CW: arranged marriage, death.

Today his family comes to formally ask my parents—my father—for my hand. They will sit in our front room, the best room, and make small talk as his mother eyes me up and down. Her razor eyes will take in every detail and turn them into flaws and my mother will silently accept her disapproval by not saying a word. There will be no romance, no poetry, no pretty words of devotion. His father will greedily agree, will sign away his prized gem of a son because what use is a gem if one can’t spend it to buy more influence with the village agha, who has too many daughters and only the power of his title to barter them with.

We will sit in the best room, in the front room, and I will brew the thick, dark Turkish coffee. Orta, or medium, for him because he doesn’t like it too sweet or too bitter. Kind of like you, his father will joke and nod at me, and I will bring it out in the good cups. We will serve them using the blue ceramic set my mother received when she got married to my father. They have a delicate pattern of tulips and filigree, and we only use them for special occasions. The everyday set is so old, some have missing stems and cracks across the rims, and should have been replaced years ago, yet are used stubbornly day after day, the cups leaking out grounds and liquid onto the equally battered saucers when turned over to tell fortunes. My father jokes every time that there is truth in what the cups say—see how our fortunes have run? My mother just silently clears them once the gritty, viscous substance goes cold. I expect they’ll get their new sets as early as next week.

They arrive in the late afternoon. His father strides in front, wide steps and back straight. His shoes are shiny despite the dusty roads and long walk through the farmland. His pants have a sharp crease down the front and do not bear the softness of multiple patches and seasons of wear. They look more like the clothes of an agha. He walks behind him, lagging, but still a few steps in front of his mother. She’s covered her hair with a scarf like any respectable woman, but instead of the bright colors and intricate designs I’ve usually seen her wearing when I’ve seen her in town, today’s scarf is a plain black one. It doesn’t go with the glare of the bright day.

My hand trembles as I serve the coffee. I spill some of it on the tarnished silver tray, one of the only real silver pieces we have left. His mother notices and purses her lips. A flawless serve this was not. It must’ve been the Saribastı, his father jokes. The demon that causes epileptic fits.

They spend the whole afternoon in our best room. He sits between his mother and father. I sit between my mother and father. Our eyes never meet. We have never spoken a single word to each other. Only the men talk.

Once the coffee is done, we turn over the glasses and rest them on their matching azure tulip saucers. The grounds will slip down the sides and harden and give us a glimpse into the future amidst the silt. None will leak out the cracks. When the bottoms are cool to the touch, we slowly turn them over. The shapes come through on the sides. Outlines of coffee-colored negatives. A fish, bells, a flock of storks. Wishes will come true, there will be travel, a change in fortune.

After they leave, I wash the good cups. One by one, I rinse and dry and set each fragile piece on the shelf with its saucer. There are eight of them. An even collection of matching pairs. I snap off the handle of the last cup and lay it gently next to its owner, too.

• • • •

She watches the girl as she sleeps. The girl does not rest easy. She is as fierce a fighter in her sleep as she is a stoic dream-walker in the day. She thrashes and rolls and flips the covers off only to then tangle them around her legs. She kicks them away, a sweaty rope of linen snakes she gasps and moans and struggles against. Breathing heavily, she pummels the invisible plagues she can finally unleash her rage upon in her slumber while the waking world traps her in ruthless obeisance.

She lets the girl wage her private war for a while longer. Then, she inhales. She takes the air from the room. The dark is her cloak, and she spreads it over the girl, wrapping her in shadows. The girl’s body stiffens and lays perfectly still. Her legs stop moving and her arms collapse at her side. Her lips part. Above the girl, she hovers. Her hair is the clouds on a moonless night and her eyes are two stars. She breathes down on the girl and wills her mind to clear, to be empty. The girl’s face relaxes into the smooth, expressionless face of a mannequin. She brings the girl peace. And then the night demon presses down on her chest and breathes into her open mouth.

Beneath her lids, the girl’s eyes flicker madly. The night demon pushes harder. The girl dreams not in images but of feelings. Of emotions left unspoken and paths untaken and cycles unbroken. With every passing moment, the demon increases the pressure on the girl’s chest, exhaling on her face, caressing her frantic visage with her merciless breath. Days, lifetimes, eternities pass behind the girl’s eyes and she remains trapped under the demon, in her thrall but no less a prisoner in her own life.

As the sun casts its first red rays into the girl’s room, the demon lifts her arms off the girl’s chest and exhales. The shadows return to their natural places. In the deepest reaches of her mind, the girl feels a release. She opens her eyes to twin crescents, but a blink and they’re gone, with only the fading image of a dream already slipping from her memory and the feel of heavy, silken locks on her arms.

• • • •

I dreamt I was walking through the forest. In front of me lay two paths. The left path was sunny and bright. I heard the birds sing and could almost smell the sweet scent of lilacs from the meadow beyond. The right path lay in darkness, and the shadows crept up almost to my feet. I started on the sunny path, but the birdsong turned into whispers and voices and I realized they were coming from the other path, urging me to turn back because I was walking through a graveyard. I woke up without my breath. The way my sisters and I would always hold it as we walked by the village cemetery, gasping it out as we made it past.

Today I am making manti with his sisters. My two sisters were deemed too young to join the festivities, but the mark of any good housewife is the delicacy in which she shapes the dumplings, and so I am to join his in proving my worth. Our parents thought it would be a delightful way for all of us to get to know one another. And get started on food for the wedding. What good wife wouldn’t want to start spoiling her husband, even before she has to? My mother has not been invited.

His house is at the edge of the village. It is the largest house as befits the richest landowner. I make my way through fields and grazing sheep, let out for the day. They’ve been newly shorn and there are still drifts of fluff in the air. The tendrils catch on the wood fence along the path and the once-white clouds look bereft without anything to anchor them.

His sisters are already in the kitchen when I arrive. Almost three times the size of ours, the kitchen boasts a large, round wooden table where we’ll be rolling out the dough and cutting out the pieces to shape into the dumplings we’ll be stuffing with minced lamb. They are both older, sour-faced women, one married to a grocer and the other to a milliner. His father knows how to make the most tactical matches. With us, he’ll have a say in all the biggest businesses in the village. I can’t tell the two women apart. They call me gelin, the bride, and I don’t suppose they know my name nor want to learn it, either.

They show me around the house. My house, soon. It’s built in the old-fashioned style with a separate section for the women—the harem, the father jokes as he sticks his head in to check on our progress before hastily making his exit at the assault of estrogen in his immediate vicinity. He’s allowed in, but apparently isn’t quite the big man he is within the walls as he is outside. There is an open courtyard between the two wings of the big house but the windows on the women’s side are shuttered with the peekaboo mashrabiya screens that allow no eyes to spy on our modesty. The sisters moved out when they got married, but I’ll be moving in. At least until I start producing children. Sons, the mother corrects. We have enough daughters.

The saying goes, the ideal bride should be able to form such perfect dumplings that you could fit thirty onto a serving spoon. Mine are sloppy, the seams imperfect, the filling either too much or too little. We don’t bother to test them out on a spoon or otherwise.

The dough dries out fast and there’s a bowl of water set in the middle to help keep it sticky. It pills on my hands and the smell of onions and garlic permeates the air. They have a cook, as their station in the community allows them, and she keeps a steady supply of the filling and pastry coming to our table. One sister rolls it out with her heavy hands, pushing down until it’s paper thin, while the other slices it into precise segments. I mechanically stuff them, pinching off the meat into the little envelopes and folding them together, wetted by the increasingly gummy water. His mother sits by us, drinking endless cups of tea that she imperiously calls for, interrupting our assembly line for the cook to brew up and serve her. Judging by the steam curling up from her gold rimmed glasses, the tea is hot enough to scald, but she doesn’t notice.

They say I should get home before it gets dark, and I take my leave. On the way, I take a different path, the one that leads past the cemetery. I remember my dream. The sun is making its slow descent and the sky is streaked in hues of gold and orange and red. Our cemetery is well tended, it’s nothing like the one I saw in my sleep. The headstones are polished and the grounds have a caretaker that makes sure the grass never reaches past a certain height. I don’t stop as I walk through but I don’t hold my breath either. We have a family plot in the back where my mother’s parents are. Custom says after seven years, burials can be made on top of those already laid to rest. My grandfather died eight years after my grandmother, and he’s there, trapping her beneath him for all eternity.

The lights have come on in the homes in the distance. They say that Külbastı is the demon that haunts the graveyard, sleeping under the earth during the day and stalking it at night. I’m still not holding my breath. The sun has completely set now. The moon is a Cheshire frown from where I’m standing. There’s nothing out there.

I go home.

• • • •

The demon’s waiting when the girl falls asleep. Once more she spreads her cloak over her body, the visions she brings a warning and a caress. Once more she breathed in her mouth all the fears inside the girl made manifest and real in the dreamland of her mind. Her hands push down on the girl’s ribcage and move inside her. They wrap around her heart and squeeze out a Morse code of warning beats. Her hair spirals around the girl’s arms, binding them together. But tonight, the demon speaks into the sleeping girl’s ear. Her tongue dances close to the sensitive spot right by the lobe and she gently, lovingly, asks her the question. Which path. Which path will the girl take, it’s up to her, she has to choose, she gets to pick.

Before the sun rises once more, the demon exhales. The girl’s limbs release. But before she disappears, she kisses the girl once on the lips. Leaving the taste of cherry that lingers even when the girl wakes, and a strand of dark hair, blacker than ink, twisted around her ring finger.

• • • •

I wake with my lips stained red and a vision of her that did not fade even when I blinked and rubbed my eyes. It’s the night before my wedding and the traditional kina gecesi tonight, the henna night.

All day I feel her presence around me. When they pull me from my room, down the streets to the public baths, making a show of the event, I can feel her hair brushing against my back in the wind. As they wash me in the women’s hammam, the heated stone baths, where every inch of me is shorn, cleaned, and oiled like a sacrificial lamb, I think I see the dim half-moons of her eyes spying on me through the çeşme waters. While they pound the keşkek, together, the vats of split wheat and meat ground together until smooth, to symbolize the course of the marriage, I sense her breath whispering across the hot stoves. So many steps to ensure everything goes well, when the choice to pick the right one is not even a consideration. That’s why we rely on rituals.

My sisters are excited, they think it’s a great party. They twitter like spring birds all around me, the sprigs of flavor to the bland main course that I am. After the day’s preparations, everything will take place at his house. Ostensibly because they have more room to host, but really because my father has already lost the upper hand in giving mine away in marriage.

I’m carried on a wave of obligation and feminine force. I don’t remember how we get from my house to theirs. They dress me in the bindallı, the traditional dress, and it is layers of heavy blood-red velvet with gold embroidery at the sleeves and lapels. The skirt flows down in a bell shape, and I feel like if I tip over, I’ll never get up again. My hair is brushed out and braided with the gelin teli, the bride’s tinsel. I’m told most villages use copper now, but only real silver for my special day. The sheer rose-colored veil is placed on my head and secured with a shining tiara. It has gold discs that dangle off it and frame my head like a halo, and I can see them winking with every slight turn and twist of my neck.

My arms are loaded down with gold bracelets. Red for fertility and gold for wealth. They climb all the way up my arm, and something about them stirs something in the back of my brain. The weight echoes the one on my chest, it’s an accordion pressing shut. I’ve lost something, but I don’t know what it is.

The other women joke about how pale I am. His mother mutters I look like an Albastı, the tall pale demon that comes in the form of a pale, evil woman. No one hears her except me. She’s standing near me for the gold coin ritual. She has to place one in my hand and I have to refuse her multiple times before finally allowing her in. It’s to mark our acceptance of each other. Built-in roles of animosity, setting brides and mothers-in-law against each other for centuries. My mother watches me closely. I don’t resist, I just let her place it. She presses it so firmly, I can feel its edges cutting into my hand. We don’t need to act the parts.

There’s food everywhere. Piles of nuts and dried fruits. Dates and figs and prunes, a preserved feast of dried leather. It could last forever if we wanted it to. My youngest sister slips me a few pistachios. You’re just nervous, it’s alright, she whispers. The salt burns my tongue and lips. A thousand cuts I didn’t know I had. The dumplings I made yesterday are nowhere to be seen.

My sisters start singing “Yüksek Yüksek Tepelere.” It’s a traditional folk song about leaving home. It’s supposed to make the mother and the bride cry to mark the transition of leaving home. All the rituals that make women submit and relinquish while men demand and receive starting with the kız isteme. Visiting the home to choose the girl. My mother starts crying and the other women all cheer. It’s sweet, the lyrics of the song and the emotions of the moment have touched her, they think. All is as it should be. She is not crying for me. I remain dry-eyed.

The henna tray is brought over. My youngest sister walking so slowly with the dyes and the lit candles upon it. She’s using our old silver tray and my heart breaks at how carefully she traces her steps, eager to perform her role perfectly. While my other sister mixes the dye on the tray, my husband-to-be finally makes his appearance. This is really the only time he’s present during this, the night before. He needs the sacramental red for our union to be blessed as well. Which means: to anoint my womb with the many sons I’m supposed to have.

The palms of our hands are daubed with the red mixture. The crowd pulls us into the halay, the traditional dance. On the outside, it seems everyone is having a great time. We’re sent home, separately of course, so we can rest up for the big day tomorrow. So I’ll have the energy to leave home and start making good on my new father-in-law’s investment.

I stand by our kitchen sink. I can see the silver gelin teli in my hair still. The bottoms of my shoes have the names of all the single girls we could fit written on them. Pull the shortest piece of tinsel from the bride’s hair and get married next. See whose name wears off from the shoes at the end of the night and they’ll be wed that year. A thousand and one ways to give away your girls.

The henna has turned a burnt orange. It’s a stigmatic circle staining my palm, and looks like the sun right before it dips below the horizon. Henna is also supposed to protect a new bride from the evil spirits. I don’t leave the sink until I’ve washed it all out.

• • • •

For the third night, the demon visits the girl when she falls asleep. She lets the shadows lengthen and spread over the room before making her way over. There is no fight left in the girl. She sleeps on her back, one hand thrown carelessly over her head, the other flung down the side of the bed. The sheets drape loosely over her and under them the night demon can see the outline of her body. Thin covers mold to small breasts and wide hips, ribs that can easily be counted if the girl inhaled and held her breath. Smooth shoulders curve down to the base of her throat where a pulse flutters, like a butterfly trapped in a glass jar left in the sun. The night demon moves closer. She tips her head to the side so that her hair tumbles down in a long sheet over the girl’s face. As she climbs above the girl, spreading her legs to straddle her, the girl takes hold of her arm.

“Hello, Karabastı.”

• • • •

Her eyes are honey and her lips are the inside of a ripe peach. Golden yellow with a shock of red, red juice. My head is loose, it feels like I’ve dived too far down into waters and sounds only come through in hollow echoes. I’m drowning in her hair, her long, serpentine hair, but it’s soft, so soft, like coils of ermine, and she asks me again and again and I say yes and I’m frozen but I can see and she takes me. We go past seas of souls, their inner lights mingling with the crystallized salt. I see them floating jellyfish-like as they twist and combine, creating new life, new shapes, an endless cycle of souls and minerals and precious gems, trading each other for a chance to swim closer to the surface. Faster we speed by, over castles of bones and gardens of flesh but I’m not afraid because there is fairness and justice in the way things are. There is balance between what comes first and what comes after. She pushes me towards a three-headed beast and teases him back, pulling me close, we dodge him, jowls dripping to fields of monsters and creatures and beings but they are not ugly they’re beautiful in their monstrous selves because they do not hide and at last we arrive into her moon garden and she eases off her cloak and invites me in and there is a feast of cherries and pears and plums and figs all ripe and lush bursting with flavor and one touch and they are aching dripping with fluid and the need to release and I bite in and she wraps me in her cloak and I say yes. I say yes.

• • • •

On the morning of her wedding, the girl’s mother came to wake her. She found her daughter laying perfectly still on her back with a beatific smile on her face. There was already a film of dust on her wide-open eyes. The smell of cherries hung heavy in the room.