Page 48 of What Remains (John Worthy #3)

One day, he took a wrong turn.

Late leaving school, he decided to take a shortcut through a bazaar.

The day was sweltering, and he worked up a sweat as he dodged pedestrians and scooters and wove his way around street vendors.

At a busy crossroads four blocks from his house, a car had caromed into a trio of bicyclists.

The street was blocked so he went left instead of right.

Everything was still all right until he spotted a clutch of older boys loitering at the corner.

He slowed. He didn’t know these boys, but one look at their thick, flat faces and he knew he was in trouble. He pivoted, but not fast enough.

A shout. “Hey, kid, where you going?”

Run. That’s what his brain screamed. So, he turned and then, for whatever reason, the dark glasses he habitually wore slipped.

More than likely this happened because he was sweating so much.

He slowed, knowing he couldn’t afford to be without his glasses, but the delay meant they were on him in a heartbeat.

down his sweaty nose. Slowing, he fumbled his glasses, trying to ram them back onto the bridge of his nose, but by then, they were on him, and he was done for.

“Oooh!” Snatching the sunglasses from Poya’s grasp, a large, raw-boned boy held them up for the others to see. “Hey, aren’t these nice? Designer glasses, like a movie star.”

“Please.” Keeping his left eye closed, Poya snatched a quick look.

To his dismay, the older boy slipped the glasses on, though he had to force the temples wider apart.

For his thick skull. Still squinting through his right eye, he ducked his head, trying to keep his face averted so none of these boys got a good look. “May I please have my glasses back?”

“I don’t know.” The boy’s voice seemed to reach him from a great distance, but that might also be because his heart was booming. “How much are they worth to you?”

“Worth?”

“Yes.” The boy rubbed his fingers together under Poya’s nose. “Money, stupid.”

“I don’t carry money,” he said, still staring at the ground. The boy’s feet were grimy and there dark rimes of dirt under his ragged toenails. He wondered how long since this boy had seen a bath or bar of soap? Possibly never. “But I can get some.”

“Uh-huh.” The boy’s tone was lazy. “So why do you wear these? They don’t seem all that special. Something wrong with your eyes?”

“Me?” His heart shriveled. He should turn, he should try to run. Eyes still downcast, he backed up a step but blundered into another boy who tripped him. Poya went down, hitting the sidewalk with a thump.

“Please.” Flailing, he got himself on all fours. It was important that they not see, not know! “Just keep them,” he said and was horrified to hear himself blubbering like a baby. “You can have them, you can?—”

“Ah, look, Rashid,” said one of the boys. “You made him cry.”

“Hey, don’t cry. What’s the matter, baby-boy? No mommy to help? Don’t cry.” Clamping a hand around Poya’s right arm, the leader named Rashid yanked him to his feet. “No one likes a cry?—”

That was when all the boys got a good look. Even Rashid goggled then snatched his hand away as if Poya’s flesh was on fire.

“What are you?” Then, cursing, Rashid threw Poya’s special glasses onto the pavement.

stomped them to bits under his sandaled food.

“ Naji! Unclean!” he shouted, stomping the glasses to bits under his sandaled foot.

“What, is your mother a spai, a dog who gave herself to a mongrel?” Rashid spat.

“I bet you reach around and lick your ass and get a good lump of shit. No wonder you hide!”

They were all backing away now, and then Rashid picked up a stone and then two other boys followed his lead and then Poya was running for all he was worth, tearing through the streets as the boys came after, hurling rocks and shouting that he was a dog, a freak, a demon?—

His parents never sent him to school again.

He had private tutors. As with Mullah Afsari, no tutor saw his true face because he always wore his glasses indoors.

Thereafter, he would slip out only at dusk, still disguised and with his glasses.

Things were easier in the dark anyway. Once it was full night, he could take off his glasses and keep to the shadows.

In a way, he was a bit like a vampire, a creature of the night, but at least he was free.

Once he discovered his father’s secret place—that special room behind Baba’s study—he understood that his father was a man of many faces, with his wigs and fake moustaches and beards and eyeglasses.

Even Baba’s eyes could be altered by different colored lenses and several pairs of each.

Thankfully, his father never needed prescription glasses or else Poya could never had pilfered Baba’s treasure trove of colored contact lenses.

When his mother saw what he had done, she hadn’t questioned him, though he read the resignation in her features.

Still, they both knew this was safest. This also meant that he wouldn’t have to wear tinted glasses during the daylight hours.

His secret was safe. No one was the wiser until the morning a truck flung grit, and old Zahid got a look at his naked left eye.

He had been safe. Until now.

“What are you?” Rearing back, Amu put up a hand as if to ward off a blow. Eyes wide and mouths agape, all the men were on their feet. “What devil made you?” Amu shouted.

What could he say? Dizzy, head still clamoring with pain, he made it to his knees.

His ears pricked to an odd gabble, as if there were many voices all wanting to be heard at the same time and he couldn’t tell if that was because his brain was still reeling, or the women had heard Amu’s shouts and were even now running to see what all the fuss was about.

Come, everyone, see the little demon-boy. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth and his tongue tasted of rust. It would be a miracle if he wasn’t sick all over the yurt’s rugs. Would they all join in to kill him?

“I’m just a boy.” Even now, he was still having to lie, but what was he supposed to do? They had discovered one very bad secret. He couldn’t afford them discovering the other. Pleading, he held out his hands. “Please, I’ll go, just let me collect my books and I’ll?—”

Everything he was about to say, to promise that he would do dried upon his tongue as the yurt filled with the rasping sound of metal against leather as the men drew their knives. The blades were long, like machetes, and glittery even in the yurt’s dim light.

Of course . He had seen enough movies. Peasants killed monsters all the time.

If they’d had pitchforks, they’d use those, too.

The knives would finish him. They would hack him to pieces.

What would they do with his body? Burn all the bits to ash, probably.

Maybe even leave this place and go where demons didn’t walk.

They might not be religious, but a monster like him was a very bad omen.

What he was beneath this shell of his clothing was probably worse.

Over the roar in his ears, that odd gabble, which he’d only half-heard above the drum of the wind, suddenly surged. Even the men heard it now, and they all turned just as the yurt’s door banged open.

Two soldiers, weapons drawn, swept in a gush of frigid air. Behind them, the clan’s women clamored like startled hens.

The soldier on the left was tall and muscular with a scruff of beard and dark, intense eyes. Poya thought he could’ve stepped out of a movie about American Marines.

The soldier on the right was different. Poya thought he was also an American but probably not a Marine.

He wasn’t quite as muscular and there was something about the way he carried himself which nudged a memory out of hiding: his father cupping a cool hand to Poya’s feverish forehead and murmuring, there, there, you will be well. No one is sick forever.

But this was not quite true. Some sicknesses—some stigmata—did last forever.

Just look at him.