Alyin decided to go to the village.
The sowing and plowing were finally done, and the harvest work wouldn’t begin until June, so she didn’t need to help the men of the family. She had already weeded the vegetable plot. Now, she had some free time on her hands.
She covered her head with a large scarf that tied at the back of her neck. She regretted that the scarf was plain, but as part of a poor family in Türkiye, she couldn’t afford anything better.
Her grandmother saw her preparing to leave. “Remember, I have the second sight. It’s bad outside today. You should stay home.”
“Oh, Nene,” Alyin said. “I’m eighteen now. I can take care of myself.”
“Beware the smokeless flame!” her grandmother called after her. Alyin rolled her eyes when she shut the door behind her.
The day was beautiful. As she walked the trail, Alyin appreciated the surrounding natural areas and the dense vegetative cover of fields of citrus trees. There were rolling hills in the background and the air smelled fresh. There were certainly no beings of the smokeless flame here. Old people were superstitious, but Alyin had to admit to herself that sometimes, her grandmother really did seem to know…things.
She reached the village and headed towards the pazar that housed the vendor stalls. There, everything from clothes to fruits and vegetables were sold at lower prices than the shops. She wouldn’t be able to buy anything, but it was fun to browse and dream.
Children darted around the stalls, laughing as they played. She could hear strains of a guitar strumming somewhere in the distance. There were colorful items everywhere she looked, and the vendors called, “Bir lira! Domates! Kilosu üç lira!” She found it all to be very exciting and uplifting. The atmosphere seemed almost electric.
She was passing a stall when she heard a voice address her. “Hey there! Aren’t you Ahmet’s daughter?”
Alyin stopped to see who was speaking. A fiftyish man had an old-fashioned fez on his head and wore salvars, the loose-fitting trousers. His shirt was a colorful, gauzy material that floated in the slight breeze. He had a gray moustache which contrasted with his leathery, tan skin. He had dark brown eyes that peered at her above pouched bags.
“Why yes, Ahmet is my father,” she confirmed.
“He owes me money.”
Alyin was taken aback. Why, oh why had she admitted who her father was before asking why this man wanted to know? Or better yet, why hadn’t she simply ignored him and walked away?
“I don’t know anything about that,” Alyin said.
“I have a message for you to carry to your father,” the man said.
A cloud passed over the sun. The street darkened. Things seemed unnaturally quiet and Alyin suddenly realized that all the children had left. Time seemed to slow, and although her instincts screamed at her to run, she felt oddly frozen in place.
“I don’t carry messages,” she said.
“You’ll carry this one.”
“What is it?”
The man waited a long minute as if to create tension, then said, “Tell Ahmet that he stole from the wrong man. That I will get revenge.”
She blurted out, “My father doesn’t steal!”
The man laughed. “Oh, how I love the naivety of youth!”
She chose this moment to walk away. “Don’t forget my message!” the man called after her.
Alyin hurried away.
Her walk home was not the same as when she had left. The joy she’d experienced earlier disappeared, and the day seemed to reflect her emotions. It was now overcast and dark. It was almost like an entirely different day had materialized without her even realizing it was forming.
She pushed the front door open, only to find her grandmother waiting for her in a chair. “Didn’t I tell you it was a bad day to go out? What happened?”
Alyin couldn’t contain her sarcasm. “You have the second sight. Don’t you already know?”
“Don’t disrespect your nene.”
“I’m sorry,” Alyin said as she sat in a chair across from her grandmother. “There was a man…”
“Yes? Go on.”
Alyin blurted out, “This awful man said to give Papa a message! He said that Baba was a thief! He said that Papa owed money to him! He made a threat!”
She expected her grandmother to console her; to tell her that the man was crazy, and that of course Papa was not a thief. Instead, her grandmother was silent.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?”
“Perhaps you’d better give your baba the message,” her grandmother said.
“Why?”
“Your baba made a mistake. Last year, he needed money for the harvest. You remember that things were hard last year? This year, things are also hard, so payment can’t be made.”
Alyin said, “Things are always hard around here.”
Her grandmother told her, “You are disrespectful again! We do the best we can with what we have. You know that.”
“I’m sorry,” Alyin repeated.
“Tell your baba this message when he comes home. In the meantime, you need to do these things: pour salt on the front doorstep. I’ll open all the windows half-way and then shut them to show the evil spirits that they are not welcome here. There’s a mirror in your bedroom; cover it with a cloth. Your head-scarf will do.”
“Grandma, these things aren’t real. What is real is that awful man from the pazar. He’s what is evil! Not spirits.”
“Do as I say. And when you are in your bedroom, read the Quran. It will explain the beings of the smokeless flame to you.”
Resigned to her grandmother’s superstitions, Alyin said, “All right.” It was not worth it to argue. Her nene was set in her ways.
She went into her bedroom and stood still for a moment as she studied the mirror that hung over her old, dark brown dresser. It was round and ordinary-looking; framed by plastic designed to resemble wood. Surely this innocent mirror was harmless?
Nonetheless, she removed her hijab and draped the scarf over the mirror. She had to tuck it in tightly to get the scarf to stay in place.
She then lay on her bed with the Quran in her hands. She read:
One who recites Surah many a time will never suffer from the evil eye, magic, and ploys of the Djinn.
Djinn! Was that what her grandmother meant when she spoke of the beings of the smokeless flame?
She reached into her mind to remember what she had been taught about the Djinn as a child. She recalled that they were intelligent spirits of a lower rank than the angels and they were able to appear in both human and animal forms. They could possess humans. According to local legends, humans were made of clay, but the Djinn were made of fire. Fire without smoke.
And they sought revenge on anyone who harmed their protectors.
Revenge! Her thoughts went back to the man at the pazar. He had threatened revenge. Was he a protector?
But the Djinn were stories—dark fairy tales that parents told their children to get them to behave. Alyin had never seen one and neither had any of her schoolmates, or else they would have talked about it. Yet no one had ever said a word.
She stayed in her room and waited for her father to come home. She decided that yes, she would warn him of the hateful man from the pazar.
But her father didn’t come home.
That night, Alyin dreamed of snakes and scorpions. She was uneasy in her sleep and frequently tossed and turned. There was something dark and sinister lurking near her. She was back in the pazar, and the man called to her from his booth.
She lurched awake and sat up in her bed. The dream floated out of her memory, but she retained the feeling that something sinister was close to her. In the dark bedroom, she thought she could hear breathing.
Then, something touched her hair. It was a gentle caress and stopped as quickly as it began.
Alyin screamed.
Her bedroom door burst open, and her mother turned on the light switch. The woman was disheveled from sleep. “What’s wrong?” she shouted.
In the light, Alyin felt foolish. She knew she had acted like a small child. Grownups didn’t scream at a nightmare.
“I had a bad dream,” she said, feeling ashamed. “Where is Baba?”
“He isn’t home. We don’t question our men, or any decisions they make.”
Her mother backed away and turned off the light. She shut the door.
***
The sunlight streamed in through her window, telling Alyin that it was late morning. She jerked awake, realizing that she had overslept. Why hadn’t her mother woken her? Today, they were supposed to do the washing together.
Something smelled wrong. She wasn’t sure what it was. Perhaps her grandmother was ironing. It was definitely a slightly burned smell.
Her mind whispered to her: smokeless flame.
She got out of bed and went to her dresser to retrieve her clothes for the day. She looked at the mirror and stopped in her tracks.
There was a burn mark on her hijab. And it had been moved slightly so that the mirror’s right side showed through.
Her adrenaline surged. She tried to slow her breathing, but she couldn’t stop gasping for air. She felt her heart pounding and could hear it in her ears. Her fear increased when she remembered that something had touched her hair a few hours before.
She stood still and listened. Normally her home was bustling with the sounds of her family going about their daily chores. But the silence she experienced now was ominous and even menacing. Something was wrong on the other side of her bedroom door.
She was paralyzed by her fear. She realized that she had two options, only two. One was to climb out her bedroom window. The other option felt dreadful, but…she could open her bedroom door.
She tried to reason with herself. No one was screaming. No one was sounding any alarms. Perhaps they were all outside. Yes, that was it. Her family was outside working in the field.
Buoyed by that thought, she gathered her courage.
She would open the door.
Alyin touched the doorknob. She reveled in its familiarity. Everything was fine; nothing was abnormal…except for the burn on her scarf.
Maybe she should climb out her window.
She stood still for a few moments, still touching the doorknob. She needed a few minutes to gather her wits about her. And then she felt a fierce longing for her family. She felt loyalty towards them and recognized a deep seated need to protect them if that was what was required.
Her knuckles tightened as she firmly gripped the doorknob. She turned it and the door creaked open. The hallway appeared in front of her and it looked…normal.
She ventured out onto the tiled hallway floor. She would go to the heart of the house—the kitchen. Slowly, she padded on bare feet, still in her nightgown. All of her senses were heightened; her eyesight seemed sharp and her sense of smell was perceptive. Her mouth was ajar so that her hearing would be more acute.
Someone was in the kitchen.
She could hear scratching noises as though someone was dragging a plastic cup across the countertop. She thought she heard someone whispering but wasn’t sure if she’d really heard it.
“Mom?” she quietly called. “Nene?”
A plate fell to the kitchen floor, and Alyin jumped. Her heart nearly burst from her chest. The fear overwhelmed her, and she whirled around and ran back to her bedroom door.
It was shut. She was sure she had left it open. She grabbed the doorknob, but it wouldn’t turn. It was like someone…or something…was holding the knob securely on the other side
She would have to go through the house and past the kitchen to reach the front door.
Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed something moving on the floor. She looked down and saw a creature scuttling a few feet in front of her. It was a dusty-tan color and had claws that waved in front of it. When she saw a segmented, curved tail tipped with a venomous stinger, she recognized it as a scorpion.
Fragments of her dream came back to her and she knew she couldn’t just stand there. The creature scrabbled toward her. Nimbly, she jumped over it, putting her at the kitchen entrance.
She wanted to run to the front door, but what she saw in the kitchen stopped her.
In the center, something bulky lay on the tiles, unmoving. She could smell it before she could grasp what it was. She smelled something burned, like halal, roasted meat. She took a step or two forward to create more distance from the scorpion behind her, and that brought her closer to the kitchen. She tried to figure out what it was on the kitchen floor.
When she realized that the burned object was a person, she was horrified. And then when she recognized the burned clothing on the body as what her father often wore, she knew.
The Djinn were in the house! They were real, and they were here.
She had to get out. Now.
She turned and ran towards the front door. As she passed through the living room, the curtains over the front window burst into flame. Now she knew that if she didn’t escape quickly, she would be burned alive. The fire had no smoke. The Djinn were here, right in this living room.
She reached the front door and yanked on the doorknob. Just like her bedroom door, it was stuck. She was going to die unless she could escape! Adrenaline coursed through her veins and she tugged harder on the knob. The sweat on her hands made her lose her grip and she was forced to let go.
She threw herself against the door, using her shoulder to ram it and hoping it would break open with the sheer force of her will. It held fast. She rammed it again, and was aware of a strange sound until she recognized it as her own breathing as she gasped for air during her struggles.
All the memories of her Nene’s stories about the all-powerful Djinn flashed through her mind like projected photographs. No mortal could banish them.
But what if she could be helped by something immortal? What if she recited the Surah?
She fell to her knees and cried, “Oh, Allah! I seek refuge in You from the torment of Hell, from the torment of the grave, from the trials of life and death, and from the persecution of Al-Masih Ad-Dajjal!”
It was a desperate effort doomed for failure. Alyin closed her eyes and braced herself. She expected the Djinn to enter her mind; to possess her soul. She was surprised at how calm she felt. She was resigned to her fate and only hoped that the Djinn would kill her and not use her to harm others.
Suddenly, she could hear the flames on the drapes extinguish with a huffing sound. Cautiously she opened her eyes and risked a glance at them.
The fire was out.
She waited on her knees for a few moments, trying to comprehend that the Djinn had not transformed her. She felt normal, like herself, so she understood that somehow, the desperate prayer had helped. But she couldn’t help fearing that the evil spirit might be still lurking near her.
Smoke emanated from the blackened drapes, the result of the newly extinguished fire. That was when Alyin knew the Djinn were really gone, because the Djinn were the beings of the smokeless flame.
About the Author
While most people go to Disneyland while in Southern California, Jeani Rector went to the Fangoria Weekend of Horror there instead. She grew up watching the Bob Wilkins Creature Feature on television and lived in a house that had the walls covered with framed Universal Monsters posters. It is all in good fun and actually, most people who know Jeani personally are of the opinion that she is a very normal person. She just writes abnormal stories. Jeani Rector is the founder and editor of The Horror Zine and has had her stories featured in magazines such as Aphelion, Schlock!, Strange Weird and Wonderful, Macabre Cadaver, Blood Moon Rising, Morbid Outlook, Black Petals, Bewildering Stories and others.
