Many of you have asked me to post the first Chapter of my novel. Here it is!

(You can also download the first 4 chapters for free on Amazon)

1. Churail

It’s seventy degrees and the skies are clear tonight in Karachi. The traffic on Stadium Road is congested. I roll my window down to let in the humid salty air. Just before I enter the gates of Aga Khan Medical College, where my father’s bookshop is, I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the rearview mirror. My face isn’t as full as it used to be. Cheekbones have emerged. My eyes and cheeks are bright, but my lips turn down at the corners into a worried pout.

I was supposed to pick my father up at nine and it’s already nine-thirty. My college, Dadu, is usually only a ten minute drive from the bookshop. My calls keep getting diverted to my father’s voicemail. Perhaps he unknowingly locked his phone in the bookshop, and is waiting at the curb, outside the hospital. Maybe his ringer is turned down, or he can’t hear me calling over the din of rickshaws zooming by. I park the car and walk through the courtyards. My stomach tightens as I round the last corner. It’s not the dark windows of the bookshop — my father often switches off the lights to deter students who are looking for a last minute purchase. Nor is it the absence of any students on the pink marble benches. It’s the eerie silence. It makes me want to turn around and call for help. Instead, I squeeze my eyes closed as I enter the bookshop. When I open them again, my body freezes. My father, my Baba, is lying on the floor. He makes a feeble attempt to reach his hand toward me and his eyes strain to stay open. As my vision adjusts to the darkness in the room I realize that what I thought were shadows on the floor around Baba’s body are in fact pools of blood. There’s a bullet wound over the left side of his chest, with bright red blood trickling out of it. I lurch toward him and scream.

I feel like I’m in my own dream, detached and helpless. In the emergency room, the heart monitors beep — some are steady, others fast and erratic.

Hours pass. Now I’m in the surgical waiting area, pacing the hallway. One by one, other patients’ family members leave, as I remain, trying not to imagine life without my father. It is not supposed to end like this. It will not end like this, I think, with an almost angry determination. He is going to make it. I sit down, close my eyes and wait in the silence.

“Are you Mister Khan’s daughter?” The voice startles me. Looking up, I see that the question comes from a man with dark brown hair, standing in front of me in blue scrubs. He has blue eyes and an American accent. Despite my anxiety, I can’t help but notice how handsome he is.

“Yes. I’m Laila.” I reply, standing up. My palms are wet with perspiration. I wipe them on my shirt and shake his hand.

“I’m Doctor Mark Mousakes,” he says, smiling slightly. “I am one of the doctors who operated on your father.” He ushers me to sit again, and clearly understanding how anxious I am, quickly adds, “Laila, your father is a very lucky man.” I feel my neck muscles relax. My father is alive.

“How is he?”

“The surgery went well. He is in recovery and you should be able to see him soon. Thankfully, the bullet missed the heart and major blood vessels. It got lodged in a rib and we were able to remove it. Unfortunately, on its way there, it did injure his lung and he had considerable internal bleeding.” My lower lip trembles and he hurries to continue, “But we were able to stop it. I do believe he is going to make a complete recovery. He will be all right.” Dr. Mousakes stands up.

I stand too, and manage to whisper, “Thank you,” more to the heavens than to the doctor. I’m not sure if it is the exhaustion, the feeling of relief or the lateness of the hour, but before I can say anything else, my head starts to spin. My legs feel weak and my vision becomes blotchy.

I wake up in a hospital bed in the ER, with an IV in one arm and a blood pressure cuff on the other. My head feels like lead as I turn to look at my watch. It’s two in the morning. My nurse, Rozina, a short plump girl, informs me that I had “vasovagal syncope,” which basically means that I passed out. She also tells me that my father is still in the recovery area of in the surgical suite.

“When can I go see him?”

“As soon as your drip finishes,” she says pleasantly. “I’ll bring in your discharge papers. The surgical recovery rooms are on the second floor of the east wing. I’ll remove your IV and recheck your blood sugar before you go.” I wince as I see the needle of the IV in my skin.

“Is the blood sugar necessary? I feel fine,” I say, feeling quite sure I’ll pass out again if I see her poke me.

“Doctor Mousakes’ orders,” Rozina replies, her red painted lips curling into a smile.

“Who brought me here? What happened?” I ask, even though I’m pretty sure of the answer.

“Doctor Mousakes carried you in.” She continues to smirk. Now I am embarrassed. He will probably run in the other direction if he sees a member of my family again. I will have to thank him a second time tonight.

“Happy nineteenth birthday,” says Rozina as she pulls off the tape around my IV. I look at her, surprised at how she knows. “Your medical records.” She tilts her chin toward a blue file with a white sticker that reads, “Khan, Laila. DOB 11/15/1994.”

“Thanks,” I reply. “Not a very good way to spend it, is it?” Rozina pats my shoulder sympathetically and hands me my discharge paperwork.

I look around the ER. It is large and crowded with bright lights and several monitors beeping asynchronously. My nose burns from the smell of antiseptic. Thick, red curtains separate the patient beds and the floors are white and shiny. A doctor gives instructions to his nurse to redraw his patient’s blood. The nurse frowns, seeming less than thrilled.

A young girl, not more than fourteen years old, sits on the bed in front of me, holding a baby. The baby barely moves and appears emaciated with her eyes sunken in and half closed and her head too large for her scrawny body. She is on a drip, like mine. I hear her doctor mention dehydration. The young girl holding the baby has sad, glazed-over eyes. I wonder if the baby is her sibling or maybe her own child? Closing my eyes, I say a prayer for the two of them. I try to catch her gaze, so I can give her a smile, or ask her what happened. But she looks past me.

I sit up for a few minutes, and decide that I feel stable enough to go see my father. I ease myself out of my bed and feel lightheaded again. Determined, I kept standing, holding onto my bed for support, and the dizziness gradually subsides.

A man walks up to the girl with the baby. He is stocky, and has a thick mustache. A nurse and a physician scurry after him, trying to explain why the baby needs to be admitted to the hospital. He doesn’t seem at all convinced and orders the girl to stand up and follow him with the baby. He marches out, with the girl, still cradling the baby in her arms, obediently following him.

I stand there pretending not to have noticed. Once Rozina gives me my discharge instructions, I leave the emergency room and make my way across the dimly lit courtyard toward the east wing. Halfway there, I hear voices. One sounds like a hushed whimper, and another, although soft, is forceful and threatening. Curiosity gets the better of me, and I sneak into the shadows for a better look. As I inch closer, I can make out the silhouette of a man towering over someone. This is the same trio from the emergency room, I realize, my heart racing. Their words become clearer as I creep even closer. The girl is apologizing, promising that she will nurse the baby to health.

“If she isn’t better, I will kill you. And don’t think that you aren’t being watched,” the man spits out, grabbing her by her braid and yanking her head backwards. “You really thought you could escape from us by having her admitted to the hospital?”

I feel myself growing increasingly agitated, watching this.

“Next time you try anything like this, I will kill this baby of yours in front of your eyes and then I’ll kill you. Got it?” The girl nods her head up and down, her whole body trembling.

Focus, I whisper to myself. It’s been years since I used any of my powers. I may be rusty, but I have to try. There isn’t enough energy in my surroundings to do anything significant. But I have an idea, something that I haven’t tried before. My eyes pierce through the man’s thick body, on a quest for some source of heat. Slowly, steadily, I focus my thoughts, my emotions, on him. I try to become one with him as I sense the warmth from his muscles escape like slithering serpents. They first gather in his chest, intermingling in a circular fashion. I coax them toward his throat. Gradually, they move up to his mouth and then out in my direction. Within seconds, I feel myself get warmer. He flinches and pulls his jacket tighter around him. He stares speechlessly at the girl, and then takes a step back, his eyes shifting from the girl to his own hands. He ponders them, looking scared. I feel intense pain. My body can’t take the energy. It starts to consume me. I release his energy back toward him, and watch him suck in a breath like a diver who just broke the surface. My heart beating faster than ever, my face and hands trembling, I look at the girl. She hasn’t seen me. The man stares again at his hands in amazement, then back at the girl. He mutters a few words, straightens his jacket, and then turns and walks away.

Finally, I step out of the shadows and walk toward the girl. But as soon as she sees me, she bolts away.

“Wait. I want to help!” I call after her. “What’s your name?” She pauses for a beat to turn and look at me. Her eyes are wide and full of fright. Then she clutches the baby to her chest and runs toward the hospital parking lot.

I lean against the wall and slide to the ground. My calves hurt and I feel feverish. I have performed transkinesis. Again. I am a churail, a witch. My mother once told me that only the most evil of churails have the ability to transport energy, like heat or movement, from one place to another. As a child, I stopped leaves from dancing in the wind, and used their kinetic energy to make clouds bounce and flit in the sky. But what I did just now was different. It was human energy. And I have never felt so dark in my life.

I wipe my brow with the back of my hand. The folklore that I grew up hearing from friends and teachers was that churails are hideous women who disguise themselves as young attractive maidens and lurk in graveyards and dark alleys looking for men to seduce. After that, they drain their blood and kill them. I pray every night that that’s not my destiny.