That morning, it was her aunt who shoved her out of the house, a basket pressed into her thin hands.
— "Since you eat, you can very well fetch what's needed yourself," she had snapped, her voice sharp. "Try to be useful for once!"
Nahia hadn't dared to protest.
She knew perfectly well that her aunt had chosen this day, this hour, because she knew exactly what awaited her.
The market was overflowing.
The smell of warm bread, ripe fruit, and tanned leather drifted through the air. Merchants shouted over one another, children laughed and ran between stalls. It was alive, vibrant…
But the moment Nahia stepped into the square, the world seemed to slow, stretching painfully thin.
People saw her.
And turned away.
She walked on anyway, clutching her basket tightly.
She spotted a vegetable stall and approached timidly, barely lifting her eyes.
— "Excuse me… how much for the carrots?"
The vendor stepped back, his face drawn tight with old fear.
He murmured a prayer under his breath, as if to shield himself.
Further down, other merchants began to whisper, avoiding her gaze.
— "Not here," the man said in a tense voice. "Go away!"
Nahia's heart clenched.
Her cheeks burned with shame.
She stepped back, almost tripping over a fabric stall.
Muffled laughter broke out behind her.
A woman turned her child away, as though Nahia were diseased.
Every step she took felt like a crime.
Every breath, a reminder that she wasn't wanted.
She tried again elsewhere.
Approached an old woman selling apples.
But the vendor recoiled, nearly spitting at her feet:
— "Witch!"
The word cracked through the air like a whip.
Nahia froze.
Her face went pale. The basket hung limply from her hand.
The desire to vanish, to dissolve into thin air, was so strong it hurt.
A few steps away, Amira—the palace housekeeper—watched the scene unfold.
She had come to pick figs for the royal kitchen, her veil billowing gently around her like a breeze.
She saw the young girl: the thin frame, the bowed posture, the eyes fixed on bare, dusty feet.
She also saw the hatred. The irrational fear in every glance around her.
Amira's heart, long accustomed to comforting silent pains, clenched with renewed force.
She abandoned her errands.
Moved quietly through the crowd, graceful and unnoticed, until she reached an orange vendor.
Without a word, she selected a few fruits, added vegetables, bread—paid in full.
Then, she walked up to Nahia.
— "Here, child."
Nahia looked up, trembling.
She backed away so quickly she nearly knocked over a basket of pomegranates.
— "No… no, madam… I'm not allowed…" she stammered, pleading.
— "You have the right to eat," Amira replied, her voice firm but gentle. "And the right to be treated with dignity."
She gently pushed the basket into Nahia's frozen hands.
— "Take it. It's not charity. It's a gesture between two souls created equal by God."
Nahia's eyes filled with tears, but she only nodded, her face buried beneath her dark hair.
She walked away, hunched, as though the basket's weight held a thousand humiliations.
Amira watched her for a long time.
The whispers around her continued, a dirty river that refused to dry up.
She caught a few venomous words floating by:
— "Her father was a sorcerer…"
— "Her mother, a cursed foreigner…"
— "Even saying her name brings bad luck…"
The housekeeper clenched her fists beneath her wide sleeves.
No.
There was something profoundly unjust here.
And in her heart, Amira made a decision.
She would uncover the truth about this broken-eyed child.
And she would reach out, even if the rest of the world recoiled.
---
Nahia gently pushed the creaky door open.
The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the dusty floor.
The basket of fruit and vegetables burned in her arms.
Inside, the air was thick—saturated with cheap soap and stale sweat.
Her aunt, crouched near the hearth, spun around at the sound of her steps.
Her sharp eyes first landed on the full basket.
Then slowly moved up to Nahia's pale face.
— "Where did you get that?" she growled.
Nahia instinctively lowered her head.
— "I… a lady… she gave it to me…" she mumbled.
Her aunt let out a dry, joyless laugh.
— "What lady would give anything to your kind, huh?!"
She leapt to her feet, grabbing the large wooden spatula she used to stir porridge.
The wood, worn and hardened by fire, quivered in her hand.
— "You stole it! Filthy witch! Thief! Curse upon this house!"
— "No! I swear I didn't!" Nahia cried, her voice strangled with panic.
But the first blow had already landed—hard, across her arm.
The basket crashed to the floor, fruit rolling silently across the filthy ground.
A second blow.
Then a third.
Nahia didn't scream.
She had learned, over the years, how to absorb pain in silence.
To curl inward, to become smaller than possible.
— "Stop it, Rokaya!" her uncle shouted suddenly, appearing from the shadows, a silent witness too ashamed to speak.
He was her father's older brother—a graying man with tired eyes that revealed countless silent surrenders.
He reached out to his wife, but she shoved him away with surprising strength.
— "Touch me again, and I swear by God I'll leave—and you can raise this demon child on your own!" she roared, nostrils flaring.
The man recoiled, defeated, his gaze fleeing.
Amaya, cowering in a corner, wept bitterly.
Her tiny hands clenched the folds of her worn dress.
She couldn't take it anymore.
— "Leave Nahia alone!" she sobbed, running toward her sister.
She tried to wedge herself between them, grabbing her aunt's arm.
Rokaya, without hesitation, slapped her hard.
Amaya fell, hitting the dirt floor with a dull thud.
But Rokaya didn't stop.
She kept striking Nahia—wild, frantic blows accompanied by incoherent screams:
— "Since you came, everything's gone wrong! Since you came, misfortune clings to us like a curse!"
Nahia felt the wood against her shoulder, her back, her legs.
The pain was dull and everywhere.
But the shame burned far more fiercely.
She wanted to vanish.
Melt into the walls, into the earth—become no more than a breath.
All she had done was accept fruit from a kind soul.
But in this house, her mere existence was a crime.
She curled into herself, arms shielding her head, while Amaya's sobs, her aunt's screams, and her uncle's cowardly silence filled the suffocating air.