Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, Isra gazes ruefully at the khimar in her hands. Her faint sigh is swallowed by the thunderous notes of the third Brandenburg Concerto from her bedroom. She runs long fingers over the fabric, soft, gray, and worn. Then she lifts her eyes to the image in the glass. Two ridged ivory horns, each almost eight inches in length now, sprout from her hairless skull just above her temples and sweep back, curving slightly outward.
Some redness and swelling is still evident around the base of each protrusion, but for the most part her body has adjusted to the transformation without much evidence of damage. The addition of the horns propels her appearance beyond the uncanny and firmly into the territory of fantasy art. They call attention to the points of her ears and exaggerate the slant of luminous green eyes. They match the wicked thumb talon that crowns the apex of each leathery wing rising over her shoulders.
Exiting her bathroom, Isra folds the gray headscarf back up and returns it to its drawer. Her wings trail behind her, unbound, and from beneath the hem of her black abaya her tail lashes the air like that of an agitated feline. There are no unsecured objects below waist height in her room, but the tip of one wing knocks over the makeup brush stand as she passes her vanity. She stares down at the brushes for a moment, then retrieves a smartphone from her pocket and scribbles a note with a stylus.
A tall glass of chalky pink liquid sits on the kitchen counter beside her laptop bag and the bright green shawl Khalida had left for her. Isra picks up the glass and gulps down its contents without preamble. A piece of paper flutters out when she lifts the shawl, and she snatches it out of the air reflexively. Scrawled across it in Khalida’s messy yet graceful hand are four lines of text:
“Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face,
But you are life and you are the veil.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror,
But you are eternity and your are the mirror.”
Isra smiles wanly and tucks the note into the outer pocket of her laptop bag before slinging it over her shoulder. Then she drapes the shawl loosely around her neck, letting it cover the base of her wings where they emerge from the custom scyes in her abaya. The shawl's color is spring rendered into fabric dye, the precise shade of a newly sprouted leaf. It smells of incense.
Descending the steps into the entryway, Isra takes more time and care than wonted in wrapping her feet. At last, hesitating only briefly with her hand on the doorknob, she steps outside.
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