That ragged, piercing voice tore through me and pulled me out of my memories.
I would have known it anywhere.
I whirled around. “Nanu?”
My grandmother stood in the doorway, a dusty dupatta pulled about her shoulders. She looked smaller than before, shrunken, as if the scarf she clung to had begun to swallow her up. Shock rippled through me at the change in her. Where she had once looked so much like my mother—glossy black hair, skin a vibrant warm brown as if the sun always shone on it—she had now aged significantly. More significantly than anyone should have in a year. I would have barely recognized her if it wasn’t for that voice, like the rusty snap of a flame from the smith. Now her hair was a faded and streaky gray, her skin carved with deep grooves that looked like scars.
She blinked at me, her pale eyes glimmering in the dawn-drenched room. “Dania?”
It was a faint whisper, but I heard the disbelief there.
I raced to her, my eyes burning, and threw my arms around her, careful not to crush her now frail body. “Nanu, it’s me, Dania. I’m back.”
Holding her felt foreign, and I couldn’t recall the last time we’d ever embraced. My grandmother and I had never been close, and my father had blamed that on my mother’s death. Since my mother was killed, something in my grandmother had changed, like the grief of losing her only child had twisted inside her, and she couldn’t stomach the rest of the world.
Especially me.
She kept her distance, and we only really saw each other at holidays and village celebrations. But that distance melted away now that she was here in front of me, and my father was not.
Her shoulders were stiff, and she didn’t embrace me in return. “I thought you had died, girl.” She shook her head, her eyes wide. “I thought…”
Her voice was still uncertain, as if she didn’t believe I was real.
“Nanu.” I took her by the arms and shook her. “Where is Baba?” My voice was urgent and low. “What happened?”
Her mouth dropped open, and a sound whistled out, though not discernible words. Her already blanched skin looked whiter still. Unease settled over me like a fog I couldn’t quite see through.
But she didn’t answer my question. Instead she looked behind me and stiffened. “Who are you?”
I looked back at Noor, who stood awkwardly in the doorway of my room, uncertainty flickering across her face.
“Nanu, relax, she’s with me. She’s my friend.”
Nanu blinked and look back at me, chewing on the edge of her lip. “I can’t believe you are here, Dania. Standing in front of me.”
I exhaled, clasping her hands in mine. “I’m real, Nanu.”
“They released you?” She frowned, those heavy lines on her face deepening.
I shook my head, a firm no.
Realization dawned on her face and her voice dropped to a low whisper, almost not daring her next words. “You escaped?”
Escaped.
I thought of all the guards I had killed to get out of there, of the torture I had suffered under Thohfsa. Of Noor unconscious, lying in a pool of her own blood on the floor of her dirty cell.
Escapewas such a small word for what we had done. We carved a path to freedom despite what had been stolen from us.
“Yes, I escaped. And I’ve come to get Baba—and you, if you want to join us. I want to leave our village and run to a place where Vahid won’t have power over us anymore. Where we can live in peace. Maybe we’ll go north to your people there.”
I wasn’t sure if Nanu would join us, but I extended the offer anyway. Memories of her flitted through my mind, the way she held herself so carefully apart from me. The shadow of herself she became after my mother died.
Nanu’s mouth twisted, like a poisoned snake. “Dania, I have to tell you about your father.”
That dark pit in my stomach returned, but something inside me refused to acknowledge it.
“Where is he?” I looked around as if I could conjure him, my voice seeping with desperation. “We need to leave as soon as possible, Vahid might be looking for us.” My words were rushed, and I refused to look at my grandmother’s hollow eyes. There was something there I didn’t want to see.
