Under the Olive Tree

22. Itnan Wa'Ishrun

What she'd done was normal where she'd come from.

Here, it would be social suicide to be with a boy she'd been. Not only socially, dying would be better than being caught in bed with someone who was not her husband.

Maybe she could tell him.

Maybe she should.

"What do you think I should do, Sity?" She asked, her voice clear enough in the silence around her. The moon was lifting higher into the night sky but she'd spent hours thinking to herself in the graveyard. For most of them she'd sat in the silence, her mind empty, her soul basking in the peace that could only be found where the dead laid in content acceptance of their fate.

It was something she'd never experienced in any other cemeteries. How could lost souls prefer to stay happily within their graves rather than roaming the dark space and bringing with them an animosity that would chase anybody away? Well, they would have to be something other than lost, wouldn't they?

They'd have to found souls.

Amani shook her head. What was wrong with her? She'd become distracted once again. Why was it so hard to keep her train of thought sometimes? There were more important matters to worry about other than the emotional state of the dead.

For all she knew, they had no emotional state.

If they did, she hoped it wasn't anything like their physical state, though. That would not be very-.

She lifted her hands to her head and groaned.

"Focus, Am-."

"-ani," a voice whispered.

Amani paused. No.

She had imagined it.

She had definitely imagined it. There was nobody except her in the graveyard. Ghosts might have been real but they wouldn't communicate with her. She wasn't crazy. She hadn't heard anything."

It came again. "Amani!" A hushed shout.

Amani shot up, spinning to search around her for a white phantom or black shadow. Could it be an angel? Or a demon? She begged that it would please be neither. Her heart did not pound in her chest but held its breath just as she did. In the dead silence that fell over her once her thoughts completely halted, Amani heard a quick shuffling in the distance.

She took a step back from the main walkway on her right where she heard the racing footsteps quickly approaching her. No, Amani whispered internally, taking another step back in hopes that she would blend into the shadows. No, no.

"Amani!" It came again.

Then a figure appeared into the dimly lit area at the end of the section she stood in. It peeked toward her then turned its direction, headed straight for her with a speed that made her want to cry. Amani quickly moved as far back as she could. She opened her mouth to scream but a firm hand sealed the sound before she could call for anyone to save her. "Shh," he demanded.

Wait.

"Hmph," Amani pushed his hand away. "Muhsin? I thought-."

He slapped his hand over her mouth again. "Be quiet," he hissed, tugging them both a short distance away from the walkway before pushing her between the tightness of two rising graves. "They're coming. I saw them from the window. I knew you'd be here."

"Who is they?" She asked.

"This way," someone whispered faintly in the distance. If she hadn't been listening for it, Amani could never have heard it.