Page 23 of The Lustrous Dark
“Thereissomething I've never told you,” the midwife says, and something in her tone, a rawness Shay is sure she's never heard before, makes her drop her spoon back in the bowl and swallow what's in her mouth, unchewed. “But now that you are older, I think you should know.”
Shay holds her breath, and it feels like everything around her has moved closer, like the room has become smaller. Or she's underwater. Is Ghita about to confirm Hind's story?
“I wasn't always a midwife. I was once married. My husband was a fisherman, and we had a beautiful daughter named Sofia. She hated it when her fatherwould leave on his fishing trips. And one night when she was nine, she secretly followed him to the sea. I didn't notice her absence as quickly as I should have.
“On that fateful night, I happened to be hosting a book club meeting in my home with some lady friends. It was raining lightly, and I was able to follow her footsteps, along with the trail she left by dragging along the wooden bucket I used for bathing her. I suppose in her child's mind she thought it would work as a boat she could use to go sailing after him.
“But the trail disappeared at the water's edge. And there was no trace of Sofia. Not until the next morning, when the empty bucket washed ashore. Not until a moon quarter later, when B'hamu divers finally found her body.”
The midwife's voice is calm and steady despite the tragic story she has relayed. Her body remains still and composed. But Shay knows her well enough to see what no one else would be likely to notice:
The subtle change in her breathing pattern, as if each breath requires careful thought rather than being an automatic process.
The dull pain that haunts her eyes.
“Why am I telling you this now, you may ask? Well, I'm telling you so that you will understand that everything happens for a reason. My marriage could not withstand the loss of my daughter. I found myself single and learned midwifery to support myself. A calling I now understand I was meant for and one that I may never have otherwise discovered. And then you came into my life.
“I know all about the rumors, Lalla Shay. But you must let go of them, of all these questions, and look forward to what lies ahead. You ought to be preparing for your fast-approaching journey.”
Shay's mind whirls. Ghita knows about the rumors? Shay almost wonders whether they had anything to do with her premature referral to a new position, but the thought is quickly overridden by both a sudden sympathy for Ghita and a renewed sense of obligation to her.
She remembers why she left this morning and her pressing predicament. “It was my intention to prepare, khalti. I went to the forest to harvest moon pepper, and the patch was gone.”
The midwife's eyebrows spring up. “Gone?”
“Yes, gone. I planned to harvest enough to last until I settled in Kiddah and could plant my own seeds, but someone else picked the whole patch clean. Who would need that much moon pepper? And moreover, what should I do?”
Ghita takes a deep breath and purses her lips. “Well, what would you do if I were not available to seek advice from and you had to find your own solution?”
“What?” The word comes out with the gasping softness of an embrace-turned-knife-between-the-ribs. But Ghita's question is not asked out of meanness. It's simply true that in Kiddah, Shay will, for the first time ever, be completely on her own. “I'm not going to make it very far if someone discovers what I am.”
“You'll be fine,” the midwife says, more reassuringly. “Kiddah is bigger than our medina. More people makes it easier for those who are a bit different to blend in and escape scrutiny. Plus, you're no longer a child. If your powers do emerge, you're more likely to be able to control them now than when you were younger.”
Shay nods, the words like scraps of meat fed to the attack dogs of her anxiety, more a distraction than a remedy. A little voice in the back of her mind whispers that if Hind was telling the truth about the midwife's daughter, her claims of not using during her pregnancy may also be true. It's a thought Shay hardly takes comfort in, since it suggests she spent her childhood being sick for no reason.
The midwife looks like she's about to say more, when her gaze homes in on Shay's hands. “You said you went out to forage, but you weren't wearing your gloves when you returned.”
Any bravado, any anger Shay has allowed to take up space inside her disintegrates. She closes her fingers and splays them open again as if the gloves will magically reappear. She forgot, or didn't think Ghita would notice, or just didn't think. Try as she may, she cannot meet the midwife's eyes.
“I must have dropped them,” she whispers hoarsely.
“What's that?”
Shay stands abruptly. “I'll go back out and find them, while there is still light,” she vows with such earnestness, she nearly convinces herself.
“You haven't finished eating,” the midwife scolds.
Shay quickly empties the bowl, forcing herself to push every bite past the dry ache in her throat. Because the midwife is wrong. So wrong. She's not ready to stand on her own. She may have grown into the form of a woman on the outside, but on the inside, she's still a little girl. Needy and desperate for approval.
In the absence of an intention to actually look for the gloves, Shay climbs to the rooftop garden, where she can think. The sun is fading, the sky slipping into the amber robes of early evening. The sounds of bustling on the streets below are winding down to a slow hum. The herbs and flowers in the garden grow more fragrant as dusk nears, as if by releasing their sweet scents, they might entice the sun to linger a little longer.
Shay lowers herself to a sitting position and leans back against the parapet. She gazes upward across the horizon and spots the distant glow of Najmat Al-Maghrib. It's the first star to appear in the night sky and is often visible to the naked eye in late afternoons during this season of earth's cycle. There is small comfort in the thought that even in a new medina, the same constellations will always spread above her.
The stairwell that runs up the side of the building creaks and clangs. Shay cranes her head, anticipating the appearance of her neighbor Zaytuna, who often tends to her goat around this time. But an altogether different face pops into view, followed by a body dressed not in a servant uniform this time, but a classic—if simple—gandoura.
She's too stunned, and honestly too tired, to muster a reaction.
“Salaams,” Shadi greets her, making his voice timid and soft, as though to avoid startling her. Which would make more sense were she not staring directly at him.
