The other half wants him to stay as still and quiet as possible.
I can sense it behind me. Staring. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. My pains fade, replaced by a clarity only visceral fear can induce. A primordial instinct warns me against turning around and looking at the shadow.
Baba used to talk about common beliefs of the supernatural when he taught World Mythology. For instance, hunters never stalk their prey after sunset. When the night takes hold, the rules change. The balance of power between prey and predator disappears.
And there are hours of the night where the lines between realities become blurred. Where some believe time itself thins, becoming little more than a thread looping through the eye of God’s needle.
The knot in my gut, the cold sweat on my palms. Familiar warnings. They happened in the villa every night, right before the animals began to screech.
I can feel the shadow breathing against my hair.
It wants me to turn around.
The clock on Jesse’s wall ticks loudly. It won’t leave until I face it. Until I let myself see.
With a shaky hand, I smooth the lock of hair away from Jesse’s forehead.
“I can be brave, too,” I say to the pillow between us.
Drawing away, I turn to face the cavernous darkness behind me.
“Don’t take her! Safa, give her back!” it screams in my mother’s voice, and time weaves through the needle.
“Don’t take her! Safa, give her back!” Nadine screamed. Her sister ignored her, wrapping Nadine’s daughter in the paisley blanket. Nadine tried to move. Hot pain razed through her.
Their mother accepted the crying bundle from Safa. She smiled down at the infant and said, “I hope it picks her. She has your grandmother’s freckles.” A ringed finger smoothed the baby’s hair from her forehead. “A little freckle cluster, right on her temple.”
Nadine curled against the tile, the residue of blood slick between her thighs. Everything inside her howled, demanding she stop them from taking her child. They couldn’t do this. She had paid Bamba’s debt her entire life. Ruined family after family, inflicted this very same agony on other mothers. What was the point if her own daughter wouldn’t be spared?
“Get up, Nadine,” her mother sniffed. “This behavior is unbecoming.”
“Love has made her soft. Look at her. Probably thinking of her little graduate student in his sweater vests,” Safa sneered.
Nadine glanced up sharply. Safa laughed. “Oh, did you think we didn’t know who the father was? How the mighty do fall. Have you forgotten who we are, sister? Who we serve? You had no chance of running away with him.”
“Spare the girl,” Nadine ground out. “Spare my daughter, and you can take Hatem.”
Even Nadine’s black heart shivered at the callousness of her offer. She loved Hatem, yes. More than she thought possible. But she would also hand-feed him to wolves if it meant keeping her daughter.
“What would we do with him?” her mother asked, perplexed.
“Maybe we can show him exactly who his sweetheart really is. How do you think Hatem Mansour will react to learning that his rosy-cheeked love is the Terror of El Agamy?”
While Safa spoke, Nadine closed her hand around the scissors by her knee. Safa had used them to cut the umbilical cord. Nadine hid the scissors in the folds of her gown.
“Don’t worry. It rarely rejects Haikal women,” her mother said. She smiled down at Nadine. “The three—maybe four—of us in this house are its last agents. The only ones capable of repaying Bamba’s debt. It needs us. I’m not angry with you for trying to run, ya umri. But you must understand that wherever you go, it will find you.”
Nadine’s mother flicked the switch, pitching the second floor in darkness. “No!” Nadine cried out. She groped for the wall.
In the center of darkness, a set of steps materialized.
Her mother’s robe swirled around her ankles as she walked, carrying Nadine’s daughter toward the steps. Safa followed eagerly, barely sparing her older sister a glance. In moments, they would lay the baby down at the door. The orange light would spread over her newborn in the test most Haikals had taken to determine their role in preserving the family line. If the child was chosen to serve the curse, then she would never be safe again. If she failed the test or failed to take it, then her life would be in the hands of the only people whocouldserve the curse: Nadine, Safa, and their mother.
As her mother ascended the stairs, a figure appeared beside her. The curly-haired girl in the slippers. She glanced back briefly, and Nadine’s heart stuttered.
She had freckles on her temple.
The girl vanished, but Nadine was already moving. Any earthly pain took a back seat to the determination blazing through her. She crossed the floor, scissors held in a tight grip.
