“Sure I prayed to Ilah, for twenty eight years, every night, without fail. And what did it ever get me? Here I am, fifty years into the span of my life, harsh memories from a failing war and a dozen castles built for ungrateful merchants who suddenly can't pay their masons…” The driver of Lamia’s wagon, Mirah, had found another excuse to let his blood boil. “ If Ilah was up there, listening, he would have answered my prayers. I’d be sitting in a mansion myself if all we needed to do was work hard and pray, instead I’m hauling tools for an ungrateful old candle salesman.” 

“Please, not in front of my child!” Lamia’s mother Nura pleaded to Mirah. “We didn’t have to bring you along for this work, but Wahid heard you were the best. Say another word, and he will throw you out to make the rest of the journey yourself.”

“The little one can handle it,” Mirah declared. “You don't want her hair to turn white before she has to return to school. This little shaq is going to wake up one day in a hovel with a husband she barely knows with a dozen children running around, asking why Ilah doesn’t shower her with peace. The clarity of the book will be lost.”

Lamia stuck her tongue out at Mirah in anger at his insult, but he did not turn toward the passengers in his wagon to see. She remembered everything she had been taught at her village kanisa outside of Shajarah about the blessings Ilah bestowed upon those who worked hard, and she would remind this ungrateful man.

“My baba always prays for us every night, and Ilah brings us food every day!” Lamia waited for Mirah to turn back and rethink his wrong thoughts, but his silence indicated that he did not hear. “Hey, syid Mirah, I said my baba always prays for us every night, and Ilah brings us food every day!”

“See, she’s already got white hair! Can’t ever go back to school!” Mirah laughed, turning his head to sneer and laugh at Lamia. He responded to a glare from Nurah by simply rolling his eyes.

A loud thud and the cries of oxen alerted the caravan that some injury had come to Lamia's wagon as the vehicle stopped. Mirah jumped out to take a look, and men from the nearest carts ran to his support, talking amongst themselves and slowly grumbling in dismay.

Lamia’s father Wahid climbed into their wagon, muscles bulging in the sight of all around them. Lamia still chuckled at the way her mother swooned every time her father appeared in his blue vest, especially in the bright noon when sweat glistened like diamonds in the sunlight.

“Axel is busted, mahbub,” Wahid sighed to his wife. “One of the oxen hurt its leg trying to pull the wagon further. We'll be staying here for the night, your cart and mine. The others will go on ahead of us to Harasta and send help tomorrow night if we don’t get the wagon fixed.”

“Yahla, will it be like camping, baba?” Lamia giggled.

“Yes, dear, like camping,” Wahid told her.

“Not in these woods, with this weather,” Mirah grumbled. “See the sky? It'll rain soon enough, a dreadful storm at that.”

“But it's so hot!” Lamia objected. “It can't rain, can it, dadda? It has to be cold for rain.”

“The rain can come when it's hot,” Wahid explained. “You know how damp it feels? Almost like you're wet?”

“Kind of.”

“That means there's water in the air, even though you can't see it.”

“Really? That's amazing!”

“Oh yes, it's a wondrous thing. But right now it means that we're going to get really wet, and we will need a fire. Can you do something for me? Gather some sticks in the woods for a fire. We'll need to get warm.”

“Are you sure it's alright?” Nura asked her husband, skeptical of sending her child into the woods.

“They say there are djinn around these parts,” Mirah added.

“That's enough out of you!” Lamia shouted. “First you blaspheme Ilah, and now you try to frighten my child! Stop, please, just stop with your nonsense. I won't have it.”

“Come with me to fix the wagon, Mirah,” Wahid told the driver. “We need to talk about that.”

“Just trying to keep her safe,” Mirah said. “The world is not what they teach us in the kanayis.”

“Outside. Now!” Wahid growled. “Lamia, to the woods. Sticks, not too small. Don't wander too far.

It was difficult to stick to her father's commands. Lamia loved the woods, but once she was a few trees in, she could not help going further and further in search of the most perfect sticks. There were too many interesting twigs lying about not to pick up each and every one with an oddly-colored leaf attached or strange bug laying about – they must be there because the sticks are special, she decided. Maybe her father would approve of these smaller sticks knowing that the bugs liked them.

She almost dropped her sticks in awe when the thick forest gave way to a small clearing with a large house. It was dark, wood close to rotting, windows stained too much to see through, thatch falling inward on parts of the roof. Creaking from the old boards made her feel slightly nervous, and with the crackling of the humid summer air, she was primed to jump straight into the air and drop all of her sticks when lightning struck. Suddenly the place was lit up, appearing even more grim and seeming to laugh at her with a thunderous roar. It was not a nice laugh, not like when her father laughed at one of his cousin's jokes, but a mean laugh, almost like someone was cheering on a scorpion in a spider fight at her old village.

At once she turned around, not even daring to turn around to see whatever would come out of the door that she thought she heard opening. Even the sound of a voice calling from the house could not make her stay. Sobbing, she bolted through the forest and to the road, running straight into her father's arms.

As he embraced his daughter Wahid, pulled her hair aside, dried her tears, and asked, “What is the matter, habibi? Don't worry, it's only thunder. You're safe now, don't worry.”

“No!” Lamia sobbed. “No, no, no! It wasn't safe, it was laughing at me. The thunder… It was mad. Mad at me.”

Troubled, Wahid asked, “What was laughing at you? The thunder meant you know harm, dear, it's just the sound of lightning.”

“The house was laughing,” Lamia explained through her tears. “It was bad – and there was someone in it calling to me.”

“What'd I say about djinn?” Mirah chuckled. “Bet you she was spooked by one!”

“If you would jest at this, you can go take a look yourself!” Wahid challenged. “Take an axe and go find what's there. If there's an abandoned house, it could be shelter. This rain might start coming down even harder than you said.”“I meant nothing by it!” Mirah protested.

“The house, now!” Wahid shouted. “You go find it or you can walk to Harasta. You won't see a single dinar we take from building this mansion!” “Alright, I'll go see your blasted house!” Mirah disappeared into the wagon, disembarking after the quick moment it took to find the weapon.

Lamia had stopped crying in the time it took for Mirah to return, a scowl upon his face that everyone seemed to attribute to Wahid's sternness. Yet Lamia was sure that she could see the same trouble on the man's face that had covered her own not very long ago.

“Hey, Wahid.”

“Back so soon – did you find it?”

“Yes. Looks like it was built for djinn, but it'll probably keep out the rain. Might drip in some places where the thatch had too much snow piled on it last winter, but there is probably a basement to keep us dry if need be.”

“Alright then,” Wahid decided, “we'll room there for the night. Someone should be here to guard the wagons, though. Karim!” he called to a young man apprenticing as a mason, “you stay here and guard the oxen and carts. We'll be sleeping in the house Lamia found. I'm sure these wagons will be shelter enough for you.”

“I'm sure I'll be fine, sir,” Karim said. “Let me help you get supplies to the house, at least to see where it is.” At Wahid's nod, Karim jumped into Lamia's wagon to help Nura prepare for a night in the house. Lamia could see that he was rather excited to spend a night alone, by himself in the woods with naught but his wits and few tools. Even the jackals would not scare him away from the promise of such a spectacular night.

“Can I stay with Karim?” Lamia asked her mother. “I don't wanna be in that house. It laughed at me.”

“Come now, dear,” Nura comforted, “houses don't laugh. It's just the thunder. And if it laughs at you once, baba will hack it with his axe and the house will never be mean to anyone ever again.”

Lamia embraced her mother tightly, scared that she would never get to hug her again if they spent any time in the house. There would be no more objection, as her father would simply scold her for complaining, so Lamia sighed and accepted her destiny. Besides, her father had learned to wield axes from the afarit fighting the creepy sa’aali, and he would be able to protect them from any djinn that tried to hurt his precious habibi.

For some reason, only Mirah seemed to have any misgivings about entering the house, something that frightened Lamia. She wondered why only she and the one who disregarded Ilah could see the darkness lurking in the shadows, and she wondered if her own faith was impure. If the good people could not see the bad things, perhaps only the bad people could see the bad things… Lamia shivered and squeezed her mother’s hands as they stepped across the threshold into a dark front room, the last to enter the house. 

Throughout the afternoon, Lamia helped her mother scrub down a hideously unkempt kitchen while her father and his workers lounged in the front room. They tried their best to fill the time by making jokes, but their laughter was uneasy, as if they finally sensed the house’s bitterness and could only try in vain to cleanse it with humor. The mood only lightened after Nura had prepared soup for dinner, filling everyone with shorbat adas soup that seemed like it could not have been made in a house so dark. The hearty lentils and the sour lemons instilled a brightness that warmed even Mirah’s heart.

“Last call for soup!” Nura announced after everyone had eaten their first serving. “I have to boil water for washing after this!”

“Suppose I'll have another bowl,” Mirah decided. “Thank you kindly, sayida, this warms my soul like nothing else. The weather had me sore and unhelpful – sorry for bothering your daughter.”

“All is forgiven,” Nura assured him. “Glad you like the soup. I make it every Gathering Day after we visit our kanisa. Perhaps you can join us when we arrive in Harasta?”

“If there's time,” Mirah said. He seemed bent on resisting the call to know and worship Ilah, so Nura dropped the subject.

There were eight people in all staying in the house, Lamia's family and Mirah plus four other masons, Hosni, Waqar, Khayyam, and Ghanem. Waqar had been sent by Wahid to search the house after he had finished eating, and he seemed to take an oddly long amount of time exploring. After looking at the rooms on the ground floor, he had gone upstairs and then downstairs without stopping to say anything.

As Mirah drained his last bowl of soup, they were rather startled to hear Waqar call, “Wahid! Come down here. It's like this house goes down and down into the earth and never ends!”

As Wahid got up to venture downstairs, Lamia asked, “Can I come, baba? I won't touch anything, I promise.”

“Sure, dear,” said Wahid, picking up his daughter and moving toward the hall at the end of the room.

“No, I don't think it's safe,” Nura objected. “Just… wait til Waqar's searched the whole place.”

“It should be fine,” Wahid assured her. “A house that looks this good after so many years of neglect was probably built to withstand afarit blasting powder; I think we will be safe.”

“Alright,” Nura sighed. “Run right back up here if you see anything out of place; I'm starting to feel unsettled in this house.”

“Starting?” Mirah laughed. “I brought my hammer for a reason. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a djinn down there that needs a solid knock – ” he stopped speaking as Wahid glared at him.

Lamia felt safe in her father's arms going downstairs, but it was an odd feeling, as though she was indeed in danger and needed protection. The sights she saw were almost disorienting – paintings on the wall that changed; what seemed to be the figure of a man just turning out to be a statue hidden in a dark corner… Every time something haunted her she squeezed her father all the harder, waiting for the moment they would all be able to finally leave.

Once they reached the bottom of the first flight of stairs, Wahid turned in the direction of Waqar's voice. “There's some sort of library over here, books in pristine conditions but some rather bizarre drawings,” the mason said, and they followed his voice down a hall he had lit with a torch.

The room had more books than Lamia had ever seen in a house, and she would have been absolutely delighted by such a sight in any other home in the world. Instead she was stuck in this bizarre haunt, and any book was likely filled with scary stories. As much was confirmed by what her father and Waqar were discussing, but she quickly tuned it out as she was drawn to something hanging on the wall in the back of the room. It was a pair of maps, hung side by side and depicting more or less the same landmarks. On the left, five purple dots were highlighted, one not too far from Harasta; the other one showed lines connecting the points.

“Star!” she said.

Wahid and Waqar turned to see what she was saying, stopping their conversation almost as though they were startled in an already fearful mood. Peering at the maps Lamia was viewing, they walked over silently only to descend into panic after examining them.

“We're not staying here any longer!” Wahid pronounced suddenly after reading the labels on the map. Picking up his daughter, he shuffled out of the room as fast as he could and hurried up the stairs to the first floor. Lamia found herself even more frightened, with the paintings on the wall changing again and the statue she had seen earlier oddly missing.

“Get out of here, now!” Wahid ordered. “Mirah was right – this is a djinn house.”

“Bin khaliba!” Mirah cringed, his face turning white as he got up to help pick up some of the bedrolls they had brought in the house.

“Leave it all, just get out!” shouted Wahid.

Nura jumped to the front door, frantically turning the handle both ways before turning and crying, “It's locked!”

“Try the other door!” Wahid told Mirah.

“Ain't no other door,” Mirah informed. “I checked around here, too.”

“Well, break the window!”

“Right.” Mirah pulled his hammer from his belt and channeled his fear into smashing through the glass. There was a loud crashing sound, and Mirah suddenly groaned with pain. “Blindness, it shattered my hammer! We're stuck here, Wahid. Unless you want to try and break every window, we're not leaving this djinn house anytime soon!”

“And only one of you may do so.” A chilling roar filled the room as the fireplace grew larger, burning hotter every second as the sound of rain was drowned out by continuous thunder and Lamia's screaming. “Welcome to his house. There is no shelter.”