Chapter 1 #2
Not any boy—he's the messenger who spoke with Ghita.
He has earthy-brown skin, languid eyes, and dark curly hair trimmed in straight lines that make his ears stick out.
His nose is long and wide, and his impossibly full lips remind Shay of rose petals, bringing her thoughts back around to thorns.
She twists the scarf in her hands before remembering to answer his question.
“Yes, khoya.” She clears her throat of a flutter, which annoyingly migrates to her belly. “I wish for a quiet place to perform the dawn prayer. Could you direct me to the servant's gardens?”
“I shall take you,” he offers with more enthusiasm than necessary.
“Oh … I would hate to be a bother.” Shay shakes her head with an equally excessive amount of … whatever the opposite of enthusiasm is.
“No bother. I'm on my way to do the same.” The boy smiles, showing the small gap between his teeth. Though Shay is positive they've never met, his smile has the strangely familiar quality of a place she remembers, if only from a dream. “Follow me.”
Shay returns his smile with a tight grin. It seems a moment alone to calm her nerves is too much to hope for, and if some part of her finds the idea of his company less than disagreeable, that makes him all the more frustrating. “Thank you, khoya.”
The boy walks left, slowly at first before falling into pace with Shay. The clack of their wooden soles meld into a singular rhythm against the smooth marble of the gleaming floor. “My name is Shadi.”
“I'm Shuika,” Shay responds automatically. Her regret is immediate. She waits for the quizzical look she's come to expect.
To her surprise, he merely repeats it. “Shuika.”
Her name sounds more beautiful from his lips than it has any right to. A thorn, indeed. After all, wasn't her first act in life that of drawing blood? She drained the last bits of her addicted mother's magic into her infant body, ensuring her own survival and her mother's untimely demise.
“Call me Shay,” she mutters, the flutter that previously occupied her throat replaced with a jagged lump.
“Look at that!” Shadi claps his hands excitedly. “We alliterate. Why, we're practically name twins!”
“Hmm.” Shay focuses on counting the number of wall lanterns between each turn. She commits them to memory so as to find her way back later—alone.
Shadi leads her downstairs, through a kitchen where women are working wrist-deep in dough and fires glow from not one but four ovens, and out a set of wooden doors into the crisp of late harvest season.
They cross a wide terrace made of bright zellij tiles placed in geometric patterns and arrive at a stretch of low grass.
Between fragrant shrubs and succulents that grow from clay pots and raised beds and ceramic benches thoughtfully arranged beneath the shade of wide-leafed laurels, Shay can hardly imagine how grand the sidi and sayeda's private gardens must be.
The sky holds a cobalt glow Shay would describe as the color of magic, but not the kind forbidden by Al-Mukhtar. Not a magic drawn from Snow or passed through tainted blood. Just a stroke of good fortune that comes to those who have wished for something for a very long time.
She inhales the brisk air, not yet cold enough to irritate her delicate lungs, and notices the thin shift and loose trousers that identify Shadi as a servant. Her own woolen shawl feels suddenly heavy.
“Thank you for assisting me, khoya.” Shay presses her hand to her chest and dips her head. “But now that I know the way, you are free to offer your prayers indoors.”
“Do you see me shiver?” Amusement tweaks Shadi's lips at the corners.
“My ancestors hail from Umm Chanala, home of the eternal resting season, which basically makes me part mountain goat and immune to the most extreme temperatures.
Besides, nothing is better for the spirit than praying in nature.
Come, you'll see.” Over his shoulder, he adds, “And call me Shadi.”
He disappears behind a screen of pink-flowered oleander, leaving her no choice but to follow.
Shay finds him bent over an ovular fountain made of shiny brass, washing his feet and hands.
She removes her leather slippers and does the same.
The cool water makes her skin pop out in goose bumps.
After, she wraps her scarf over her hair and begins to untie her shawl to use as a mat.
Shadi holds up a hand to stop her. From a straw basket tucked against the base of a tamarisk tree, he shakes out two soft-worn rugs and lays them facing the holy city of Kiddah.
Shadi's voice falls easily into the Old Tongue.
The sacred words ring musically in Shay's ears, lulling her into a trancelike space where she's temporarily freed from life's pressures.
The constant weight of earning Ghita's approval.
The deeper undefined ache that permeates her existence.
She finds she agrees with Shadi's sentiment; praying on the ground feels better than a floor.
As though the grass and trees and even the breeze that gently tugs her skirt are joining them in worship.
She's still kneeling in supplication when the rise and fall of laughter filters through the shrubbery. The volley of chatter continues as she and Shadi fold and put away their rugs. The meaningless hum of words slide past her ears like wind until the familiar sound of her name makes her jolt.
If her name were less uncommon, she might brush it off. It's not her habit to listen in on other people's conversations. She has never been one to partake in idle gossip. And she certainly has never done anything so noteworthy as to be the subject of it.
Shay's frequent illnesses prohibit her from most social events, and her dedication to her apprenticeship leaves her little time for leisure. If her lack of friends ever bothers her, she consoles herself that it makes her damning secret easier to conceal.
Shay's curiosity tumbles toward mortification as the topic of discussion becomes clear. Someone who was at the birth is recounting to the others how the baby's outcome had teetered in the balance, the way Shay faltered in those critical moments, freezing up.
“It borders on incompetence if you ask me,” the tale-teller huffs. “And as someone who plans to have a large family, I find it concerning.”
“A large family?” A new voice interjects. “You can't even keep a houseplant alive.”
“Rude,” the original speaker grunts. “And entirely beside my point.”
“Well, I feel bad for her,” another voice says. “I imagine her studies are rigorous. The few times our paths have crossed, she always looks exhausted, like she's been up all night. And I heard she was orphaned as a baby. So sad.”
“Also, beside the point. Now, you all know I'm not a harsh judge of character”—the first person pauses when someone snickers in response to this assertion, likely to glare at them—”but it's enough to make me seriously consider binding my own stomach and birthing my future children with my legs propped to the wall.”
Shay's gut twists, heat scorching the tips of her ears. She might lack Ghita's wealth of experience, but she's not incompetent. It's this day that has her turned inside out. Every cycle, she thinks she's moved past this vortex of emotions, and every cycle, she's wrong.
She turns to Shadi to inquire whether the garden has some rear exit, but he's already pushing through the shrubs, oblivious to both Shay's distress and the conversation causing it.
Shay has little choice but to follow him, through a cloud of cloying floral that induces a surge of nausea, and back out to the terrace.
A group of servants, previously engaged in the hanging of newly washed birth linens from a rope stretched across the tiles, stops and stares at them. Most wear guilty looks, but the face of one girl burns with something unsettlingly close to glee.
“What were the two of you doing back there?” She wiggles her eyebrows, undoubtedly fishing for a new scandal to fuel her gossip.
“We were praying …” Shadi supplies, confusion thick in his voice and his blank face a testament of innocence.
“Praying?” The girl scoffs. She hides her face partially behind a sheet, more suggestive than shy. “Or having a frolic in the grass?”
She turns her hungry gaze on Shay, who feels compelled to run a hand over her head, thus liberating a stray leaf from the clutches of her hair and sending it fluttering downward as if to prove the girl's point. Shay's face simmers.
“You misunderstand, Lalla. I'm the midwife's apprentice,” she says, which seems to her an airtight defense. It's common knowledge that midwives seldom marry, a fact that, Shay realizes when her words fail to have their intended impact, is beside the point.
“I know who you are.” The girl throws the sheet back into the basket on the ground and steps around it. “But perhaps you should reconsider your vocation.”
“C'mon, leave her alone,” another servant mutters weakly. “I told you she's an orphan.”
“That's not what I heard.” The girl's lips sharpen to a scythe of a smile, and she takes another step toward Shay that carries the weight of an invisible strike.
She casts a wide glance like a net, ensuring she's caught the attention of the other servants.
“I have it on good authority there's more to the story.”
Shay shifts nervously, wrapping her arms around her torso. Stirrings of dread flutter through her. But there's no way anyone could know about the hidden parts of her identity. The girl is bluffing; Shay just can't work out her motive, other than enjoying the spectacle.
Some people are like that. They thrive off others’ discomfort the way the monsters beyond Al-Ghaba Mayita feast upon the bones of the buried, the blood of the wayward traveler.
“Whose authority is that?” Shadi steps close enough to create a barrier between Shay and the other girl. “And please don't say it's your khala who barkeeps at the brewery.”