Dood Kaka always asked, “Where is the light-eyed one?” He never said Ammi’s* name with its title, Hajjani Farhana. He would ask, “Has the shadow shown itself lately?” He was just cowardly enough to avoid saying “djinn*,” as everyone knew speaking of them was an invitation itself. But he wasn’t too fearful to snoop for the women of the well and washing crews.

Ammi’s eyes were always hazel in Sarwat’s memory, but according to Dood Kaka, they’d been even lighter when he saw her taken over by the djinni*. “These light eyes always betray you,” he said. “Don’t trust them.” It was a silly thing to say, thought Sarwat. Who else could she trust but Ammi?

At this moment, however, Ammi was nowhere in sight. Hadn’t anyone taught Sarwat that she should scream in danger? It seemed she should know what to do, but this had never happened before. She knew almost everyone in Tareekhgardh. For some reason, she also thought that fear accompanied noise. But try as she might, she couldn’t make a sound.

“I’m looking for someone to help me find my family,” the djinn replied easily as he sliced flaky coconut and continued to eat as he spoke. Sarwat was stunned by his ability to lock his hazel eyes on her and not slice off any fingers like she remembered from a story in the Quran. He had to be a djinn.

She bolted out of the tent and started for the hill, cursing her body for not being strong like her older sisters’. Her walk to the riverbank felt easy because she was excited, but now her legs ached as she scrambled up the hill on all fours. Munni would have scaled it in two swift leaps.

The fakhir* easily matched her pace, and she drew blood biting her lip in frustration trying to widen the distance between them. Djinn could move quickly. Look what they said about Ammi. It was almost as if he knew what she was thinking.

“It helps to be hungry because it makes me quick,” he smiled as they both reached the top. Sarwat walked faster toward Tareekghardh. Running would show she was scared, and for some reason, she didn’t want to let on that she was. If she was within view of the mandi*, someone could surely hear her shout. She knew all the vendors.

“Maybe your father has some work for me? I’ve traveled far and I can work.”

Sarwat hissed over her shoulder, “My father is dead.” She was used to saying this when anyone cursed as she passed by, calling her the daughter of an idiot, or daughter of a dog. Sultana would pull her ear and yank it hard when she heard her retort.

“Don’t throw rocks in the mud. The mud jumps to spatter your daaman*,” she reprimanded sharply. If she closed her eyes, Sarwat wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between Ammi and Sultana.

The fakhir silently strode with his head down, stepping in time to Sarwat, she noticed with some annoyance. After a few minutes, the market Sarwat anticipated so eagerly was visible, but it was still too far for anyone to hear her shout.

“Did he die in the flood?” he asked.

Sarwat was startled because everyone in Tareekhgardh knew Qamar Muizuddin was swept away by the river four years ago. Well, at least that part of the story. Sarwat and Munni had been sick with typhoid at the hospital while the rest of the family was living at the riverbank camp, evacuated because of the disease.

Ammi reportedly came to check on her babies every morning when it was allowed, and had to be physically removed her from the building. She cursed the Sisters in all the tongues she knew. Hussainbi laughed, but it was those same nurses who saved every child in their ward by climbing the tree in the courtyard as the rest of the hospital went underwater. Munni and Sarwat survived because of them.

The Sisters didn’t bother looking for Ammi once they and their young patients were rescued. They knew she was evacuated to the riverbank, vulnerable to the cloudburst that broke the bridges and flooded the city. No one could have survived that, so they awaited news from the municipal workers charged with recovering and identifying bodies. They cared for the babies with remorse, believing they would no doubt end up in the orphanage like so many other children stripped of their families on one fateful morning.

Little did they know that September 28th was the day Ammi first met Jahangir Hakeem across the river on higher ground, searching for help to save Abba from a djinni.

Sarwat and Munni were nursed another month in tents near the palace when a disheveled arrived at the entrance, beating her chest. “My children! My children!” she screeched. She was unrecognizable, chaadar* hanging half off her head, sallow and with sunken eyes. The Head Sister knew Hussainbi, however, and reunited a grief-stricken Ammi with her two baby girls. They were a family separated by disease and broken by water.

“Yes,” Sarwat replied flatly to the fakhir, who nodded knowingly and stroked his strangely clean, groomed beard. It was the only part of him that wasn’t unkempt. He probably cut it with his coconut knife, Sarwat thought to herself.

“That's why I came here. I am afraid of the worst news,” the fakhir said.

Well, this was new. What was this feeling stirring in her chest? “There isn’t a house in Tareekgardh that wasn’t touched by the flood. Hussainbi lost her son, daughter, their husbands and wives and her grandson. Not even a year old. Now she’s our Naanijaan*.” Sarwat wasn’t sure why she spoke so much to someone who had just instilled so much fear in her.

“I told them not to leave. They didn’t listen.”

Sarwat loved a good story since most of her own history was recounted to her at bedtime or during moments alone with her sisters while they milled. “Why did they go?”

The fakhir smiled. “The railroad was expanding and it promised money. My family had dreams of owning land and farming here like we did back home.” His face darkened, looking even more wan. “Look what happened. Instead of using water to work the land, the water put them in it.”

“You don’t know they died,” Sarwat offered, feeling something else unfamiliar to her. She couldn’t remember ever feeling sorry for anyone.

“I spent two years combing Secunderabad near the railroad station, the villages around it. I speak your language better than mine now. I finally learned they came here.”

“Alone?”

“Just me. I’m the only son of my mother. I have to go back to tell her what I found. Or what I didn’t. I promised her, and she’s waiting for me. For us.”

Sarwat could hear the vendors and bells now, but felt no need to shout anymore. First, she was safe in her familiar neighborhood, and second, the fakhir seemed more pathetic from a distance. “Maybe someone here knows about your family. Or they could give you work.”

The fakhir nodded and stopped to view the busy market. He smoothed his beard and walked ahead of Sarwat into the chaos of carts, crates, and fabric. “I’m glad you found me. Thank you,” he grinned over his shoulder and disappeared into the commotion.

It was the sting of her palm reminding her that she gripped her mirror too tightly, and that she needed to get home. It was almost Maghreb* and she had left without telling anyone.

Re-entering the room she’d escaped from through the courtyard wasn’t an option once she rounded the corner of their small gulley. Munni ran from door to door, banging and calling her name. She was so brazen to knock on the same doors of the families that gossiped about them.

As soon as she saw Sarwat beyond the well, Munni sprinted over and slapped her hard across the face. “Where were you?” she cried.

Sarwat held her cheek and said, “The river,” expecting another slap to follow, but Sultana’s head poked out of the doorway, calling them both to come home.

“Just wait,” warned Munni through gritted teeth and pinched the back of Sarwat’s upper arm as she dragged her home. Sarwat thought it all unnecessary, especially as parted curtains closed too quickly as they passed.

Sultana received her just inside the doorway, wrapping Sarwat tightly in her arms. “You don’t worry us like that again,” Sultana exhaled and let go. She held Sarwat’s face in her hands until her own jaw set. Before Munni could dodge, Sultana grabbed her ear. “Did you do this?” she pointed to two bright pink lines on Sarwat’s cheek.

Munni nodded and held her own ears, expecting Sultana to pull them. “Appa, I was scared. She knows she can’t leave home without telling us! Do you know she went …”

Sultana relented and playfully slapped the back of her head. “Everything is fine. Ammi is fine. The hakeem* is coming tomorrow and will see to her tongue.”

Sarwat shot Munni a pleading look to no avail. “Appa, she went to the river,” Munni said. “Alone.”

Sultana looked up from the roti she was heating. With jaw set firmly again she said, “Never go there again, Sarwat. You know what could happen if Ammi found out.”

Actually, she didn’t. Sarwat only knew that Ammi hated the river that swallowed her husband a decade ago. Ammi gripped them tightly when they were washing themselves during the evacuation, one at a time, refusing to let go in the gentle pool where the children bathed. Ammi fervently whispered du’a only she could hear and when the girls were finished, she’d blow all over their faces and shoulders. Sometimes she would spit a little, too. All trying to keep nazar* and djinn away from them.

“Maybe if someone had done this for me, I wouldn’t be cursed,” she retorted when Sarwat complained about spit in her eye.

“Sarwat, you won’t go there alone. Remember what happened to Abba,” Sultana repeated herself, looking frighteningly like Ammi.

Sarwat nodded, even though, no, she most certainly could not remember what happened to Abba. It was only through Sarwat and Hussainbi’s cryptic accounts that she could piece together what had happened.

After her youngest children were hospitalized with typhoid, Ammi suspected djinn were at play, not possessing, but certainly hurting her innocent babies. When Abba began to have fevers and sweats at night, she panicked. It was common knowledge that djinn could fall in love with something: your children, your husband, you. Ammi surmised that this had happened to her family. The hakeem affirmed that it was not typhoid afflicting Abba, so the only answer could be djinn. They had done well at the railroad and moved back to be near his family, who would not accept a foreigner, even though the same foreigners had lived in the state for centuries.

Worst of all, Abba’s mother had not chosen the bride, and she meant to fix it. Abba refused to take Ammi back to her homeland, or to take a second wife of his mother’s choosing, and he left his family with Ammi for the south.

The story evolved such that Farhana Begum’s husband was smitten with her although she’d borne girl after girl, AND managed to tear him from his family. Muiz had no shame, to abandon his family over a foreigner! She must be a djinni to cast such a spell on him. Hussainbi related the jealousy of the women at the riverbank seeing such a handsome man playing with his two little girls, spending nights running back and forth between his tent and the hakeem station at the river.

No one appeared ill in the family, but the hakeem spent so much time there even before Abba was sick. Then Ammi was known at the camp to fret over Abba’s deteriorating condition.

Ammi heard Hussainbi at the hospital consoling other families. Hussainbi was beside herself with joy, a new grandmother so pleased with the hospital staff for the care provided that resulted in a grandson. She kept coming back every day. The grandson was already sitting up. While she visited, Hussainbi passed sweets and prayers out to everyone. She advised everyone around her which prayer would help bring what outcome, so both the sick and the visiting flocked to her for patience and hope. The sweets helped. Ammi sought comfort from her as well while Sarwat and Munni struggled to live, and it was Hussainbi she confided in when Abba fell ill.

Hussainbi directed her to Jahangir Hakeem. They had to find a “break” in the djinn’s magic. If there wasn’t one, they needed to learn how to create it. Ammi left the riverbank camp after tahajjud* because the sentries would be asleep and it was still curfew. Carrying one small girl in each arm up the hill to Tareekhgardh, she met Hussainbi, and they shared a cart in the dark to find Jahangir Hakeem across the river.

His specialty was djinn possession, and he assessed that Muiz was in fact possessed by a djinn who was in love with him. While it exonerated Ammi from trapping Abba, she was anxious to free him from a real djinni. Hakeem advised Ammi to recite du’a, offer prayers, feed the poor at the masjid, and to take the herbs he prescribed. While he hadn’t gone to the medical college or madrassa*, he was a learned man, and Ammi planned to follow his directions exactly.

She was never able to return to the riverbank where Abba lay sick in the tent with a neighbor checking on him. She didn’t know what happened until the tanga* reached a bridge that was no longer there. Raging water and bodies already floating in it was proof that the djinni had swept her husband and her life away. Stunned, the first prayer to cross her lips was for her daughters to be spared, untouched by the djinni.

“Leave them alone and take me instead,” she wept.

Yet they heard that on the other side of the bridge, the hospital and all its patients drowned. There was no end to Farhana’s grief then. For weeks, Hussainbi tended to two small children while their mother succumbed to grief.

As Hussainbi told it, “That poor child, such agony. It broke my heart. But it made me glad that my family didn’t suffer when they died. What she went through was worse than death.”

Jahangir Hakeem thought at first that Ammi had dargee*, but her rage and violence did not make sense. The treatments for seizures didn’t work either. She trembled and stiffened as he expected, but she could hurt herself, tearing her hair out, scratching herself, and beating her fists on the ground until Hussainbi swore she’d broken every bone in them. The djinni made good on the bargain Ammi made with her.

“See? I told you she was a djinni. How else could she have trapped Muiz?” The gulley chatter was relentless, and the well and washing crews congratulated themselves on guessing the truth correctly.

When word came that there were survivors at the hospital weeks later, Ammi’s eyes flashed anew, and she left the house bareheaded and barefoot screaming Sarwat and Munni’s names, even Muiz’s. It took several hours to find a usable cart and find the makeshift hospital tents. Ammi rocked herself back and forth on the tanga silently moving her lips in prayer. Hussainbi promised Allah 500 nawaafil* if the babies survived, laughing that she was still making those up years later when they did.

Over the years, the djinni returned, seeking Ammi’s attention for indeterminate reasons. The imam was recruited to come regularly to remove the shadow from Ammi. With time, he came only when the djinni made an appearance. The system they developed over the years kept Ammi and the girls safe: restraint, recite, and water thrown in her face to drive the djinni away.

“The djinni only left Abba when the water rose, so she doesn’t like water,” explained Hussainbi. “We make her think she is drowning so she will leave my poor daughter alone.”

“But if you throw the water at Ammi, doesn’t she get hurt by it, too?” Sarwat asked Rahmat once. She could only recall that the answer did not make sense.

As Sarwat met Sultana’s eyes now, she lowered her own. All of her history was retold, something she almost wasn’t a part of. Even her mirror included a history, a secret not meant for her.

Hussainbi bustled in at that moment followed by a stranger. Sultana and Rahmat quickly draped their chaadar over their heads, as they had relaxed at home. Hussainbi asked, “Did Farhana eat yet? Is she up?”

“No, Ammi is still asleep. Do you know when Hakeem Sahab is coming?” asked Rahmat.

Hussainbi ran a hand over Rahmat’s head and kissed her forehead. “I have an important matter to discuss with her.”

Sarwat, still young enough to keep her chaadar around her neck, kissed Hussainbi and reached up for their customary embrace. Over Hussainbi’s shoulder, her eyes locked with the stranger behind.

It was the fakhir djinn.

Ammi: ”mom” in South India, primarily in Urdu speaking households

Chaadar: a sheet used to cover the head or for household purposes

Daaman: hem

Dargee: epilepsy

Djinn: free-willed beings made of fire that exist parallel to humans, usually unseen

Djinni: female djinn

Fakhir: beggar, poor person

Hakeem: doctor or healer

Imam: religious leader of a congregation, like minister

Maghreb: the prayer performed at sunset

Madrassa: a place of study, used here to refer to religious knowledge

Mandi: market

Nanijaan: maternal grandma

Nawaafil: plural of nafl, voluntary prayers offered in addition to the 5 prescribed prayers in Islam

Nazar: evil eye

Tahajjud: night prayer in Islam regarded as a special time of the night

Tanga: cart

Dr. Uzma Jafri is originally from Texas, mom to four self-directed learners, a volunteer in multiple organizations from dawah resources to refugee social support services, and runs her own private practice. She is an aspiring writer and co host of Mommying While Muslim podcast, tipping the scales towards that ever elusive balance as the podcast tackles issues second generation Americans have the voice and stomach to tackle.