I’m back in life and the cottage smells of pungent herbs and oil. The smells mask any rot that would be setting into the bodies.
On the table is a bowl of fresh blood and two small red seeds beside it. Layala’s and Sayil’s. I swallow the anger brewing deep within me and instead focus my attention on what I need to do.
Rami left as soon as he set Sayil’s body down. “I have to—there are things I want to get in order. I’ll bring my family, leave them here,” he says. “I’ll return shortly …” I ignore him and let him leave, focusing instead on the raising.
A little while later, I’m not sure how much time has passed, someone knocks on the door.
“What?” I yell in the door’s direction, sharper than I meant. “Who is it?”
I open the door. Silver eyes stare at me.
“Rami,” I sigh.
“I’m back. Apologies it took so long.”
“Come in and close the door behind you,” I say and watch him as he sets the clinking bag of clay figurines down on the table.
“Shay?” I ask. Tea. “Maybe something to eat?”
Rami gives a dry laugh. “Feeding me my last meal?”
I don’t say anything but set the kettle over the fire. While the tea is brewing, I set a plate of figs and dried apricots on the table. He stares at them but doesn’t reach for any.
“Can I help?” he asks when I set the tea before him and he’s taken a few sips.
“You can add more wood to the fire.”
I rub Layala’s and Sayil’s bodies with oils and herbs and plait their hair over their shoulders. Rami doesn’t say anything, but I hear him scrape back the chair and pull small logs from the corner where I have them stacked.
He throws logs into the grate and lights them, slowly starting the blaze until it’s hot enough I have to move away from it.
He’s pacing, though, and I hear him muttering to himself. “If you want to do something to burn the energy,” I say, “you can bury the sheikh.”
I nod my chin at the sheikh’s body, lying where I left him.
“I can … bury the body.”
“In the cemetery, in the back,” I say. “I don’t want anyone finding him.”
“I’ll make sure it’s a deep hole.”
“There’s a shovel in the shed, where the tub is. Behind the house. I’ll prepare the girls while you do.”
I pull the bowl of blood closer to me. The blood is clotted, but I break through it with my finger. I pour oil into the bowls and swirl the blood in it, making it easier to spread over the floor and Layala’s body.
She’s still coated in the mud and clay from before, but it’s hardened now and flaking.
“And I need to get more clay,” I tell Rami as he’s heading to the door. “And water. Please. Then you can go bury the sheikh.”
His footsteps clack against the wooden floor before disappearing outside. He returns a few minutes later with a ball of clay cupped in his palms.
“Leave it there,” I say, and he drops it into an empty bowl and pushes it toward me. He leaves, then returns with water sloshing in a bucket and sets it beside me. “And I’ll need some of your blood,” I say, “to start with.”
Rami offers his hand wordlessly and I slice his palm with a blade. I collect the blood in a bowl and slice his other palm, letting the blood fill a second bowl.
“Shukran,” I say and hand him clean cloths for his wounds. He leaves, then returns with fresh well water, setting a bucket beside me.
He turns to the sheikh’s body and throws it over his shoulder. The door shuts behind him, and I turn back to the girls.
I slice my palm and let myself bleed fresh blood into a bowl.
I coat another layer of clay and water over Layala’s body. I rub more oil in, more herbs, and lay more ash over her skin. Then I do the same for Sayil. I dip each of their fingers into my blood and coat their tips. I rub the blood over their mouths and eyes, around the nose, down the front of their necks and across their chests, like a helmet and shield.
Rami returns, and he settles by the table as I finish rubbing another coat of oil over the girls.
“You’re preparing both?” he says, surprise making his voice higher.
“I … Layala’s body should be kept supple,” I say, my back still toward Rami. I don’t want him to see my face, to catch on to any look of deceit. I don’t want him to suspect that I’m about to deceive him.
“But you’re raising Sayil, right?” he asks.
I nod, still hiding my face from his view.
“Hakawati,” Rami says, his voice sharper now. I turn around to face him. “My sacrifice is for you to raise Sayil.”
“I know, Rami, that is what I’m doing.”
“I am dying so she can raise my family when she becomes Death.”
“Yes, of course,” I say through gritted teeth. “I know this.”
He stares at me, then flicks his gaze over to the girls. “I’m sorry about Layala, but my sacrifice is for Sayil, and Sayil alone.”
I bow my head. “Of course. I’m only keeping her body from rotting quicker.”
He gives me a sharp nod of the head, and I turn back to the girls. I set more logs in the fire and make sure the bowls of blood are beside me.
“I’m ready,” Rami says behind me.
I turn around. He’s standing there, by the table, one hand near the girls’ soul seeds, the other holding a knife out to me.
“Please,” he says, and his silvery eyes are wide. “Please make it quick. Make it deep.” He turns so he’s facing away.
I stand behind him, my mouth so dry I pause to drink some water.
“All well?” Rami says, looking at me over his shoulder.
“Yes, yes, of course,” I say, and he faces ahead of him again.
This is for Layala. This is for your child. His sacrifice will be worth it.
This is for Layala, I keep repeating to myself.
I settle my hand on Rami’s shoulder and force him down to his knees. He’s shivering now, his breaths are ragged.
This is for Layala.
I plunge the knife into his neck and watch him bleed.
This is for Layala. This is for Layala. This is for Layala.
He’s clutching at his neck, and I resist the urge to place a warm cloth and pack herbs into his wound to stop the bleeding.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, coo to him even, as if he were a child I was putting to sleep. “This will be over shortly.”
This is for Layala.
He sputters, and more blood drains out of him. I hold a bowl to capture it, letting the blood fill up, even as Rami slumps to the ground. He’s not breathing anymore, and he’s still, his eyes closed.
This is for Layala.
I pour both my blood and Rami’s together into a bowl and swirl it. I pry Layl’s mouth open and slide the blood down her throat.
Then I drink the rest of it.
It’s salty and metallic and thick with clot. I gag and choke, and I want to vomit. But I force it down with water, trying not to think too much about it. I hold my fist to my mouth for a few breaths, until my stomach is settled and I know I won’t vomit it all out. I set the kettle on to boil, and I eat Rami’s soul seed.
I gasp when the soul releases its stories. They’re violent and grotesque. Mosaics of body parts and rotting flesh, ash and dust and fire, and death from ages past. I see the rot of decaying bodies choking the earth. I feel the souls not as they were when they died, but before that. They were … happy? There is warmth on my skin—sunshine. And I smell fresh grass and rain. I hear music and dancing, the heavy thrum of drumming in the night air.
The images shift, the sounds more distant, and I see dead children. Bodies piled on bodies, then set on fire. The earth spits out fire and flame, and black ash settles on everything. The oceans swallow the ash. I can’t make out a single story thread, there are too many scenes flashing before me.
But then my magic settles on one story, and I pluck it out.
A claymaster was married for twenty years to her husband, a painter. She was still young in her own mind, no more than forty years, but she’d never had a child.
She and her husband both wanted children, twins even, so they would always have a playmate in each other.
One day, the claymaster told her husband, “I’m going to make us a child.”
Her husband laughed and said, “You can’t do that without my help.”
“You’re right,” the claymaster said, and plucked two hairs from the man’s head and two from hers. She took two types of clay, one she always used that was easy to mold, and another type that was grainier and took more of her skill to shape.
She mixed both her and her husband’s hairs in each of the clay and set about molding both into children. Two girls, for she’d always wanted a sister, though she only had brothers.
The claymaster shaped them into the most beautiful babies she could—with dimpled cheeks and hands, chubby bellies, bright eyes, and button noses. She molded the clay for days, shaping and drying and heating. Her husband painted the clay, taking weeks to make sure he did his most beautiful work.
Then they waited. They set the clay babes under the light of a full moon, smoothed the bodies with oils and herbs, and splashed a life spell over the clay, given to them by a witch who lived deep in the woods.
The claymaster and her husband went to sleep and prayed their efforts would reward them.
When they awoke to bright sunshine, the claymaster rushed out of her house to check on the clay. In place of what she and her husband left out the night before were two bone and blood babies, smiling up at her as if they’d known her their entire short lives.
“Husband!” she yelled. “Husband, come quick!”
Her husband dashed out of the house, and when he saw the babes, he picked each one up and cried.
“Two girls,” the claymaster said, “just as we wanted.”
They took the girls inside and raised them in love.
The years flew by and soon the girls were ten and as different as could be. The one fashioned of easy clay was easygoing, with bright blue eyes and pale hair, and her name was Shamsa, the sun. The other was wilder, more stubborn, as if born of the wilderness, with her dark hair and brown eyes, and her name was Amur, the moon. But the two were inseparable.
The claymaster remarked to her husband, “Our girls are so different, perhaps we should separate them, so Amur doesn’t spoil Shamsa’s goodness.”
The two parents thought on it, then decided they would separate the girls, sending Amur to the witch in the woods to keep away from Shamsa, who would stay home with them.
The sisters refused at first, but then when they were asleep one night, the claymaster’s husband took Amur, still sleeping, to the witch in the woods and left her at her doorstep. When the witch awoke the next morning, she found the girl still sleeping on a mat of leaves before her house.
“Wake, girl,” she said. “You have been deceived, but not by my hand.”
Amur was angry, and though she tried, she could not find her way back to her home, and the witch refused to help, saying she did not meddle in the affairs of selfish humans without a good reason. So, Amur stayed with the witch, and she learned the witch’s ways.
Years passed, and Shamsa grew more beautiful as Amur grew more wild. But none was less than the other, for they were different sides of the same hand.
One day, Amur spotted Shamsa gathering berries deep in the woods. She was happy to see her sister, but also angry that Shamsa was the one who their parents loved.
So, she decided to kill her and take her place. She followed Shamsa back to their parents’ home and learned the route. At night, she waited until all were asleep and snuck into the house, poisoned thorn vine in hand.
But just as she was about to stab her sister in the neck with the thorn, Shamsa’s eyes flew open. She recognized her sister instantly, though many years had passed.
“Amur?” she said in a low voice so she wouldn’t wake their parents.
Amur’s hand dropped and she felt shame for what she had been about to do.
Shamsa eyed the poisoned thorn but drew her sister closer to her. “I wouldn’t have blamed you, if you had done it,” she said. “Our parents wronged you. I begged them for years to bring you back, but they never listened. Here’s what we’ll do: you sleep here with me and when they awake, we will surprise them!”
Amur thought on it, then slipped into her sister’s bed. They curled up into each other like they did as children and slept as if no years had ever passed between them. When the sun broke through the windows, the sisters awoke and set out a breakfast for their parents, then sat at the table and waited for them to awake.
When the claymaster and her husband awoke, they found both sisters at the table. The claymaster’s knees failed her and she fell to the ground. Her husband tore at his hair and asked his deceived daughter for forgiveness.
“You have wronged me,” she said. “But I forgive you, for I only want to be with my sister again.”
What Amur didn’t know, though, was that Shamsa had the poisoned thorn in her hand. With her parents distracted, she rose up and stabbed them both with the thorns, killing them.
“Shamsa!” Amur said. “How could you?”
“They have made my life miserable, from sending you away to keeping me inside the house so no one would spoil me. They are miserable, sorry creatures and didn’t deserve the lives they were given.”
Though Amur was happy she had her sister back, she knew it was wrong to kill their own parents. Using the witch’s magic she learned over the years, she brought the claymaster and her husband back to life. But it wasn’t a true life, no, for no witch’s magic is stronger than death’s. The best she could do was to bring the claymaster and her husband back into the shape of clay dolls. Each full moon, when the clay dolls were set out under the moonlight, they came back to life, just for that night.
And so, the sisters lived this way the rest of their long lives, meeting their parents at every full moon, but living in happiness together the rest of the time.
I’m surprised at the story. It’s sweet, even as it came with pain. I hold the story in my mind and quickly write it in blood over Layala’s body. I sketch the gardens, the plants, and the witch and Amur and Shamsa, from memory. I write the words of the tale until every inch of her body is covered in it.
“I’m sorry, Rami. And I thank you for your sacrifice,” I say aloud. “It will not be in vain.”
And if you knew what Layala was planning at the river, if you chose not to stop her, then I care even less for your life. And if you had no hand in this, then know your life goes toward a greater good.
I look down at Sayil, and with as much affection as I can feel for Death’s daughter, who looks nothing like my own with her pale hair and pale coloring, yet so similar in her youth and beauty, I say, “I’m sorry, Sayil. But my Layala comes first.”
Then I take Layala’s soul seed from its jar and eat it.