Nura and the Immortal Palace by M. T. Khan

Author:M. T. Khan [Khan, M.T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2022-07-05T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

Collision Curse

We’re eating good tonight!”

I set my plates of stolen food down onto the cold cement floor in the working quarters, away from the jinn kids and on top of a tattered bedsheet that works as a makeshift tablecloth. Faisal hobbles in after me, trying not to spill the food gathered in his arms. Aroofa, Sadia, and Tahir also join, bragging about their snagged plates and bowls of leftovers. We check our total dinner cuisine—five rotis, handfuls of biryani, some daal and nihari, scraps of meat, and for dessert: half a plate of gulabs.

Faisal sits back with a sigh. “This is more than I ate back home.”

It’s not the Eid dinner I envisioned. We all sit in a circle, mats folded away to make enough room on the floor. Other human kids are in similar circles, mumbling to each other, shoving food down their throats—food probably more expensive than we’ve ever known—but their eyes are distant. They’re looking somewhere far, somewhere in the past.

Sadia whines as she waves a roti in front of Aroofa’s face. Aroofa tries to swat her arm away until something flashes across her eyes, and she takes the roti from Sadia’s hands, tears it into small pieces, and gives them back to her.

“You’re such a reliable sister,” Tahir grumbles. “My baji steals my food when I’m not looking.”

Aroofa chuckles as she pours some daal for Sadia. “I just remembered. My maa was the one who ripped the roti into bite-sized pieces for Sadia. But she’s not here.…” Aroofa swallows, her gaze not meeting ours. “I guess I was so used to having Maa around.”

Faisal hums, picking at the meat with aimless fingers. “I used to feed my twin sisters.” A small smile quirks onto his lips. “I hated doing it because they always s-spat on me. But today I kind of miss it.”

I grip the roti in my hands. This was supposed to be our fun little Eid dinner. Our feast away from home. A gathering of friends and a night to forget the chaos that surrounds us. But it’s Eid, a holiday practically inseparable from family.

I saw those jinn gobbling plate after plate, the meaning of Eid lost to them. The festival of sacrifice is to give to the poor, to display gratitude, a day to spread love and charity. Yet we’re here, kids forced to work for a bunch of rich jinn that have no clue what an empty stomach feels like.

Eid also flew over my siblings’ heads—there was never enough of a change in the day for Kinza and Rabia to notice that Eid was special. We didn’t eat more than normal, maybe just switching out vegetable curry for a meaty one. Adeel didn’t even enjoy going to the marketplace like I did, shrugging his shoulders and saying there was no point if he couldn’t buy anything. Maa would seem done with the holiday after performing the special prayer. Even me—I never kept tabs on when Eid rolled around because I didn’t realize its significance.

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