Chapter Two: To The Fuchsia Gates of Hell, My Beloved
A wave of emotion takes her under. Desperate to catch a breath almost, Noora limps towards the door. it was as if she had been buried under the rumble of a skyscraper. Her heart beat exhaustively. The housekeepers eye her down as she makes her way through the gallery. She had gone too far this time. She rests her increasingly burdensome body against the wall, she looks into the backyard, her eyes falling on her father walking their guard dogs. Her feet took control, urging her frame into the sunlight and pretty soon she stood side by side with the broad butch man. “Look at you my dear, your entire face is ablaze. Are you ok?” the man bends down, matching height with the young girl. He presses the back of his hand over the girl’s forehead. Such rough hands, she thought. “Baba, I am fine. I just-” Noora pauses for a second as if trying to scan her father for some clue. He stands there, awaiting an explanation for just a ghastly appearance. She waits for eternity it seems. Examining every scenario where the information she had encountered could wreck her father’s entire existence, how she might end up making his weak heart finally snap and come to a halt. The landscape around her kept pulsating around her as if she stood on her erratically beating heart. Before she knew it, she was on the ground, her vision collapsing and her eyes falling into her skull.
She woke up wrapped up in grass, the sun shining shamelessly over her frame, almost as a spotlight. Daffodils embracing her under the warmth of the Sun. It stood static, and so did the clouds and the trees. An audience, but for whom? She tried to make sense of where she lay, fine-trimmed grass. She felt as if she was on a film set, but then she spotted one baby goat galloping towards her, then another, and then a whole fleet of them. They bleated and jumped off each other’s backs, engaged in childlike play. Bliss. Pure and Whole. She knew nothing apart from fake. She looked around to inspect what else was on that hilltop, hidden for her to discover, overfilled with a similar child-like curiosity. She felt something gentle brush against her shoulder. Startled she jerks her arm away, a raven with its beak glistening purple under the sunlight croaks, and hovers over her camouflaging hair. She peeked into the creature’s mysteriously bright eyes, and without her knowing, her arm extended out inviting the raven to settle upon. Wincing at the talons gripping firmly around her arm, she examined the bird closely. The raven had locked eyes with the girl and the more they both stared into each other’s eyes, the more they felt familiar. The sharper the sunlight started piercing her skin. Everything intensified as she found herself perplexed by the color of the raven’s eyes, which grew ever brighter until that was all she could see.
Drenched in sweat, Noora woke up on Tamazir’s shoulder. Nonchalantly concerned, the twin signals the maids to fetch the girl a glass of water. Drinking it, her throat quickly rejected the soothing beverage right out, choking the girl. “Geez. What happened to you?” Tamazir splashed a towel soaked in cold water on her twin’s temple, pressing ever so gently, an unsettling sensation for both of them. “I saw something. A raven. A field of baby goats.” Noora almost whispers into the room filled with people who stare at her in a frenzy. “Noor, You are running a fever, you were out since morning… of course, you saw crap like that.” Tamazir scoffs and removes herself as Noora’s back support. “Let’s get the doctor in here-” “STOP. SHUT UP for once and LISTEN.” Noora straightens her posture, and a sudden rush of adrenaline pushes her up. Taken aback, Tamazir sighs and urges the housekeepers to leave the two of them alone.
“Lock the door.” “
What’s gotten into you-“
“Just Lock the door please.”
As the lock is clicked into place, Tamazir turns around to see her sister hunched over. She pulls her twin back to the seat and sits down beside her, growing increasingly concerned. “What happened?” she inquires, this time with somewhat genuine curiosity. After all, this was Noora, the camouflage. Always the one found miles away from trouble, a docile bystander. “I was in Mama’s room last night…” Noora averts her gaze. “Oh. You smelled the weed… I understand…. it trips you o-” Tamazir gets interrupted by her twin’s firm hand landing on the side of her face.
“Ow”
“Not the weed dumbass, I saw this on the floor.”
Noora hands her twin a crumbled-up wrinkly piece of paper. It was pale and brittle, the ink almost unreadable.
“This? What is it?” Tamazir says examining the paper, still rubbing the warmth from her cheek off.
“I think it’s from mama.”
“Li- like from The Beyond?” “Ow”
“I think she wrote this before she-“
“Oh.”
The two sat there, in mutual disbelief. It was one thing making the both of them ick at the letter, almost to the point of shrugging it off and never bringing it up again. But they both knew too little about their mother, to begin with. To them, she had been a bunch of fragmented moments all their life… and finally, now she was a letter. Strings of meaningful words. Something tangible. Something purely her.
“Have you read it?”
Noora hmmed in response. The other twin’s shoulders drooped. She put the letter between the two of them.
“Tell me then.”
“That’s not all though. There’s more.”
Tamazir leans back into the cushions as Noora straightens up further.
