Maman tells a story, and I feel myself slipping into memories of my childhood. Of growing up in our jinn village, of courtyards and dances, of dinners and feasts. Of my mother sitting beside my father, the sheikh of our village, weaving stories with the Hakawatis of other tribes. Of ouds strumming songs, of calfskin drums and qanuns telling their own tales in music. I remember the sizzling of meat cooking over fires, of the smell of herbs and of tea brewing hot against cool nights. Everything that is now lost, stolen from us.
Her voice is warbling and hoarse, but she speaks with the conviction a dervish has of his dance.
Death was once a maiden. She was dark-haired, and dark-eyed, and her skin was as vibrant as the full moon.
She lived alone under the earth, part of it, yet separate. All things that died, be it animal or plant or human or jinn or efrit, or any creature that ever walked the earth or flew the sky or swam the sea, would rot, and their skins and bones would sink down to death.
Death spent her days cleaning up the rot, sweeping and collecting the sinew and teeth and hair that collected in her home. But she was growing tired of doing so.
The bodies were all made of Earth, which gave flesh and bone. The bodies were given souls made of Sky. Blood was brought to life by Fire and Sea.
And so, Death asked her friends, creatures of stone and sand and clay, water and foam and flame, breath and dirt. She asked them for their help.
Earth fashioned a being made of clay and sand and made golems.
Sea made a creature of salt and water and gave rise to marids.
Sky took air and cloud wisps and rain and made ghouls.
Fire took ash and smoke and made jinns.
But Death was not happy with these gifts. For after each one died, it made more mess, more work for her. And though jinns and golems, marids and ghouls helped collect the bodies, with Fire burning them, then reusing the ash to make more jinns, it wasn’t enough.
And it wasn’t enough because Death thought it all a waste. Beautiful bodies and beings, she claimed, should not be burned then refashioned. Each one should be given a soul that belonged once to that body, and to that body alone. And that soul should be given a chance to live long after the body was just a memory.
Then, Death did something her friends did not approve of.
She took jinns’ gift of Fire and trained them in the art of gleaning the stories of souls, and then giving those stories back to the souls to remind them of the lives they lived in their bodies. She took a golem and appointed it as her gatekeeper to the realm of Mote and named him Mote after his appointed gate.
Those jinns became the Hakawati jinns, and for as long as they and Death have existed, they have been telling the stories of the dead.
But Death knew one day she would pay the price of going against her friends. For Death and her friends served not themselves or each other, but a greater power. One they had never seen, but had felt. This power was the source of all that ever came into being. It was thunder and lightning and light—and perhaps even life itself.
And Death felt that power growing stronger in her realm. That power kept pushing at her boundaries, getting in the way of souls leaving their bodies or reclaiming the souls of the newly dead.
Death grew angry, for souls were hers and hers alone. That was her right as Death. She added more gates in death, more gatekeepers, and appointed more Hakawati jinns so that there would be less time between the moment a body dies and their souls leave their bodies. Less time for that power to interfere.
Still, that power was stronger than Death and her friends combined, and souls slipped into its hands. But as more Hakawati jinn were trained and appointed, and more gatekeepers stood guard around Death’s realm, fewer and fewer souls were caught by that power. One day, Death learned that the power was put to sleep in a cauldron of heated stone and sand, and covered with a layer of ash, and sealed over by the sky, and surrounded by the sea.
But Death was no fool, and she knew one day, that power would awaken. It would be hungry for new souls to give it more power, more strength. So, Death did something: she put to sleep her own Hakawati. Not all, for she still needed them to tell the stories of the dead, but she put to sleep her most skilled, most powerful. And she did the same with all of her gatekeeepers until only the original, like Mote, were left.
“But maman,” I say, “what does all this mean?”
“It means you must find a way to work with Death herself to heal whatever has gone ill.”
“She told me her soul seed is sick. What does that mean?”
“It means, Hakawati, that you need to find Death’s soul seed and heal it.”
“But how do I do that?” I ask, my voice rising. “I’m one jinn.”
“You will have to, Hakawati.”
“But how do I heal a sick soul seed? When people are dying, their seeds rot before their body does. Kamuna—Death—she’s dying. How would I stop that?”
“You are of the last of your kind who walks the earth as flesh and bone and not as smoke in a bottle. You must find a way to do your job.”
“But maman …” I sound like a whining child, even to myself.
“Nado,” she says, using her nickname for me. “Nadine. You must find a way, or the dead will not stay dead.”
My mother coughs, then reaches for her lamp. “I’m tired, Nado. I need my sleep.”
She slips a finger into the lamp, then her body—smoke, that it is—curls into it, leaving me alone at the table.
“Heal death,” I say to myself, eyeing Illyas’s pomegranate seed on the shelf. “I need a way into death first.” I take the seed off the shelf.
Each seed, a soul of the dead, is a connection to death itself, created from the soil and water and air of death’s realm.
I could eat the seed, I think, and then return to the cemetery, but it’s no guarantee I’d even get into death. And eating Illyas’s seed means he will never be able to visit me in life again.
“No, never,” I say, shaking my head. I place the seed back on the shelf and pace my home. “There has to be another way.”