Ch 5 - Don't Say the j Word

“Imam Saab, we don’t know what to do. Why aren’t these prayers working?” Farrah paced the kitchen floor squeezing her mobile phone tightly between her fingers.
“Yes, I read them every night.” She paused waiting for her voice to travel the vast distance over to Lahore, where the traditional family priest deliberated his verdict.“What’s he saying?” Nada twirled the end of her hair leaning closer to hear the muffled words emitting from the phone.Farrah gestured for her to be quiet. “No Imam Saab,” she used the well-respected name to show politeness, “nothing has happened for the last few nights, we’ve been sleeping in the same room since it tried to attack her.”Nada’s stomach plummeted, her shoulders ached as she remembered the bitter heaviness that weighed her down that awful night. Just before she lost consciousness, she felt the icy tendrils, a flutter so feather light that it was almost impossible to believe it was actually happening, drift up her legs and settled somewhere on her inner thigh. She felt her legs being sexually massaged, slow and deliberate, so painfully frightening that she had blacked out and woken up in her mother’s embrace. Immediately Farrah had swept Nada up and carried her out of the room to her own bed, where she recited verses from the Holy Quran for the remainder of the night. “I will. Thank you.” Farrah hung up and exhaled loudly.Nada raised an eyebrow and reached out for her mother’s clammy hand.“He says he can see the presence. It’s still here, waiting for a chance, to do what it has to do.”“What do you mean? What does it have to do?”“That my child, he won’t tell me.” She pulled Nada towards the back door and unlocked it exiting out into the long garden.“Where are we going?” Nada followed the older lady out into the late afternoon sunshine.“We need to talk, I just don’t want him listening.” Farrah jerked her head back towards the house.“Mum, I’m scared.”“So am I. But we need to be strong, have faith in Allah, Inshallah it will all get better and we can get rid of this…this thing.” Farrah reached the bottom of the garden.“Can’t we move to a new house?”“Move? It’s not that easy, besides the Imam said it’s not the house that’s haunted. It’s us. So if we go, it’ll follow.“Mum,” Nada whimpered tears spilling from her wide eyes. “I don’t want to live here.” She gazed back at the house and let out a wail of anguish.“Child! It will be okay, there’s no need to cry.” Farrah wrapped her arms around Nada’s shaking shoulders.“No!” Nada screamed jerking away. “Mum, look! Down there! In the window!” Nada pointed to the empty kitchen window.“What?”“It…It… It was him! He was staring at us! Mum, he was watching us! I saw! I saw him! Mum he can see us!” Nada babbled uncontrollably, collapsing onto the damp grass she clutched at her head in fear.“You saw him?” Farrah whispered.Nada looked up at her mum’s terrified eyes. “He was watching us.”“What does he look like?”“I didn’t see properly. But he’s tall, at least six foot. Dark hair but his face was in the shadows. Mum, he's big.” Nada turned back towards the house relieved when she didn’t see the ominous silhouette.“We need to go back in, we can’t sit here forever you know. That’s our house, not his, he can’t push us out. The Imam said he was stubborn, he would be a hard spirit to exorcise, but we have to believe in the prayers. I have instructions to spray holy water after each prayer.”“What if it won’t go?”“It has to go.” She stood up pulling Nada up with her. “I just don’t understand who sent it. And why? What could they possibly gain from causing us so much pain?” “Why didn’t the Imam tell you?”“He says that it is against rules to give too much information, if he told us who sent it, then that would cause more problems than resolve them.”“Has he asked for money?” Nada asked skeptically. “No”. They walked back into the kitchen in an uneasy silence. As Farrah switched the kettle on Nada kept a nervous eye on the hallway leading to the rest of the house, half expecting the shadow to walk across the floor or even towards her. A few minutes later they took their cup of tea and wandered into the lounge to watch their favorite drama on one of the Indian channels. Sitting side by side, Nada reached for the remote and pointed it at the TV. “Mum!” Her breath left her in one fell whoosh and she forgot to inhale again.“I know. I can see it.” Her mom mumbled back through frozen lips.They each clutched the hot mug, fighting for it not to spill onto their quivering laps. Their eyes were trained on the lone figure standing just behind them, almost brushing the back of the sofa. A tall man, around six foot with dark hair and blazing black eyes that were looking down aimed at their heads.