“What are we looking for?” Hind pants, gazing around in confusion.
“This way.”
The animal's protestations bleed into a baleful moan. Shay parts a patch of tangled shrubs to reveal a shivering cat. The poor thing is missing half its fur, the entirety of its face an open wound.
The touched one gasps, appearing at her shoulder. “How did you know it was there?”
Shay blinks at her. “It was making enough racket to alert the whole Bib.”
“No,” Hind says quietly. Her eyes dart from Shay to the wounded animal and back. “Just look at it. Why, it barely has the strength to muster a whimper.”
Ignoring her, Shay kneels in the dry grass. She stares into the one good eye the cat has left. Pain, deep and crushing, reflects in its opalescent depths. A burning sensation sears across her skin, and Shay gasps.Too hot. Too hot. Help me.
“Good thing the Snow hasn't worn off,” Hind grumbles, squatting beside Shay. A blush of green flows to her fingertips. With both trepidation and awe, Shay understands the touched one's intention.
“It's alright. We're going to help,” she says gently to the animal. The feline lays its head down and quiets. Hind positions her hands over the animal's exposed skin. The green glow spreads from her fingertips until her whole hand illuminates. Thin tendrils drift over the cat's body.
“She was burned by hot oil that a drunk poured from their window,” Hind declares. Shay measures her breath as, follicle by follicle, new fur appears beneath the green ripples. The light flows over the cat's head. Mangled flesh reforms, its ruined eye restored.
When the touched one withdraws her hands, the cat pushes to its feet. It bounds to Shay and rubs against her thighs, purring loudly. Shay runs her hand across its silky coat of fur, then buries her fingers in the thick ruff of its neck, amazed at the transformation. She smiles at Hind. No matter what she's been conditioned to think about magic, she can't help feeling the touched one has done a good thing. Nothing short of a miracle, really.
“You sure care about animals, don't you?” The touched one hobbles to her feet, the light in her hands now subdued.
“Of course.” Shay doesn't see how anyone couldn't. Animals feel things just like people, and most of the time, they're easier to be around. “God created humans and appointed them stewards of the earth, including the plants and animals that grow and live here.”
“It's like you have a special connection to them, though,” Hind says, more musing to herself than inviting further commentary. “Like they understand you.”
As Shay unloads the meager provisions onto Hind's shelves, the touched one prepares tea and pourstwoglasses. She seems to have recovered from her confrontation with the man, perhaps soothed by the cat's rescue, but then,she's not the one with reason to continue being upset. No, that's too small a word. Shay isangry. But even she couldn't help being glad when Khala Bushra confirmed that the feline was the missing Muezza. The neighbor was so happy to have her pet returned, she offered Hind coin as a reward. Coin that Hind adamantly refused, a noble if ironic gesture.
Shay is starting to see that, despite outside appearances, there is an underlying current of community in the shantytown. Although she wonders how Bushra would feel if she knew her feline companion was healed by the very magic the Naturalists object to.
“I really mustn't stay,” Shay says, though, in truth, she's not eager to return and explain to Ghita why she no longer has the caravan ticket in her possession. Light rain patters against the window. It's not falling hard enough to prevent her from walking home, but she worries whether Hind's shelter will leak if it picks up later.
“About the man you saw …” Hind holds out Shay's glass, inviting her to hear more. The white screen over her eyes is fading, smoky brown seeping back into her irises.
Shay accepts the tea, telling herself it's only because she's thirsty. “Did you buy Snow from him?”
“What?” Hind waves Shay into the sitting area, taking a moment to mull over the question, like there's more than one possible answer. “Not exactly.”
The warm tea glass in Shay's hands is grounding. She does her best to project the composure Ghita taught her to have in the many unexpected situations a midwife can face, although this particular situation is somewhat out of her purview. “Explain.”
“I'm in debt, habibti.” Hind speaks softly, as though it will cushion the reality of her admission. “For Snow I was given on credit.”
Shay sighs. A not-small part of her still wants to help her mother, but her idea of taking foraging to the extreme seems silly in light of this new information. “How much coin?”
“Not coin.” Hind shifts uncomfortably. “I owe the man from the alley magical favors.”
“Magic?” Shay set her glass down on a wobbly side table. She needs her hands free to brace the sides of her head in case her brain erupts, a phenomenon Shay imagines is extremely rare but that nonetheless feels imminent. “You can't use magic without taking more Snow.”
“Exactly.” Hind shrugs helplessly. “I want to quit. You know I meant everything I said today. It's this place, these debts that are holding me back. I'd be different if I could start over. If I went somewhere new.”
“How will you ever get purged if you keep using?” Shay's mind churns, and through the layers of confusion, a startling answer comes to her: When Hind said she couldn't hear the cat, Shay dismissed it as the touched one's lack of lucidity, but that doesn't explain what Shayfelt. It was as though the animal's pain had been inside her. Or she had somehow been in its mind.
Like magic …
She should put the moon pepper leaves in her tea right now. She's gone too long without them already. And if what happenedwasmagic, if her powersareemerging, that means Hind definitely lied about using Snow during her pregnancy.
Shay stands and shakes her djellaba's hood until the sachet of herbs tumbles out onto the floor. She scoops it up and fumbles with the drawstring, her fingers trembling.
