Page 87 of The Lustrous Dark
Her mind conjures images of a bunya-shaped head and tiny bean-like toes. A feeling unfolds inside her like rose petals softening to the sun. This baby will be loved from the day they enter the world. If not by Hind, then by Shay.
“Is something wrong?” Hind searches Shay's face.
“No.” Shay forces a smile, declining to mention the possibility that Snow has caused some defect she can't yet perceive. No point in worrying Hind, which would only make things worse in any case. “Your baby is healthy and growing well. Also, you should go into labor before the next moon.”
Hind frowns, pulling wrinkles around her mouth like a fruit left out too long. “Is there a midwife in Ard Al-Ghul?”
“I don't think so.” Shay busies herself packing her equipment away, pushing down her hurt at the question. “Your body is amazing, though. It already knows what to do. You'll be the one doing most of the work, and I have the skills and experience to monitor and support the process.” She steels herself for an insult.
“Oh yes, I forgot Ghita was training you.” Hind shifts her clothes back in place, covering herself. “I'm sure you're competent.”
She forgot.Shay gave up her whole life the day she went looking for Hind, but she forgot? The oversight feels like the blade of a dull knife, something that looks less dangerous, but inflicts much more pain than the clean cut of an actual insult would.
“I'm sorry, about earlier,” Hind continues, her voice low and repentant. “I shouldn't have been so cruel.”
“I'm glad you're feeling better.” Shay smooths the fabric of her kaftan. Anger is still a smoldering heap in her chest, waiting to crackle to life, to enflame herthroat and set her tongue afire. “But I still don't understand why you turned Ghita in.”
“She was putting those posters of you all over the place! I could hardly take them down as fast as she'd put more up again!” Hind hangs her head, peeking sheepishly between fallen fluffs of hair. “I did it to protect you. Same reason I snuck you onto that blood-wagon.”
The words are so unexpected, Shay's sure she misunderstood. She shudders. Then she shudders again. “You did what?”
“I know how it sounds,” Hind concedes. “But I was in a panic, and I told the touched ones to push you off before you ever reached Ard Al-Ghul. I thought you could live there in the forest, like the legends of Mama Ghoula. Especially given your affinity to communicate with animals.”
“Mama Ghoula?” Shay gapes incredulously. Snow is known to leave its users’ minds in an addled state, but this is beyond ridiculous.
“The woman they say went into the woods on a dare and decided to never come back. She supposedly survived two hundred solar cycles living in a moss-covered hut and eating mushrooms.”
“I know who Mama Ghoulais.They also say she has the legs of a mule, the tongue of a lizard, and a colony of frogs living in her hair. Does that sound like a real person to you?” Shay shakes her head. At some point, Hind has to take responsibility for the things she's done. And even if Hind thought she was protecting Shay, it begs the question:From what?“That whole story about a magical favor was made up, wasn't it? What did that man in the alley really want from you?”
“I told you I owed him a debt—”
“Enough lies,” Shay says firmly. “We're beyond that. I want the truth.”
“He wantedyou.” Hind lowers her voice to a wisp. “Admittedly, it's my fault that he knows who you are now. I messed up, but at least I tried to fix it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He's … your father.”
“My father?” Shay swallows, then keeps swallowing, but something besides saliva seems to coat her throat. Something that tastes like dirt and won't slidedown. Hind lying about the man in the alley's identity is no surprise, but Shay recalls him having facial scars on half his face, the other half being attractive and young. Too young to have fathered her.
“His name is Jawad.” Hind rubs slow circles over the expanse of her belly. “Since you were born, I've known he'd only hurt you. That's why I gave you to the midwife. I told Jawad I'd delivered a puppy. He was skeptical, but unable to deny such a clear and shameful curse from God. Till now, he's never told me what became of the poor puppy.”
“Jawad?” Shay has only met one person with that name. Though she's positive it's not uncommon. A coincidence, surely. After all, Mukhtar Jawad, like all the other mukhtars, is old and gray and bearded, and the man in the alley was none of those things. “Like the mukhtar?”
“Same person,” Hind explains. “In the alley, you saw his true face. It was scarred by a Shawafa so strong, no touched one can heal it. The entourage is able to keep him young or create a disguise that covers the scars, but it takes a lot of magic to do so.
“Jawad realizes that enslaving touched ones isn't sustainable in the long term. If more women die young and pregnancies drop, the population will be affected over time. So, years ago, he came up with the idea of creating hizoura children and raising them as magical slaves instead. The other mukhtars thought it would be dangerous, that the hizouras could rebel and bring about the return of natural magic. But Jawad went ahead and experimented by himself.
“He used other touched ones to keep me healthy during my pregnancy and ensure your survival. But when I failed to produce the child he wanted, he banished me from the kasbah. I was resigned to the filthy squalor of the Bib, and he still demanded that I assist him with luring young girls into the entourage.”
Shay has the sensation of being inside a bubble. She can hear Hind still talking, but the words aren't quite penetrating. She remembers meeting Jawad in the hallway at that birth so long ago. Something seemed unsavory about him then, she realizes, but it wasn't obvious enough. It seems wrong somehow that someone so monstrous should be able to blend in with regular people.
“Then you came looking for me. I knew it was bound to happen sooner or later. Ghita couldn't have just killed you after you were born.”
Shay gasps, horror sliding like the devil's finger down her spine. “First you said Ghita stole me, then you said you gave me to her. Now, you're saying you asked her to kill me?”
Hind grimaces, as though perhaps that was more than she intended to reveal. “I thought death was a better option than life as a slave. I'm glad now, of course, that she spared you. But when you showed up in the Bib, I was so desperate for Jawad to let me back into the kasbah, I admitted you were alive. He gave me the ring, spelled to render you unconscious so I could deliver you to him.”
