Maya

Chapter 1

The birds tweeted through the time of Fajr, as the moon began sitting and the sun began rising. The rush of the wind had pushed against the leafy trees and cladded the glass windows against their firm and set frame.

In the Khan household, not many were religious. Yet somehow, the Angels of Allah had always made their way which set upon the house, with a thick layer of protection from all. In a household where family feuds were common, and comforting was occasional, many questioned how the house still somehow stood out tall with the Noor of Allah that had stood out through each and every prayer.

While she spent hours on the prayer mats that were dusted by time, the others spent their luxurious lifestyle sleeping in modern European bed sets.

Who was the individual who brought grace upon this household, they had questioned. Well, her name went by the flow of

                                                                                                                                                                                         meem

                                                                                                                                                                                                alif

                                                                                                                                                                                                  ya

                                                                                                                                                                                               alif,

                                                                                                                                                                                          Maya.

The name just as beautiful and delicate as the girl herself.

-

"Mama, where are we going?", the five-year-old child had asked looking up to her teary-eyed mother, who had given no response.

"Manu, where is mama taking us?", she asks her younger sister who was just as confused as the young child herself. Manu simply shrugs her shoulder with a frown and turns to the year-old child which lay in their mother's lap.

"Hey, baby sister? Do you know where mama's taking us?", Manu asks while poking a finger at her sisters' cheek.

"Mama, where's baba? I wanna go to baba!", the older child whines to her lost in thought mother. With a sudden halt, the rickshaw stops in front of a large house with guards standing by each corner of the gate.

The lost woman then confusingly looks around to finally realize she had reached her destination, to which she dreaded the most. She dreaded the way she would have to tell her brothers in humiliation that her husband had left her for another woman. She dreaded hearing the loud conversations her sister in laws would have over dinner, to which they would never forget to use their only favorite line, "I told you so."

She prayed for God to grant her patience and took off to the large house with both young daughters on each side, while the third and youngest lay asleep in her arms.