THE REMNANTS

Chapter 12: The Family of Amir al-Qadar

Amir spoke very little of his third wife after she disappeared. He was the only one to keep his words to himself.

Some said Amir al-Qadar's third wife was an Algerian prostitute, disowned by her kin in Tripoli out of their shame. They claimed she dumped her bastard son with Amir because his heart was too generous to turn her away (and because of the generous wages she had earned in her trade).

Others claimed his third wife was a French woman with amnesia, so abused by her first husband that she could no longer remember her home or her mother tongue. They said Amir obtained her during his trade journey into Niger and won her by the grandeur and number of his camels.

Others told darker stories, more full of legends and myths than names and places. The women in their tents whispered about the strange creature, the daughter of a jinni, the wife of a ghoul, the slave of a demon, and how she was rescued by the bravery and valor of the mighty Touboun warrior. The men, on their long camel journeys, far from their tents, told of how it was the Touboun tribesman who wed the desert jinniya, the beautiful and dangerous being called a si'lah, and she bore him a son, renowned for his strength and beauty.

Amir ignored them all.

The first full moon of each month of Safar, Amir went on a pilgrimage to a cave hidden high in the Tibesti Mountains outside of his home village of Zouar. He carried two goats, a bundle of dates, and a skin of camel milk each time. These he placed inside the cave before he returned to his family's hut in Zouar. The following night, without fail, he would wake to find a new knife, a barrel of millet flour, and a bolt of fine cloth sitting outside his tent. His benefactors slipped through the village as silently as a shadow and left without so much as footprints.

When his son, Dawlah, his only son by his third wife, became old enough to start his own herd and form his own family, Amir took him to the cave. There they made camp and built a fire while their camels grazed in the rich brush the mountainous highlands grew.

Amir was now very old. He could barely make the journey to the cave as his back grew crooked and his legs weak. His head shown as bald as an eagle's egg under his white turban. Across the fire from his father, Dawlah's back was straight and his legs strong. His hair and beard grew dark and straight against his desert-sand skin and brown robe. It was long since Dawlah camped alone with his father and even longer since he heard him speak the name of his mother. He leaned closer so his father's rough voice could more easily reach his strong ears.

"You will know the story of Badiyah, the woman born of the desert," he said in a low voice as the fire crackled. "You will know the story of my third wife."

oooooo

I was barely of age when my father gave my brother and me a trade deal he had tended since he was young. My father grew old and tired and he told me it was my turn to walk the camels. It was not a difficult route. Each hilal, when the moon shrank into a crescent, my brother and I were to meet a small airplane at Koro-Toro. We loaded the plane's cargo onto our camels or our trucks and brought it nearly a hundred kilometers northeast to a well that the Toubou have long used to water our camels. There, we were met by a man.

This man told us to call him Bran. He was a strange man, as pale as goat's milk. In appearance, he was my age mate, only he never aged, not since the days of my father's youth. He spoke little, paid us well, and he took our load with him in a truck deep into the desert to a place we were never to follow.

One day, he did not come alone. He brought with him a young woman, as pale and as silent as himself, but dressed as a Toubou woman and not like him. Her clothes were clean, as if barely worn, and she did not wear the adornments of a married woman. Her fine hair fell loose and unkempt, as if tended by a child with no mother. He introduced her as his Kamaja, his slave, who would now pick up his supplies. The following months, she came alone. She spoke strange Arabic and she spoke it like a small child and she seemed awkward, unsure, and fumbling over her task.

From then on, she met us every month. Over the next fifteen years, met. In time. we began to speak and share stories. She knew very little, even of the desert. She came full of questions about everything from our camels to the sandstorms to the rains to our manner of dressing. My brother called her "a woman with the heart of a child" because her questions reminded him so much of his lastborn.

One day, my brother was away and I grew too sick to travel. I sent Fatima to meet with the woman and deliver the supplies. She did so and brought my sisters and some of their children along. The woman behaved as if she had never seen another woman or a child before and kept asking what they were. Fatima could not believe it and so she asked the woman many questions and Fatima did not like the answers the woman gave.

When Fatima returned home, she rebuked me for dealing with such a man and said it was dishonorable.

"My husband, what are you into?" she asked me once she returned to our tents. "What kind of man have you sworn an oath to serve?"

I answered her questions as I knew. "The man, Bran, he pays well and the girl is his slave who tends his business for him, as she said."

Fatima could not accept that. "What slave has hands as soft as a newborn child? She has never planted a field. Even a house slave of a city family will wash clothes, pound millet, and fetch water. Have you seen her arms? I doubt she can lift a goat. How has she ever fetched water from a well? What kind of slave is that?"

"Perhaps she is his concubine and serves him in ways other than to tend his gardens," I replied.

"No, husband, do not tell me she is his concubine. She knows no more about the ways of a man with a woman than she knows how to find water in the desert or how to wield a knife. Husband, you see profit and behave like an ostrich and bury your head in the sand. I asked questions that only a woman would think to ask. She has never known a man."

"Wife, she told you herself. He is a wealthy man with many wives. He keeps her as servant to his wives."

"What kind of wealthy man chooses to live in the middle of Borkou, cut off from all kin and neighbors, and far from every city and great house? Who has ever heard of such a thing except when intentions are dishonorable and would bring shame on his kin. If she is the keeper of his many wives, tell me, why she has never seen a child? Is her master unable to father children despite his many wives? How could a woman come of age without ever seeing a child? How long has she been locked in the desert with this Bran who never ages or dies or moves away? I do not like it. My nose smells a corpse. You would be better to cut off dealings with the man before he brings evil on you and yours."

Despite Fatima's warnings, the payment was too much to refuse and so I continued. However, I asked the woman more questions and called her "Badiyah," as Fatima requested.

"Husband, I will ask you to promise me something," Fatima said to me one day.

"What is it you wish?"

"If Badiyah ever asks for aid, you will grant it," she said.

"Why? Should not her kin folk come to her aid in case of distress?"

"I fear she has none."

"You ask a difficult promise," I told her. "Her master is a man of great power and influence. I fear his retribution would fall heavily upon us if I were to aid his slave in escape."

"If the man is, as you believe, a jinn then he is accountable to Allah for his actions as are you. If he is kind to the woman, she will have no reason to flee. However, if, as I fear, he mistreats her, the bloodguilt would fall upon you because you chose to stop your ears and not give her aid. The blessing for merciful actions is stronger than the curses for injustice and the retribution of a spirit you failed to aid in life is strong. She may never request your assistance. I only ask that if she does, you answer favorably," Fatima said.

"As you wish, my wife," I said.

One day during the hot season, we stayed in Faya-Largeau with my first wife's family near the market for some few months to buy millet and sell our animals. I traveled with my two eldest sons during the time when the sun scalded the desert and turned the twisted rocks into burning fires. As the sun sank and the moon rose at our meeting point, the woman came to me with tears. Her eyes carried the same haunted look Zainab came with after she watched her parents die at the hands of the militia. Badiyah left the truck and came to me with two months' wages in her hands.

"I do not want to go back. Please, do not make me go back. Here, take all of this in return. Just let me come with you," she pleaded.

Moved by her plight and in honor of the promise I made to Fatima, I agreed. We left the truck at the meeting point and placed her on one of the extra camels to travel home with us.

"Fatima, here is Badiyah, as promised," I told her when we returned to Faya-Largeau. Fatima took the woman to her own tents to welcome her and serve her tea. We slaughtered a goat and held a feast in her honor and welcomed her as a special guest. My sons and I left for the camel races and when we returned, Badiyah was still with Fatima.

For a month, Fatima spoke to the woman and taught her about our Kundudo, the Toubou way of life, and what she needed to know to live with the "People of the Rocks." When it neared time for us to leave the town and pursue the freedom of the desert again. I approached Fatima.

"Wife, what have you decided to do with Badiyah?" I asked. "It nears time for us to depart again."

Fatima grew very quiet and I knew for certain she had a plot in mind that I would not like.

"We must take her with us," Fatima said.

"Fatima, how can we take her? I will not take her as slave and she is not our blood kin. It is unseemly for an unmarried, unrelated woman to travel with us," I said. "Can she not stay in Faya-Largeau?"

"With whom will she stay?" Fatima said. "She has no kin. She has no mother or father, no brothers or sisters, no aunts or uncles. She has no grown children and she has no husband or husband's kin. Who will teach her more of our Kundudo? You know more than I how dangerous it will be to leave her alone. She is not Toubou. She has enough money to feed her for a month or two and then what will she do? By face and speech, she will call attention to herself and I fear how she will be forced to support herself without skills and without kin. No, we cannot leave her here."

"What of sending her to your cousin in N'Djamena? Your cousin married a wealthy man. She could earn a good wage as her house servant," I said.

"If I could trust that brute of a man to keep his hands to himself," Fatima spat. "My cousin should not tolerate his shameful behavior. I would no more place her in his hands than I would leave her in the desert. The city is no place for a single woman without kin and without protection."

I sighed and rubbed my forehead. "You wish to forge an alliance through marriage to provide her with kin. I can see it. Who will you convince? She is lovely, it is true, but she has very few, if any, years of childbearing left. She provides no kin to support the alliance or give her camels for dowry. She has no benefit of skills or learning or status. She is an outsider and with a past she will not speak of and if it is discovered she is an escaped slave, none will take her but the artisan caste or other slaves. I fear the husbands willing to take her under such circumstances will not please you."

"She requires a husband who has no need for additional children or status or kin," Fatima said. "She requires no bridewealth to her kin or past husbands. All will assume she is a widow pursuing security through a second marriage as long as nothing else is spoken of her background."

I raised an eyebrow and listened as my wife wove her clever web like a spider.

"When you were young, Aisha brought you honor," Fatima continued. "Her beauty was renowned through Ennedi and many men competed to prove their valor to win her hand. You acquired her through an alliance with a friend for your own honor, but you married her with your eyes and not with your head. That is why you sought me later, for a wife of great beauty without sense does not strengthen the family. You married me for my cleverness and so your affairs would be kept in order when you were away.

"Hear me. I ask you to take Badiyah as third wife for no benefit to you at all. She will bring you neither honor nor prestige nor strength of alliance. I ask you to marry her simply out of your own sense of mercy and justice and because I know you are a good man who would not leave her unprotected and without kin."

"Ah! Wife! I can barely manage the two wives I have and you wish me to take a third? Aisha's nagging and jealousy are enough to drive me mad and you wish me to bring more fire into my house?" I said.

"Yes," Fatima answered. "If it were any other woman, I would leave you myself and return to my kin for the insult and trouble you would give me in adding another wife. However, I feel in my heart this is right. You are a good man, a man of honor, and you will not refuse to give aid where it is needed. Even the Prophet could not refuse to wed the widows of his honored companions after they fell in battle and so he honored their sacrifices and provided for their families. Wed her and once she has grown her own herd of camels and can tend her own tents, if she chooses to leave for a different man, she will leave with her own strength."

"It is not so simple, Fatima. What does Badiyah say?"

"She does not wish to travel to either N'Djamena or Tripoli to try to forge a life for herself alone. 'I have spent enough time alone,' she said. She would rather tie herself to our family than be sent away. I spoke with her in great depth and told her what is expected of a Toubou wife. I told her when she learns well the Kundudo, if she sees another she prefers, she will be free to leave us to form her own family with another."

"Very well, wife. As you wish it. Since she has no kin to discuss her affairs, we will hold the wedding in a fortnight. I leave you with the responsibility of telling Aisha," I said. If I did not respect my second wife so much, I would not have agreed. However what Aisha had in beauty, Fatima acquired through wisdom and I have always relied on her judgement in difficult circumstances.

"Leave Aisha to me. She will be very happy to have some new grievance to complain of day and night. If she were crowned a princess over all Saudi Arabia, the woman would still be determined to grumble like a hyena," Fatima said.

I asked no questions of Bran or why she fled and she never spoke of her life before. Perhaps that was foolishness on my part and, in my old age, I have grown wiser. My brother and I agreed to never return to our trade route or seek out Bran again.

We married in Faya-Largeau and I gave her a camel, her jewelry, and her own tent, as is our custom. When the hot season slowly cooled, we left the brick homes of the sandy city and returned to the wild freedom of the desert. With our camels and goats, our family loaded all our tents and belongings. The smallest of the children rode with their mothers in baskets on the camels while the elder children walked or helped tend to their own camels. We traveled by the light of the stars or the cool of the shifting days from waterhole to oases, grazing our flocks and living off our animals' milk and our stores of dates and millet porridge and grass tea.

Aisha raged like an angry bull and did her best to torment Badiyah and kept her busy with all the hardest tasks. However, Fatima grew quite fond of her and Zainab took to her like a kid goat to its mother and could not be parted from her side. Badiyah blossomed like the grasses after the rainy season. It was as if she had never seen a gazelle or an old man or a palm tree and she asked questions about everything and everyone. She spent hours simply watching the children play and the wives tend the camels. When I asked her why she watched, she told me, "Because life is beautiful."

The desert was hard for Badiyah. She was not born of the Toubou, as the rest of us were, and could not travel as hard or as far. She was frail and sickened often. The water from many of the wells made her violently ill and she caught every sickness that traveled through the camp harder than the others. Her pale, fragile skin gave no protection from the harsh sun and she had to be diligent to cover her face with her scarves to prevent burning. She required more water and food than my other two wives combined, and Aisha complained about her incessantly. However, Badiyah did not complain or wish to leave. She proved a good wife-as Fatima knew she would. What Aisha had in beauty and Fatima in wisdom, Badiyah possessed in a gentle spirit.

By the next hot season, she bore a child. We named you Dawlah and she nearly burst with happiness and delight. She spent hours simply staring at your toes or holding you in her arms as if you were the most precious gift she had ever received. It was a good season for our family The flocks grew and flourished, food was plentiful, and my children grew strong. For the next two hot seasons, we knew great peace.

It could not last. That year, we traveled slowly until we settled for some months at the place of my people in Zouar. On the night of the new moon of Dhu al-Hijjah, Bran found us. He came at us like an angry lion. His eyes glowed as red as the embers of a fire and the scent of death clung to him. He shouted words in a language none of us could understand and stole Badiyah away. She valiantly sacrificed herself for her kin and of her own will accompanied him without fear. Stories of her bravery are still told by our kin for she proved herself to be strong-hearted and loyal through her actions that terrible night. Then they vanished as if by magic. That is why, to this day, our clan believes him to have been a jinni, a creature of supernatural powers.

I gathered the men of my clan together with our weapons and our camels. We set out to bring my wife back to her child or ensure the Goroga, blood money, was paid in retribution if she were harmed. We traveled south to seek the dwelling of the jinni. We searched for two full moons but we never found them. We returned to our camp with heavy hearts and with our bravery in question. It was then that the third born son of my brother, Omar, came to me.

"Uncle," he said. "Near the pathways into the mountains, I have found a truck hidden behind the rocks. It resembles the truck we used to bring supplies to from Koro-Toro."

With great speed, we used Omar's truck and drove as quickly as we could to the the pathways into the mountains. There, just as he said, lay Bran's truck. No life stirred within it, though its bed was filled with supplies. My heart rejoiced and I called my clans-brothers together. We ensured our firearms were ready and we followed the pathway high into the mountains as silently as mountain sheep.

It was not until we climbed to a place where we knew of a hidden cave that we heard any sounds. Within the cave, we heard the sound of a woman weeping. We listened, but no other voices could be heard.

"Badiyah, is that you?" I called out. I heard her give a small cry and I entered into the dark, cool cave. As my eyes adjusted from the sunshine to the dim light of the cave, I found my wife laying upon a pile of blankets. Foodstuffs and bottles of water surrounded her on each side. Her clothes were torn and mussed and her eyes were swollen with tears. With one hand, she played with the tip of the knife I had given her.

"My wife, it is you!" I cried. My clansmen gathered around the mouth of the cave and guarded us with keen eyes from our enemy. "You are not well," I told her. "What has happened?"

"I wish to die," she replied. "But I am too much a coward. I will never be free until my spirit departs my body."

She looked at me with such wild desperation in her pale face that my heart sank.

"We will take you back with us and we will protect you," I said to try to assure her.

"You can't," she replied, "He'll always follow me and he'll always find me. That is why I failed to return to you when I first fled. I fear the next time he finds me, he will kill you and all your kin. And our son-you must do whatever it takes to protect our son, even if it requires my death."

"My kin are strong and many. Our son will be well cared for. You belong to our family. We will not leave you here alone or allow your death."

"I carry his child," she burst out.

It was only then that I noticed through the torn cloth of her dress how bruised and tightly stretched the skin beneath lay. Indeed, she looked heavier with child than I knew to be possible in two months' time.

"It grows even now and it grows too fast and strong," she said and she dropped her eyes in her shame and let her tears fall again. "I fear it will kill me before the jinni does. It was only a few weeks ago when he forced his way into my blankets. I could not fight strong enough to escape. I tried to stop it…but I cannot pierce my womb."

She lifted her dress to reveal a cross pattern of barely healed knife marks across her pale delicate skin and she stared at the knife in her hand again. "Husband, please, help me to die. I am so afraid."

I looked at the face of the woman who I swore to protect as my wife and who bore me such a strong, fine son and I could not bear to see harm come to her.

"We will take you home to Zouar," I told her. "Then we can decide what to do. I cannot kill you nor leave you here to be fodder for jackals."

She tried to protest again but fell silent as I gathered her into my arms and placed her in Omar's truck. There was much rejoicing amongst our kin when we brought her home, though the rejoicing was short-lived as we quickly hid her within our home and did not answer their questions.

Fatima tended her day and night. We sought the aid of the midwife and the Imam, but none knew how to manage the child of a jinni. There were stories, of course, but they were so mixed with legend that we were not wiser for them. As the child grew in strength and Badiyah cried out in pain, my clansmen feared.

"She truly carries the child of a jinni," my clansmen swore. "The child is cursed. If her jinni husband doesn't kill us, her child will," they said. They feared what this meant for their futures. But I had sworn an oath when I took her as wife that I would protect her so our family traveled a ways outside of Zouar to stay in our tents closer to the mountains and farther from prying eyes and fearing hearts. We stayed there until the day we buried her in this cave and then we fled to Niger to ensure we escaped any retribution of her children's father. He never came, but it was long before I did not cast a wary eye over my shoulder in the dark.

Oooooo

Badiyah knew-long before she left the Temple-what was wrong. She couldn't bear to tell Buffy. She called Buffy every few days to assure her she was well, even as fear grew within her own heart. As she felt her body change and grow so inhumanly fast and as she felt the unmistakable movements of another life within her body, she felt raw terror cling to her heart.

She hid in the cave she found in the mountains. It was cool, protected, and safe. Buffy had sent her with enough provisions to last her for months. She had all she needed, but she was so alone. As she listened to the hum and howl of creatures of the night and huddled in the darkness, she clung to her amulet even harder and fought back her tears. She kept her knife beside her and barely slept, except during the daylight hours when she could see what dwelt outside her hiding place. Even then, her dreams tormented her.

For a time, she raged. She cursed Edward and all the pain he had wrought in her life. She flung stones out of the cave and cried out to her invisible audience all her woes. Then she'd fallen into sadness and despair and wished to end it all. She failed.

When Amir came, her heart both leapt for joy and hid with shame and fear at his voice. Would he now reject her and leave her here to die? A part of her hoped he would. Would he assist her in speeding her death? A part of her hoped he would. Would he speak kindly to her and bring her home with him? A part of her hoped he would.

He brought her home and placed her on her own mat within her own hut and spoke words of kindness and assurance to her and she wept with joy and relief. A small voice cried out in delight and she was pummeled by a tiny and very happy boy. Badiyah took the small boy into her arms and held his warm, wriggling body close to her. She buried her face in his soft curls and inhaled that sweet scent that only belonged to her son.

"My son, my son," she cried. "I love you more than my life. How beautiful you are!"

The joy and adoration that flowed from his dark eyes filled her to the brim and she bathed him in her tears. The boy placed a grubby hand on her cheek and gave a dimpled grin.

"Mama back? Look, bug," he said and showed her the beetle had caught and she laughed and kissed his nose.

"He has asked after you every day," Fatima said as she ducked to enter the doorway to join them. She leaned against the sandy brick wall and watched them both.

Badiyah embraced him again and stroked her fingers through his hair. "I thought I'd never see you again," she whispered. She meant it for both and she knew Fatima understood. Fatima came and knelt by her side and took her hand. As she felt the arms of her son envelope her again, she realized how much time she'd wasted in that cave when she should have come straight home. How many days had she raged and sobbed instead of treasuring them as gifts that would too soon vanish?

oooo

Zainab and Dawlah lay asleep beside her on her mat. Both refused to be parted from her side day and night until they both collapsed in exhaustion. Fatima knelt before her to examine her now bare torso. Bruises mottled the pale skin and Badiyah clung to a place where a cracked rib made it difficult to breath. Fatima placed cool rags and soft oils along her swollen abdomen to cool the burning pain of her skin. By Fatima's serious expression, Badiyah could sense her shared unease.

"My days are fewer than a moth," Badiyah said. "I feel my strength waning."

Fatima clicked her tongue. "If I had not seen you two full moons past, I would have said you have carried this child for nearly eight full moons already."

"The jinni's child grows too strong and too fast. It breaks my bones already. Fatima, will this child be as bloodthirsty as he? Will it be as heartless and dangerous? Will I bring misfortune upon us all through what I carry?" she said as she tried to keep still. Fatima's hands pressed upon her sore rib. She grimaced and Fatima gave her an apologetic glance.

Fatima removed her scarf from her head and placed it on the mats on the floor. Then she poured more cool water on a cloth and she bathed Badiyah's forehead with it. She lit a second lamp and brought Badiyah her next portion of the strange drink Buffy had created for her. Fatima helped her sit upright to drink it. She ate a few dates and a skin of camel's milk before her head fell back onto her mat. She felt Fatima running a comb through her tangled hair so she closed her eyes.

"We have many stories of the children of men and jinn," Fatima said as she combed. Her voice fell into the cadence of the storyteller so often used around the fire late at night. The flames from the lamps played with shadows on her face and on the tent behind her, as if joining in to with her tale. "I do not know which stories bear seeds of truth. They say the jinn are the children of smokeless fire and they have fantastical gifts and abilities. They say the jinn, like men, will eat and marry, bear children and have kin, though their days far outnumber ours.

"There are many tales about the jinn. I do know that the tales all agree that not all jinn are evil at heart. Some are said to be kind and helpful to men. Some can be called on as allies and come to the aid of the People of the Rock when needed. All the stories agree. Jinn and men both can choose to follow the Pillars and live righteous, worthy lives or they can choose to live evil lives without justice and mercy. I think the child you bear is as likely to choose good or evil as Dawlah. Do not hold the father's sins against the child until the child warrants it."

"I'm so afraid," Badiyah said. She placed her hand against where a tiny foot kicked and a tear rolled down her cheek.

Fatima placed her own hand over Badiyah's and felt another kick. "I thought I would never see you again. This is a gift, no matter how short. You have always been our gift from the desert. If your years are long or short, it makes them no less precious."

"I've brought danger on us all," Badiyah said, her own guilt welling over into her throat and she closed her eyes to fight back the emotion.

Fatima laughed. "How do we prove our valor if we do not face danger with bravery and strength? We are not a people who shy from danger or show our fear. The greater our danger, the longer our tales will be remembered and shared with our descendants. Badiyah, the burden you carry within you is heavy enough. Do not add more that are not yours to bear and let us carry our share with you. That is why we have kin-our honor and our shame belong to all, as are our struggles and our victories."

Fatima finished braiding her hair and gave her a warm smile. She blew out the lamps and bid her to sleep. Then she left them to the deep darkness within the small room.

Badiyah tried, but with her heart and her womb both heavy, she knew sleep would be a struggle. Instead, she listened to the sounds of Zainab and Dawlah breathing, the songs of the night insects, and the grunts of the camels. These sounds were familiar and dear. They grounded her. She pulled Dawlah into her arms and curled around him as much as she could. In the dark, she whispered into his ears all the words she'd wished she had been able to say the last two months. She sang the songs she wanted him to know the words to and she dreamed about what his life would be like, many seasons in the future, and how he would grow.

As she imagined her son as a young man, strong and handsome, something within her heart shifted, as if the strong rays of the dawn sun pierced her inner night.

This was her fate, she realized as placed her hand on the place where the jinni's child grew within her. This had always been her fate. Long years in the past, so drunk with youth and adoration, she would have willingly welcomed her beautiful jinni into her blankets and pitched her tent with him. In those days, would she not also have borne his child and done so with a joyous heart?

Now, his child was thrust upon her in her twilight years by a man so lost in his madness he did not know her name. In this season, so many years later, she was an unwilling bride forced by his great strength and uncontrolled lust, but in the end, she was always destined to be the mother of his child.

The only difference between walking this path now instead of in her younger years was the boy in her arms and the name she carried. She had carved out four years of her own life for herself and, in those years, she had gained riches beyond measure. Now, in one last final gift, she would get to say goodbye, to hold him again, to run her fingers through his curls and cover him with kisses. She would be buried as Badiyah in a grave where her name would be remembered by her kin.

How she longed for more! No lifetime would ever be enough. No decades could prepare her to be parted from the ones she loved so dearly, so she would immerse herself entirely in the gift of her sunrises, however few or many they may be. Fatima's words were true. Short or long, this life was a gift and she would not waste another moment in decrying her end. She would not fear facing death in the face. Life was too beautiful and in her son's growing, breathing frame, she could feel his beating heart and the soft flow of blood through his veins that sang songs to remind her just how beautiful.

She nestled her face into Dawlah's hair and finally fell asleep.

oooooo

She was given fifteen days. Fifteen sunrises and sunsets filled with stories and songs, laughter and tears, and the constant motion of life that was like oxygen to her soul. There was no more talk of fears or goodbyes, regrets or tomorrows.

The last sunset was by far the most beautiful she had ever seen. The sky turned as red as Fatima's favorite dress and it stained every craggy, golden rock face with its melting scarlet veil. The songs around the evening fire lasted till the moon traveled halfway across its desert of stars and she fell asleep on her mat listening to the chorus of voices and instruments play outside her tent. She did not have long to sleep.

When next dawn came, Badiyah never saw it. Her eyes were fixed on the two heads that lay against her diminishing heartbeat. Two tiny, dark heads wet with afterbirth and blood and two sets of eyes blinked up at her through pink-cheeked faces. She stared in awe, even as she struggled to breathe.

They were so beautiful.

A tiny hand pressed itself against her chest and her mind was flooded with images. Not words or pictures but impressions that spoke more eloquently than words.

Peace. Gratitude. Adoration. Love.

A second hand pressed against her and she felt a flood of images flash threw her mind. Songs and stories, laughter and tears, perfect moments and memories long since forgotten. She saw all the best parts of her life traverse her fading consciousness like the last stars before dawn.

Tears trickled down her cheeks as she closed her eyes and took in her last whisper of breath.

It was only then that the babies cried.

ooooo

Fatima left the hut and wrapped her arms around herself as if she could somehow hold her own grief within and keep her heart from bursting out in tears. Instead she picked up a milking bucket and threw it across their camp with vehemence and an angry shout. Her unbidden tears fell and she screamed so loud her voice echoed off the canyon rock faces. When she returned into Badiyah's tent, she stared at the leather and wooden beams of the tent so she would not have to see her sister-wife's still, pale face as she spoke.

"I am sorry, so sorry," she whispered. "You who loved life so much, I wish you could have grown to be white-haired and toothless and to see your sons' children. Your sons will lack for nothing. On the life of my firstborn, I swear to you, I will be a mother to them all. May your dreams now be full of beauty and may you never be chased by the shadows that haunted you in life. May you be free the power of the jinni over your afterlife and may the jinni reap his reward for the evil he has sown."

She held still and silent as she whispered the prayers spoken over the dead. Then she knelt on the floor to gather the babes into her arms. She wrapped a fresh brown cloth around each and held them close even as she fought back her tears again. Two sets of green eyes fell upon her as two separate fists reached out to touch her skin.

She gasped as her mind flooded with thoughts that were not hers.

Fear. Sadness. Loss. Recognition. Acceptance.

We know you. Our mother loved you. The strange voice spoke silently and without words.

A picture of Fatima stoking the fire, telling stories, and filling Badiyah with peace, flooded her mind. It was a memory. A perfectly preserved memory.

Her mouth fell open.

"What other gifts will the Jinni's Bride leave with us?" she whispered.

Ooooo

Amir al-Qadar drank from his water flask to cool his rough voice, worn from so many hours sharing stories with his son. Dawlah was the only one he spoke to of his third wife, the only one he would tell the full story to. This was not a tale to be shared on long journeys to pass the hours or around the evening fire to be known by visitors and kin alike. Amir kept this story as close as the dagger he kept hidden in his belt or the amulet Dawlah wore around his neck.

In later years, after her burial was forgotten by those who did not love her as her kin did, they told their own tales of the fate of his third wife. Some of his kin said the jinni came back for her and stole her away, back to his fortress, where she lives to this day. Others said she was devoured whole by her monstrous offspring in retribution for her unfaithfulness to her jinni master. Others said it was the jackals that found her as she wandered alone in the desert.

Amir knew the truth, but did not speak it. She was gone and, for many seasons, he grieved her loss.

"That, my son, is the true story of Badiyah, the woman of the desert, my wife and your mother," Amir said as the night grew late and the fire burned low. "Each year, I come here to the cave where we buried her body and honor her spirit and leave her gifts. The sons of the jinni Fatima called Khalid and Kassim since, by their birth, Badiyah was separated from her kin but also made to live forever through her descendants and her spirit's journey into the next life. They were grown into full men before you finished learning your bird-hunting songs and they left us to seek their own fortunes in the world of men and jinn."

"I remember them a little," Dawlah said as he thought back to his early years. "They could speak in a language without words and could lift a camel with one hand. Fatima still receives gifts from them."

"Yes. They seek her out, usually around Eid al-Fitr and she claims them as her own, as she does you."

Dawlah took in his father's words with a solemn face and he stared deep into the dark heart of the caverns beyond them. Years later, when Dawlah grew to be an old man with his own hair white and thin, he told this same story to his own children and grandchildren. Whenever he shared the story again, he told them, "As my father spoke of my mother, I swear to you I saw two pairs of eyes glowing in the dark caverns of the cave, also listening to the tale of Badiyah."

ooooo

There's a story that gets told in the villages of the Toubou people of the Tibesti Mountains. Late at night, as the millet porridge boils over the fire and the lonely depths of the arid slopes are hidden by a blanket of stars, that is the time when the stories are told. When the goats and camel herds settle to sleep, if the wind howls just so, a herdsmen will say, "it is the sound of the Jinni's Bride weeping."

There is a small cave in the mountains that they say is haunted by the ghost of the Jinni's Bride.

"My grandfather, he saw them," says one herdsman around the fire. "Two small children, as pale as moonlight, who stole his camel and his millet stores when he camped in the valley below."

"They are not children!" chimes in a young warrior. "I have heard legends of two fierce jinn warriors who haunt that cave and will steal livestock with as much stealth as a prowling leopard."

"I have heard that on windy nights, like this one, the sound of their strange songs can be heard in the valley as they join the Jinni's Bride with their own weeping," says an elder as she tends the fire.

"These stories are told by our elders to cause us to heed their instructions. They did not happen," grumbles an obstinate youth. "No different from the stories of the Desert Jinni that haunts the lonely desert regions to steal our women in the night."

"They are true stories," says a very old man, old enough to have lived through many rains. "I have heard tell that for generations, the descendants of the Jinni's Bride have been guarded by her half-jinn children who show them favor and protection. It is said they have never forgotten to show honor to the family of their mother, for whom they still weep."

The Toubou people tell their stories. Late into the night, they weave their tales. They never stop to wonder who might be listening in the deep shadows of the mountain or what kinds of creatures haunt the borders of their camps as they slumber in their tents.

If they paused to listen, they might just hear the soft sound of whispers or see the two pairs of eyes that glow in the darkness of the cool mountain night.

ooooo

Author's Notes:

First off, not gonna lie. I bawled like a baby every time I worked on this chapter.

"Bran" is Edward being snarky and naming himself after "Dracula's" castle in Romania.

Next, culture notes:

The Toubou (sometimes Tubu or Tebu or Tobu) are rather amazing. Actually, that's the name of the overarching group. Specifically, Amir's family belongs to the Teda of the Tibesti Mountains and they speak Teda-ga, as well as Chadian-Arabic. I have thoroughly enjoyed learning about them during this project. I have attempted to capture as much authenticity as possible of their worldview, and wish to honor their perspective as much as possible. But I have never had the opportunity to conduct participant-observations of their culture and even ethnographies documenting their culture are limited. They stretch across three nation states and much of the research I can find conducted on them is either in French or limited to their political system instead of cultural or religious framework. They also have multiple subgroups and multiple spellings (Tubu) of their name, which doesn't help. However, I did find a few that went into more their concepts of gender roles and kin networks. Catherine Baroin's article on The Position of Tubu Women in Pastoral Production was especially helpful.

My favorite description of the Toubou, I think, came from their own Facebook page (Toubou media). This is how one Toubou author's post on the page describes themselves:

"The Toubous, this people with millennial traditions, are the true lords of the desert whom they admire so much; this magical desert which offers a panoramic view where the center of gravity of the earth and the horizon seem to be one. Despite the emptiness of the desert, their keen sense of observation and landmarks, allows them to move around easily without a compass or GPS. It is precisely due to, among other things, the austerity of their desert environment which leaves very little possibility of life of effortless descent, that the Toubous have developed life-long reflexes which would not have been necessary under other heavens. This is certainly what shaped (at least in part) their strength of character.

"The strength of character of the Toubous is found in their culture forged over time by practices as well as adversities and challenges of all kinds...Among the Toubous, culture takes on a whole new scale in the sense that it gives a certain pride in belonging to its members that only initiates can feel...The Toubous call their culture "KUNDUDO" in their language. Indeed, one is born Toubou, one does not become one."

I couldn't find specific studies on their religious beliefs so I adapted folk Islam beliefs I've read about from past studies...and I forged a few myths of my own. (though I did find one legend on their Facebook page...I used part of it in the story of how Amir wed Aisha).

Commentary on Badiyah "starving" and losing weight is due not to their pastoralism specifically, but I came across some article where nutritionists were baffled by how the Toubou have adapted to survive on so little food. They have lived in the Sahara for so many milllenia that they have biologically adapted to survive there (unlike Badiyah who made the best of it, but it wasn't easy). (Side note: my characters are sometimes very "wrong" in their interpretations of things...Amir's age is one example of Edward just being jealous. Amir is not 60 when he weds Badiyah, he's in his early to mid 40's.)

If any dear reader is of Toubou descent, thank you for allowing part of this story to occur within your beautiful people and I would be most grateful for corrections on anything I get wrong because I am sure mistakes have been made and artistic license used.

Finally, on taxonomy of supernatural creatures as found in Islam/folk Islam: so I have to go correct past chapters-jinn is plural, jinni is singular and jinniya is feminine. I tried to fit Meyer's representation of vampires into the category that made the most sense in this particular worldview and since Jinn can be good or evil depending on how they live, it seemed a good fit (as opposed to the flesh-eating evil ghouls or the shaytani-demons). They can take human form or shape shift. They can intermarry and interbreed with humans or live in their own societies, invisible to human notice. They can be helpful or mischievous to humans. There's a whole complicated view of the supernatural behind this that I've only scratched the surface of. There's so many folk stories about these...but it's super hard to find a lot of folk stories from modern Africa on the internet, unfortunately. ;) So, we are adapting and flexing and working with what we've got.