King & Queen of Shadows

Chapter 1

The sights and sounds lure me up to Jamila's rooftop for the first time in a long time. The ringing noise from underneath me traps my attention and won't let me go. There's the honking of horns on top of the mixture of madness and pure chaos running lose while I sit on the lawn chair, next to hers.

"You've got to try this!" squeaks Jamila as she passing over a bottle of perfume she had gotten on our latest trip to the Soliflore shop north of 6th street. It's Jamila's favorite place in the world. "It smells beautiful."

I start to laugh, "What?"

She scoots closer as she tries to shove the bottle into my hands firmly.

"How can something smell beautiful?" I ask, taking a whiff of the perfume and nearly falling to pieces after the inviting scent swims out from the blue crystal glass. The lavender, vanilla , and orange mixture is unusual to my nostrils, but soothing at the same time, the combination is surprisingly warming. I hand it back to her.

"So...does it smell beautiful or what?" she leans in closer to get my answer.

"It's pretty beau-"

Before I can even finish my sentence my phone starts to ring. "Hold on," I flip it open and read the caller ID: Mom.

She was my step-mom, technically, but since my real one disappeared years ago, I've been calling her my mother/hooya all the time. "Hello?" I answer.

"Amina, macaanto, are you still at the library?"

"Um, yeah Hooya," I lie. Hooya meant mother and macaanto meant sweetie in our native language, Somali. "I'm still here."

You must be wondering why on earth I'd lie to my oblivious mother. The start of this lie is literally ancient. I told her that I wanted to start going to "Study Groups," to reach my "Educational Goals," and the second I was finished promoting it to her, she was eating up the story out of my hands as if it was the truth. At first it hurt to lie, but didn't see the harm in lying every now and then.

"Why, is there something wrong?" I ask before she can say anything else.

"Uh, would you mind cutting the study session early today and coming home?"

A cold chill runs up my spine, something's wrong. "Um..." I look over at Jamila, she's listening on the conversation as well and she's almost as confused as me.

What's wrong? She mouths.

"Sure, I'll leave fifteen minutes earlier than usually."

"Can you leave now? We need to talk to you about something important."

Shit.

"Yeah I guess," I hang up thinking that it's the end of the conversation.

"Why does she want you to come home this early, it's not even five yet?"

"I don't know," I say in almost a whisper.

"What do you think happened?"

I shrug, "Knowing Mom...it can be anything."

***

I take the subway to my townhouse, which is about twenty minutes from Jamila's condo to my place. When I get to the first step, I try to figure out why they would want me to come home so early...Is it that family's over? It's the middle of September, all the good holidays haven't happened yet, and Labor Day doesn't seem like a good reason for anyone to visit us.