Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History Read Online Free

Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History
Book: Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History Read Online Free
Author: Ken Liu, Tananarive Due, Victor LaValle, Nnedi Okorafor, Sofia Samatar, Sabrina Vourvoulias, Thoraiya Dyer
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cliff to fill waterskins from the mineral waters. Or to let the goats find what nourishment they can from the mosses growing in the southern end of the valley. It is perpetually in the shadow of the mountain, pounded by waterfalls in spring when the snow melts.
    When we reach it, I pay no attention to the goats as they scatter. They know how to find their way home. A thin spray of water from the stream, which winds its way through the village of Jezzine and then falls off the edge into emptiness, seeds my shawl fringe with diamonds and rouses Ghalya.
    “Are we there?” she murmurs. “I don’t like the men. They smell bad. I don’t like the dark.”
    I wish I could leave her at the base of the falls. I wish I could trust in the song. If the demons come when I am not with her, they will sap the strength of her muscles, as they did with Hisham, so that he could not rise from his bed.
    They will take her mind, as they took Hisham’s, so that he could not recognise anyone. He screamed Satanic songs until his eyes bulged and his lips turned blue.
    Ghalya is heavy. Healthy. Strong. But her legs aren’t long enough to cross the broken gaps in the mountain path. I hitch her up higher; I must carry her, despite the ache in my back and the burning in my thighs. The cart I hide in its usual place behind the bushes.
    “Not yet, little squirrel. Hold on tight. Don’t let go until I say.”
    Only I can see the firebirds, with their great hooked beaks and flames for feathers. Each one is ten times the height of a man. The pair are petrified, part of the cliff face, one on either side of the waterfall. They are the guardians of Jezzine. Mother warned me they could be woken by my sorrow.
    The song I am giving to you
, she said sharply.
You must never sing it near the firebirds. It is for holding back the stone demons. The bone demons. Not for holding back the Ottomans. Not for setting the firebirds against the Sultan. You understand?
    What did I care about Ottomans? I had cradled the oud as if it was Hisham’s sweating brow, and cried and cried under the critical, dry eyes of my mother. Her face was framed by the fall of the black veil from the inscribed silver tower of her tantoura and her robes were belted with silver, too. She had risen far in the ranks of the Knowledgeable since I had disobeyed her and fled the foothills to marry a Maronite Christian.
    If this can keep the demons away
, I sobbed,
why didn’t you bring it while Hisham was alive?
    He was not my blood.
She shrugged.
He was not mine to save. In a dream, I saw my hands putting the instrument into your hands. Your father taught you how to play. You haven’t forgotten. All you need is the right risha with which to pluck the strings.
    You didn’t have a dream! Admit it. You wanted him to die because he was not a Druze. You sent the demons!
    Silence!
Her voice was an avalanche.
Your false baptism was blasphemy enough without such accusations. And do not let me hear this word, Druze, pass your lips again. We are the Muwahhidun. Ad-Darazi was a heretic. Do not call us after him. He interpreted the Koran poorly. We do not need the sword to spread the faith.
    No
, I whispered.
Only to cut off your hands and feet when they do not obey you.
    You cut yourself off, Zahara. From me and from God. For now, your grief will keep Ghalya safe, but when you finally forget your husband – and you will forget him, forget his smile, forget the sound of his voice, forget the shape of his face – then you must come home to us, to forge a new sorrow with which to fight.
    I do not wish to forge any new sorrows. I have had enough of them. Instead, I will borrow the sorrow of others. I am not as ignorant as Mother thinks. It is not because I care, as Fakr-ad-Din does, about my country becoming united – Sunni Muslim, Christian, and Druze – that I feed the fugitives in the cave. Nor do I feed them in order to defy the Ottoman Sultan, nor the Pasha from Damascus who rules with the Sultan’s
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