The teacher rose, towering over me. “Your mother deceived me. I’m sharing my wisdom with a freak—a deformed witch! No amount of money is worth doing business with such an aberration.” He grabbed my sleeve and hauled me forward. “Let’s see what hideousness lies beneath your dress.” He planted his hand on my breast and squeezed.
I rammed my knee into his most vulnerable male parts and he doubled over, his face contorted in pain. “You little cunt—if you have one.”
“Momma!” I screamed and ran from the house. Could I outrun him?
“Momma’s not here,” he shouted, limping toward me. “Today I’m going to teach you about sacrifice and worship.”
I bent down, fisted a rock, and hurled it at his head.
He wiped the blood from his forehead—my attempt was nothing but a glancing blow. “This is religion, girlie. Man dominates woman.” He lunged at me.
I turned and ran toward the ravine, toward a narrow concealed cave where I could hide. But I tripped over the hem of my dress. The ground rose to meet me.
The teacher stood over me, his mouth curled into a vile sneer. “Don’t fight it.”
“Momma!” I scrabbled backwards, my dress wrapping like shackles around my legs.
“Be nice and I won’t hurt you. Fight me and you’re dead.” He pinned the hem of my dress to the ground with his foot. “What will it be? Life or death?”
“She chooses life.” Momma appeared behind him.
Had she heard my screams?
He snickered. “Looks like Momma gets to watch.”
Momma blinked.
The air shimmered into a haze of color. A strong wind gusted over my body.
The teacher was gone. Momma was gone.
A middle-aged flabby man was no match for an angry momma jinni.
I dragged my shaking body to the house, leaned against the sun-warmed wall, and waited for Momma to return.
The afternoon sun slanted. The bright blue sky deepened into indigo, and the first constellation lit up the night. I drew my legs to my chest, and wondered where on earth Momma had gone.
The yard blurred. Momma walked out of the haze, her eyes hollowed. “I need water.”
“Where did you take him?” I went into the house and poured her a large cup.
Momma gulped it down, her eyes brightening. “I couldn’t decide where to leave him. At first I went to a land far north where the cold turns a human to flesh-stone. Then I went south where the ground is so thick with trees and bushes that a snake would devour him whole in moments. Both those deaths were too quick for the likes of him. I finally decided to leave him on a small island where the people eat their own. Seemed fitting.” She ran her fingers through my hair. “I’m sorry, Bilqīs. The teacher came highly recommended.” She filled her cup and drank again.
“Why didn’t you kill him?”
“Daughter!” Momma recoiled. “He deserved to die, but if I killed every man who acted like he did, there would be a noticeable shortage of men.” Momma sighed. “No more teachers. Life will teach you the rest.”
But the next lesson life taught was one neither Momma nor I expected.
CHAPTER 7
I was bored. Weaving palm-frond baskets gave me no joy. Six months had passed since the last teacher.
I missed learning new things, sinking my teeth into a good philosophical argument, chewing over a math problem, or devouring a challenging text. Each day stretched longer than the one before. My life returned to what it had been before my education for Greatness. There was only one difference. Having tasted the sweetness of learning and mastering a new concept, I was no longer content with an idle mind.
I cast aside my misshapen basket, stood, and stretched my arms. “I’m going to the wadi.”
Momma nodded. “Take the net.”
Net in hand, I took off running down the steep path toward the waterway that undulated like a snake through the flatlands. With any luck, I could catch a fish swept into the current from some highland lake overflowing from the recent downpour. I hitched my dress high and waded in, cool water lapping around my ankles.
Water was a balm to my spirits—a cruel irony, since these stepped hillsides relied on seasonal floods, few wells, and even fewer ghayl, or underwater springs.
I stared downriver. What dam or dry stone cistern collected its life-giving power? I swiveled my head upstream. Where did this wadi begin?
A reed drifted by. I watched its leisurely journey until the wadi curved out of sight. I envied that floating reed. It was moving forward. Going somewhere. My life was as stagnant as a puddle.
A Great Destiny: I believed the prophecy less each day.
I had no luck with the net but, then again, I did not try very hard. Maybe it was because I wanted the fish to take the journey I could not.
I trudged back home and tried, really tried to appreciate my insignificant life in an insignificant house nestled at the insignificant entrance of an insignificant ravine.
I was midway up the steep path when I heard it. The sound of men’s laughter carried down the path. Not happy laughter, but an evil-thick glee that scraped at my spine.
I scrambled into a copse of juniper trees and hid behind the saltbush. Though my heart knocked in my chest, I moved through the scrub, soundlessly pushing away the leafy branches.
I crept closer. And closer.
Five men with unkempt beards and ragged kilts oozed through the doorway of our house like sap from a tree. The first held a large bag in one hand and a blood-soaked sword in the other.
“That was easy.” His laugh was gull-like, reminding me of the time I watched a hungry flock descend on a huge dead fish that had washed ashore.
The others joined in, their throaty merriment sounding more like bloodthirsty scavengers. Each man wore four different blades tucked into his belt, and each had a small dagger beneath his armband. Their arms held water skins and baskets of food. One carried a rolled up carpet.
Our water skins. Our food baskets. Our carpet.
“What about the girl?” asked one man as he tied Momma’s favorite rug to the camel.
“She could be anywhere.” Another swept his arm about. “We did our job. Let’s get back to Ma’rib and collect our money.”
“We only did half the job,” said the third as he strapped Momma’s most beautiful baskets onto his camel.
“Yeah, the important half.” The man flicked his thumb at the bag. “This is all the proof we need.”
“Kill the jinni. Rape the girl. Those were our orders,” said the fourth.
“Then go find her. Go on, I’ll wait.” The man, the leader perhaps, folded his arms.
The third man, taller than the others, lifted his hand to his brow and scanned the area.
I was shaking, my fist stuffed into my mouth to stop myself from screaming.
“Should we burn the place?” asked the fifth.
“No,” said the leader. “Somebody from the village will come looking.”
A bird flew from a nearby bush and the tall man’s head swung around. He looked at the bush I trembled behind.
“There!” he yelled with a hoarse voice, and he took off running.
I spun on my heels and bolted. Saltbush tore at my skin, thorns caught at my dress, my sandals fell off, and rocks chewed into the soles of my feet. But nothing slowed me down as I raced toward the ravine.