I thought if he came to me, I would not deny him, no matter the obedience I have always given my family. How is it I am so certain this is meant to be, that Allah has willed it so, even though it is against everything I have known?
When I raised my gaze again, he was gone. I thought he might have seen someone stirring, so I quickly stepped back into the tent.
Djinn that he is, he was there, though my younger sisters slept only a few feet away. So I trembled for us both and said nothing as he reached out and touched my face for the very first time . . . only my face, while his clothed body stood so close to my yearning one. And then he was gone.
3
CLUNK. Jess opened her eyes as Harry let out a triumphant whistle and Mel a startled grunt. They’d dug down three feet, so when she bent to peer in, she was gazing at the sand-encrusted top of the stone obelisk.
She tried to school her face to a mask, but fortunately they were occupied with clearing the sides, using spacers to hold back the sand. Gripping the sides of the chair, she fought sudden light-headedness. It was real. Though she’d been afraid to believe otherwise, because of how little she could afford to lose at this point, the confirmation was staggering.
When they were done, the full four-foot height of the heavy marker was revealed. She had Harry brush off the seal and shone her flashlight on it. An orchid engraving, the flower least likely to live in the dry desert. It would be a miracle to find one here. The symbolism was strong, strong as a three-hundred-year-old heartbeat.
She pointed. “It needs to be shifted into that grooved circle to the right of the base. According to the legend, it announces to the spirit you have come to honor her, and mean no harm.”
That was the truth, even if it had nothing to do with Farida’s legend. Seeing Mel’s irritated look, she added, “After that, your job will be done and you can go home.”
JOURNAL ENTRY 63, PAGE 32
Farida bint Asim
We have done it. We ran away together. Tonight was our first time truly alone with each other. I stood in the center of his cave, a place he explained he used when traveling the desert. It had as many caverns as an ancient kassar. I knew what I’d done, knew there was no going back. While he watched me look at his temporary home, I sensed he was also overwhelmed by the choice we’d made. It was right, though so momentous and destructive at once. But then all that died away when he came close, turned me toward him.
It was not the choice that made me tremble, but him, how he made me feel. A way that filled this small space, taking air from my lungs. I managed to tell him I could not breathe, and before I fell to my knees, he was there, holding me, his arms around my body, his hands upon me at last, blessed Allah. He gave me air, life, through his mouth and hands . . .
Lord Mason had been an honorable man, Jessica knew. He’d married her in a handfasting, witnessed by the stars and God, before he bedded her. It had not been a modern relationship, a careful or even hopeful matching of likes and dislikes, quirks and habits. It had been a soul finding another soul, and the search for a life that would honor that bond.
They had almost a year together before it all ended, but the pages Farida wrote during that time had passages Jessica thought could compete with the most renowned love stories, steeped in innocent, sensual joy . . .
He likes me to place grapes on my thighs. He eats them from my lap, one at a time, working his way to the fruit beneath, teasing me with his lips. And often, afterward, I bathe his feet as I did that day, only doing it as I wished to do it then, pressing my head to his knees in love and devotion . . .
He is stubborn, my lord Mason. Allah forgive me, but he can make me angry. A lifetime of never voicing my angers, and I could not stop myself from speaking sharply to him tonight. I feared I might be beaten, but he simply shouted back, and in time we were so amazed with ourselves, we laughed. When I asked him why he had not punished me, he told me that I would be, but he needed time to devise the proper rebuke. And Allah be merciful, he found one, such that I became determined to defy him at every possible opportunity . . .
As Jessica had expected, Dawud was nervous about the markings on the obelisk, warning of ancient curses and reprisals for disturbance. It was difficult to have more than two men maneuvering it in the hole anyway, so Harry and Mel had little complaint with the boy standing silently at her side to watch. It took rope, cursing and sweat, because the heavy stone had to be moved with care for its age and the preciseness of the relocation, but eventually it shifted to the right, fitting into the groove in a perfect lock.
Another band of tension loosened around her churning gut.
If she had only a handful of months to live, how would she use her time? It had been an essay question in her high school English class. Dear Mrs. Tams, nearly seventy, had understood the importance of such a question, but to a shiny seventeen-year-old, it had been merely another dull exercise until the final bell. Jess wished she’d been insightful enough to tuck her answer away, to pull it back out and laugh or despair. She couldn’t even remember what she’d written.
She did know that the true answer was elusive until it wasn’t a hypothetical. Because what determined the answer were the circumstances of one’s life when one found out death was imminent.
She had precious little time left. A couple days, maybe. Each time she lay down to sleep, the hold of oblivion grew stronger, more tantalizing. This effort might mean nothing to anyone but herself, but if every thread of the loom of the world was important, then she’d go out with hers strengthened by this one purpose. When some lucky archaeologist found the tomb a few centuries in the future, maybe they’d wonder about that second skeleton, curled up at the foot of Farida’s. There might even be three, for Lord Mason certainly would have had his bones interred there when he died, if at all possible.
“Thank you,” she said, coming out of her reverie to find the three men waiting out another of her far-too-frequent zoning trips.
“You’ve earned your reward.”
At dawn, they left, taking everything but one small packet of supplies. She was sorriest to see the camel go, for the white female had become a friend on the journey, her body giving Jess strength when her own failed her.
“Well, then.” Harry held out a hand, and Jess took it, managing the shake. “It’s been a most unusual journey, Miss Anna. I’m glad you found the marker from your story.”
“Me, too.” She nodded. “Travel safely. And please watch after Dawud.”
“I’ll look after the lad.” Holding her hand a moment longer, as if he might say more, he nodded, released her at last and turned. She stood, swaying on unsteady legs, watching them mount up, hearing the camel’s snort, the creak of gear and saddle adjustments.
They’d left her a small tent shelter, which would be useful until night fell again and the stars returned, showing her the rest of the way.
As he approached, leading his camel, Dawud’s gaze was upon her face, her trembling hands. “Perhaps, Miss Anna, we should stay—”
“No.” She shook her head. “This is where I’ll die, Dawud. There’s no reason for you to stay. I’m not afraid to meet God alone.
But thank you for your kindness.”
He gave her a bow then, his expression again telling her he was uncertain what Allah had intended to teach him on this odd journey.
However, a true believer, he also accepted things that were beyond human understanding.
Mel gave her an indifferent nod. She was sure his mind was already on spending his money and how to get more than his share.
She prayed that Harry and Dawud kept one eye open on the return trip. Mel’s greed was greater than his brains.
They were faces, just passing, soon gone in the shimmering heat. Preparing for her vigil to await nightfall, she settled back down, the memoir on her lap. If her information was correct, the shift of the obelisk would have pushed up a second, much smaller marker a quarter mile away, on the other side of the tall dune. It would be the lever to the tomb opening, an engineering feat worthy of the admiration of ancient Egyptians. As soon as dusk approached, when she was certain her escort was well gone from here, she would make her way to the place she believed that marker to be.
Farida and Mason had possessed the courage and strength to grasp their dream. She would make that quarter mile. Farida was exactly as she’d described herself, a responsible daughter, exceptionally intelligent and valued by her father. She’d run her father’s household from a young age, after her mother’s death while bearing one of Farida’s siblings. It perhaps explained why Farida hadn’t been married off as young as other Bedouin girls were. But if she’d been dreaming, longing for more, it was not evident until that first journal entry. Of course, in her world such dreams were not indulged, and perhaps never would have been if her soul mate hadn’t stepped into her father’s tent.
Jess didn’t have the comfort of Dawud’s faith. God, if such a being existed, had abandoned them all long ago, but she’d experienced a taste of an illusory paradise in stolen moments with Farida. Perhaps that was the only Heaven that truly existed, what love and imagination could create, explaining why she’d clung to belief in the story so firmly.
She wanted to step into Farida’s body. She wanted not only to read about it, but to feel what she’d felt . . .
JOURNAL ENTRY 102, PAGE 45
Farida bint Asim
He has a way of looking at me. I might be cooking my dinner, or using some precious water to wash. Though I rarely hear his approach, I know he is there. I close my eyes and smile as he takes the cloth from my hand and passes it over my skin, his male eyes watching it trickle down my breasts, my stomach.
“Bathing is a woman’s job, my lord,” I tease him. “A handmaid’s task.”
“I beg to differ. This is definitely a man’s job. And in your case”—he moves my hair to the side and finds my throat, telling me of his hunger—“only mine.”
“I missed you.”
“I know. I felt it.”
Jessica opened her eyes. I felt it. To be so close to another that such yearning emotion could be felt, even at a distance. It was the last entry, poignant and ironic at once. Ten days after that, just short of their leaving the Sahara to return to his family home, where they might have been safe for the duration of their lives, he was captured by the tribe, for they’d convinced the prince to help them with his resources. Farida disguised herself as a man and rode Lord Mason’s stallion proudly into her father’s camp. Then she pushed off her turban and requested the right to die with her husband.
