Voodootown

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Hehet

Hehet didn't move. She didn't want to open her eyes or move a muscle in case it had been real. In her dream, the strange people had been after her and she had been hurt. She didn't remember every detail, but she had somehow hurt her foot, burned it. The people had moved slowly, hadn't talked, almost like in one of those old zombie movies her friends had made her watch one Halloween. She should have been able to outrun them easily, but her foot had hurt so much that she could barely walk.

She flexed her toes and froze again. Her foot hurt, as bad as it had in the dream, maybe worse. She listened closely, but the house was quiet. She could feel her sheets and her pillow, knew that she was in her bed, but she should have heard her mother clattering pans in the kitchen. It had been quiet in the dream as well.

"Just a dream," she said, keeping her voice low. But she heard it, and felt her breath against the pillow. She opened her eyes and saw her own room around her. She pushed the covers back and pulled her foot up, grabbed it with both hands. It was sore, like she'd sprained it or stepped on something sharp. "Or burned it," she said. But there wasn't a mark on it. Her toenails were still bright pink and the henna mehndi circlet on her ankle was still clear and unsmudged.

She rubbed the bottom of the foot a moment and tried to remember how it had been hurt in the dream. She knew there was something about her mother in there, but it hadn't quite been her mother. She hated how dreams were vague like that. Then she latched onto that part of the dream. The strange zombie people had taken her mother, turned her into one of them.

The house was still quiet. It was almost six and her mother was always awake before she was. She rolled over, turned off her alarm before it could buzz and set her feet on the floor. Her right foot hurt to walk on and she frowned when she realized she'd have to wear comfortable shoes. Comfortable shoes meant she'd have to wear clothes that matched instead of clothes that flattered. And that meant that boys would spend less time looking at her and more time thinking. She knew that when they started thinking, they made stupid assumptions about her. They had been doing that for over ten years.

She opened her bedroom door and listened. No noise from the kitchen, no radio or television either. She was reminded of the silence in the dream and then of the silence in the house last night after she had yelled at her mother. She had known that her mom was only trying to be nice when she bought the clothes, but her mother had never been able to understand how important it was to wear the right thing. Showing off a little skin made life at school so much easier. The clothes hadn't been that bad, but Hehet knew her mother would be happiest if she was still wearing hijab. Both her parents had been in the States for more than half their lives, but they still held onto their Egyptian roots.

She sighed and it turned into a squeak as she stepped down the hall to her parents' room. There was no answer when she knocked. "Mom?" She knocked again and put her hand on the knob, tried not to think about how her mom had turned on her in the dream.

The room was quiet and Hehet leaned in just enough to peek into the bed. The lump under the covers moved as it breathed in. "Ommy?" Another breath from under the covers. Hehet opened the door all the way and walked into the room, her foot hurting with each step.

She sat on the side of the bed. "Mom? You awake?" Her mother's breathing changed pace and she moved. "I'm sorry about last night. You want to make breakfast? Do something fun before school today?"

Another groan from the bed. "Maybe we could play hooky today?" If she didn't have to go to school, she could wear sweats all day. She didn't even wear sweats in gym class, always tiny shorts.

She shook her mom's leg, pulled back the covers. Her mother was curled into a ball on the bed, eyes open, but not looking at anything that Hehet could see. "Mom?" She shook her again.

Her mother turned her head, her movements slow, then blinked at Hehet. "Yeah?"

"Mom? Are you okay?" Hehet asked.

"What time is it?"

"It's six," Hehet said.

"Oh, okay," her mom said.

Not once had Hehet ever seen her mother like this, not when her father was gone for work, not even during their worst fights. The dream came back, the way her mother had pointed at her, sent the other strange zombie people after her. "Mom? Should I call the doctor?"

"Sure, honey. Have a good day. Learn something new." Her mother's voice trailed off.

As she sat there, looking at her mother, she remembered how they had chased her, tried to take her as well. There was a man, who had seemed like a giant in the dream. She wanted to push the memories of the dream back down, but they kept coming. The man had wanted to put her in a jar and she had known somehow that if he had caught her, he would have cut her into pieces, like strips of cloth.

Beside her, the woman in the bed lay motionless. The strange people had taken her mother, had really taken her. Hehet had to find out how, and why. She had to help her mother before they took her too.