Under the Olive Tree

8. Thamaniya

"Has your ghost visited you again?" Reema joked as they returned from the Koran class.

"It has actually. I always see it sitting in the graves when I'm walking home at night," Amani replied with a smug smirk on her expression so her cousin believed her words a lie.

Still, her smile fell. "You're joking, right?"

Amani shook her head. "No, I'm serious. It stands a little ways down the aisles of the cemetery. Sometimes, I can barely see it but it doesn't move at all."

"And you keep going back by yourself at that late hour, Amani? What if you get possessed or cursed by black magic?" Reema shivered at the mention of such foul thoughts. "There has to be some ruling over visiting the place of the dead after sunset."

But Amani only shrugged. "It doesn't run at me or anything. I think it's just lounging around, bored probably."

Reema didn't understand the simplicity in it. "Do you want to wait for it to attack you to stop going back there?" Before Amani could answer, her cousin hooked her arm through hers and yanked her closer. "Bas, tell me. Which grave is it standing beside? Maybe we can find out who the spirit belongs to and help it cross over or something."

Amani snorted. "We're not that capable, Reema. Besides, it doesn't stand beside just one grave. Most of the time, I don't know where it will be until I see it. It alternates."

The confession puzzled Reema. "Alternates?"

"Yes, moves around."

"Are spirits not supposed to stand beside their own grave? They're chained to it," she spoke confidently then second-guessed herself in anxious curiosity. "Right?"

Amani shrugged.

"I can't believe you actually see ghosts-."

"Shh!" Amani clamped her hand over Reema's mouth. She whipped her head around to make sure nobody had heard the foolishly loud words that her cousin had uttered. "Lower your voice. They already say I'm weird for that. If you confirm it to them, I'll never be able to actually fit into this place."

From beneath her awkwardly placed fingers, Reema raised a curious eyebrow. She slapped Amani's hand away. "You want to fit in now, do you?"

Amani rolled her eyes. "No."

"But you just said you did."

"I just mean that I might as well try to look at the positive side of being here until Baba takes me back. No use in being miserable the entire time, don't you think? I could make some friends," Amani mumbled, her lips pouted as if it didn't really matter to her.

Reema laughed. "Friends? You? The only friend you've been able to make is me, and that's because I'm your cousin. We're friends by default," she teased.

Amani glared at her. "Actually, I have other friends."

"Oh, really?"

"Fayza."

"Fayza Awad?"

Amani nodded.

"You know she's Muhsin's sister, right?"

"Purely by coincidence, Reema. We met when she was running from the Occupation's soldiers. I didn't know she was his sister then, but I don't think it would have mattered. She's likeable as her own person, not just because she's Muhsin's sister."

Reema nodded in agreement. "Did you hear that he grounded her? Apparently she pulled a really dangerous stunt a few days ago with the Occupational Forces and he was really angry with her. Nobody's seen in her in the streets since then, but I always hear her calling at people from their balcony to talk. She's a bold one, that little girl," Reema laughed.