Divinity’s father couldn’t sleep all night; he was out of his wits.

  He didn’t know what to do; everywhere he looked, he thought she could be there.

  Shutting his eyes, he thought she was possibly looming over him, watching him as he was scared, nothing more than a spineless coward, pondering when she would end his misery.

  But she wasn’t there; the night passed, and she didn’t appear again. He was completely exhausted, but since he couldn’t sleep the entire night anyway, he got up to eat something.

  He went to the kitchen and looked in the pantry; he had some things in there for occasions like this, even though they were rare.

  Surprisingly, he found nothing at all; however much he looked, he turned the kitchen upside down and found nothing.

  Suddenly he heard the clattering of a spoon in his living room.

  He froze to death, terrified; he prayed it was just his imagination, but the clattering continued.

  He psyched himself up to have enough courage to check out the source of the sound and got out.

  With each step, the sound became clearer. Once in the living room, he saw her, his dead daughter.

  She was sitting at the table, an empty plate in front of her, and an empty cup of water.

  She was eating from the empty plate, chewing nothing at all; he could hear her teeth hitting each other while she chewed on air.

  Every once in a while, she would stop to drink from the empty water cup.

  His nerves were near fried, but he wanted to solve this, so he said, “Do you want food? Is that what you want? Were you hungry before you died? I am very sorry I neglected you after your mother died. Please forgive me; I am begging you.”

  She didn’t look at him at all and continued eating from her empty plate.

  He screamed, “Please, why are you doing this to me? Tell me what you want.”

  When she continued ignoring him, he got out of the house intending to buy food for her.

  He went to the market and bought a full meal, the like she had never even eaten before.

  When he got back to the house, and entered the living room, she wasn’t there.

  The plate wasn’t there, nor the cup nor the spoon.

  The chair was even under the table like no one ever pulled it out.

  He ran from room to room and didn’t find her. His appetite was already ruined, so he entered the kitchen to put the food in the cupboard and became horrified when he saw there was food inside it — the same food he couldn’t find a few minutes ago.

  He looked speechless for a minute, his mouth closing and opening, uttering no words, then he said in an audible voice, “It can’t be? Am I going crazy? There was nothing, she... she was out there eating, I saw her with my own eyes.”

  He buried his face in his hands as he cried pitifully for a few minutes while he stood there, and once he uncovered his face, he saw her again right in front of him.

  She was standing outside the kitchen window. Looking at him with accusatory eyes; reminding him of his heinous crime, condemning him for failing as a father, for failing as a human being.

  He screamed angrily. “I have had enough of this; I am sick and tired of seeing your stupid face. Stop it, just stop it; whatever happened is in the past. I didn’t mean it; I never wanted to harm you if I was in my right mind. Go away, just leave.”

  She didn’t change her condemning stare, and just stood there, he rushed towards her and shut the window in her face.

  He thought to shut the windows with wooden planks to stop her from getting in; as he got out to the living room to look for them, he saw her looking at him from outside through the living room window.

  He roared in anger and went to a small storage room in his house, and got the tools, and rushed towards the living room window where she stood outside, and shut the window in her face, and hammered it shut with a couple of wooden planks.

  He then ran toward the kitchen window and did the same. Then he ran towards the bedroom window and saw her standing outside of it and shut it from the inside.

  He sat on the bed, and almost broke down in tears, but he didn’t get the chance.

  Suddenly, the bedroom window was blasted to smithereens from the outside.

  The small pieces of wood flew everywhere, and many of them cut him or smacked him in the face.

  He was more shocked than in pain from what just happened.

  He ran out of the room, and as he entered the living room, the other window got smashed from the outside as well. He ducked to take cover from the flying debris.

  Then he crawled pathetically out of the living room while covering his head, and by the time he reached the kitchen door, its window got smashed into pieces as well.

  By that point, he had had enough of the house, so he ran outside.

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  ***

  As the father ran in the street, everyone looked at him worriedly; many asked him, “Are you okay?”

  He couldn’t hear any of them; he was horrified and thought that Divinity was after him the entire time.

  He was headed to the only place he knew safety after his wife died — the inn.

  Once inside, he looked around like a maniac; the owner saw him and face-palmed.

  A large group of people were following him, as they feared for his life. The innkeeper put his arm around his shoulder, at which the man flinched.

  He told the crowd to disperse. “Nothing to see here, people, go about your business; I’ll take care of him.”

  He took him to the washing room, and washed his face, and gave him some old clean clothing he had, and even dressed him.

  This didn’t happen often, but the man knew his job; he benefited from alcoholics like Divinity’s father the most, and he was expected to be the one to save them when they would fall. Or else the villagers would be mad at him for throwing the man out for them to take care of, and he didn’t want that.

  He walked the terrified man to a table and gave him some warm lentil soup and some bread, and even a cup of juice.

  He told him, “Eat now, get your strength back, and we can talk after. You know I always listen to you, you whiny bastard.” He laughed as he let the man take care of business and went back behind his counter.

  Divinity’s father stared at the plate of soup for a while before he cut a piece of bread and dipped it in the soup.

  He put it in his mouth as he looked towards the inn’s door, and he saw Divinity standing outside on the other side of the street. She looked at him pitifully and extended her hand towards him, begging him for food.

  He choked on the food in his mouth. He spat the food in his mouth and coughed repeatedly, then he went absolutely nuts.

  He screamed at everybody, “She is outside; she is coming to get me.” The few people in the inn at the time surrounded him and asked multiple questions, “Who are you talking about?” “Calm down, you are not making any sense!” While another said, “May the goddess save him, the man completely lost his mind.”

  The father screamed, “The little girl outside — she has been following me everywhere; she won’t leave me alone. Can’t anybody else see her?”

  Someone said before looking outside, “Children play all the time in the road, what of it?”

  While the other patrons looked outside, and saw a completely normal group of girls playing.

  One of them said, “Look at them yourself; there is nothing scary out there. They are just little children; what got you so spooked?”

  The innkeeper agreed, “Maybe you should stop drinking for a while, man; you are losing your mind. If I had known you would become like this, I would have kept the wine from you a long time ago.”

  Divinity’s father looked outside and saw the little girls; Divinity wasn’t one of them, so he screamed at the men, “You don’t understand, she is toying with me; she has been haunting me since yesterday. I can’t even sleep in my house anymore.”

  The innkeeper looked out of patience, but he obliged him. “Well, at least tell us who she is? What does she look like? We have to know who she is before we can figure out what to do about her. Right, men?” He directed his last question at the rest of the patrons.

  They all said yes at the same time.

  At which point the father looked at them scared, he thought, If I say anything more, they will know that I killed my daughter. They will know everything that happened. They will figure out that I lied about my relative, who took her away to another village to care for her. I can’t have that.

  He looked at each one of their faces, one after the other, and felt like they were closing in on him, like they were on to him already, and thought, Look, look how they are looking at me, they know, they must know something is up. I have to get away from here. I have to get back home. It’s the only place that’s safe for me; it’s the only place where I can keep the secret from getting out. These men won’t hesitate to kill me if they find out my crime.

  “Get out of my way; you are suffocating me. I am going home.” He shouted at them as he pushed them out of his way.

  The innkeeper tried to hold him back, but he got away and ran back home.

  He was looking around him everywhere as he ran away, but he was much more sober this time around and didn’t tumble repeatedly.

  He finally reached his house, and opened the door; he peaked inside like a rat, and when he didn’t find her in the hallway, he entered the house.

  After he was in the middle of the way to his bedroom, she came out of the bedroom wearing the same dress she wore when he raped her.

  The crotch of the dress was stained with fresh blood that was dripping on the ground as she crept towards him.

  Smiling innocently, she extended her palm towards her father.

  The man completely froze in place, as this was the first time that she wasn’t only accusing him of neglecting her needs, or that he murdered her, but that he had also defiled her.

  Once she was within three steps of him, he broke out of his stupor and turned around to run, but she was there too, blocking his path.

  He looked behind him where she was, and she wasn’t there, but she started running in circles around him.

  No matter where he looked, she was there, from how fast she was.

  On the ground, there was a circle of blood around him, from the blood dripping from her.

  He was terrified beyond words and had nowhere to run.

  After a few minutes of this, he felt something warm running down his pants. He looked down in disbelief; this had never happened to him before.

  Divinity also looked at him after he pissed himself and said, “Disgusting.” She spat at him and disappeared.

  He didn’t know whether to be embarrassed about pissing himself at that age or terrified of the events that were happening to him.

  Regardless of his feelings, he was horrified of the house again; he ran back towards the door and tried to open it, but he couldn’t.

  Unbeknownst to him, Gabalawi was outside holding the door shut; he was also the one who smashed all his windows the same day.

  He kept fighting against the door, but it wasn’t even moving at all.

  He gave up and moved tiredly towards his bedroom, and inside he found Divinity on the bed, as he remembered her when he woke up and found her dead beside him.

  She was unmoving, but he knew better at this point; she would surely move if he got closer.

  He ran out of the room again, gasping in fear, and tried to open the door, but it still wouldn’t open.

  After he tired of fighting it again, he returned to his room, and Divinity wasn’t on the bed; the blood on her crotch soaked the bedsheets.

  He looked tired and exhausted, horrified and scared for his life. He did the only thing that was going to save him at that point.

  He collected the bloodied bedsheets and made a rope out of them.

  Divinity appeared at the door and looked at him challengingly.

  He looked at her in resignation and continued what he was doing as if she weren’t there.

  He tied the bedsheets to a post above his bed and got up and hanged himself.

  She watched him in silence as his body convulsed over and over, as he looked at her with his bulging eyes.

  She watched with a look of satisfaction on her face.

  After his body stilled, she removed her bloodied dress and left it on the bed, for everyone to know his dark secret.

  Finally, she got her revenge.

  Finally, she made her murderers know the consequences of killing.