spoon.
“Go!” I scream. “The sheikh will hear of this. You threatened his granddaughter; he will not take kindly to that.”
They run off, and I turn back to my home, to Layala.
But when I step inside, she is not alone.
A woman stands before her, dressed in red, with a black sash tight around her slim waist. Her hair is long and wild, flowing down her back in twisting tendrils. She is bent over Layl, who’s sitting in a chair, staring up at the woman with wide, dark eyes.
“Move away from my child,” I say.
The woman turns around, a smile on her face. “Hakawati,” she says, “it’s been a while. I was just telling your daughter about—”
“Leave,” I interrupt.
The woman shrugs and glances back to Layala. “You think about what I said, girl. And let me know—”
“Leave!” I yell, and the woman faces me once more.
“You should get that door fixed, you know,” she says as she shoves past me. “Who knows what depraved soul could enter your home.”
I watch her red back fade down the path away from our home before I confront Layl.
“What did she say?” I ask.
But Layala shakes her head. “I … let’s fix the door, maman. It’s cold.”
The door hangs crookedly on its hinges, and the rain gusts in heavier now, water splashing into the house, seeping into the wood floor.
“Come, Layl,” I say, knowing Layala is right. “Help me hang a curtain to keep the rain and wind out.”
We take an old sheet and nail it above the doorway, blocking out some of the elements, but tonight, tonight we’ll sleep cold and wet.
“I’m sorry, maman!” Layala cries. “It’s my fault.”
“No, hiyati, none of this is your fault.” I wipe at her tears and move to spread some honey and cinnamon over a slice of bread.
“Eat this,” I tell her. “A little sugar makes everything sweeter.”
She smiles gratefully and bites off a piece, chewing it slowly.
I smile back at my child, but inside, my heart feels as heavy as a ship’s anchor. I want to sink into the earth and not rise. But this is not a luxury I have; no mother does.
Instead, I grab a paper and a pen, writing a note to Sheikh Hamadi, Layala’s grandfather.
“What are you writing?” she asks, looking over my shoulder.
She snatches at the sheet, crumbling it in her hand before flinging it into the fire. “No! I refuse to go live with jido. I won’t leave you, not with men banging on the door in the dead of night.”
“You must, kushtbani. It is safer at his house. He has stone walls and hired guards. He can keep you safe—”
“No.” Her face screws up the same way it was when she was born, angry and defiant. “What about you? Who will keep you safe, maman?”
“Layl,” I say, taking another sheet of paper. “It will only be for a short time, until those men have calmed down. Let the dust settle, and you can return. Besides, you love going to your jido’s,” I can’t help but add, noticing the sudden flush in her cheeks.
“Layl, I don’t know how long it will be, or how safe—”
“I don’t care! You can’t throw me aside at jido’s and expect me to stay there! You’ll come back and I’ll be married off to some old man and already be carrying his child.”
“Layl!”
“Maman!”
I sigh at the heavens and wish Illyas was here, a living man, a husband and a father. But he is not, and I’m the only parent around.
“Please, Layl,” I say. I hear the exhaustion weighing down my voice. “It’s only for a little while.”
“I’ll go for a few days only,” she states, wiping her sticky hands on a cloth. “But then I come back home.”
“You’ll return when the dust has settled. Now stop arguing with me and go pack your things.”
“You should come, too,” she suddenly adds. “To jido’s. He won’t say no. And the seeds will fall wherever you are.”
I wince at hearing another lie I told her when she was young. Maman, when I grow up, can we go somewhere far away? Somewhere near water?
Yes, hiyati, anywhere you want.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her we were tied to this house, to this village—the outskirts of it—because of me.
And the seeds, they will come with us?
Anywhere I go, they will fall. Don’t worry your head about it, hiyati.
The weight of all the small lies I told her over the years is burying me and, one day, it will crush me. It will be my fault.
“Come, Layala,” I say when she’s packed a meager bag of belongings. We dash out of the house into the pouring rain. Mud splatters up our legs, soaking through our boots.
“I miss the fire already,” she whines, the wind almost snatching away her words.
“You’ll have a greater fire at your jido’s, with servants and a cook to make you the best meals.”
“I prefer ours,” she says simply. “They use too much oil in their food, and the meats are always swimming in it.”
I can’t help it; I laugh at the look on her face. She blinks at me in confusion, but I don’t say anything as we race down the long path that meanders around the forest’s edge behind our home. It leads right into town, up to the empty market stalls.
Horse hoofprints are etched in the mud-soaked road, lines following behind them from the wagon they must have pulled shortly after the rains began. The market is empty, save for loose curtains billowing in the wind and the area’s single flickering gas lamp.
“I heard them say they wanted to put up another,” Layala says, pointing at it. “After that woman was attacked last month.”
“What woman?” I ask.
She bites her lip. “I thought you would have heard. I overheard some girls talking about it the other day. It was that maid—the tax collector’s—she said a ghoul or something like it attacked her. She had scratches down her arms and her face, and they said they found her bleeding in the road, shaking and mumbling about her soul being taken from her.”
Ghouls stealing souls? But the gate between death and life is strong, closed even. No ghouls should be getting out.
“Where is she now?”
Layala shrugs. “They sent her off to a head doctor, or so I heard.”
I think back to the moments after the men broke into our home, the moments I left Layala alone. “Tell me what that woman told you,” I say.
Surprise lights Layl’s face, streaked with rainwater. “Who is she, maman?”
“Someone I knew a long time ago. What did she say?”
“I didn’t understand, really. She asked me if I had magic and what I could do. If I was like you. And if I wanted to be like you. But maman, I thought you said I have no magic—”
“You don’t, Layl,” I interrupt, “and she has no right speaking to you.”
I want to say more, but when I look down the road, I see we’ve traveled further than I realized.
