Early evening Ara returned to the garden. She had not found Suleiman or Layla. She stood before the wazir’s room, examining the tiles that surrounded the door. They had been identical, she was sure, but now each one was slightly twisted from the one below. They had become warped. What could have caused that?
And then there was the wazir. Maybe something in his room could explain his odd behavior. She wouldn’t be spying, exactly. The door was closed. Ara stared at it. How many times had she been told that, “Curiosity is a trap for the unwary?”
Girls were not permitted to open closed doors, but how was she to understand the wazir without entering?
She hesitated, then gently pulled the doorknob. If it’s locked, then I wasn’t meant to go in.
The door opened easily with a slight creak, and she stepped in. Mirrors filled every wall, and every single one was cracked or broken. Her astonished face repeated in mirror after mirror, broken by fractured lines that distorted and reflected her image, twisting it, again and again. On the floor and the ceiling spirals seemed to swirl as she stared at them. A profusion of glass jars stood on a shelf, holding many small dead animals.
Ara turned slowly around, watching as her fractured image followed. A mirror image of triangles and circles wavered across her vision. Symmetries, she thought, her stomach reeling as she looked about. An elaborate tapestry-covered screen stood in the right corner of the room portraying a hunting scene with dead and dying animals. The dank air in the windowless room made her head feel funny. Torqued geometric shapes repeated in the mirrors before her: squares and triangles and circles. Her head throbbed.
I don’t like this place.
The door swung open and then slammed shut. Heart thumping, she spun around.
“There you are. What trouble are you…” Suleiman stopped in mid-speech. His face turned a pasty white as he looked around the room. The mirrors now reflected two astonished faces. “No,” he gasped. “Not the evil that repeats.” He grabbed Ara’s hand, tugging her frantically toward the door. “We must leave here now.” Too late! Both heard the sound of approaching footsteps.
“Hide, quickly,” Suleiman whispered. “Don’t move. Say nothing.” He shoved her behind the tapestry screen as the door opened with a snick.
Ara froze behind the screen as the wazir spoke, his voice sounding like rough stone, “On whose word are you here in my room uninvited?”
“No one’s. I…”
She heard the scrape of a sword pulled from its scabbard, and Ara clamped her hands tightly over her mouth so she wouldn’t scream.
Even from behind the screen she could hear the venom in the wazir’s voice. “You’re spying on me! You’ve been too interested by far in my doings, stepping into what you shouldn’t.”
“No! I’m not…the door was ajar. I was concerned, nothing more.”
“I can see it in your eyes, you want my magic. You can’t have it. It’s mine.” His voice rose. “I’ve worked too hard for this.”
“Please, for Allah’s sake, for your own, let us leave here. Come, it will be well, no one will know.”
The wazir laughed. “You’re right. No one will know, and no one will heed your disappearance. You ran back to Turkey. Another slave gone. Yes, you’re no longer a difficulty for me.”
Ara listened, terrified.
“You must not do this. It’s evil. Turn back before you yourself are lost. Allah is watching.”
“You threaten me, you who are lower than low!” The wazir laughed, a grating noise with no joy. “The answer is here. You will be tied to this palace forever. Chained to the symmetries themselves.”
Ara remained locked in place while Suleiman pled. The wazir began chanting again, just as he had with the frogs. Ara heard a loud gurgling pop and then the wazir’s shrill laugh.
“How fitting and fortunate. The blood of a servant of the Alhambra will speed the Alhambra’s doom. And you, you will crawl on your belly until you die. Should I kill you or let you live a hopeless life in your new form?”
The call to Maghrib, evening prayer, sounded. He laughed mockingly, “Perhaps Allah Himself has spoken and granted you a reprieve. Farewell, lizard. I must attend prayer or someone might notice and wonder.” The door slammed.
Ara closed her eyes tightly and silently prayed to Allah that Suleiman would call to her. Only silence answered. Finally, she inched sideways to look around the screen. Suleiman’s clothes lay in a heap on the floor, and a dark puddle of blood stained the tile. Ara shuddered, then started as the tip of Suleiman’s hat moved. As she watched, a green lizard crawled stiffly out from under the pile of clothes.
“No,” Ara murmured, pushing herself back against the wall. “This did not happen.”
I’m not really here. I’m out in the garden sleeping. I’ll wake and tell Layla this dream, and we’ll both laugh. Please, please, let me be dreaming! Any moment Suleiman will come for me and tell me to go inside for the evening meal.
Onto her lap crept a plump lizard with a crest that shivered in the air. “Oh, Suleiman, what am I to do?” The lizard looked up pleadingly at his mistress and curled into a tight miserable ball.
Run. Return to the safety of the harem before the wazir returns, a voice inside her head compelled. Run. Violet eyes, so like the ones she had seen at the Sufi’s arrival, seemed to urge her. Ara gathered her courage.
Her hands shook so hard she could barely tuck the lizard into her caftan hood before tensely peering out again from the screen. All that remained were her own shattered reflections. She ran to the door and eased it open. The garden was empty. She leaped out of the room and raced for the palace doors.
Once safe in the sleeping room, she huddled in a corner, cradled the lizard, and sobbed.