LITMIR.BIZ

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me now and swear to do as I say, or you will fail all those generations of your ancestors and the long-suffering spirits of those three women you once loved.”

      I blinked back tears and told myself to just humor her, even while part of my mind was hungrily absorbing all she said. And believing, because part of me did believe. Part of me, perhaps, knew.

      “Go to the painting, child.” Gidaty lifted a weak hand, pointing beyond the foot of her bed at the portrait on the wall. It was of the three women from our beloved story, three harem girls standing on a cliff, watching the sun rise over the desert. I’d always thought my grandmother’s story had been inspired by the painting. But now she said it had been painted by her grandmother, who had handed the tales down to her mother, who in turn had handed them down to her.

      “Behind it,” she told me.

      Frowning, I tried to lift the bottom of the painting away from the wall so I could peek behind, but instead it opened like a door, and there was a wall safe behind it. I was shocked. I’d had no idea it was there in all the years I had lived with my grandmother. I had gone to live with her in 1973, when I was five and my parents had vanished, as so many did in Iraq in those times.

      “Gidaty, what is this?”

      “Turn the dial, Amarrah. One to the left, then all the way around sunwise, stopping at the nine the second time around. Back then to the six, and right once again, stopping at the two.”

      I followed her instructions, then tried the lever, and the safe opened. I peered inside, wondering what secrets my grandmother had been keeping from me all this time.

      There, inside, was a box. It looked like a miniature treasure chest, an ancient one. It was a couple of feet long, maybe half that deep, with a top that curved and was banded in black iron. It was locked with a hasp and antique padlock. I took it out of the safe with great care and brought it to the bed. “What is it, Gidaty?”

      “I don’t know. I’ve never known. That box has been handed down through our family, from mother to daughter, for longer than I have ever known. You must take it now.”

      I frowned. “And do what with it?”

      “Keep it safe.”

      “But—”

      “Hush, now. Listen and I’ll tell you all I know, though it’s very little. That box belongs to the witches of our story. They will come to claim it one day. I know not when nor how. But I do know there are others, dark forces, who do not want them to have it, and who will try to take it from you.”

      “So I have to hide it?”

      “Yes. Hide it, and tell no one you have it. Keep it safe.”

      “But how will they find it? When are they coming? How will I know them?”

      She smiled softly. “You sound just like me when my own mother gave me the box. I didn’t know the answers then. I don’t know them now. I only know that you will know exactly what to do when the time is right.”

      I nodded, wrapping the box in my arms, holding it against my chest. “All right, Gidaty. I don’t understand it, but I’ll do it.”

      “Promise me, child. Promise me you will keep the witches’ box safe.”

      “I promise, Tata.”

      “Good,” she said softly. “Good.” She relaxed back on her pillows, closed her eyes and exhaled the words “I love you, Amarrah. You’re a very special girl.”

      She didn’t breathe in again.

      * * *

      I was all packed and ready, the box hidden—as well as something that size could be—in my largest suitcase. I’d spent hours alone, trying to get it open in between long sessions of crying my heart out for my beloved grandmother, who’d gone and left me all alone, and full of fear over what would become of me now. The box had a padlock without a keyhole, and odd images painted in a grid pattern on the underside. Short of destroying the witches’ box, there was no way to get inside it. And part of me thought opening it would be a bad idea anyway.

      My gidaty’s burial had been arranged before her death, and my airline ticket pre-purchased. Now that she was at rest, I was going to a world I knew nothing about, to live with cousins I had never met.

      Part of me wanted to run away.

      Later, when the rifle-toting security officer at the airport crooked his finger at me, calling me closer, I thought I should have listened to that part. “I need to see what’s inside this bag,” he said. He had eyes like black marbles, a moustache that covered his lips. He didn’t look like an honest man to me.

      “It’s only my personal things,” I said.

      “All the same.” He opened my case while I stood there, helpless to argue. Then his eyes fell upon the box and lit with greed. “What is this?”

      “A family heirloom. It was my grandmother’s.”

      He picked up the precious box, and I lunged for him, reaching out, but his arm—the one holding his rifle—shot out, and the cold metal barrel pressed across my chest.

      “Open it,” he said.

      I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “I can’t. I’ve tried and tried, but there’s just no way. It feels empty, though.”

      He held the box up near his ear and shook it. “No, there’s something. Light, but still…. I’m going to have to confiscate this.”

      “But it’s mine!”

      “You’ll get it back,” he said. “Once I’ve cleared it with the Department of Antiquities. People are constantly smuggling treasures from our ancient sites, selling them on the black market.” He set the box down. My gaze remained pinned to it as I searched my brain for a solution.

      Pulling a pad and pen from his uniform pocket, he handed them to me. “Write down the address of the place where you are going in the U.S. I will see to it that this is shipped to you once it has been cleared.”

      I obediently jotted the address, and then a symbol, one my grandmother had taught me, because I wasn’t entirely powerless. It was a minor hex of sorts—for along with the history of the witches, a few of their skills had been handed down through the generations of my family. It was part of our legacy, and my grandmother had taught me all the bits and pieces of magic that had come down to her with the tales. So I drew the sign that would ensure he would know no peace until he returned the box to my hands.

      I eyed the box, and while my head was down, muttered in a whisper, “I bind you now, oh box, to me, by the power of three times three, return return return to me.”

      “What was that?”

      “I was praying,” I said, straightening and handing him the paper. “That you would take mercy on an innocent orphan girl and not steal from her the last thing her dead grandmother gave to her.”

      His eyes held mine for a long moment.

      “I promise you will regret it if you don’t,” I added, letting my fury show in my face.

      His marble eyes narrowed angrily. “It will be shipped to you when it clears the Department of Antiquities. Now go, before you miss your flight.”

      I kept on staring. He thrust out an arm. “Go!” he shouted.

      I knew I would be arrested if I stayed, so I went, feeling I had failed my grandmother utterly.

      I didn’t see the box again for ten years.

      Chapter Two

      1992, Cortland, NY

      I wasn’t much for television. At twenty-four, I was more concerned with finishing my final semester of university and doing freelance editing for a small publishing house on the side. It kept my writing skills honed, and it paid decently. And

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