Unbroken: 13 Stories Starring Disabled Teens Read online

  Her steps quickened. She wasn’t planning to rush, but now she was, doing her best to keep her feet moving while nearly staggering forward into backs or around arms stretched out and upward to Heaven in supplication.

  Not here, not now, not when she was still trying to do it right, still trying to work out the words she’d pressed into her heart like a tender leaf between a steadying book’s pages. Her parents must be somewhere far behind now, perhaps starting a new tawaaf, perhaps clucking over her impatience and standing in a distant corner of the Haram, squinting down at the barely lit screen of the anachronistic cell phone to make out the string of numbers that meant a connection to her somewhere in this oversize mass of humanity.

  Even her parents couldn’t possibly recognize her out here.

  Even It–

  No. It was not here.

  Hafsah felt her heart rise in her throat.

  This was it. Within the last dregs of the divine experience, the last days, hours, moments before she would take off her pilgrim’s shroud, lay down her obligations, and return home—to her own world.

  This must be the right moment, the right time, the right way to make her escape.

  This was why God had invited her. She was sure of it.

  This was how she would be rid of her plus-one.

  The thought made her catch her breath. She slowed, raising her head, finally, properly looking at her surroundings. All around Hafsah were her people: scarf clad, humming with the ritual, exchanging soft smiles and prayer books when a word was faltered on. Water bottles were passed between hands without a mind for whose mouth had previously touched it. The sky was dark—not bruised purple, not the color that she saw behind her eyelids late at night when she had hardly any sleep from the last bus ride—but a vivid, deep blue. It felt as though it was a curtain, lowering to gently brush against the scorched earth with the evening breeze.

  She was one of them, and she was not. She was her own person, still Hafsah in her squirming, awkward skin, but … calmer now that she had realized she was Hafsah alone, without the anxious parents, without the cautiously accepting group—without It. The world had quieted for her. She could step in time now, feel the slight bruising of her heels as they came down on the marble floor that, moments ago, she had been skittering over.

  Hafsah turned her face upward and breathed.

  The moment was not perfect. Time did not entirely stop. She could feel the tight, too-far elastic creasing of her lungs and the bloom of sweat on her neck and wrists. She was aware now of the insistent buzzing of her cell phone where she’d plopped it in between her stern-faced ID and group wristlet in her pouch.

  But there was something different now, richer, in not being able to be picked out, singled aside—draped in white, stepping in time with some bigger rhythm. An elder Chinese couple caught her eye, bowed their heads slightly, murmured the words that, regardless of language, she could understand: Peace be upon you. A little kid behind her, half-asleep but still determined to finish his rounds of the Kaaba like a big boy should, almost stumbled into her legs.

  She wasn’t alone in imperfection, at least.

  She wasn’t alone in shy uncertainty, being sure to finish the rite because you could not tell at what moment you were supposed to feel the rightness and acceptance. You followed the rites because God wished you to, to draw closer to your fellows on the road and in buses and circling the Kaaba in a unifying goal to be part of your faith in a way you usually could not grasp—but at no point were you assured that this was the stopping moment. You carried on your supplications and hopes and prayers right back to the airport.

  She wasn’t alone in being worried about not fulfilling an invitation that you could not see, or hold, or touch, but had to rummage through your heart to find some semblance of reassurance that you hadn’t come all this way—on a round-trip ticket and an overfilled suitcase—for no appropriate reason.

  She looked down then and turned around.

  She still couldn’t see It.

  For once, It had not darted back in place.

  It was gone.

  A tremor went down her spine. She halted, barely aware of the clucks from a group of Malay women behind her, hands tightly gripping one another as they bobbed in and out with their neon flowers stuck to their hijabs. She glanced down at her socked feet, stepped a little farther out of the current to pat at her legs.

  Nothing.

  For some reason she couldn’t explain, bile rose in her throat. Had it always been that simple? Had she really been haunted, frustrated, lost in the middle of hallways both familiar and newfound, when this—prayer, the fulfillment of religious rites, perhaps an extra day or two of fasting after the boundaries of Ramadan—was the solution?

  Or had she wasted so many nights tossing and turning when she merely needed to step on a track with her sneakers on and let the frustration bead up on her skin and shed off like poison dew, leave It somewhere in the space between the dust in her wake and the heaving of her breath?

  The phone was still buzzing, an insistent vibration against her throat like the words that were clawing their way up: my fault, again, my fault, it was just a phase, it was just me all this time, I could have gotten rid of It, I haven’t prayed hard enough, I haven’t fasted sincerely enough, I’ve glutted myself on self-pity and choked on my own sloth.

  She snatched it out and held it to her ear.

  “Ma.”

  “Hafsah, where on earth are you? Your father is frantic, and none of the police here seem to understand which group we’re from. We’re in front of the giant crane near the third gate.”

  “I … I just…”

  I should have felt better when I first got here.

  I should have felt peace when I stepped on sacred ground.

  You were right.

  The invitation was meant for me.

  I was wrong.

  I am the problem.

  Her mother was saying something about one of the sisters and her younger brother keeping an eye out for her, on joining in as a straggler in their united group and drifting back toward the road that would lead to the overpass, and then the sloping form of the apartment complex for the pilgrims.

  Hafsah could barely hear her. She patted against her shoulders, absently, tugged down her scarf. She tried to remember how many tawaaf she was supposed to make around the Kaaba, several floors beneath her. Had she done enough to say good-bye? Had she done enough to be rewarded with a sudden relief, an absence of the teary eyes and the sick-to-her stomach clench that she felt right now?

  Was it really over like this?

  And then she heard a soft sound—a little whuff, like a sneeze.

  She looked down.

  It looked up.

  It had come back.

  It had not really ever left her.

  And Hafsah sank down to her feet and cried. She cried as an older woman pressed a hand against her back and clucked in Arabic, called to another woman, who pressed a crumbling date cookie into her fingers, closed them around it, smiled back as she choked out a shukran, put it in her mouth and let it clog her tongue, nodded to try to convince them that she was okay.

  It stayed near, cautiously, perhaps a little frustrated at how long it had taken to find her.

  But It still came back.

  No matter how hard she prayed, no matter how much she ran.

  Hafsah wiped her nose against her hand and glared at It.

  This was her invitation. And It was the plus-one she had never asked for, had never needed. She had tasted, for one blissful moment, that inclusion, that oneness that she had been promised, what she had been called here to be part of.

  And yet, It had come back. And perhaps, It would not leave.

  “You can come back,” she told It, still choking on her tears and the damp mush of the cookie in her mouth. “You can come back, but that doesn’t mean I still won’t run. That doesn’t mean you’re meant to be here. That doesn’t mean I have to like you.”

 
She was probably getting a lot of weird looks, but she was used to that. At least It heard her. For the first time, It seemed a little drab and ridiculous, puffing itself up and snarling back at her—tiny, powerful thing that needed to dig Its claws in to try to remind her who was boss.

  She was boss. It was her invitation.

  Hafsah stood up, wiped off her face, licked the last of the cookie off her lips, took a sip from her water bottle. She started walking toward the exit, passing other bodies dressed in white, other faces turned yearningly toward the sky.

  It followed, as It always did.

  This isn’t the type of thing where you’ve been invited by mistake.

  You were invited there.

  This is for you.

  Hafsah stepped a little faster, and It darted to keep up. She slowed, and It had to halt before It bumped into her legs.

  This was for her.

  It wasn’t a mistake. That feeling that had been so buoyant, so calming in her chest, wasn’t a lie.

  This was why God had invited her. She was sure of it.

  She was here to remember who she was: Hafsah, who had been given the beckoning forward in the name of faith and unity and belonging. She was here to remember that, no matter what It did, she was always Hafsah.

  She was always here.

  She could move beyond It. It might come back, but she could outwalk It. She could teach It the fear of not mattering, of not being seen, of being left behind.

  Behind her, the plus-one darted uncertainly, trying to remind her of Its presence, inching closer to her heels. She didn’t turn around.

  The Day the Dragon Came

  MARIEKE NIJKAMP

  THE DRAGON RESTED. The tower wasn’t ready yet. The city was still growing. Its time would come.

  It stretched out, turned its snout to the wind, and waited.

  * * *

  Alix cursed. She had tied strips of linen around her ankles and used her cane to keep herself upright, but the narrow and uneven streets were a ruthless enemy. With every step, she felt sharp pain shoot up through her ankles and knees.

  She was sure the city was built to torment her. For all the spells her grandmother passed on to her, there was nothing potent enough to deal with a city under construction. But the weavers’ guild would not pay for delayed messages. She could not afford to be slow. They would simply find another messenger, and she would be no closer to paying off her bond.

  So, with a hobble in her step, Alix moved along the warehouses at the Grass Quay, along the Leie and the crowded docks, along the winding streets, until she reached the tanners’ guild house at the corner of the market square. When she called there, at least, she had a moment’s rest.

  A moment to snatch a crumbling piece of spice cake from the kitchens at the back of the building and eat it. A moment to breathe in the rancid air that permeated the guild house, as if the tanners carried it with them from the tanneries. Then one of the apprentices came down with a return message, grimaced at her cane, and sent Alix on her way again.

  A moment was never enough for this hungry, greedy city. But she was bound to this town, and oh how she loathed it.

  Alix dreamed of travel. She dreamed of seeing more of the world than just the dirty, crooked corners inside these city walls. She overheard Dean Vaernewyck talk of England, and she yearned to see those isles. She saw traders from Africa and Arabia and she envied them. She wanted to taste the salty sea air and travel the rivers.

  One day soon, she would escape—once the Belfry was finished. Because all townspeople knew that when the tower reached its summit, a copper dragon would come to town, ferried in over the Leie, escorted by the pride of the carpenters’ guild. To the poorters of Ghent, to those who believed, the dragon would be a symbol of protection. It lived, it breathed, it would keep the city safe from all the dangers that threatened it.

  To her, it was simply a weather vane. An opportunity. And all she needed to sneak past the city walls was to stow away on one of the ships, where no guard would see her.

  She had too many dreams to be contained by city walls. Everyone here believed in dragons; she longed for flight.

  * * *

  Delfin had entered through Petercelle Poort, past Saint Peter’s Abbey. Riding in the back of a cart filled with wool, toying with a piece of wood and a carving knife, he’d seen the landscape change, from the glowing fields to the vast, outstretched lands of the abbeys to the city proper. He felt the carving in his hands twist and shape and turn into the bell tower he wished to be a part of.

  Those last few kilometers, he saw all of Ghent stretch out in front of him.

  Before Delfin left his apprenticeship, Master Denijs had told him Ghent was the biggest city of the Low Countries, but it clearly meant to be bigger still. Buildings were crammed onto every inch of the hills. Spires and towers peeked over the walls. Even from a distance, Delfin would have sworn he heard the sounds of construction, smelled the wood and stone.

  He had dreamed of coming here. He had dreamed of coming here ever since he was eleven and had cut off his hair and talked his way into his first apprenticeship.

  “But dragons, Pa,” he’d said.

  His father had simply scoffed, “You’ll never see dragons, girl.”

  Delfin refused the identity and refused to believe the scorn. He worked hard. He studied his maps. He knew where to go, and he followed the path he had laid out for over six years. And now he was here.

  Once he said his good-byes to the cart driver, he walked the street that wound its way down to the towers of Saint Jan and Saint Niklaas, because he knew what he would find right between the two towers: a third. After almost seventy years, the Belfry—the tall bell tower that marked the hours and dangers and life of a city—was nearly finished.

  Delfin loved the way of bell towers, especially in proud cities like Ghent: Once it was completed, its dragon would be welcomed to perch atop the tower and watch over the entire city. To some, it might be nothing more than a copper figurehead, but Delfin knew what the presence of the dragon meant: Accomplishment. Protection. Pride. And Delfin would be part of it. Even if it meant carrying buckets of water for the masons or nails for the carpenters or cleaning the cobblestone streets with his bare hands, he would be there when the dragon came.

  “Boy!”

  A horse thundered past him, its hooves clattering across the road, and the rider cursed. “Stop dreaming, you fool.”

  He didn’t need to. He would be there. He was there.

  * * *

  “It’s the crippled girl of the weavers.”

  One of the tailor’s apprentices made the sign of the cross and took another swig of beer. “Bad luck, a girl like that.”

  “Scoot.” Another one spat at her, and they laughed. They always laughed.

  Alix kept walking. She always kept walking. What else was there to do but walk and try—and fail—to forget their scorn?

  So she walked until the sun set behind the towers, and bats took to the sky. Until she found a spot of darkness underneath the bridge that connected the inner city with the castle grounds.

  Nighttime was the only time she felt at ease here. The intemperate city grew softer. The shadows lengthened, and the edges blurred. The sharp night air masked the most pungent smells. She wondered if this was what home was supposed to feel like: comfort—or something close to it.

  Alix stretched, tendrils of pain shooting up through her legs and coiling around her hips and back. She walked too much most days.

  She produced a paper bag filled with aniseed biscuits and pulled out the scraps of parchment she kept in her pocket. Her hands cramped, and her fingers clawed. She wanted to push her nails so deep into her joints that that would be the hurt. A pain that she could increase and decrease. A pain that she could control, instead of this unsteady burning from the inside out.

  Some days the pain merely wore her raw. Some days, like today, the pain settled itself deep inside her and deconstructed her, whispered her failures, her wo
rthlessness, her despair. The last message she failed to deliver. The awkwardness when a girl smiled at her instead of spitting, and she didn’t know how to respond. This pain was a treacherous thing, and none of her grandmother’s spells could aid her in fighting it. None could smooth the rough stones or deliver her messages for her. None could make her feel at home here.

  If she was honest, she often wondered if the spells did anything at all. Maybe they were like the bell tower’s dragon—nothing more than hopes and wishes against a harsh world. But they were her only family possession, and they were all she had left when Dean Vaernewyck had bought Alix’s bond and taken her in after the greedy city and its ruthless plagues swallowed her father and sister whole.

  So she couldn’t help but mutter the words. Her eyes settled on the worn parchment and the familiar words inked into its fibers. She began to recite. Spells of protection against an evil she could not see. Spells of healing that didn’t alleviate her pain. Spells that might bring her friendship, though it never showed up. Spells that would lead her to her own path.

  The dean had inadvertently taught her to do so when he paid for his servants to learn how to read, to learn how to pray. Fragments of Latin, no more. The benefit of clergy. But it was enough. The priests in the churches taught Alix that prayers were specks of light against the darkness.

  So she muttered the spells. She stared at the stars reflected in the troubled water of the Leie and wished to be far away.

  * * *

  Master Denijs’s word held good in this city. Delfin was the lowest of apprentices, despite being close to his journeyman years, there by the grace of his former master’s recommendation. He slept on a bedroll in a wooden house on the outskirts of the city, far away from the stone towers where the poorters lived, but every morning he woke with the sun and went to work on the bell tower. He did carry buckets of water and clean splinters of wood from the building site. He lugged timber and nails. He worked until sweat ran in rivulets along his back, until his shoulders ached and his arms were so heavy he could barely lift them. And he saw how much the bells of the tower gave rhythm to city life.