A Guide to Charming Royals

Chapter One: LEILA

An uneasy silence casts over the graveyard.

Every so often it's disrupted by us stepping on withered leaves, and Ariah's broken and tuneless humming that makes me want to slam her head against the gravel pathway. I shove the thought away, because acting on these impulses would mean needing to accept consequences. The truth is, I cannot stand the thought of my white Air Forces being soaked with her dirty blood.

Oh, and having to bury her will be a hassle, even though we're among the dead. I don't have a shovel and if I dig with my hands, it may take all night. Returning home with dirty clothing would be leaving behind a trail of evidence. I'd definitely be grilled by my nosy siblings on my whereabouts and state, and I would be caught in no time... why am I actually considering this?

"Can you stop humming?" I ask, zipping up my jacket as a cool breeze kisses past me.

Her hijab masks her face, before she draws it away, pressing a hand to her chest to hold it down. Dark eyes reflect the glint of the full moon, like twin sparkles that make her seem as monstrous as the night before us.

I have no idea what we're doing here, and I'm tired of following her out here in the cold. I wouldn't even mind if she brought me here to get rid of me forever. Jokes on her, I'm also considering killing her.

"Just because you asked so nicely, dear," she starts, slipping off our trail and onto the dirt, "I shall." I gape, surprised that she listened to me, even though she's usually out to challenge everything I say. Ariah wobbles slightly, before she reaches out a hand toward me. "Careful, there's a pothole."

I'm not sure if she's offering her hand for me to hold onto her, or is attempting to push me away. I turn on my phone's flashlight to see, but it's instantly snatched from my grip. Ariah hastily turns off the light.

"Leila!"

"Sorry," I squeak. Dammit, I'm twenty-two, but sound like a seven-year-old! I clear my throat, and try again. "What's wrong?"

"We're on a mission searching for something and—" she crouches so quickly that I almost think she fell. But she tugs at the hem of my jacket, pulling me down and nodding at something. My weight rests on the tip of my shoes as I attempt to see what she's looking at, but in the dark, against the hazy mist, almost everything is a blur.

"Even pizza won't solve this disaster now," she mumbles.

If I was brave enough, I would smack my own head against the concrete and bleed to death instead of being in Ariah's company. Continuously, she pushes me to the brink of insanity with her words and behaviour, and still I'm drawn to her like a moth to a flame.

Just kidding.

I'm only with her because I lack the ability to connect with humans. Usually, I go around befriending inanimate objects.

"Speak English," I tell her.

Her gaze cuts toward me, a cold mischievous glance that is more so a shield than a mask to her true feelings. She lifts her hand in the air, as though about to summon something. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if she told me she was a celestial being. Really, it would explain her alien-like behaviour.

Ariah turns on the flashlight, and before I can throw her words back at her about being on a mission, she lifts the phone toward something in front of us.

It takes a moment to register the grey rock, protruding from the grass. We're in front of a tombstone. Ariah approaches it, bowing as though greeting someone. She reaches out, touching the tomb before she looks back at me. Did she bring me here to meet her dead relative? I can't recall her mentioning anyone dying in her family recently, but we rarely ever discuss such topics.

"Say hi to my Aunt—" she pauses, waving my phone's flashlight over the rock, before she continues, "yes, Aunt Mary."

She's lying. Right? "Where'd you get a white aunt from?"

"Have we never discussed my multi-colored ancestry?"

"This is not the time."

"Do you believe in ghosts, dear?" she asks.

With her, I do.

I shake my head. "No... or wait, do we believe in ghosts in Islam? What does this have to do with your dead aunt?"

"She's not my aunt." She chuckles, and I'm so unsure of what to say, I simply stand in my spot, marking the dirt with the tip of my shoe. "But whoever she is, you should respect the dead."

I can't respect bones!

"What are we here for?"

For a long, hard moment there is simply silence between us. She glances at me, as if uncertain, as though about to speak words she does not want to. Her eyes flicker toward the distant, squinting, before she looks back at me.

"Happy birthday!" she shouts loudly.

My lips part, about to deny her, before it's drowned out by the sound of loud trumpets. I stumble forward, gripping my ears and terrified for a moment that Judgement Day has arrived. It's not even Friday!

She grabs my hand, just as a horde of people appear in front of us. They stand like statues, rigid. The only way I'm able to tell they're human is because of the way their cheeks puff with air, blowing into silver trumpets.

Ariah pulls me along, past the people who watch us as though we're crazy, but don't follow. It's their fault for coming out here. As we run, I recall an old memory, when we were still in high school and we would skip classes. She would never want to run for the train, so I would grab her hand and force her to. Fun times. Skipping, not running with Ariah.

I pant, forcing my hand out of Ariah's grip. I straighten my hijab over my head, glaring at her. "What the heck was all this about? You paid for this group of people to play the trumpet at midnight in a graveyard? For what? It's not even my birthday!"

She phoned me, claiming that there was an emergency. And I actually got out of bed, picked her up and drove us all the way to the edge of Calgary, just so she can pretend it's my birthday?

Oh, Allah, why is the world so against me being a calm person?

Ariah clicks her tongue, handing me my phone. "Why must you breathe so heavily? We ran for like fifty seconds."

Her question has to be rhetorical. She knows that I scarcely ever run, and the only time I walk is when going from my front door to my car, and arriving at the multiple locations for my classes at university—but that's only every hour or two and doesn't take longer than ten minutes.

"I'm leaving," I say, tucking my phone into the pocket of my jacket. I touch my keys, clutching them tightly so that I don't accidentally punch this stupid person in the face.

"It was an early celebration," she mumbles, rushing after me.

"Seventeen months too early." Okay, just kidding. "For real though, my birthday isn't for another, like eight months. It just passed! You just wasted how much on this?"

She locks our arms, grinning. "It was just $50. I was supporting local businesses. Let's go together. Won't you drop me off?"

"I hate you," I say.

"Me too," she responds, grinning like a psycho as she pulls me toward my car.