As she portions out the scant treats along with more snuggles, she's sure to include those who linger back. Like Lawz, a brown cat with a limp; Sukkar, an older cat who's timid and sweet; and Mushaakes, a small but energetic kitten who relentlessly wiggles to the front of the crowd only to be buffeted to the rear. Fluffy Ghaymah, black Layl, grumpy Absii—Shay has named them all.
She relaxes, soothed by the gentle rumble of purrs, the warm nap of fur between her fingers. By God's blessing, the leavings stretch, her bag running empty long after she imagined it would. She lowers herself to the cobblestones and leans against the wall. Mushaakes spares no time springing into her lap. “Aww, I love you, too. I wish I could take you to sleep in my cozy pallet with me, zine diali, but Ghita would never allow it.”
It would also wreak havoc on my allergies, she doesn't say. Already she feels the familiar prickle in her nasal passages, moisture pooling in her eyes. Yet, ironically, being around animals is one of the few things that eases her discomfort in the throes of a flare.
A rainbow of fabrics flap from laundry lines strung across balconies overhead, turning Shay's thoughts to the servants from this morning, their gossip. The messenger, who she supposes was less than deserving of her rebuke.
Would you want it to be?
Her heart pangs. Despite the threat of being discovered as a hizoura—a person who inherited magical tendencies from an addicted mother—Shay can't help wishing her motherwerealive. She sighs.
The fact is, Ghita took pity on Shay when she was as desolate as this lot of strays. The midwife gave her a home and an honest trade.A purpose. She offered protection, both from those who fear magic and those who would exploit it. The least Shay can do is complete her apprenticeship and make sure Ghita's investment was worthwhile. No idle chatter is going to stand in her way.
With a lowsnick, the apartment door swings open, catching Shay off guard. Ghita fills its frame, if not in height, then in presence. She's unquestionably awake, the soft shadows of dusk failing to smooth the hard set of her face. The felines clear out, fleeing to their respective crannies well before Shay blundersto her feet. They seem to sense Ghita's disapproval like a charge in the air, as clearly as the sound of thunder, the scent of danger.
Shay scrambles for a reasonable excuse, still upset with herself for forgetting the apple grass. Meanwhile, the midwife's judicious eye has already clocked the tufts of multicolored hair clinging to Shay's skirt, the tang of meat hanging over the alley, and—perhaps the most incriminating evidence—the guilt Shay suspects maps her face as clearly as a guiding star.
“I came to call you to open your birthday present,” the midwife says, the last words Shay expects to hear. Current situation aside, birthdays are not something Ghita is given to acknowledging, much less celebrating. She raises a shrewd eyebrow. “Though it seems I missed my invitation to your private party.”
Stunned silent, Shay watches the midwife's lips twitch into a playful smile. Even then, it takes a moment for the joke to register. She sputters a delayed laugh, or something laugh adjacent—as close as she dares in case she has misread Ghita's undertone.
Ghita turns, and Shay follows her inside, where a pot of tea is already set to brew over a hot tray lined with coal. Their small dining room has been dressed for two with dainty glasses trimmed in silver, the decorative ceramic plates normally reserved for guests, and a broad platter laden with dates and figs and an array of Shay's favorite cookies. There's triangular briouat pastries stuffed with almond paste, chebakia—thin dough-strips fried in flower shapes and sprinkled with sesame seeds, and ghriba—short cakes flavored with orange blossom and drizzled in warm honey.
Shay hastens to gather mint and sugar from the pantry when Ghita sidesteps her. “Go and sit, Lalla Shay. Please, just relax.”
Relax.Shay turns the word over in her mind. She can't get a grip on how foreign it sounds uttered from the lips of someone with a severe intolerance to inactivity.
Dazed, she obeys, sitting on a chair and watching as Ghita grabs a second pot to aerate the tea. The midwife lifts the first pot high, silver twinkling from the dimples of its surface, and pours the beverage from one pot to theother. She repeats the process back and forth and back and forth between two glasses.
Finally, Ghita hands Shay a glass of amber tea topped with delicate froth and recites the first portion of the old saying: “The first glass is bitter like life.”
Shay sips. The sharp flavor and the heat in her throat cut through her sense of confusion. Ghita continues preparing the tea, adding ample mint leaves and an alarming amount of sugar cubes. Meanwhile, Shay can't decide whether she's touched or suspicious.
Ghita has always provided for her needs, and Shay is grateful to enjoy a comfortable life. Not everyone in Nezjar is so lucky. No more than a few blocks from their apartment building lies a shantytown, a makeshift string of shelters hobbled together with metal slabs and loose bed linens, inhabited by displaced citizens no longer able to afford Al-Mukhtar's ever-steepening taxes.
Clothing, food, and education are things Shay has never lacked, but this—whatever this is—she stopped dreaming of back when her only toys were the pinecones she collected on foraging trips and her only entertainment, the games she invented for herself. Ghita has never been unkind, but neither has the midwife been disposed to unnecessary kindness. Shay understood early on that what most families call affection, the midwife would classify as spoiling.
By the time Ghita sits across from her, Shay has drained her first glass of tea.
“The second glass is strong, like love,” Shay recites the second part of the saying as Ghita refills her glass, pouring the elixir from such a height that the steaming cascade forms an even thicker layer of foam.
She can't say with any confidence that Ghita loves her. Their bond may not go deeper than that of a teacher and her student, but it provides Shay the security of knowing her place in the world. And in a realm on the brink of rebellion, being someone's apprentice is of greater value than being someone's beloved daughter.
Or so Shay tells herself.
“You haven't eaten any cookies,” Ghita scolds, before biting into a piece of chebakia shaped like an elongated rose.
Shay smiles. She likes to think of scolding as the midwife's version of endearment and her bestowal of it as proof that she does, in fact, have some capacity of fondness for Shay. “I was waiting for you, khalti.”
The midwife stops chewing until Shay picks a cookie. She chooses a ghoriba, the soft fluff and fruity zest thrilling her tongue, and follows the morsel with a happy slurp of tea so sweet, her toes curl.
Ghita stares expectantly, waiting for an appropriate compliment.
“May God keep you in good health, khalti. The cookies are melting in my mouth,” Shay says obligingly, though she herself helped bake the treats, which, like the special plates, rarely appear in the absence of visitors. “And the tea is zwin. Thank you so much for doing all this for me.” She stops short of asking,And by the way, why are you doing this?
The question sits heavy in Shay's chest, disturbing the airy warmth of her sugar-induced buzz. And beneath it, like a rock she dares not overturn, squirms a tangle of fears, the top contender being that Ghita is buttering her up to deliver bad news.
Is the midwife unwell? Have rebels begun harassing her?
