My mother spent more time with the dead than the living.
Our analogue clock read 2 AM— the second hour into my sixteenth birthday.
The lights flicked on in our 20-by-8-feet caravan, and I squeezed my eyes shut. I knew what was coming.
My mother’s trainers squeaked on our scuffed plywood floors.
She was on the phone, assuring the Sweeping Reeds Funeral Home she’d be there within the hour. They had another body coming in.
Goosebumps traced my scalp at the mention of death and chants in a forgotten language whispered at the edges of my mind.
My night terrors. A little ‘gift’ since I turned thirteen.
I gripped the Anubis Amulet under my pillow and wished the chants would stop.
The bed covers rustled as my mother sat next to me. Her vanilla perfume intermingled with the sterile bite of rubbing alcohol that never left her scrubs.
She brushed a curl out of my face and tucked it behind my ear.
“I’ll be back soon,” she murmured.
I pursed my lips and turned my back to her. ‘Soon’ was her favorite word.
Soon, she’d be working fewer odd hours.
Soon, my night terrors would be gone.
Soon, she’d tell me about my father—the one man she loved. A man who disappeared in Cairo and left us before I was born. Left me.
The light went out, and the trailer door clicked shut.
I opened my eyes to the darkness and sighed. “Happy birthday to me.”
I might as well get dressed, and steal back time roaming the quiet streets of our little town…
Thin, shadowy fingertips pressed against the windows, and the chants of my night terrors amplified.
“You’re growing, little jackal,” a hoarse voice said.
My eyes widened and my fingers stilled over the laces of my boots.
“Well,” I whispered, “that’s...new.”
My vision blurred as the glass cracked under the shadows’ touch. A throbbing headache bloomed across my forehead and I winced, clutching the Amulet to my chest.
“Soon, Heba Badran, we will see what you’re father has created in you...”
“Go AWAY,” I yanked on my boots with one hand.
The night terrors chuckled and my breath hitched.
“Oh, gods... Mom!”
But she was already gone.
I whimpered and fumbled for my bicycle helmet, dashing for the door.
No way in HELL was I staying with whatever that was.
I cycled down 9th Avenue. Blood rushed in my ears and the winter air stung my throat. The chain of my bike trilled and my calf muscles burned. I glanced back.
The shadows remained at our dingy caravan. Their inky tendrils slithered over the windows and wrapped around its cheap tires—
POP!
Hiss.
The caravan’s wheels deflated like one of those wacky balloon men and the windows shattered.
“This is where you live?” the voices murmured. “How disappointing for a daughter of death...”
I made a strangled noise in the back of my throat. “Oh, gods—“
I jerked the handlebars of my bicycle to the right, taking a sharp turn onto El Salam Street.
“I’ve got to tell her...”