Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History Read Online Free PDF

wrappings and put it on. My husband is dead. I have never worn mourning colours for him, but the night is black, and the robes are black, and I must reach the grotto to warn Fakr-ad-Din of what I have accidentally done.
    Is that why?
Mother’s voice demands in my imagination.
Is it to warn him, or to find out, at last, where he has hidden the bones of his son? Is it to warn him, or to beg him to bring his soldiers down into the valley and murder the pasha, murder all his Janissaries, including your own nephew, so that you can have your oud returned to you and save Ghalya from the stone demons?
    I climb out of the window. Take the forgotten road out of Bkassin, far enough that the pasha’s guards will not see me, before circling around, heading for the southern end of the valley where the mighty cliff waits.
    It takes hours to cross the valley floor. There are no wolves in the pine forest. They will not come where there are demons.
    I see no demons.
    “Where are you?” I wonder aloud; I wonder if I am still delirious. Or walking in a dream, for I do not grow thirsty, or tired.
    I find the base of the waterfall by its spray on my face, and climb the perilous path between the sleeping firebirds. The path is treacherous enough by day. It is foolhardy to attempt it by moonlight. Yet I make no missteps in Rafqa’s curled, black satin slippers, and when I find the grotto I call Fakr-ad-Din’s name into its empty depths.
    For, of course, it is empty. There were no scouts to give warning of my approach. No lanterns live in the dripping dark.
    I stand there, a pillar of futility and pain, wondering if I should simply throw myself off the edge. It is a long way down. There is no chance I would survive.
----
    When I arrive back at the village, it is emptied of the pasha and his soldiers.
    I realise that the shapes of men I avoided on my way to the valley were the bodies of villagers who had defied the pasha, tied to upright halberds before being stoned to death.
    Placing one foot after another, one ruined slipper after another, between the uneven stones of Bkassin’s main street, I collapse by the building that houses the village spring, drinking spilled water from broken buckets out of a dust-flecked pool while reflected sunlight spears my gritty eyes. The village water is tasteless. Not like the mineral water that rushes from the mountain.
    After a short rest, I stagger back to Rafqa’s house.
    “I curse the day that Hisham ever laid eyes on you,” she cries. “I curse the day your house was joined to mine.”
    Ignoring her, I seek another source of crying, one that comes from a room that once belonged to Rafqa’s son. His toy wooden animals still sit on the window sill. Ghalya lies limply in a bundle of furs. Her face is flushed and her eyes are staring.
    I see the stone demons move inside her. I see them eating her from within. Estefan moves back from her. His eyes are wild.
    “We should not have done it,” he says. “We should not have helped the pasha. Now the girl has no father to guide her. No wonder she has gone mad.”
    I feel my knees touch the floor beside the bed. I gather Ghalya into my arms.
    Let them leave her body
, I beg wordlessly.
Let them leave her body and enter into mine.
    But they do not leave her body. Three days later, she is dead.
----
    Standing before the stone firebirds, I take the oud out of its sling.
    Every movement that I make is slow and deliberate. I have only half a thumb and my two smallest fingers remaining on my right hand.
    It was months before my wounds healed and I was able to steal the oud back from the wedding celebrant who had taken it. After that, it was only a matter of desecrating Ghalya’s grave. The stone cover, placed there to prevent her demons from infecting anyone else, was no barrier to the demons, though it was to me. I used a woodcutter’s axe in my left hand – the hand furthest from God, the hand closest to the Devil – to break through the stone, and then