by Sara Pascoe
* * *
Raya woke up with the hot sun slashing through the shutters. It must have been after ten in the morning. The door to Macide’s was left ajar. She threw on her dress and went in.
‘Morning, Miss Rachel,’ Abbas said. ‘We were just trying to explain to your auntie how grateful the groundsmen, all of us, are for her getting rid of the jinn! With Bryony’s ability to see and hear them, she knows when they’re gone. Not to mention, the animals staying with us are now a lot calmer.’
Macide handed Raya a plate. She chose from the array of hard boiled eggs, salad, cheese, olives and bread. It took her a second to remember what they were talking about. She’d been so tired, and there’d been so many weird and fantastic experiences since yesterday, she’d halfway wondered if those jinn things were from a dream. She was kind of hoping they were.
‘Oh that’s nice,’ she said. Glad she’s good at something, she thought.
Macide put a piece of baklava on Raya’s plate, even though she didn’t ask for any. Her face told her she thought she was too thin. Raya put it back onto the serving plate, despite Macide’s frown – she could only eat so much.
‘Word’s already got around – about your auntie’s way with jinn. This is a wonderful skill. So many people have jinn problems.’ Abbas shook his head.
‘Rachel, dear, ask your auntie if she’d be willing to help other people get rid of their jinn,’ Macide said. ‘This would be much more important work than helping around here. You could stay here and help us – with cooking and laundry, if you don’t mind.’
Oh, great. I get stuck with the crap jobs – figures. Raya put her plate down and related all this to Bryony.
‘One of our groundsmen can take her to the jobs in our carriage, and we can provide a dragoman – a translator,’ Abbas added.
Bryony looked a bit nervous. ‘Raya, we need to stay together, so I can help you practise. I know I haven’t been a lot of help so far. But at least I can teach you what I do know. We might as well use everything we’ve got, eh? Tell them you can translate for me.’
Raya hated it when people acted all ‘poor me’, especially when it was adults who were supposed to be in charge. It made her skin crawl. ‘Sure, I’ll explain it to them.’
After some discussion, they agreed Raya would accompany Bryony on her jinn riddance work and translate. They would start tomorrow. They spent the rest of the day sleeping and eating, still carrying deficits in both of these areas.
Whenever they were awake, Bryony had Raya practise the most simple transports – so simple the girl witch rolled her eyes, but Bryony didn’t bite. Raya merely transported from one side of their room to the other. The room was small enough that it wasn’t much more than a few steps. She’d stare at the part of the room she intended to move to until she had it memorised. Then closed her eyes and imagined it as fully as possible and slowed her breathing to a counted rhythm – all as Bryony had instructed her. When it worked – pop – she was there. She had a number of awkward misfires where she didn’t move at all, or landed on the bed, or on her bum in the middle of the floor. But pretty soon she was doing it reliably and smoothly.
‘I think I’m ready for the next step,’ Raya said.
Bryony was staring straight ahead, with Oscar on her lap, his front paws in her palms. ‘Join me, I’m trying to transmit to IHQ, I’m not able to get a good signal.’
Why am I not surprised? Raya thought after locking hers down. Raya sat next to Bryony and slipped one of Oscar’s back paws into her hand.
A choppy view of IHQ came in, like a broken mosaic.
‘Hi Bryony. How’s it going?’
‘Hi Pavel. We’re OK, actually. These people are very nice and it’s a good place to stay, in trade for a bit of work – thanks to Raya.’
Raya flushed from embarrassment about her mouthing off at the baths, although thinking about it that way – maybe it was a good thing. Pavel’s face chopped into squares and jittered like a weak digital TV signal.
‘Before I forget. Tell us, how’s Jake? Any news? How did the surgery go?’ Bryony said.
Pavel turned away for a moment to answer someone off screen then returned. ‘Well, it looks like–’ The transmission went dead.
Bryony grabbed at Oscars paws, massaged them, put a hand on his back. ‘Are you getting anything, Raya?’
Raya shook her head, patted Oscar in different places.
‘Something’s wrong,’ Bryony patted the cat frantically. She looked like she might cry. ‘I was getting a lot better transmission yesterday.’
Raya’s shoulders slumped. She didn’t know what else could go wrong. Hopelessness tasted sour and dry.
Bryony looked at her hand. Blood. There was a gash in Oscar’s skin on the back of his neck.
‘Oo, that’s good. A little to the left, if you don’t mind.’
‘Oh, Oscar. I asked you to avoid fights,’ Bryony said.
‘Hey, I have just as much right to the cat dinners as any of the others,’ Oscar explained.
Bryony gently pressed all along the back of Oscar’s neck, going in neat rows back and forth, careful not to pull at the bright red gash. She shook her head. ‘It’s gone – no more microchip. Well, that’s the end of that.’
Both woman and girl sat staring past the cat. Oscar washed behind his ears. Raya’s stomach and heart traded places. Now it was really down to her and Bryony. Down to her.
‘Hey, I bet we can transmit without Oscar’s microchip,’ Raya said.
‘We can try,’ Bryony said, but looked about as hopeful as a single man in a maternity ward. And she was right. No matter how they tried, the two humans, with the cat but without the microchip, couldn’t connect to headquarters. Raya heard a loud popping sound in her mind, like a huge rubber band being snapped, like a glider plane released from a Piper Cub.
The next two days, their third and fourth in Istanbul, were a blur of work, transporting and beseeching eyes. All those eyes. Bryony’s desperate, frightened and so sorry. Customers’ worried and hopeful for a remedy to their jinn problems. And other eyes pulling at dreams, yearning for answers when Raya did more coffee cup readings. She did these for people in the houses and shops they went to for the jinn business – for a break from practising transporting. A break from the gnawing, sleep-stealing worries that were wearing a trench in her soul.
Bryony didn’t need her at her side every minute, only at the start and finish of each job to talk to the customers for her. While Bryony inspected for jinn, they’d find an empty room, or better two, where Raya could practise her transporting, explaining to the family that they needed to be alone with doors closed for their jinn work. This allowed her to pop around without being noticed. She made a couple of mistakes, accidentally transporting to the kitchen where she’d smelled something delicious. ‘Well, we know your stomach is a strong determinant,’ Bryony had said. By the second day of their jinn work, she had this local transport thing down pat and could do it with no more thought than walking.
About half of the jinn jobs weren’t jinn at all. Some of these were people who thought there were jinn, when there weren’t any – their anguish was real, even if the cause wasn’t. Then there were others who blamed jinn, used them as an excuse for their behaviour, whether that was having an affair, spending too much money, drinking too much, all the usual human stuff. Raya watched as Bryony handled each type and each person differently. Sometimes, when people were very anxious, but there were no jinn and no real reason for the person’s upset, Bryony would pretend she’d found and got rid of them. Other times, when people were hiding behind the idea of jinn to excuse their behaviour, Bryony would talk to them privately about what she saw was going on, and encourage them to sort things out properly. Sometimes Bryony wouldn’t accept any payment for the cases where there weren’t any jinn, but other times she did. Raya questioned her on this. She explained that she took payment when she could see it would keep the jinn riddance real for the customer in a way that helped them or their
relationships, until they could sort things out properly. ‘But don’t worry, I’m keeping that money separate – we’ll give it as zakat.’
Bryony was OK – at least in some ways.
The groundsman drove them in the carriage, wooden with cloth seats and roof that helped cut the impact of the relentless sun, to their next assignment. The smell of hibiscus seemed to be everywhere. They arrived at another lovely house in the outskirts of Istanbul. White masonry on the ground floor, with a wooden storey above. More beautiful mosaic tiled floors and walls, more handsome wooden furniture and rich upholstery. The woman of the house greeted them and described their jinn problems. The grandmother sat at the table and listened. As Bryony went upstairs the older woman beckoned Raya.
‘I heard you’re quite the coffee cup reader.’ Her eyes twinkled from her honey-coloured, lined face. A few strands of grey hair escaped her headscarf. She reached out for Raya’s hand with her leathery, calloused one. Her touch was cool. ‘Would you do mine?’ She pushed her cup forward, the saucer already on top.
Raya glanced towards the stairs. Bryony was already out of sight, doing her jinn survey no doubt. She decide to give herself a break with the reading before going upstairs to find a place to practise popping, as she now thought of it.
‘You’re all right. You don’t need to be glued to old auntie iron-pants,’ a crackly voice said. She snapped her head around looking, but no one was there.
‘Did you just say something?’ she asked the grandmother.
‘What? Oh no dear. That’s probably one of these jinn. I can’t hear or see them. But my daughter says there’s a pesky one likes to hang around the kitchen. Do you want to go tell your auntie?’
‘Spoil-sport!’ the jinn said and literally buzzed off.
‘No, I think it’s gone now. I’ll tell her later, if she doesn’t find it herself.’ Raya smiled and returned to the reading. She went through the ritual of turning the coffee cup, tapping it, asking the woman to make a wish and so on, waiting for the visualizations to start. And they did. She supressed a gasp, turned the cup some more and looked again. The same images replayed. The old woman was going to lose someone soon, her granddaughter – about Raya’s age. She saw the girl’s face – she was smart and funny. She had long, dark hair, a round face with almond-shaped eyes. Then Raya saw Rebecca West, the fourteen-year-old who only saved her own life by testifying against her mother, and then she saw her own face reflected in these girls – a swirl of chance, and life and sorrow. How can I tell this sweet old lady her granddaughter’s going to die? Should I? Suddenly this ‘gift’ didn’t seem so great.
She did her best to keep all this off her face, but from the look on the woman’s face, she wasn’t succeeding. Bryony had started to teach Raya how to handle bad news in her readings, but she couldn’t remember any of it now. Her head started to spin. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not feeling so well, could I use your–’
‘Losing it, are you? Why don’t we get out of here – you and me, baby!’ It was the kitchen jinn again.
‘Shut up, you’ll be gone soon enough.’ Raya swatted the air around her, wishing she could see the darned things.
‘Oh dear – that jinn’s bothering you again.’ The grandmother got up from her chair. ‘You do look a little faint, dear. Why don’t you go splash some cool water on yourself? I’ll show you the way.’
The walls looked skewed and the hallway looked impossibly long. How many more sad things would she have to tell people? What if she saw her own fate? Bryony’s? Was that possible? Was that why she was seeing her own face mixed up with the granddaughter’s? Did it mean her life was ending soon too? Or just that she related to this girl, a bit too strongly?
‘All good questions!’ the kitchen jinn cackled. Raya quickly closed the door to the bathroom hoping she’d shut this jinn out, if that was possible – there was so much she didn’t know yet. She was grateful for their marvellous running water. It soothed and cooled. The sound of splashing against the marble basin was a welcome salve. She heard the jinn laugh some more, then everything went black.
She blinked and looked around. It was warm and steamy and smelled of lavender. She was on her stomach being pummelled by a young woman in the second room at the baths. The baths – wow. But wait, this wasn’t on purpose. Any relaxation was bulldozed out by panic. What if she’d transported someplace else entirely? And on her own? What would happen to Bryony? She didn’t hate her that much – she would help her get home, if she could. Or had she wished herself here to the baths – subconsciously? Her thoughts were like one of those impossible drawings where a staircase simultaneously goes up and down. At least she seemed to have lost that annoying jinn. The women’s chatter brought her out of her head. They sounded like a flock of happy birds.
When she entered the third room, she realised she only had the sarong wrap. She asked the staff if she might have her clothes, and an attendant brought a beautiful dress in emerald green, her favourite colour, with a matching veil. She could only assume her other dress, the one Tahir had given her, was heaped on the bathroom floor of the house she’d just left.
Women came around offering sweets and sherbet. She took some baklava and a cup of the fruity drink.
Two teenage girls approached her.
‘That’s her,’ the first girl elbowed the other. ‘They said she had light eyes. Go on, ask her.’
‘Wasn’t it you and your mother who got thrown out for upsetting the Karatays?’ Second Girl said.
‘It was my auntie, actually. And I AM sorry,’ Raya said.
‘Oh, don’t be. Only wish I saw it!’ First Girl said. The two of them looked at her expectantly, conspiratorially.
Raya knew this type of girl – they never liked her. Usually they’d make fun of her, behind her back, but loud enough for her to hear. She was too alternative, too poor and too cynical – the foster kid – to be of any interest to these social climbers. The ‘runners up’, as Raya thought of them. The kids who wished they were at the top of the pecking order with the über-kids, the ones whose nannies dropped them off in luxury four-by-fours – an oxymoron if she ever heard one. To be fair, she didn’t like either of these types of kid. Then why did the attention of these two feel kind of good?
She studied the two girls for a moment. Bryony’s lessons about how to approach a reading and prepare for any possible sad information were coming back to her. She did her best to read them as she might before starting a coffee cup reading, so she wouldn’t be caught off guard. The other thing Bryony taught her was to focus on what the person could do about any bad stuff, even if that was simply to work less and enjoy their time more, rather than talking directly about it. She didn’t pick up anything sad or negative around these lucky two girls.
‘Would you like me to read your coffee cups? I’m just learning – just for fun. I won’t charge anything.’ Raya wanted to try being normal, see what it felt like to fit in.
She’d hit exactly the right note. The girls quickly got themselves and Raya coffees. They gulped theirs down, impatient for their futures. These were straightforward, clear reads, with lots of life ahead. They still tried to pay her, but she refused, suggesting they give the money as their zakat, which only made them wrinkle their noses and put the coins back in their purses. Maybe they weren’t her sort, after all.
Others came up and asked her for readings. People referred to her in whispers as the ‘reader the Karatays discovered’ even thought that wasn’t exactly right, and the ‘foreign girl with the light eyes’. She was more than fitting in, she was the cool new girl in town.
She agreed to three more readings, and let them pay. Maybe this will be enough to get Bryony another dress, too. I know she’d love to have a change of clothes – wash the one she’s been wearing. She didn’t know if she’d be in trouble – although she didn’t have to worry about being grounded. This cracked her up. But to be fair, she couldn’t imagine how Bryony would have explained her evaporation from the woman’s bathroom – she figu
red she owed her one.
She left the sanctuary of the bathhouse, out into the hot, sun-bleached afternoon. With her coins in her pocket, she walked to the Grand Bazaar. She knew women, especially young ones, didn’t usually go places by themselves, so she walked near clutches of other women without anyone noticing too much. As she reached the market entrance, the flow of people thickened. She saw the kebab seller from her first day and waited for him to finish serving a customer.
‘What can I get for you, young lady?’
‘Oh, no. Thank you, sir. I only wanted to say hello and thank you, again, for the kebabs you gave me and my auntie. It was a few days ago. We were in quite a state.’
The kebab seller peered at her eyes above her veil, then broke into a broad smile. ‘I didn’t recognize you. When did you learn Turkish? That was quick! How is your auntie? Your splendid cat?’
The kebab seller offered her one. She wasn’t hungry, forget about figuring out how to eat street food while wearing a veil, or if that was even polite, but she could see he would be offended if she didn’t accept it. Luckily he wrapped it up for her.
‘Thank you. These are truly the best in the world.’ She smiled with her eyes and nodded goodbye.
She walked through the stone arch entrance. It was as magical as she remembered; the smells of wood, incense, and wool; the kaleidoscope of goods that trailed out as far as she could see. When she was able to push her enormous worries out of her head, this was all pretty amazing.
Once she arrived at Tahir’s shop, it took him a second to recognize her, as well, as he’d only seen her without a veil before and, looking decidedly foreign, filthy and wearing trousers. But he was delighted once he did. She convinced him to accept the kebab to save her from carrying it around. It was so nice to not be starving any more. He promised not to tell his friend, the kebab seller. Everyone seemed to know each other.