The Jo Fletcher Books Anthology

by Frank P. Ryan

  ‘I have to know what happened to my mother,’ she said. ‘I have to know if the grave was empty.’

  They exchanged looks, speaking to each other in rapid Arabic. Eventually the shopkeeper explained. ‘No,’ he said, ‘your mother’s grave was not empty. But it was – opened, yes?’

  Emma stared down at her glass of tea, feeling hot vapour on her cheeks. ‘But if she was there – what happened?’

  There was more conferring. This time the shopkeeper’s voice was gentle. ‘He says there may have been animals. A hyena, maybe. But they did what they could for her.’

  ‘Animals?’ Emma looked up. The man’s eyes were fixed on hers and they were dark, almost black. She saw the message in them, and suddenly felt sick.

  ‘He is very sorry.’ The man indicated the caretaker. ‘He would watch all the time, but he has a family. He says they took care of it.’

  Emma nodded. She knew they’d filled in the grave, fixed it, as her father had said. No need for you to come. She hesitated. ‘But how do you know it was my mother? And where is she now?’

  This time, the translation came quickly: ‘But of course, it was your mother. And she is back in the ground. We buried her again.’

  Emma shook her head, staring at the floor. Hyenas, this close to the city? It didn’t make sense. And she thought of what she had seen in the shopkeeper’s eyes when he had said it: he was protecting her. His expression had been gentle, as if the truth he was hiding was somehow worse than his lies.

  *

  When Emma got back to the hotel, her father was waiting. He ushered her into his room. This time, Ibrahim wasn’t there. ‘Emma, what you did. It was reckless.’ He put a hand on her arm and she pulled away. ‘I know you think you saw your mother.’

  She turned on him, her eyes fierce. ‘I did see her. I went to the cemetery. I know what happened.’

  ‘I am sorry.’ Her father didn’t say if he was sorry for what had happened, or sorry that she had found out.

  ‘You left her for the animals. Animals.’

  Now he looked angry. ‘I did not,’ he said. ‘I loved her. I buried her. Do you understand that?’

  She was silent.

  ‘Your mother lived, and now she is dead. It was not your mother you saw. Your mother is safe, wherever she is.’

  ‘I saw her.’

  ‘It was not your mother.’

  ‘Her ghost, then. Her spirit.’

  ‘No. You come here, seeing nothing.’ He looked away at last. ‘I told you of the djinn, Emma. I have – dug too much and too far. I fear I have angered them. And now one of them has come to punish me.’

  Emma stared, astonished.

  ‘They are everywhere, Emma. And one of them – an evil djinn – has tasted your mother’s body and now it has taken her form.’

  She shook her head. ‘You’re—’

  ‘Crazy, yes. But I know what I know. This thing has your mother’s face, but it is not her. It is a grave robber, a ghul, Emma. And if you follow it—’ he looked away. ‘It will take you too.’

  *

  Emma lay awake, listening to the anodyne sounds of a hotel in the early morning: the clanking of the maid’s cart, banging doors, the distant buzzing of the lift. She pressed her hands against her face, remembering her mother as she had last seen her; dark-smudged eyes set into white skin, an expression she couldn’t read. If she had been closer, perhaps she would have known what her mother had been trying to say. She would have been able to tell if her father’s words were true.

  She screwed her hands into fists. If she had seen her dead mother in England, would she then only have been a spirit – a ghost? Could she have spoken to her – had her father robbed her even of that, by bringing her to a place where the djinn walked?

  Emma shook her head, rose, and headed for the lobby. When she reached it she heard a familiar voice. She turned to see Ibrahim, dressed smartly, a heavy-looking sample case at his feet. ‘Emma,’ he said, only that, but his tone said everything.

  She shook her head. ‘I’m going back to the square. Just once more. And then I’m going home.’ She paused. ‘I have to understand.’

  He looked at her, his gaze steady, until she had to look away. He spoke only once before picking up his case and turning to leave. ‘I do not think it is a place you understand,’ he said. ‘I think it is a place that you feel.’

  She thought of those words as she left the hotel and headed for the square. She hadn’t been talking about the place, at all: it was her mother that had been in her mind. All the same, as she entered Djemaa el Fna, she knew that he was right. The bustle was there, but it was different. She saw now that the square wasn’t the paving or the mosque or the buildings that marked its edge; it wasn’t even its history. It was the people who filled it, selling and buying and entertaining, telling their stories, filling the air with charcoal-smoke and music, so that every moment it changed, becoming somewhere new. She couldn’t understand this place, would never understand, because it was never the same. And if she couldn’t fathom this place, something man had made and torn up and remade, how would she ever understand what she had seen?

  The discord of music filled her mind, confusing everything. The square was a whirl of people going about their lives, their daily dance. All of life is here, she thought, and remembered her mother’s face looking back at her. No. All of life and death.

  Emma started to walk. Despite her earlier resolve, she was no longer sure she wanted to see her mother. All that was left was hollowness, and a strange kind of yearning. Yet as she passed through the square, she realised her mother was there: she was walking ahead of her through the throng, clearing a path for Emma to follow. This time she looked back and smiled, and it was her old smile, clean and good. This time no one got in Emma’s way. The crowds drew back as the spirit passed, as though they saw or sensed what it was.

  Emma’s heart beat faster, the music around her transforming into light and air, rising and falling in perfect rhythm. This was where she was meant to be. She knew this place, belonged in this moment. She scarcely noticed as her mother entered a narrow alleyway, a shadow falling across her features. She pulled a layer of fabric from her dress, drawing a veil across her face; then she stepped back into a recess, her back to the stone, and beckoned her daughter in.

  *

  There were images behind Emma’s eyes, a multitude of them: the chaos of goods in the souk, curious faces, men staring or calling out in Darija, intricate tiles on a floor or wall, donkey carts, delicately whorled stones. There were sounds, too: the deep call of the muezzin, the higher wail of the pipers. Their music no longer made sense to her. She moaned, putting her hand to her forehead, trying to wipe away the things she saw or didn’t see. There was pain there, but she realised it was not a headache. She touched a hand to her neck, lower down, the hollow place above her shoulder blade. She felt something dry under her fingers. When she looked at her fingertips, she found them powdered with blood.

  She opened her eyes and saw the blank ceiling of her hotel room. By the harsh light slashing the rectangle, she knew it must be about midday. Then a sound began to register. Someone was hammering on the door.

  When she opened it her father was standing there. Emma opened her mouth to greet him then closed it again. What was the use? There was no name she could call him. ‘Father’ was too formal, like something out of a book; ‘Dad’ was too familiar. Instead she stared as he guided her back inside and felt her forehead. Emma caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, her skin pale, her eyes nothing but dark smudges.

  Her father had her lie down, brought her water to drink, rubbed life into her hands. He kept talking, though Emma didn’t listen to the words. Eventually, she spoke.

  ‘Why did you stay here?’ she asked.

  This time, his words were halting. ‘Because I had to,’ he said. ‘Because it would have killed me no
t to.’

  Emma let his words drift over her.

  ‘Sometimes a place takes hold of you. And you know you have to stay, because anywhere else – the homesickness—’ he paused. ‘You are homesick for somewhere that was never your home.’

  For a while, there was silence. The knife of sunlight drew across the ceiling. Emma pushed herself up, found her father resting his head on his arms. He stirred and looked back at her. She put out a hand and touched the whorls of skin around his eyes, thinking of the ridged curls of an ammonite.

  ‘What did you call it?’ she asked.

  He looked puzzled; then he understood. ‘Emmaceras,’ he said, and smiled. ‘You know, Emma, ammonites are named for the Egyptian god Ammon. The god of procreation. Of life.’

  She nodded. She pushed herself up and examined her neck in the mirror. The wound was shallow and surrounded by scratches, but it was clean. Her father must have washed it.

  ‘Do you think it’s happy now?’ she asked.

  He sighed, raising and lowering his hands. He didn’t try to explain, just looked at her face, his gaze steady. And then he said, ‘You should stay here.’

  Emma started, touching a hand to her neck. She had expected him to say she should go home, get as far away from Morocco – and the square – as she could. And yet, now the words were out, she felt she understood. All of life is here, she thought. And all of death. She knew this, had been touched by it. And yet the heart of it, the sound, the chaos – it was inside her, too.

  Life and death. Death and life. Vivid and loud and bright and dangerous. Not something to be ignored, to be analysed or regulated or wrapped in plastic, layers and layers of it, so that when either of them surfaced, it was frightening.

  The thought made her dizzy, made her want to laugh. She looked at her father’s face, feeling the ties that ran between them despite the years and the distance. She caught his hand in hers, feeling the thinness, the bones beneath the papery skin.

  When she closed her eyes, though, what she saw was a doorway; a large, beautiful doorway in the shape of a keyhole, dusty and grimed. On the other side of it was her desk at work: clean, bare, organised. And she knew that she could step through it, take her seat, resume her life. And then what? Would she turn again, looking back the other way, to see – what? Already there was an odd pang in her stomach, a deep sort of longing she couldn’t understand but that she could feel.

  She opened her eyes and she didn’t know for whom or what she felt it.

  Her father was watching her. He smiled. ‘It’s very simple,’ he said, and when she looked back into his eyes, she knew that it was true.

  Alison Littlewood is the author of A Cold Season, published by Jo Fletcher Books. The novel was selected for the Richard and Judy Book Club, where it was described as ‘perfect reading for a dark winter’s night’. Alison’s short stories have been picked for Best British Horror 2015, The Best Horror of the Year and The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror anthologies, as well as The Best British Fantasy 2013 and The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 10. She also won the 2014 Shirley Jackson Award for Short Fiction with her story The Dog’s Home, published in The Spectral Book of Horror Stories.

  Alison lives with her partner Fergus in Yorkshire, England, in a house of creaking doors and crooked walls. You can talk to her on twitter @Ali__L, see her on Facebook and visit her at www.alisonlittlewood.co.uk.

  The Girl Who Went to the Rich Neighbourhood • by Rachel Pollack

  The Girl Who Went to

  the Rich Neighbourhood

  by Rachel Pollack

  There was once a widow who lived with her six daughters in the poorest neighbourhood in town. In summer the girls all went barefoot, and even in winter they often had to pass one pair of shoes between them as they ran through the street. Even though the mother got a cheque every month from the welfare department, it never came to enough, despite them all eating as little as possible. They would not have survived at all if the supermarkets hadn’t allowed the children to gather behind the loading gates at the end of the day and collect the crushed or fallen vegetables.

  Sometimes, when there was no more money, the mother would leave her left leg as credit with the grocer. When her cheque came, or one of the children found a little work, she would get back her leg and be able to walk without the crutch her oldest daughter had made from a splintery board. One day, however, after she’d paid her bill, she found herself stumbling. When she examined her leg she discovered that the grocery had kept so many legs and arms jumbled together in their big metal cabinet that her foot had become all twisted. She sat down on their only chair and began to cry, waving her arms over her head.

  Seeing her mother so unhappy, the youngest girl, whose name was Rose, walked up and announced, ‘Please don’t worry, I’ll go to the rich neighbourhood.’ Her mother kept crying. ‘And I’ll speak to the mayor. I’ll get him to help us.’ The widow smiled and stroked her daughter’s hair.

  She doesn’t believe me, Rose thought. Maybe she won’t let me go. I’d better sneak away. The next day, when the time came to go to the supermarket, Rose took the shoes she shared with her sisters and slipped them in her shopping bag. She hated doing this, but she would need the shoes for the long walk to the rich neighbourhood. Besides, maybe the mayor wouldn’t see her if she came barefoot. Soon, she told herself, she’d bring back shoes for everyone. At the supermarket she filled her bag with seven radishes that had fallen off the bunch, two sticks of yellowed celery, and four half-blackened bananas. Well, she thought, I guess I’d better get started.

  As soon as she left the poor neighbourhood Rose saw some boys shoving and poking a weak old lady who was trying to cross the street. What a rotten thing to do, the girl thought, and hoped the children in the rich neighbourhood weren’t all like that. She found a piece of pipe in the street and chased them away.

  ‘Thank you,’ wheezed the old woman, who wore a yellow dress and had long blonde hair that hung, uncombed, down to her knees. She sat down in the middle of the road, with cars going by on every side.

  Rose said, ‘Shouldn’t we get out of the street? We could sit on the pavement.’

  ‘I can’t,’ said the old woman. ‘I must eat something first. Don’t you have anything to eat?’

  Rose reached in her basket to give the old woman a radish. In a moment the shrivelled red thing had vanished and the woman held out her hand again. Rose gave her another radish, and then another, until all the radishes had slid down the old woman’s densely veined throat. ‘Now we can go,’ she said, and instantly jumped to her feet to drag Rose across the road.

  Rose told herself that maybe she wouldn’t need them. She looked down at the silver pavement and then up at the buildings that reached so far above her head the people in the windows looked like toys. ‘Is this the rich neighbourhood?’ she asked.

  ‘Hardly,’ the woman said. ‘You have to go a long way to reach the rich neighbourhood.’ Rose thought how she’d better be extra careful with the rest of her food. The old woman said, ‘But if you really want to go there I can give you something to help you.’ She ran her fingers through her tangled gold hair and when she took them out she was holding a lumpy yellow coin. ‘This token will always get you on or off the subway.’

  What a strange idea, thought Rose. How could you use a token more than once? And even if you could, everyone knew that you didn’t need anything to get off the subway. But she put the coin in the bag and thanked the old woman.

  All day she walked, and when night came she crawled under a fire escape beside some cardboard cartons. She was very hungry, but she thought she had better save her celery and bananas for the next day. Trying not to think of the warm mattress she shared with two of her sisters, she went to sleep.

  The next morning the sound of people marching to work woke her up. She stretched herself, thinking how silver streets may look very nice, but didn’t make much of
a bed. Then she rubbed her belly and stared at the celery. I’d better get started first, she told herself. But when she began to walk her feet hurt, for her sisters’ shoes – much too big for her – had rubbed the skin raw the day before.

  Maybe she could take the subway. Maybe the old woman’s token would work at least once. She went down a subway entrance where a guard with a gun walked back and forth, sometimes clapping his hands or stamping his feet. As casually as she could, Rose walked up and put her token in the slot. I hope he doesn’t shoot me, she thought. But then the wooden blades of the gate turned and she passed through.

  A moment later, she was walking down the stairs when she heard a soft clinking sound. She turned around to see the token bouncing on its rim along the corridor and down the stairs until it bounced right into the shopping bag. Rose looked to see if the guard was taking his gun out, but he was busy staring out the entrance.

  All day she travelled on the train, but whenever she tried to read the signs she couldn’t make out what they said beneath the huge black marks drawn all over them. Rose wondered if the marks formed the magic that made the trains go. She’d sometimes heard people say that without magic the subway would break down forever. Finally she decided she must have reached the rich neighbourhood. She got off the train, half expecting to have to use her token. But the exit door swung open with no trouble and soon she found herself on a gold pavement, with buildings that reached so high the people looked like birds fluttering around in giant caves.

  Rose was about to ask someone for directions to the mayor’s office when she saw a policeman with a gold mask covering his face slap an old woman. Rose hid in a doorway and made a sound like a siren, a trick she’d learned in the poor neighbourhood. The policeman ran off waving his gold truncheon.

  ‘Thank you, thank you,’ said the old woman whose tangled red hair reached down to her ankles. ‘I’m so hungry now, could you give me something to eat?’