Chapter 33
“Our son did not return from volunteer service better.
Quite the opposite. I fear for his mental health and future relationships.
He behaves reasonably enough with his father and brothers, but he has started treating me like I'm his inferior. And his sisters, they refuse to be alone in the same room with him now.”
—the testimony of a mother choosing to speak anonymously to the Nezjar Gazette about her son's experience in the Moulay Training Program
Shay is starting to doze off when the image materializes.
The same, always the same. Her mother's face, pale and drained of life.
The trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth, like a careless smear of lip paint.
She looks almost restful, but if Shay doesn't open her eyes fast enough, those still lips will snap into a rictus of rotting teeth.
Her white eyes will pop open, glowing with something not quite there, but not quite gone.
“Are you well?”
Shay gasps awake. Shadi sits beside her on the pallet with Najla cradled in his arms.
“I'm …” She blinks a few times to clear the clinging remnants of horror. “I'm fine.”
“Did you have a bad dream?”
Shay wishes she slept long enough to have one of those. “Yeah.”
He glances around the room, probably realizing for the first time that her mother died there. “Maybe we need to move things around. Put your bedding in a different position and change out the décor. At least until we can find a new place for you and Najla.”
He doesn't say with me. But Shay wonders if he's thinking it. She nods.
“Noojla is freshly changed and swaddled. I think she's ready to eat.” He hands Shay the clean and bundled baby and looks away as she lifts her shirt.
Shay kisses the top of the baby's head, smelling her new-baby smell, like fresh khobz. It washes away more of the dream that was too short to be a dream.
By the time Shay nurses the baby and puts her to sleep, Shadi has gone downstairs and returned again with a tray of tea and snacks. He peels an orange and hands her a slice.
“Thanks,” Shay says, licking the sweetness from her lips. “I really appreciate this. You. That you're here. That you kept coming back even when Kabeer turned you away.”
He laughs. “You can't get rid of me that easy, Shay.”
“Seriously,” she says, accepting another slice when he offers it. “You're spoiling me.”
“Just wait until we go to the Island.” His eyes get a far-off look. “I'll serve you fruits you've never even laid eyes on before.”
“Where?”
“Oh.” His face stills. He seems to consider that he has slipped up in some way and then decides it doesn't matter.
“The Sisterhood headquarters are on an island.
We call it the Island, which isn't very original, but don't let that fool you into thinking it's not amazing.
Because it is. And I can't wait for you and Noojla to see it.”
Shay thinks this over quietly for a moment.
It does sound nice. But he seems to be forgetting what happened yesterday—or, more accurately, what didn't. Even with Shadi lending a helpful hand, it took Shay a day each to retrieve the necklace and the earrings, and another day to fail to do the same with the bracelet.
“Unfortunately, my task is incomplete, remember? Four days from now, I'm supposed to deliver four hjabats to the Morchidat, and I have only three, because someone—the Naturalists, I'm assuming—got to the fourth one before I did.”
Khawla is still in enemy hands. The window to return women's magic and defeat Al-Mukhtar is closing. Shay suddenly feels a lot less hungry. Well, that's not entirely true, but she's a breastfeeding woman now. She would feel less hungry if that weren't the case.
“I'll leave this afternoon and talk to her,” Shadi says decisively.
Shay chews her bottom lip. “Do you think you can get her to meet with me again?”
“If it's fine with you, I'll just take her the hjabats we have.” Shadi sips his tea thoughtfully. “They have to count for something.”
A knock sounds at the door. It isn't a loud knock per se, but it's a bone-eater knock, so yeah, it's loud. Shay freezes, looking over at her sleeping sister to make sure she hasn't been disturbed. Then she tiptoes as fast as she can to the door.
“Kabeer!” she whisper-shouts through the wood, not wanting to risk the baby-rousing creaks it will produce if she opens it. “I told you a hundred times not to knock like that. And before you ask, yes, I feel safe with that boy in my room.”
“There are visitors for you downstairs, lallati,” says Deebi, this time.
Visitors? Shay's first thought is the Morchidat, but Deebi said visitors, as in more than one person. Her second thought is Khawla's parents, which at first terrifies her, but then she thinks … What if there's good news about her rescue? Or maybe she escaped?
Shay rushes downstairs, but it is neither the Morchidat nor Khawla's parents she finds chatting with Bono and Beni about the widespread news of a recently discovered dragon fossil.
“Shoodi!” Yara squeals when she sees her brother, running to tackle him in a hug.
When Yara releases him, he hugs Marjan, who returns his embrace with no less exuberance.
Soon, they are all sitting at the dining table having tea, because if Mekchaouenians have one motto, it's anytime is teatime.
Yara and Marjan both fawn over Najla, who, of course, woke up at the sound of new voices.
Despite the tea being the best she has ever tasted—Yara made it—and the pleasant flow of their conversation, unease simmers in Shay's stomach.
Absurdly, she wonders if the Morchidat somehow already knows about her failure and has sent the sisters to assist her.
She can't help noticing that their travel bags are large enough to carry overnight bedding, indicating that they have either traveled a far distance to get here or plan to travel somewhere else when they depart.
And Marjan carries a lacquered wood bow and a quiver of feather-fletched arrows on her person, further indicating that their journey has been—or is expected to be—beset with danger.
“We are so deeply sorry about your mother.” Yara lays her hand gently on top of Shay's. “Surely from God we come, and to Him we shall return.”
“Is that why you're here?” Shadi asks, as if it has only just occurred to him that there may be a reason for their unannounced arrival. “Did Mmi send you to give her condolences?”
“Well, no.” Marjan fiddles with the string of the bow she placed on the table in front of her when she sat. She glances at Yara. “But she has sent us with a message.”
Shay tenses. Her breath tumbles through her lungs, hard as rocks.
“The astronomers have adjusted their original prediction,” Yara says, and pauses for a well-timed sip of tea. “The meteor shower is now coming in two days.”
“Can they do that?” Shay asks. “Just change their minds?”
“It happens.” Marjan shrugs. “Although I do believe our head astronomer is growing a bit senile.”
Yara looks at her sister aghast.
“What?” Marjan frowns. “I'm just saying I wouldn't mind seeing a bit more of that cute young apprentice of his.”
This earns her a second look, this time from Shadi.
“Oh, don't you start.”
“This isn't good,” Shay says, trying to rope everyone back to more important matters. “I've been able to recover only three of the hjabats, and I have reason to believe that CNM members have taken the fourth.”
Marjan and Yara both stare at Shay with the same blank looks.
“We should all go to the Island,” Shadi says.
“What?” Shay turns to him, not sure she heard him right.
“We should pack up Najla and go with my sisters.
If we all talk to Mmi, we can present a united front.
Shay has more than earned admittance to the Sisterhood by obtaining two hjabats completely unassisted.
She's also learned the location of where the Lallat's spirits are trapped, in a crystal cave in Nezjar, where we are to take the hjabats during the meteor shower. There is too much at stake to put this all on her shoulders when the Sisterhood has other resources we could utilize.”
“United front?” Marjan shakes her head, wheezing. “Have you met our mother?”
“Mmi left the Island before we did,” Yara says, somewhat apologetically. “She seems to think this new archeological discovery is in some way connected to the Lallat. She's probably somewhere in the middle of the desert by now.”
How could an ancient dragon skeleton possibly be more important than this?
Shay's mind hearkens back to Shadi's words about the Morchidat having a reason for everything she does.
She wants to believe that is true in this case, but a small voice in the back of her mind warns that even if the Morchidat is somehow doing what is best for everyone, it is not the same as what is best for Shay.
“We will simply have to find a way to recover the last hjabat from the CNM ourselves.” Shadi says, but his words don't thrum with the same conviction as the ones he spoke moments ago.
“Surely, between the four of us, we can think of something.
I'll gather a pen and parchment, and we can map out the known CNM bases. See which is closest to the caves.”
“There is another option,” Marjan says quietly. “One that offers a more precise direction, but also carries greater risk.”
Shadi, already half out of his chair, sits back down. “I'm not sure I like the sound of that. But do tell us, khti.”
“The night hags.”
Shay murmurs a blessing of protection. She's still not exactly sure what a night hag is, but that may not be the most pressing question. She winces before she asks, preemptively disliking the answer, “And how will they help us, exactly?”
“The night hags have the ability to inhabit the human dreamscape,” Marjan explains, staring at her tea as if talking to someone located at the bottom of her glass. “This allows them to scry the collective subconscious of humans for information.”