Vial of Tears, page 11
Lucky? Sam thought ruefully.
The deeper they walked into the forest, the darker it became. With no river to follow, Sam wondered how Eshmun knew his way around one tree and past another. Teth uncorked his bottle of arak once more and fell farther behind, and soon she could no longer see Eshmun ahead. She was alone. She stopped and held her breath.
Had Eshmun believed her lie about the obol being hidden in Rima’s hair? Would he want to find her? Would he really look for her when they reached his city?
Sam pulled her hands into fists and pictured her sister, limp and dangling from the tannîyn’s talons, lost to the clutches of jackals. A fresh surge of desperation tore through her like a jagged knife.
There was a crackle. A few feet off, the remains of a campfire glowed in the darkness, its cinders still sizzling with life inside a ring of rocks.
“Hello?” she whispered, surprised, taking a step into the trees toward it, the start of an idea already warming in her mind. “Eshmun?”
She nudged the ashes with a stick and watched a small flame hiss. What had Teth said? Flames are like windows. He had said that fire was a way to spy into the corners of the underworld.
She looked over her shoulder and wondered how much time she had before Teth caught up. She breathed gently on the orange ashes and then fed the birthing flames more pine needles, which ignited like matches.
“Where are you, Rima?” she asked the fire, which glowed and grew; she fixed her gaze on it, searching. “Rima?” she called, keeping her voice low. “Are you out there?”
The flames fattened and turned over. They spread and multiplied, but the fire was still ordinary, revealing nothing.
“Môt,” she said, and in an instant, the flames turned green.
She sat back, startled it had happened so quickly. But, steeling herself, she leaned in again, peering into the green snaps of light. The smell was nauseating—she pulled a wool blanket out of her bag to shield her nose and mouth.
Her eyes watered as she strained to make out any discernible shapes. Finally, a long, thin face twisted upward. Her heart pounded ferociously. Despite the searing heat of the fire and the fear burning inside her, she leaned in even closer.
“Hello,” she choked, trying to track the figure’s eyes, which undulated within the flames. His pupils seemed to be liquid, molten.
“Hinnē,” the voice replied. Look! “I am Môt, god of death, ruler of the underworld, gatekeeper to hell. Why do you summon me?”
“My sister,” Sam said. “I want to see her.”
“I want to see you,” said the god’s voice, strong, resonating with power. “Are you my queen? I knew you would seek me out. Come closer. Let the blanket drop.”
Sam did so, almost without thinking, driven by hope, hypnotized by the flames. She was sweating in her thin dress, and the fire seemed to grow in response.
“Tell me, are you a virgin?” the god’s voice asked eagerly.
“What?” Sam asked. She struggled to take a step backward, feeling tethered, weak. The sour tang of regret burned in her throat. “Why?”
“Have you birthed a son?” The voice hissed and snapped.
“No,” Sam said. Her heart pounded faster. She’d made a mistake. “I just… I need to see. I want to see where someone is. My sister. Do you have her? Where is Gadir? Where are you?”
“Say my name again,” he said. “Say it again and again. I want to see where you are. Who you are with. Speak my name,” he chanted. “Call to me, my bride.”
Sam forced herself to look away. Willed herself to step back, away from the fire. “No,” she said, her voice strengthening. “This is all wrong.”
“So be it,” Môt laughed, and the flames dipped low and fat and wormy, bubbling like a cauldron’s brew.
They’re maggots, Sam realized with a start. Maggots.
She fumbled backward, gasping for breath as the flames crawled over each other, mounds of them, spilling out over the edges of the rocks.
“No!” she cried. She tossed the wool blanket over the fire, trying to smother the flames. But it was already too hot, too alive. It ate the blanket, using it for fuel. The flames writhed their way into the forest’s floor of dry pine needles, lighting one after another. And then sparks—no, they were flies—swarmed out. Buzzing flies of fire.
Sam fled, screaming back toward the way she’d come. “Teth!” she shrieked. “Fire!”
It spread. The ground raged green, and then it climbed the trees, consuming branches. Sam could feel the searing heat press close against her back.
“Samira.” Eshmun’s voice cut through the toxic air, and then he was there, grabbing her by the arm. She was startled by her name in his mouth. Had he ever spoken it before? Had he even known it?
“Where’s Teth?” she asked.
“Here,” Teth said. He lobbed her over his shoulder in one quick swoop, and then they were running, her ribs banging against his shoulder blades. The smoke was as thick and black as night. She coughed and her lungs rattled as the forest was eaten by a death fire, consumed like a rotting corpse.
10
She awoke in a field of lavender, but all she could smell was soot. It was in her hair, her mouth, her skin, so deep it felt like her bones had been burned.
Eshmun sat nearby. He stared into the distance, his expression blank. She turned to follow his gaze and saw the forest still licking the sky with cursed flames. Teth paced and chanted prayers for his mighty cedar trees.
She pressed her palms against her eyes. What if Rima was in the forest as it burned to ash? She tried to push the thought away. Above the flames, the smoke billowed like a thousand ruḥā rising.
“It’s my fault,” Sam said, coughing out the words.
Eshmun leveled a look at her, his keyhole pupil narrowing. “Your fault?” he asked. His eyes trained on Sam’s neck, on the bruises the jackals had left. She put her fingers to her throat where it was most tender, and then he was suddenly upon her. His hands were around her neck, and her eyes went wide with fear.
Maybe her lie had backfired. If Eshmun actually believed that Rima had his coin, maybe he’d decided he didn’t need Sam any longer. He would search her dead body just to make sure, and that would be the end of her.
“Samira,” he said, surprisingly gently.
“You’re… choking me,” she gasped.
“Only because you are struggling.” He rubbed her throat with his thumbs.
Her eyes were on his chest where his tunic dipped and showed a firm pillow of muscle. Was his heart as strange as his eyes? She stretched her fingers outward and put her hand inside her bag, finding the handle of the frying pan.
“Trust me for a moment,” he said.
Warmth spread through her neck. It felt like sunshine, like she’d tipped her head back on a hot summer day under the noon heat. She remembered what it was like to lie on a blanket on the shore of Glen Lake—with her eyes closed, the sun’s fiery glow had made everything orange against her eyelids. The color of a blooming flower.
“What are you doing?” she asked, loosening her grip on the pan. She felt weak and flooded with a sweet calmness; her throat tingled like she’d swallowed something smooth and melted. Warm honey.
“Now, Samira,” Eshmun said. “Open your eyes.”
She blinked, disoriented. “Did I fall asleep?”
The tender bruises on her neck from the jackals’ attack were gone. The lump under her jaw had been healed, too—she felt for it with her fingertips and found nothing.
She stopped herself before thanking him. He’d left Rima’s ankle broken. He’d nearly pushed Sam over a mountainside. He’d bound them and forced them along like dogs. He was the one who’d brought them to this hellhole in the first place.
“I thought you were going to kill me for starting the fire,” she said.
“And what were you trying to see within its flames?” he asked, rubbing his eyes with the sleeve of his cloak as another wave of smoke billowed over them.
“My sister, of course. Or a way out of here.” She hesitated. “Your uncle spoke to me. Asked me if I had birthed a son. Why?”
“The prophecy, reimagined,” Eshmun said, curling his lip with disgust. “He wants to twist it to suit his own purposes. No—his delusions.” He stared at Sam, his eyes intense. “Does he know where we are? Did you let him see?”
“I don’t think so,” she said, her neck still warm, her eyes still heavy from his healing touch. “He wanted me to say his name again. I don’t think I opened the window wide enough for either of us to see clearly.”
Eshmun nodded. “My uncle’s fires are mirages and lies. You must find your truth elsewhere.”
Sam sighed. “My mother says I ask too many questions,” she said. “And now look what I did. I burned the world down looking for answers.”
“No.” Eshmun shook his head. “You may have pushed the vessel out to sea, but the tide was coming for it nonetheless. Môt’s cruelty is no longer tempered by Ba’alat Gebal. It was only a matter of time before he started to blister and singe this world again.”
“I still need to find Rima,” she said. She gripped handfuls of lavender, tearing them from the ground. “We need to find her.”
Eshmun pulled in a breath, and then paused. “I know how you suffer,” he finally said.
She ground her teeth. “You don’t,” she said. “You can’t.”
“Hyenas,” he said. “We were children. One morning, we went to the spring for water too early. It was still dark. I tried to frighten them, striking stones against each other until they sparked. But the hyenas were undeterred. They took her while I watched. My aunt’s daughter.”
Sam watched Eshmun’s face, the intensity in his eyes. Why was he telling her this? To make her waver with sympathy?
“What was her name?”
“Ḥzirān,” Eshmun said. “Hair like polished ebony. Born under the summer sun.”
“When you find your obol and leave this world, you’ll see Ḥzirān again, won’t you?” Sam asked. “In šmayyà.” She tipped her chin upward. “Heaven.”
“Yes,” he said.
She looked toward the burning forest. The glass vial prodded her hip, still secure beneath her belt. All she could think about was Rima, while Eshmun only thought of himself.
“You’re the only one who can open the gateway for the ruḥā,” Sam said. “For the countless souls who are trapped here. But obviously you’d rather see your pretty cousin again instead.”
His shoulders straightened; his jaw twitched. “My obol contains Chusor’s gold, valued beyond compare. What’s more, in the hands of darkness, it could be melted and altered and used for unspeakable things. I must find it.”
“Wāy!” Teth shouted with anger, still pacing and praying.
Eshmun stood and put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. “Brother. You are wasting your steps and your breath. Come. We continue to Sidon.”
“Hā,” Teth said, thrusting his hands toward the dying forest. “Ša`tā mtāt.”
Behold. The hour has arrived. “What hour?” Sam asked.
“Of Môt’s return,” Teth said grimly.
Eshmun gave him a curt nod and waved them forward. Silently, they waded through the lavender, a shallow ocean of purple. The smell of the burning forest faded, but it never completely left, following them like a shadow. Sam looked up at the evening clouds, dotted and curved into shapes almost like Arabic. She thought of Jiddo’s letter. What did it say? Would she ever know?
Eyes trained on the sky, her foot caught on something. She tripped and stumbled to her knees.
It was the ankle she saw first, swollen and veined.
“Oh!” she cried out, scuttling backward.
There was a man lying on the ground, hidden in the flowers. His kneecaps shone through his skin like small, full moons. His eyes were open but blank. Sam’s heart slammed against her chest. Eshmun must have walked right past him. She turned to find Teth, but he was only a silhouette against the horizon.
She looked down again at the dead man. His hair hung in long silver tangles, the odd angles of his limbs like an insect’s. A gray horse stood nearby, looking like it didn’t know what to do next. It stamped a hoof nervously.
“It’s okay, girl,” Sam said. “I won’t hurt you.”
A dark shape hovered nearby. The ruḥā of the dead man.
It came closer, floating above the ground. Its garb was a loose weave of emptiness, long strands of a midnight sky. Trembling, Sam stepped back, but the ruḥā followed gingerly, as if trying to reassure her, just as Sam had done with the horse.
Eshmun had told her not to look into its eyes, but why? Was he protecting her—or hiding something? What secrets would a ghost know? What could it tell her?
Is my father dead or alive? Is Rima?
How do we get back to Michigan?
She had failed to see anything through Môt’s fire, but here was another chance. Risky again, maybe foolish. But as far as she could tell, the ruḥā were simply trapped souls. Why should she fear them? For Rima’s sake, she had to try every possibility.
She gazed into the spirit’s hollow eyes, and felt them instantly catch. Slowly, they reeled her into their cold, strong current.
Feeling dizzy, she turned away, but the raspy voice of the ruḥā was already inside her head. It sang to her, a mournful ballad: dry leaves falling from trees, lost children calling, the creak of old bones.
You want to go home.
“Yes,” Sam said, her voice quavering. “Do you know the way? Tell me.”
Take my hand.
“No.” Sam shook her head. “Tell me.”
Touch me. Give me a sip of life. In return I will show you a glimpse of the way. The dead never lie. Death is truth, the only thing that is certain. Death never breaks its promises.
“You’ll show me,” Sam said. “A touch for a glimpse.”
With shaking fingers, she reached out and let the ruḥā’s cloak of shredded dreams brush against her skin.
Instantly there was the sound of rushing water, and then a chorus of voices, far away. She gripped the ruḥā tighter, wanting to listen longer. Mom? Is that you? An ache spread through her fingertips, deeper than pain. It was heartache and loss, memory and regret. She pulled away just as Teth caught up, thrusting himself in between.
“Begone!” he growled.
The ruḥā lifted away and upward, a dark kite. It seemed to find a crack in the air. It was like a letter slipping into an envelope. It was gone.
“I should not have left you alone again,” Teth said, puffing for breath. “You have a penchant for finding trouble. My lord will not be pleased. Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so,” she replied, shaking the sting from her fingers. She’d heard her mother’s voice, she was sure of it. “Where is it going?”
“Earth,” Teth said. “To haunt the living.”
“Can it go wherever it wants?” Sam asked. “To anyone?”
“So the legends tell us.”
Sam reached up and touched the place where the ruḥā had been.
There was nothing but empty air.
They found the horse not far off. Sam rode her until the lavender thinned and they picked up a dirt road, following it until they reached a fork. Teth turned right and Eshmun turned left. The horse lifted its hooves in a vertical dance, flicking the ground and deliberating between the two directions.
“My lord?” Teth asked, tugging on his beard.
“Sarepta first,” Eshmun answered. “A slight detour. A necessary one.”
Teth’s eyes brightened. “To consult with Arba`ta`esre?”
Eshmun nodded. “My thoughts have been cleaved, my friend. Perhaps she can divine the future—”
“Lā,” Sam interrupted. “We’re going straight to Sidon. That’s where we’re supposed to send out a search for Rima.” And where I’m supposed to steal your tears. She steered the horse right and tapped her heels.
“You will never get through the gate!” Teth called after her. “The guards will turn you away.”
She clenched her jaw. Even though her hands were no longer bound, she felt as though she were still leashed to Eshmun. She tugged the mare back toward the men and grudgingly followed once more.
Soon the occasional voice rose above the otherwise quiet landscape, and then Sam smelled food: laham mishwi—grilled meat. It transported her home for a moment, and she closed her eyes, wishing it could be true. Dad manning the grill, red peppers blistering—Rima’s favorite. Dad’s freckled face, Rima’s eager smile, the summer sun.
She opened her eyes to what could only be Sarepta. Through stone columns, she could see a sprawling šuqā, a marketplace, packed with vendors.
There was a squat building, a barn at the edge of the settlement, where a woman stood next to a sheep in desperate need of shearing. As they approached, Eshmun paused to talk with her; Sam heard her say that she would send her sons to carry the old man’s body from the lavender fields to be buried.
“Sweet girl,” the woman crooned, patting the gray mare’s head and offering her a handful of hay. All the while she stared at Sam, taking her in from her grimy hair to her green toenails.
“Have you seen another girl like me?” Sam asked. “Taller and younger, wearing a brown dress?”
The woman shook her head. “Like you, no,” she said.
Eshmun pressed his hand against the small of Sam’s back. “The horse stays here for now,” he said. “This way.”
Soon they were swept up in the current of the marketplace. Young women carried bowls made from enormous seashells, filled with pine nuts, dried fish, and capers. A seller’s basket of woven palm fronds was filled with colorful olives. Teth wandered off on his own, his nose twitching furiously, but Sam kept close to Eshmun, bitterly reminding herself that she likely needed him in order to find Rima.
As they walked, Eshmun purchased food: meat wrapped in thin bread, a salad of herbs, a cup of creamy warm milk. He shared them with her, and it was useless trying to hide her hunger; Sam couldn’t help but eat too fast and lick her fingers. There was more, too: She sampled a seafood stew, rich with butter. Spiced lamb rolled into lemony grape leaves. Sour white yogurt to dip cubes of meat into. Sesame pastries, still warm.
