Shadow Spinner

by Susan Fletcher

Shahrazad laughed. “I’m human, Marjan—just like you. I’m better at some things than others. But it would be unwise for either of us to make up a story about Julnar’s son. The Sultan will know the right one when he hears it. It’s like that name . . . the name with the two D’s or two B’s. When you forget a name like that you don’t really forget it, because when you hear it again you know it instantly. It’ll be that way with this tale. If you came up with something far different from what he remembers—as you’d be bound to do—he’d be suspicious. Angry.”

  “What about the other women in the harem?” I asked. “One of them must have heard it.”

  Dunyazad snorted. “They won’t help.”

  “They’re . . . afraid of the Khatun,” Shahrazad said. “They live and die at her whim. So they’re very . . . cautious around me.”

  “Even though my sister’s saving all their lives,” Dunyazad said. “The young ones, anyway. They’re cowards!”

  Shahrazad sighed. “Well, things are dangerous for them, too.”

  “I still don’t understand,” I said, “why the Khatun—”

  “She hates my sister!” Dunyazad broke in. “She’s a witch!”

  “Shh!” Shahrazad put a finger to her lips.

  “Well she is!”

  “If only I could get out” I said. “I could find that beggar—I know it. They usually stake out the same places for years.” If, I added to myself, he was still alive.

  ’You can’t get out,” Shahrazad said. “No one can get out.”

  Dunyazad jolted erect, turned to her sister. “She can’t get out,” she said. “But. . .”

  Shahrazad and her sister locked gazes. I could tell they were thinking the same thing. What it was, I hadn’t an inkling.

  “Don’t tell her,” Dunyazad warned, looking at me. “It isn’t safe.”

  Shaharazad nodded. “Some things are dangerous to know,” she told me—though I was sure that was not what Dunyazad had meant. Shahrazad rose, and I stood, too. “Thank you, Marjan,” she said, “for all you’ve done. Can you find your way back to your room?”

  “I think so,” I said. Dunyazad had taken me by a direct route with no secret passageways—much simpler than the way we had come before.

  “We’ll speak later,” Shahrazad said.

  And I was alone again.

  Chapter 6

  The Terrace

  LESSONS FOR LIFE AND STORYTELLING

  There are some stories that you don’t tell aloud, that you make up and tell silently to yourself. Private stories. You spin them over and over until you don’t need them anymore.

  I had one about my mother. In this story, she had been brought before the Gazi for judgment. He was asking her questions—hard questions.

  I liked to watch her sweat.

  I made my way back to my room, stopping at a pool to make ablutions, and then belatedly making up for the noon prayers I had missed. Still quiet. Everyone still resting. It seemed like a week since I had left Auntie Chava, but it was only midafternoon of the very same day. I unrolled the mattress and tried to sleep. I was tired—my face ached the way it always does when I haven’t slept well or enough. But I couldn’t sleep. Sweat beaded on my temples and trickled into my hair. This room, so far from the outside air, was suffocating.

  I told myself my story about my mother; sometimes I can sleep after that. But it only stirred up my mind. I kept worrying about Shahrazad—how she was going to get the rest of that story, and if the Sultan would really kill her if she didn’t. And what were Shahrazad and Dunyazad planning? “She can’t get out,” Dunyazad had said, “but. . .”

  Was she thinking of someone who could go out of the harem? Who? A eunuch, maybe? Or a woman who came in to sell trinkets and cloth? Or a man who delivered food for the kitchens?

  Some things are dangerous to know, Shahrazad had said.

  Because of the Khatun.

  Was everyone in the harem her creature, as Dunyazad had put it?

  My glance strayed to the corner where the chest stood in the shadows. The chest with the dead girl’s things. Had she been the Khatun’s creature? What about all the hundreds of women in the harem who had lived here and been killed—had they been her creatures, too?

  What had it been like here, back then, in the old days before the killings? When the harem had been full of women? I got up, opened the chest, fingered the fine cloth of the garments, cradled the dead girls prayer stone in my palm. I could almost hear the whispers, the pad of slippered feet on the floor. I could almost feel the faint swishing breezes stirred by silk gowns as they passed. I could almost smell the swirling eddies of perfume.

  I flung the stone into the chest, shut the lid. This place was haunted! I had to get away!

  I couldn’t leave the harem, but I could at least get out of this room. Air. I needed fresh air.

  I pushed aside the curtain and tiptoed down the hall. Maybe I could find a courtyard open to the sky. Or a roof terrace. There must be a terrace somewhere.

  I didn’t know if I was allowed to explore other parts of the harem—but no one had told me not to. What harm could it do?

  I wandered through a maze of silent hallways lined with closely spaced, curtained doorways. I couldn’t resist peeking into one. Slowly, I pulled the curtain aside . . .

  Abandoned. Cobwebs festooned the corners; the floor cushions and chest were buried in drifts of dust.

  Ghosts.

  When you want to find a roof terrace, it’s a good idea to look for stairs. I found my way to an open courtyard, then took a wide glazed stairway up. Through a half dozen corridors and stairways and courtyards, I lost my way. From time to time I heard murmured voices behind curtains, and once I heard a child’s cry. Then I turned a corner and came face-to-face with two crimson-robed eunuchs guarding an arched doorway. The Khatun’s doorway! They stared at me; I whirled around and hurried away.

  Though I was relieved that the guards didn’t come after me, a deep, aching loneliness was welling up inside. I had come to help Shahrazad, but I had made things worse, and now there was nothing for me to do. No one to help, no one to talk to . . . No one even to sit in the same room with me, to stir the stagnant, perfumed air with breath.

  Air. I had to get fresh air.

  I came to the end of a corridor, then went down a flight of stairs to yet another courtyard with yet another beautiful fountain. I had seen so many beautiful fountains and beautiful arches and beautiful carpets and beautiful friezes that they were almost beginning to bore me.

  Then I caught a glimpse of bright light beyond a wide latticed window at the top of a short stairway. There was a stone parapet, with blue sky beyond.

  I ran up the steps—clunking, forgetting to go graceful and silent. I could see it now through the lattice: a terrace. There was a heavy wooden door in the wall; I rattled at the latch, but it was locked.

  I peered again through the lattice. In the afternoon sunlight, I could see a graceful pattern of tiles on the floor, and potted flowering bushes, and a haze of trees beyond. The part that I could see was square, but there appeared to be a narrow arm of terrace that stuck out to the left, along the railing. Someone must have been there not long before. A carpet was spread out with damask cushions strewn upon it. At one edge lay a silver tray with glass drinking vessels and a sprinkling of crumbs and seeds.

  Maybe it was someone’s private terrace. But no one would be outside now, in the heat of the day. And I could smell the fresh air!

  There were three arched openings in the window lattice, just above the sill, meant to let air and light in—not to let people out. But maybe I could fit.

  I hiked my skirts, thrust one leg over the sill and through an arch, then tried to squeeze leg and head and shoulders through the arch at once.

  Too small.

  I withdrew my leg, then slipped my head and shoulders through the arch, twisting my shoulders. I wormed slowly forward and, giving one last push with my feet, slid through the opening and down onto the hard floor.


  The heat struck me like a blow, but the air was washed of the cloying perfume that filled the harem. I breathed in deep and smelled Cyprus and jasmine and roses. A light breeze rustled in the leaves of a potted palm tree and tinkled in some hanging chimes.

  I got up and walked to the carpet. The drinking vessels, I saw, held traces of sharbats. Someone had been here not long ago. Moving to the stone railing, I looked down the narrow arm of the terrace. No one here now.

  Below lay a large garden with flowers and fruit trees and blooming bushes. Footpaths wound all through it, leading to ponds with floating water lilies and gilded gazebos. A grove of cypress and boxwood trees at the outer edges cast mottled shadows across the ground.

  This must be the garden where the Sultan had caught his first wife dallying with her lover. He had sealed its doorways to the harem, so now only men could go there.

  A mournful wail pierced the silence; I looked down to see a peacock wandering along the banks of a pond.

  This garden was lovely, but I longed to look out upon the city. I longed to smell the familiar city smells. Sweat and spices and manure. The sharp odor of the tanning vats.

  I longed for a glimpse of my old home.

  But the view to the city was blocked. Perhaps there were other terraces, higher up.

  It didn’t matter. I had come to air, away from the ghosts. I fetched a cushion from the carpet and took it onto the arm of the terrace. A flowering vine grew out of a glazed planter and twined up a trellis on the wall opposite the railing. From somewhere above came the soft cooings of pigeons at rest. I set the cushion in the shadow of the wall, leaned back against the trellis, took in a deep breath of jasmine.

  My eyelids felt heavy, but I would not sleep. I would only rest for a moment.

  * * *

  I jolted awake. I had slept! For how long?

  The shadow had moved across the floor and had begun to creep up the stone railing.

  Voices. Two of them: an older and a younger. One—unmistakable—was the Khatun.

  Was this her own private terrace?

  What would she do when she found me here?

  I sat paralyzed, unable to decide what to do. Then a grating sound—a key in the lock. I jumped up, ran to the far end of the terrace arm.

  They wouldn’t see me until they came to the railing. But I should show myself now. Surely coming here was no great sin. No one had told me it was forbidden.

  The door creaked open; I started to move toward it. The voices grew suddenly loud.”. . . what she’s up to,” the Khatun said, “with that Marjan.”

  I froze.

  “She must have run out of stories. What else could she want with that crippled little monkey?” I recognized the younger voice now. It was the copper-haired girl.

  The Khatun laughed, then said more softly, “Oh, there are many possibilities. I’ll find out, in good time. My son won’t tell me—or he doesn’t know himself. He wants to make her happy, he says. I don’t like it.”

  “She can’t keep up this storytelling forever—can she? She’s got to run out of them someday.”

  The Khatun made a grumbling noise. Then, “When you’re queen,” she said, “I’ll keep you well supplied with stories.”

  And then the door creaked again, and there were more footfalls and chattering voices, and a tinkling of silver or glass. But now I couldn’t show myself. It was too late, after what I’d heard. When you’re queen, I’ll keep you well supplied with stories.

  My heart was pounding wildly. I peered over the railing, hoping to find some little outcropping of roof that I could climb down to until it was safe to go back the way I’d come.

  Nothing. It dropped sheer to the garden.

  “Hsst!”

  What was that?

  “Hsst! Up here!”

  I looked up, craned my neck until I saw her: a crinkle-faced old woman peering at me from atop the roof. “The trellis!” she hissed, pointing at the wooden trellis against the wall. “Climb it! Now!”

  I gaped at her. She smiled—shyly, I thought—and motioned furiously for me to come up. Who was she?

  “Hurry!” she whispered. “They’ll see you!”

  They’d come and find me if they heard her. I looked at the trellis: flimsy-looking crisscrossing slats of wood interlaced with vine. It didn’t look sturdy. And the wall was high. If I stayed here and didn’t move, no one would see me. I didn’t know who this old woman was, or why or if she wanted to help me. Maybe this was a trick.

  Something moved. A serving woman, coming out from behind the wall. I pressed myself back against the trellis. She said something, and her glance flitted past me. Then she moved back out of sight.

  Had she seen me?

  I waited a long moment. My bloodbeat rang loud in my ears.

  Nothing.

  I looked back up; the old woman was gone from the roof. But I couldn’t stay here now. Someone would see me; it was only a matter of time.

  I caught up my fine silk skirts and tucked the ends of them into my sash. Then, clutching the lattice, I wedged my good foot between the slats and pulled myself up. It held.

  I tried to climb fast, but the angle of the slats made my bad foot hurt, and my skirts kept tangling between my feet and the lattice, rustling in the leaves. From back on the square part of the terrace, I could hear the Khatun talking and dishes clanking and the wind chimes tinkling, and I prayed that no one would hear me.

  I had nearly reached the top when I heard a brittle crack and then my bad foot was swimming out in the air and my hand was too—it had slipped off the lattice—and the garden was floating far below. I grabbed for the lattice again; its edges bit into my hands. I groped with my foot for another place to go. There. But would it hold? One hand felt along the edge of the roof for something to grab on to.

  Then the old woman was there again, gripping my arm and hauling me up onto a flat piece of roof. My knee hit down with a thunk.

  “What was that?” I heard from below.

  Footsteps. They were coming nearer; they were on the balcony, just beneath us.

  “Get behind me,” the old woman whispered. “Don’t let them see you.” I scrambled behind her, then, “There now, my dear,” she said in a high, rich, warbling voice. “Don’t flap your wings so loud; the ghosts’ll hear you.” She was hunched over, facing me, with her back to the terrace, cupping her hands as if she were cradling something within them.

  Was she mad?

  “There, my dear. No flapping. They won’t hurt you.”

  Then from below, a voice: “Zaynab! Get along with you. You know you’re not allowed near this terrace.”

  The woman made a little clucking sound with her tongue. She shooed me before her across the roof.

  “Talking to her birds again,” I heard someone say down below. “Crazy old Zaynab!”

  Chapter 7

  Crazy Zaynab

  LESSONS FOR LIFE AND STORYTELLING

  When you tell the old tales, like Shahrazad, you become a keeper of ancient lore. You collect the wisdom of the world, and you remember. Next, you brush off the dust, press out the wrinkles, maybe mend a tear or two. Then you present the old tales as gifts to your listeners. You might alter the cut of a story as well, or embroider in some touches of your own. But your tales have a history before you.

  There is another way of being a storyteller. Like a spider, you can spin a fragile thread out of your own life—from the shadows of your dreams. Then you weave it and snip it and stitch it. At last, you put on the poor garment and wear it out into the world.

  The roof was huge and scary. Most of it was flat, but it was broken up into pieces: a small flat piece over here, a higher flat piece over there, a big square hole that dropped down to a courtyard with no railing and no warning, a cupola, a minaret. Most houses you see use all of their roof space for living. But you could tell that this roof was not made for that. There were no railings round the flat spaces, and the mud surfaces were dirty and unadorned.

&nbs
p; Zaynab moved before me like a cat—a plump, round cat—gliding along the flat parts, leaping across gaps, scaling rickety ladders from one level to the next, mincing along ledges, skirting the bases of cupolas. She was amazingly nimble. There was a light springiness to her step, and yet a sort of heaviness in her feet when she jumped that made them land solidly where they were supposed to, without teetering.

  I was afraid. The ground looked far below, and sometimes, there was nothing at all between it and me.

  “Don’t look down!” Zaynab called to me.

  But it was hard not to look down. I wanted to see my feet, where they were supposed to step, but often, just beyond the edge of them, was down. Down into a tiled courtyard, or down to another level of roof, or down into the garden below.

  I hadn’t wanted to follow her. She had shooed me away from the Khatun’s terrace until we were out of view, then had climbed up a ladder to another level of roof and disappeared. I had stood there, gaping at the rickety ladder, at the space where I had last seen her. She had appeared again—above me. “Hsst! Up here!”

  I couldn’t go back. And I couldn’t stay up there all day, on the bare mud roof above the Khatun’s terrace. So I had followed, favoring my bad foot—gingerly setting it on the ladder’s narrow rungs, scooting it along ledges, walking around the gaps that Zaynab jumped over.

  But Zaynab didn’t seem to notice my crippled foot or consider that one misstep could plunge me to my death. Don’t look down! was all the advice she offered.

  What was I doing, following a crazy woman across this treacherous roof?

  But I thought of the Khatun and kept going.

  At last, as I was hauling myself up another ladder, a small, circular pavilion arose before me on a tiled rooftop terrace. The pavilion was made of yellow bricks, with a domed roof and a row of slender, arched windows all the way around. Nearby, flowering bushes and trees sprouted up from clay pots. Bird droppings speckled the floor, growing denser and denser toward the far end, where I saw three pigeon lofts—thatched mud huts shaped like cones. They were pierced with clusters of small round holes, with sticks poking out beneath. Pigeons peered out through the holes, perched on the sticks, preened on the loft roofs, and strutted on the low wall that edged the terrace. From within the lofts welled up the rich, peaceful, burbling sound of many contented birds.