The Weight of Our Sky(61)
From the seats behind me come the sounds of low, insistent sobbing. Ethan is shaking, tears pouring down his face, sweat soaking through even the blanket that covers him. My mother gets up swiftly to take a look at him, her face grave. “Don’t worry, sweethearts,” she says gently, addressing us all. “We’ll make it there somehow. Not far away now.” But I can tell from her expression that she’s more worried than she lets on. In my head, the numbers march on in never-ending sequences and ever-mutating patterns, and buried deep in my pockets, my fingers tap so fast you could practically see sparks fly from their tips, if you could see them at all.
“Kakak.”
I make no move to answer; the din in my head drowns out May’s timid whisper, and it’s taking all my strength to maintain control. I have no energy to spare for chatter, and frankly, I’m irritated at being interrupted when I’m trying so hard to focus.
“Kakak,” she says again, more insistently this time. “Kakak. Look.” And she tugs at my sleeve, pointing out of the window ahead of us, her eyes wide.
“What? What is it?” I snap.
Then I look.
And freeze.
The van has stalled at the bottom of a low, sloping hill. And coming straight toward us, over the horizon, is a group of Malay men, waving an assortment of homemade weapons, their heads wrapped in red sashes.
There is a roar from behind us, and we whip our heads around. From the back window, we see them: the Chinese men, their own weapons in hand, hurling insults to the Malays. As we watch, one man waves a large broom. “Sweep them out!” he yells, pointing it tauntingly at the group on the hill. “Sweep the useless ones out of here and back to the forest like the animals they are!” The Djinn tightens his grip on my lungs, and I gasp in shock.
It’s Frankie. Frankie, waving a broom in one hand and a thick stick sharpened to a three-point spear in the other. Frankie, yelling about getting rid of Malays. Getting rid of me.
I swallow hard and taste bile.
Mama whirls around and our eyes meet. “We’re stuck,” I say, somehow finding my voice amid the panic rising in my throat. The Djinn begins to pound an insistent beat on my heart, the echoes reverberating through my entire body. “What are we going to do? How are we going to get out of here?” My voice is tinged with hysteria. Mama puts a reassuring hand out to touch my shoulder, but she doesn’t say anything. Her face is blank. She has no idea what to do, and I’m almost irrationally angry at her for it. How can she not know what to do? She’s an adult! A mother! Mothers are always supposed to know what to do.
“Come on, Mama,” I say. “Help me get Ethan down.” Between us, we settle Ethan on the floor of the van, a little more hidden from sight, then crouch down with him. Beside me, May presses her little body close to mine, pale and trembling. “It’s okay,” I whisper to her. “Just stay close to me, and stay quiet.” She nods, her eyes wide with fear.
Outside, the two gangs are getting closer—to each other, and to us. The air is thick with tension and shouted slurs, each one uglier and more vicious than the last.
“Stupid Malays!”
“Chinese pigs!”
“Death to the Malays!”
“Go back to China, ungrateful dogs!”
Beside me, May covers her mouth with her hands to stop the sobs from escaping, tears running down her cheeks. Mama is breathing hard, her hand splayed protectively across Ethan’s chest. I shut my eyes tight. I have to do something, I think wildly. I have to save them.
Too late, the Djinn crows. You’ve led them all to their deaths. Nothing good ever comes from caring about you, Melati Ahmad. The images flash quickly on the backs of my closed eyelids: three dead bodies in the twisted wreckage of a burned-out van.
I double over, feeling like I’ve been punched in the stomach, doing my best to suck in air.
“What are you doing, Melati?”
I open my eyes. My mother is staring at my hands, where my fingers have been tapping nonstop; they still are, and I can’t make them stop. May is staring at me too. “What are you counting, kakak?” she asks me. I hadn’t even realized I’d been doing it out loud.
The world seems to shimmer around me, and I grip the seat in front of me tightly to stop from losing my balance. Mama’s face slowly crumples. “It’s back?” she asks me, and her tone is almost accusing. “The . . . visions? The numbers?”
I can’t bear to say yes, can’t bear to be the one breaking her heart, but the Djinn is so loud I can’t even think straight, and I can’t break the number chain in my head. All I can do is nod.
I watch my mother grasp for something to cling to, something to hang her hope on, the way a drowning woman flails as the waves engulf her, willing to believe in miracles. Then, slowly, it dawns on her how hopeless an endeavor this is, and right before my eyes, she shrinks and shrivels until there is nothing left in her place but a shell. I see it in her eyes: My mother has lost hope. She has accepted her fate. She is ready to drown.
And suddenly, the Djinn looms before me, dark as smoke and enormous enough to fill the entire world and cruelly beautiful, the edges of his body flickering with blue flame. His raucous laughter echoes through my head. Look what you did! He surveys the four of us with satisfaction, breathing in our auras of fear and misery and hopelessness like fine perfumes. That’s that poisoned touch of yours at work again. Your mother is about to die, and she’ll die disappointed and ashamed of her only daughter.