As she walked, the memories assaulted her. Eager children, following Nadine up the stairs, never to return. Children from struggling families. The ones police wouldn’t dig too deep for, whose parents would feel the loss most acutely. For those who had nothing, children were their greatest gift. Their loss fed the curse best.
Nadine’s grip on the banister spasmed. She couldn’t let herself get lost in the past. She was a different woman now. The lives she’d taken could never be returned. The least she could do was make sure no more were lost to the Haikal debt.
On the second floor, Nadine found Safa lounging on an armchair, a book balanced on her lap.
“My beloved big sister,” Safa said without glancing up from her book. The only light was a single lamp by her elbow. “Welcome home.”
Nadine ran her finger along a shelf and inspected the dust. “So it isn’t just the outside of the villa falling apart. Can’t hack it on your own, Safa?”
Safa tutted, slinging the book aside. In her late twenties, Safa radiated an untamed beauty. The long, black curls Nadine and her daughter shared tumbled down her sister’s back, much sleeker than the last time Nadine had seen her. Nimble, deceptively delicate hands folded over Safa’s knee. “Surely you didn’t come back just to ask ridiculous questions?”
“I saw the newsletter those women started. ‘Mothers for Missing Children’,” Nadine mused. “You never did know how to cover your tracks.”
Safa stood, flicking her fingers dismissively over her shoulders as shepulled on a cardigan. “We both know it’ll lead nowhere. Let them have their fun. Tell me, how is America? Your daughter would be nine now, right?” Safa trailed her hand over the high-backed chairs in the sitting room. “Was she worth our mother?”
Nadine kept her gaze fixed on Safa, avoiding the whispering shadows snaking over the walls. She could never predict what she would witness by looking directly into one. In this moment, she had a feeling it would be her mother, blood dripping from the end of her robe and pooling around her bare feet. A pair of scissors protruding from her chest.
“Our mother made her choice,” Nadine said. She should end this pointless conversation before it went any further. Safa was sneaky, manipulative, and Nadine was out of practice. She moved toward Safa slowly, rounding the empty armchair.
“It might have spared your daughter, you know. If she had failed the test, Mama would have let you leave with her. If she had passed, we could have been a family.” Safa neared Nadine, the hatred in her green eyes tainted by a sorrow Nadine understood too well.
Nadine pictured Mina climbing up the stairs, a child trailing behind her. Doomed to feed the curse until her dying days.
Her grip on the knife tightened.
“I made my choice, too,” Nadine said. She swung the knife toward Safa.
In a flash, the second floor pitched into darkness. Safa’s light laugh rang out in the empty. “You’ve been gone too long, Nadine.”
The shadows grew louder, whorls of black dancing in the night. Nadine heard snatches of Mina’s voice, Hatem’s, her mother’s, Janna’s. Calling her name. She left the knife raised, edging back slowly. If she could get the wall behind her, it would be easier to anticipate an attack.
“My daughter is nothing like us,” Nadine snarled. “She would never pay our debt with the blood of others.”
“Are you sure about that?”
In the center of the floor, a staircase appeared.
One of the shadows darted close to the banister, and as Nadine watched, a girl took shape. It took Nadine a minute to place her, and when she did, terror raked its claws across her spine.
It was the same curly-haired girl in slippers Nadine had seen the night she’d escaped.
The girl glanced over her shoulder, and Nadine gasped at the freckles on her temple. They were—but it couldn’t be—
“Mina?”
The teenage version of the child Nadine had left at home climbed the stairs. Nadine forgot about Safa, about the shadows. Her daughter was heading for the door. The same door Nadine had narrowly saved her from nine years ago.
Nadine ran for the stairs. The banister burned under her touch, and she recoiled with a cry. The shiny marble steps wavered, a mirage undulating in the dark. Filthy water poured down the steps, a murky tide pounding against Nadine’s legs. She held her breath against the dizzyingly foul odor and climbed a step. Her foot slipped. With a splash, she tumbled into the stairs.
Small, gray hands shot out of the filth, grabbing at Nadine. “Mina!” she shouted. The girl didn’t turn around. Nadine threw her knife aside and slapped away the hands. She grabbed the banister, gritting her teeth against the agony sizzling from her burning flesh. Mina couldn’t open the door.
Nadine reached the top of the stairs. She grabbed the girl’s shoulder, but her hand passed straight through her. Panic choked Nadine. “Mina, listen to me. Hear me, somehow. Do not open this door. Turn around.”
The girl reached for the handle. Orange light crept from the bottom of the door.
“Ya umri, please,” Nadine pleaded. She beat her raw fist against the door. “Don’t take my daughter!“
The girl disappeared. Nadine whirled around. Where was Mina? Had she opened the door?
