CHAPTER TWELVE PRESENT DAY
The bell rings as the door swings open, blowing a gust of frigid air into the diner.
Loud conversation overlays the click of utensils against chipped ceramic plates.
The back fryer hisses and sizzles. The smell of grease and melted cheese permeates the small space, sinking into the overstuffed vinyl booths pushed up against half-shuttered windows.
Rain slides in rivulets down the glass, its gentle taps the only consistent sound in the cacophony.
“No better place to read the entries of a haunted journal than the Grease & Grind,” Jesse remarks dryly.
“They have free refills on coffee and tea here,” I mutter.
“The coffee is cinnamon-flavored sewage.”
“Shhh.” I point to the dented metal carafe single-handedly restoring my will to live. “She can hear you.”
Jesse rolls his eyes.
Despite the early hour and the overwhelming smell of cheese, Jesse manages to draw the attention of half the girls who walk through the doors.
I can’t blame them. Were I not currently bottling a scream worthy of tearing through the earth’s stratosphere, I’d probably take a second look at Jesse, too.
It’s funny, in a bitterly ironic way—Jesse tries so hard to repel attention, but everything about him commands its own gravitational force.
The oversized, tattered leather jacket molded around his broad shoulders.
The windswept silk of his black hair, long strands falling onto his forehead and the bridge of his crooked nose.
The permanent smirk on his full lips, probably stamped there the day he was born.
He slings his arm over the back of the booth, sprawling with a casual confidence I couldn’t pull off if I lived to be a hundred.
His legs are set apart, one knee crooked to the side while the other leg stretches into my side of the booth.
I glare over the brim of my mug and kick his boot back to his territory.
Seeing how these girls react to Jesse just reminds me of how ardently he opposes any sense of attachment to Ward.
He didn’t have to be the school loner. Sure, he might be abrasive and sarcastic and a little too intense, but he could have found his people.
And if not, his looks could have won him entry into pretty much any social circle at Canyon High.
“Ow,” Jesse drawls, and proceeds to push his boot back between my feet. Neither of us has slept since the incident in my room. Heaven forbid Jesse allow a minor obstacle like sleep deprivation to stand in the way of irritating me to death. If a curse can’t finish me, then by God, Jesse Talbot will.
He taps a finger against the tabletop. “About your dad—”
“I don’t want to talk about my dad.”
“Okay.” He surprises me by moving on without argument. “What do you want to talk about, then?”
Reckless energy crackles through me, sparking from the depths of my grief. “Why do you hate it here so much?”
Jesse cocks his head. “Why do you think I hate it here?”
I tick each item off, trying to ignore my shaking fingers. “You’ve never said yes to a dance or a date, you turn away anyone who tries to be your friend, you push away every teacher that tries to reach out to you, and you never show up to functions for the school or the town.”
“Hmm.” Jesse sits forward, lacing his fingers together on the table. My skin tightens beneath his steadfast attention. “I had no idea you were so concerned about my community involvement.”
The back of my neck heats. “Someone should be.”
Jesse’s lips twitch. He lifts a hand, mimicking me as he ticks off items on his fingers.
“I’ve never been asked out by someone I want to say yes to, I don’t turn away anyone who tries to be my friend, the fact that the teachers at Canyon have licenses continues to challenge my faith in our education system, and I would rather backflip into a deep fryer than show up for the town picnic or whatever. ”
“Wow.” I fold my hands around my mug and raise both brows. “Do I get a drink with that crock of bullshit or should I use the coffee to wash it down?”
Jesse grins, ridiculously delighted by the swear word. He lowers his hands, folding them back on the table. “Any drink you want, Sour Patch.”
My smile fades. I drop my eyes to the oil spots forming on the coffee’s surface. “You turned me away.”
It sits between us, a confession wrapped in thorns, too painful for either of us to touch.
Had it not been for this curse, Jesse would have graduated from Canyon High without ever speaking more than a few words to me.
He would have kept waking up early to cross the driveway and stayed sequestered on his side of the courtyard during lunch.
The waitress appears at our table just as Jesse opens his mouth. Though the dishes balanced on her shoulder teeter dangerously to the right, she swipes my empty carafe without pausing. “Refill?”
“No—”
“Yep!” I beam at her, and she winks before racing to the next table.
“Do you think my dad knew about Nadine?” I prop my chin on my fist as if we’re in the middle of discussing the season finale of our favorite show. “Knew about her family?”
If Jesse is thrown by the sudden change in subject, he doesn’t show it. “I doubt it.”
“I think he knew. Why else would he refuse to talk about her family? He must have known. He must have. He let a murderer be my mother.”
“Mansour …”
I wave him off, grappling for the strap of my backpack with the hand I’m not using to hold up my coffee.
If I hear any concern in his voice, I’ll lose it.
Maybe I’m in shock or denial or a fugue state in between—I don’t know, and I don’t care.
If he wants me to function, to keep swallowing the scream ringing inside me, then he needs to take his sympathy and drown it.
“Whatever is after me, it followed me from the Haikal villa.” I draw out my mother’s journal and slap it onto the table, directly next to a puddle of drying syrup.
The journal disappears before I can contemplate using it as a coaster.
Jesse pulls it across the table, out of my mug’s line of fire.
Again, he wears an impassive expression, and I couldn’t be more grateful for Jesse’s disinclination to engage with any emotion that can’t be worked out with his fists.
“You said this journal was blank before tonight?”
I follow the path of the rain trickling down the window. “Yup. I’ve combed through it a million times.”
“So these entries appeared after you saw the shadow.”
My gaze flies to Jesse and widens. I hadn’t put the pieces together, but—”You think the shadows are linked to my mother’s journal?”
A long exhale rattles out of Jesse. “It’s one theory. Unless we contact your aunt, the journal is the only lead we have about breaking the curse.”
I jerk as though I’ve been slapped. “Contacting Khalto Safa is out of the question.” I try to imagine speaking to Khalto Safa knowing what I know, and a shudder runs through me. “She won’t help me.”
I reach for the journal, and Jesse doesn’t resist when I draw it back across the table.
Inside the worn leather cover, my mother’s name remains one of the few unchanged parts of the journal. I trace the letters, a bitter smile twisting my lips.
Nadine Haikal.
“Women rarely take their husband’s last name in Masr,” I tell Jesse. “It’s not common practice. I never really thought much of it, her taking my dad’s last name when they moved. I suppose I’m not surprised she wanted to leave Haikal behind.”
I flip the page, turning to the first of three entries. It’s two pages, and one of those pages is simply a list.
“Can you read it?” Jesse asks. I would bet every dollar in my pocket that if I glance up, I’ll spot his hand hovering over his phone, ready to press open his translation app.
I sigh. “Yeah, but it’s in rika’ah, so there’s no tashkeel.
It’s harder to read without the grammatical support.
” No hamzas or kasras to help me out. My reading skills in Arabic are decent, but nowhere near sophisticated enough to read rika’ah with ease.
Back when I was a kid, Baba and I would sit together every Saturday afternoon to work on my Arabic composition and grammar.
I’d complain each time, because what do you mean I have to spend a chunk of my weekend reading about permanently down on his luck Goha and his donkey or trying to enunciate qaf and kaf?
Now, I wish more than anything Baba had fought me harder when I turned thirteen and demanded to stop.
I fill my lungs with the scent of grease and burnt coffee, my nails digging into the laminated tabletop.
I already know the truth about her. It can’t possibly be worse.
Clearing my throat, I begin to read.
AUGUST 17, 1977
The shadows keep following Safa.
Mama gets annoyed when I laugh, but it’s hard to resist. They follow Safa to the store, to school, even to the shower.
I’m laughing just thinking about it. Mama and I have tried to explain to her that the shadows will go away if she just stops looking at them, but Safa has always been so bullheaded.
Wave a red flag, and she’ll come running every time.
Mama thinks I need to be kinder to Safa. She says my sister holds grudges, and how I treat her now will determine how she treats me in the future.
I think she’s just jealous that I fed the door the first sacrifice of the year.
She thinks I cheat because I lure the children to the door instead of dragging them kicking and screaming like she does.
No elegance to Safa’s methods, and worse, it takes its toll on her.
Why else would the shadows be hovering around, haunting her?
I wonder what she sees inside them.