A Thousand Vanishing Stars

The sky bellowed crimson long after the sun vanished beneath the earth. Smoke and sand clogged the air and buried underneath nails and between teeth. Grit crumbled against eyelashes, harsh against sunburnt cheeks.

To Ameera, the dust was never-ending--hills of foreign copper sand and heat that sunk deep into her skin and wore it like a cloak.

Weariness hung on every bone in her body, but there was nothing to do but to walk--otherwise, she reasoned, if they had stopped in their tracks and settled into the sand without making camp, they would be dead before they could even realize what had happened. The heat would welcome her with open arms, until she would be swallowed whole, her bones turning to dust.

She imagined it--falling into the sea and putting her head against the sand, letting the sluggishness hit her until she could close her eyes and fall into slumber. Would she wake up?

At this point, as her knees buckled, she couldn’t bring herself to care. She had nothing to lose--except for Baba, of course. Her gaze slid over to him, her stomach curling with unease. With his walking stick and his stooped back, surging forward as if he had all the energy in this world, she hated him. She loved him.

She couldn’t afford to think like that. She glanced away from him, tucking her scarf tight around her mouth, blinked sand from her lashes. She wondered if the grittiness in her lungs was due to the dusty sand causing her to cough. Or maybe her sickness was catching up to her, in the bleakest moment of time when they were traveling to the city--for said sickness.

When she voiced her concerns, her father shook his head. He had not removed his kufiya, which looked strange and foreign over his head of dark curls, wrapping around his head and loose around his shoulders. Dark curls that she had inherited, unruly and long. She’d glanced down at the locks, and saw that sand had woven into the strands and her scalp felt itchy as if fire ants made their home in the roots. She should have braided her hair when she had the chance, when her fingers were not swollen and painful to move.

“The sky is burning, Si’la.”

Ameera looked up and found her father looking into the distance, watching the creeping shadows and the blood-hued sky. The moon was hiding behind a rust cloud. Finally, she thought. Desperation clung to her. They could rest soon.

Baba had the far-away look in his eyes that she knew well. He hadn’t called her Si’la in so long, and it pained her. His eyes had not sparked today.

“Yes, baba. Fire will rain down on us if we don’t hurry and find shelter.”

She was jesting, a wry smile touching her lips as they sluggishly moved through the golden, dreaded, terrible sands. The rolling hills were endless. The camel was old and bleated angrily as if sensing the storm and the fear.

“It will,” her baba promised, his tone fervent. His gaze was unwavering, and he clutched her arm tight. “It will fall. The sky will burn. Follow the light that is green.”

“Fire doesn’t fall from the sky, Apa.” She was annoyed now, sick of hearing the same stupid words. “And there is no such thing as green lights.”

She tugged on Dunas, his reins taut and slick with sweat from her hands as she spotted a depression between dunes, away from the winds that wound soon splinter in the air with screaming djinn. “We need to rest.”

“No rest. We must follow the stars.”

“We are, Baba.” Her tone became exasperated, and she held her tongue from saying anything else. “We have to find Uncle Turan. You said, remember?”

Baba turned his head away and became silent. They found shelter in the depression, setting a low tent, making sure Dunas had enough water and food. Her baba was staring at the desolate fire, made from spare twigs and leaves Ameera had stashed in her pack. Her stomach felt tight looking at it. She had only spotted a few gnarled trees stuck in the sand, crying for water. She could only ration the amount of dried meat and fruit so far, as well as some chewy mint leaves to ease away the pang of the heat and weariness on their bones.

Their supplies were running low. Baba never slept, staring and wondering and wishing in that brilliant, terrible head of his. He needed a doctor. He was sick, and she swore she was crazy enough to almost believe him--sometimes.

He clutched a blanket around his thin shoulders, and Ameera took cover under the tent. Her baba did not, choosing to sit on the sand and watch the sky and the flame, with the black night peeling away to reveal the brilliance of a thousand stars.

She was sick and tired of those mocking stars. She felt like there were creatures in the hawah, the gods’ city, staring out with eyes of stars, watching her every movement and every choice. A thousand stars and a thousand monsters in the form of men, waiting for a chance to see if she would fail.

She would not fail.

“Baba,” she called. “Time to rest.”

He didn’t answer her, too caught up in his tales and in his voices that no one else could hear.

Instead of persuading him, she took her threadbare blanket and pulled it around his shoulders. He hadn’t eaten much, refusing to pay too much attention to the brittleness in his bones. How he was still alive, she did not know.

She wondered if she should wait with him, but weariness pulled her bones. A little rest wouldn’t hurt.

“Goodnight, Baba,” she said, searching in his dark eyes. He smiled up at her, the strengthening breeze of the desert ruffling his hair. Sometimes, a spark of something whispered behind those eyes, and she’d always feel such immense hope, only to be crushed again when he smiled and the spark disappeared. Vanished. Went up in smoke and leaving a shell.

“We will find it,” he agreed. “The emerald star that shines the way. It will show us a path.”

She sighed.

“It’s not too late,” he whispered, and that was the last thing she heard when she crawled back into the makeshift tent, falling into a restless slumber at the low murmur of his voice. “If I follow the emerald stars, will you follow?”

+++++

Ameera woke to distant screams, her eyes snapping into darkness and smoke. Cold sliced in her veins, and not from the dropping temperatures as she lurched out of the tent, her hand on her dagger.

The fire was gone, scorched sand and dead twigs. An echo of djinn followed the smoke, like laughter, disappearing into the air.

But so had Baba.

“Baba!” She called in the night. She swore her words echoed back to her, mocking her, and she wondered if that was the djinn. The djinn chilled the air and made the hair at the back of her neck stand straight.

Baba had left his blankets skewed on the sand, where determined ants crawled through the threads. She grabbed the cloth and shook them off, throwing it in the packed bundle and scouring the area with her eyes.

Fortunately, Dunas was waiting patiently, big eyes unblinking as he watched her move.

Ameera secured ropes on Dunas’ back and he pushed his skinny legs up to his full height. Apa couldn’t have gone far. He couldn’t have--wouldn’t have. He was the one who taught her so many things about djinn, about protecting themselves with charms.

Djinn infested lands were dangerous territory.

She didn’t know how long ago he had left, but it couldn’t have been more than an hour or two. No hint of the sun pushed against the horizon, and all she had was the stars and the djinn for company. And Dunas.

Ameera pulled Dunas, marching across the sand. She prayed to every god she could think of, every ancestor that she knew. She only knew one name from her father’s side of the family, and that was her Grandmother Nasrin.

Grandmother or no Grandmother, Ameera had only herself to rely on. She called for Baba, searching the sea of sand for his familiar, hunched form. For the stark white kufiya on his head.

She was surrounded by nothing but sand and no Baba.

Fear struck through her, fiercer than anything she’d felt before.

“Baba!” Her voice carried, Dunas tensing at the sharpness of her voice. The wind pulled her forward and she was hit with a coughing fit, her lungs burning with sand. She hated sand. She hated it with such a burning desire that she couldn’t see straight, and she collapsed from the camel, the cold sand digging into her knees as she wept and coughed and spat.

“Baba, there’s no burning skies! No emerald stars! Give him back!” She screamed into the air, and into the sand, her throat raw. The wind tore through her clothes, and her teeth began to chatter. “Give him back! He doesn’t belong to you!”

As if in answer, a star streaked from the sky. It burned brighter than any flame, a peculiar color of greens and crimson.

She laughed wildly into the air.

Follow the stars.

“Baba?” She whipped her head around, but she was alone. She rose on unsteady feet, her tears stuck to her cheeks, and she ran, tripping through the sand. She raced through the desert, mocking laughter at her heels as she followed the light.

The desert liked to play tricks on the minds of the desperate. The djinn followed her steps, their murmurs crying on the back of her mind.

And then she saw it. The end of the light, the end of the stars.

“I’m not dreaming,” she whispered. “Baba?”

Her baba turned, and his eyes were the green of the star that fell. “You’re as lost as your baba,” the djinn grinned. “Do you know where you are?”

“You’re not my baba.”

“The sand, the winds, they taunt. You are weak and desperate, and your mind is like a plaything for us. Maybe you are asleep. Maybe you are walking, aimlessly, until your feet stop working until your stomach turns to dust…”

“You have my baba. You’re just a djinn.”

“Just?” The djinn turned. “How would you like to live forever? To have the powers of the storms on your fingers? That is what your baba wanted. And he got it. He is one with us, now.”

“He wouldn’t leave me.” Would he?

The djinn patted his stomach. “His fears tasted sweeter than ever over the last few years, and you were the last name he prayed to. Ameera, follow the stars, he said. Do you know why?”

She shook her head.

“You will die soon. Your sickness is eating you, slowly. And he didn’t want to see another of his family die. He would rather become something else than witnessing it. How sweet.” The djinn in her father’s face twisted. “Your worst fear is being alone, isn’t it?”

“Go away, djinn. I can go to the city myself. I’ll get better.” She squeezed her eyes shut, shutting out the emerald light, and she felt something rough and warm nuzzle her shoulder and cheek.

Dunas. She gripped his reins, her eyes still shut. And when she opened them, she was met with darkness once more.

But she was not alone. She patted the camel, resting her head on his side.

She would find a way to get Baba. But first, she had to find Uncle Turan.

“Let’s go, Dunas,” she said, wiping her tears away. “Before the djinn takes us all.”