Chapter 27 #2
“That's what I wondered, too,” he admits, gazing up as if the stars might string themselves together to spell out the answer. “All I know is, Mmi never does anything without a reason. Sometimes, I think we're all just pieces on a Parchis board to her, and she's always strategizing six moves ahead.”
Deebi has somehow persuaded Hind to eat a small amount of couscous by the time Shay returns. She hugs him before he leaves the room, barely registering the rotten-egg scent that perpetually lingers on his skin. It's not that bad once you're used to it.
“I need to check on the baby's development.” Shay turns to find Hind quietly watching her. She braces for more arguments. “Are you feeling up to it?”
Hind nods compliantly. “What do I need to do?”
Shay lets out a long thankful breath. The glass from earlier may have been swept away, the wall wiped new, but her mother's volatile words still soil the room, as glaring as any stain. Her throat aches with the effort it takes to keep her voice calm and measured.
“Lie back and lift your clothing, please.” She kneels next to the pallet and palpates Hind's engorged belly. “How far along are you?”
“I don't know, honestly.” Hind stares expressionlessly up at the thatched ceiling. “The days tend to blur together when you're blitzed out.”
Shay pauses. “But you said it was early.”
Hind puffs out a short breath, then gives a meek shrug. “I didn't want you to worry.”
How thoughtful.
“Plus, you have to consider the effect of my Shawafa on the child. Its development could be accelerated.”
Shay crosses the room to her dresser and grabs a streamer of parchment she had the brothers procure from the medina, one she's marked with increments to replicate the strips Ghita used for measurement.
She stretches the strip from the top of Hind's pubic bone to the peak of her uterus.
Nibbling her lip, she holds the strip up to the lantern light to be sure the number she thinks she sees is correct. “One more thing.”
Next, she retrieves a small horn she petitioned Dasri to fashion for her. Despite Shay's suggestion that he use a hollow piece of wood, the off-white color of its surface suggests he went with a different—more readily available—material. As long as it works.
She presses the cone-shaped end of the horn to Hind's mounded belly and moves it around in a slow circular pattern—then she hears it. Strong and steady. The sound of tiny galloping horses. The sound of new life. Her future sibling's heartbeat.
Her mind conjures images of a bunya-shaped head and tiny bean-like toes. A feeling unfolds inside her like rose petals softening to the sun. This baby will be loved from the day they enter the world. If not by Hind, then by Shay.
“Is something wrong?” Hind searches Shay's face.
“No.” Shay forces a smile, declining to mention the possibility that Snow has caused some defect she can't yet perceive. No point in worrying Hind, which would only make things worse in any case. “Your baby is healthy and growing well. Also, you should go into labor before the next moon.”
Hind frowns, pulling wrinkles around her mouth like a fruit left out too long. “Is there a midwife in Ard Al-Ghul?”
“I don't think so.” Shay busies herself packing her equipment away, pushing down her hurt at the question.
“Your body is amazing, though. It already knows what to do.
You'll be the one doing most of the work, and I have the skills and experience to monitor and support the process.” She steels herself for an insult.
“Oh yes, I forgot Ghita was training you.” Hind shifts her clothes back in place, covering herself. “I'm sure you're competent.”
She forgot. Shay gave up her whole life the day she went looking for Hind, but she forgot? The oversight feels like the blade of a dull knife, something that looks less dangerous, but inflicts much more pain than the clean cut of an actual insult would.
“I'm sorry, about earlier,” Hind continues, her voice low and repentant. “I shouldn't have been so cruel.”
“I'm glad you're feeling better.” Shay smooths the fabric of her kaftan. Anger is still a smoldering heap in her chest, waiting to crackle to life, to enflame her throat and set her tongue afire. “But I still don't understand why you turned Ghita in.”
“She was putting those posters of you all over the place! I could hardly take them down as fast as she'd put more up again!” Hind hangs her head, peeking sheepishly between fallen fluffs of hair. “I did it to protect you. Same reason I snuck you onto that blood-wagon.”
The words are so unexpected, Shay's sure she misunderstood. She shudders. Then she shudders again. “You did what?”
“I know how it sounds,” Hind concedes. “But I was in a panic, and I told the touched ones to push you off before you ever reached Ard Al-Ghul. I thought you could live there in the forest, like the legends of Mama Ghoula. Especially given your affinity to communicate with animals.”
“Mama Ghoula?” Shay gapes incredulously. Snow is known to leave its users’ minds in an addled state, but this is beyond ridiculous.
“The woman they say went into the woods on a dare and decided to never come back. She supposedly survived two hundred solar cycles living in a moss-covered hut and eating mushrooms.”
“I know who Mama Ghoula is. They also say she has the legs of a mule, the tongue of a lizard, and a colony of frogs living in her hair. Does that sound like a real person to you?” Shay shakes her head.
At some point, Hind has to take responsibility for the things she's done.
And even if Hind thought she was protecting Shay, it begs the question: From what?
“That whole story about a magical favor was made up, wasn't it? What did that man in the alley really want from you?”
“I told you I owed him a debt—”
“Enough lies,” Shay says firmly. “We're beyond that. I want the truth.”
“He wanted you.” Hind lowers her voice to a wisp. “Admittedly, it's my fault that he knows who you are now. I messed up, but at least I tried to fix it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He's … your father.”
“My father?” Shay swallows, then keeps swallowing, but something besides saliva seems to coat her throat.
Something that tastes like dirt and won't slide down.
Hind lying about the man in the alley's identity is no surprise, but Shay recalls him having facial scars on half his face, the other half being attractive and young. Too young to have fathered her.
“His name is Jawad.” Hind rubs slow circles over the expanse of her belly.
“Since you were born, I've known he'd only hurt you.
That's why I gave you to the midwife. I told Jawad I'd delivered a puppy.
He was skeptical, but unable to deny such a clear and shameful curse from God.
Till now, he's never told me what became of the poor puppy.”
“Jawad?” Shay has only met one person with that name. Though she's positive it's not uncommon. A coincidence, surely. After all, Mukhtar Jawad, like all the other mukhtars, is old and gray and bearded, and the man in the alley was none of those things. “Like the mukhtar?”
“Same person,” Hind explains. “In the alley, you saw his true face. It was scarred by a Shawafa so strong, no touched one can heal it. The entourage is able to keep him young or create a disguise that covers the scars, but it takes a lot of magic to do so.
“Jawad realizes that enslaving touched ones isn't sustainable in the long term.
If more women die young and pregnancies drop, the population will be affected over time.
So, years ago, he came up with the idea of creating hizoura children and raising them as magical slaves instead.
The other mukhtars thought it would be dangerous, that the hizouras could rebel and bring about the return of natural magic.
But Jawad went ahead and experimented by himself.
“He used other touched ones to keep me healthy during my pregnancy and ensure your survival. But when I failed to produce the child he wanted, he banished me from the kasbah. I was resigned to the filthy squalor of the Bib, and he still demanded that I assist him with luring young girls into the entourage.”
Shay has the sensation of being inside a bubble.
She can hear Hind still talking, but the words aren't quite penetrating.
She remembers meeting Jawad in the hallway at that birth so long ago.
Something seemed unsavory about him then, she realizes, but it wasn't obvious enough.
It seems wrong somehow that someone so monstrous should be able to blend in with regular people.
“Then you came looking for me. I knew it was bound to happen sooner or later. Ghita couldn't have just killed you after you were born.”
Shay gasps, horror sliding like the devil's finger down her spine. “First you said Ghita stole me, then you said you gave me to her. Now, you're saying you asked her to kill me?”
Hind grimaces, as though perhaps that was more than she intended to reveal.
“I thought death was a better option than life as a slave.
I'm glad now, of course, that she spared you. But when you showed up in the Bib, I was so desperate for Jawad to let me back into the kasbah, I admitted you were alive. He gave me the ring, spelled to render you unconscious so I could deliver you to him.”
Shay barks a bitter laugh. She thinks back to the bone-eaters’ retelling of Ghita's last thoughts, the hazy recollection of something about her mother not staying away.
She wouldn't be surprised at this point if Hind said those things at the brewery on purpose, knowing the ensuing rumors would lure her into a trap. “What made you change your mind?”
“I'm ashamed to say I didn't until the last minute.
Right when you called me ‘Mmi.’ That's when I panicked.
I got you out of Nezjar and told Jawad you'd snuck off with the ring while I was blitzed.
I told him the experiment didn't work on you anyway.
That you didn't have magic, and you weren't worth looking for. He still wanted to search for you, until I told him about the other baby, the one Ghita had taken. It was the only thing I could do to distract him.”
“Glory to heaven.” Shay isn't sure which revelation is more gutting: that she was fathered by someone so evil or that her mother actually wanted her killed. Lies upon lies, tangled with half-truths. Shay can hardly keep it all straight. She massages her aching temples.
“If you failed to do what Jawad asked of you, how did you end up back in the kasbah?”
“Isn't it obvious?” Hind's shoulders slump. “This was his idea of revenge.” She indicates her swollen belly, signifying the pregnancy was some twisted form of punishment.
Any anger at her mother's multiple betrayals is lost in the anguish Shay feels knowing she was forced to conceive against her will. That the beauty of bearing a child will be tarred by the trauma of rape. That she has been violated in just about every way possible.
She tries to absorb it, the atrocity of it all.
Like pouring the entirety of the Cerabbi Sea into a tea glass.
The Morchidat was right. The women of Mekchaouen are in danger.
All of them. Jawad may be the worst of Al-Mukhtar, but how long before he convinces the others his “experiments” are worth pursuing?
“Is there anything else you haven't told me?”
“Nothing, habibti.” The kindness in Hind's voice is almost jarring after her earlier vitriol.
“But you should also know that Al-Mukhtar never plan to be replaced by younger Moulays.
They make touched ones perform spells to extend their life.
Spells that can transform their faces so it appears they've been replaced by a successor.
They take credit for all the prosperity Mekchaouen enjoys, when the whole realm is held together by women's Shawafa.”
“They use your addiction to enslave you,” Shay says quietly.
She blinks into the purpled shadows of twilight.
Numbness buzzes through her limbs. Hind obviously never knew anything about the other hjabats; even Jawad seems to have been more concerned with Sami than with Shay having possession of the ring.
If Al-Mukhtar are using the hjabats for things like simple sleep spells, they probably don't know how important they are or that the resistance is looking for them.
That's at least one thing potentially working in their favor.
Shay has never felt so tired or more awake.
Hind lets out a plaintive yawn. It straightens Shay to attention.
“I should let you rest.”
“Wait.” Hind grabs Shay's hand and presses the palm of it flat against her side. “Feel this before you go.”
A series of small thumps brings a smile to Shay's lips despite everything. “She's strong.”
“How do you know it's a girl?”
“I just do.” Shay stands and shuffles in place, working feeling back into her arms and legs. “Do you need me to bring you anything else?”
“See if the bone-eaters can procure a bundle of fabric and sewing needles. Keeping my hands busy may be a useful distraction while I purge. Maybe I can make something for your sister.”
The touched one lies on her side, her hands cradling the top and bottom of her pregnant belly. She looks, framed in the forgiving glow of lantern light, like any other expectant woman. Any loving mother.
“And please, open the window before you go? It's stuffier than the seven hells in here.”