Hellooo! Let me in!!
A face stares back at her, two black beady eyes like olive pits set inside a rind of dark fur. A glossy nose presses against the glass at the tip of a veryrecognizable white muzzle. The raccoon has somehow scaled the side of the cottage. Shay lifts the window.
The raccoon scrambles through and drops a shimmering object from its mouth onto the floor with a smallclunk. The animal chitters, as if berating Shay for her delay in opening the window. When it has chastised her sufficiently, it sits back on its haunches.
Perplexed, Shay picks up the object—thehjabat!
Glory to heaven!Between caring for Najla and the situation with Tarik, she forgot it outside after hiding it beneath a rock. It was absolutely careless of her. Perhaps understandable, considering she has to wake up a hundred times a night to feed a newborn now and can hardly be expected to function at a normal level of awareness, butstill. Imagine if she'd lost it. Good thing the raccoon brought it to her—
Wait …
The racoon brought it to her.
Judging by the mischievous sparkle of its eyes, Shay would have to guess it could have done that from the start if itwantedto. The tricky bandit was probably playing games with her all morning for the sheer enjoyment of prolonging their exercise.
She turns her gaze from the animal to Shadi, who has been watching all this unfold with a look of intense curiosity and some amusement.
“I had an idea the other day, of how we can get the remaining hjabats,” Shay explains. “It seemed like a long shot, but … I'm beginning to think it could actually work.”
32
The Lost Treasures of Moonsin Maroof
Once, a very rich man named Moonsin Maroof wanted to marry, but he did not want his wife to know how rich he was. He hid his treasure in caves and near wells and asked the spirits of these locations to watch over it for him. He had such an excess of wealth, he couldn't keep track of all the exact locations, so he arranged a password with the spirits. If he ever got turned around, he only had to utter the word, and the spirits would guide him to his fortune.
He would often go to visit his treasure, only to remind himself how rich he was, and did this at the neglect of his new bride. Assuming he was having an affair, she followed him one night. She began to allay her loneliness by using the password she overheard and helping herself to his treasure. First small amounts, then eventually enough that Moonsin noticed.
He accused the spirits of stealing from him, and as they had only helped him and asked for nothing in return, they were understandably upset. They buried Moonsin's treasure deep in the earth, at new locations, scattered far and wide. The spirits then took the ungrateful Moonsin's wife for themselves, leaving him alone with nothing. The wife bore children, and the descendants of these children, known by the strange marks they bear on their body, are able to locate the hidden treasures, many of which are still out there. Waiting to be found.
It takes a large part of the little time they have, but Shay begins to learn the capabilities of different types of animals, which ones are less cooperative due to their disinterest in pleasing humans—cats and reptiles—and which are most educable—rats and, surprisingly, pigs. She practices joiningconsciousness with them and trains herself to maintain that connection across progressively wider distances.
By the time she feels ready—relatively speaking—to attempt obtaining the first of the three missing hjabats, there is only one moon quarter remaining before the meteor shower occurs.
Shay rides the skies behind the eyes of a midnight iris. When they clear a massive cliff that appears to float on the horizon, she gets her first glimpse of water. The glittering waves appear all at once, blue suddenly stretching in every direction. As impressive as that is, it doesn't prepare her for what comes next: a plunge into the depths of the Cerrabi.
Underwater, Shay inhabits an octopus. There's a heart-stopping moment where she is uncertain whether she can breathe. Then she remembers that her body is still in Ard Al-Ghul at the brothers’ cottage. She's in an altered state, but able to take in and expel all the air her land-dwelling lungs require.
She skims along the watery floor, past intricate shelves of coral reef and scintillating schools of silver fish, toward the submerged caves. The octopus's panoramic vision is not unlike that of the bird, but where the bird's vision encompassed a wider range of colors than Shay is used to perceiving, octopus vision consists of fewer colors. Extraordinarily, the creature is able to adjust the focus of its eyes when traveling from well-lit environments to darker ones, like the cave of Chefrika. It's as though the octopus has field glasses and light beams built right into its eyeballs and the muscles around them.
Her vision changes again when they locate the chest hidden deep within the cave. As she persuades a wrench crab to help pick the heavy lock that seals it, the world becomes a mosaic of overlapping images. The creature employs the extra pincers its species is known for with a deftness that puts even Shadi's burglary skills to shame.
It's a dizzying ride as she transfers her consciousness back to the octopus again. The necklace, a baroque red crystal girdled in brass prongs and strung upon an antiquated chain, is ferried across the ocean floor in the bowl of an abandoned coconut shell until they reach the shore.
Shay prepares to head home with the iris, amazed at how successful this first leg of her mission has been. She almost doesn't notice the boat.
It's the B'hamu divers among the crew that first catch her attention, identifiable by the sleek one-piece garments that cling to their forms. The sight of them here on the coast of Lahat would not be alarming in itself. But peppered among the crew are other men wearing the checkered scarves that denote an affiliation with the Naturalists.
Shay's excitement stalls. She may be tired from her new mother-adjacent role, but it doesn't take a brain functioning on a full night's sleep to reach the conclusion that the CNM is here for the same reason she is.
Shay opens her eyes. She's sitting in the grass outside the cottage, right where she's been all along. If she feels a little off-balance, it's a small price for such an amazing experience. The day is sunny and fair, the kind where clouds take on familiar shapes that change if you keep watching them, the sky putting on a grand show of metamorphosis.
“You did it,” Shadi gasps, smiling as his gaze swings from Shay to the iris.
The bird perches on a tree stump, the necklace sprawled at its clawed feet. The prized jewel embodies every shade of red, all bedazzled by the sun. Najla gurgles in her basket nearby.
“I had some help.” Shay bows her head toward the bird in deep gratitude. “I hate to ask for more from you so soon, my friend, but I fear our window of time grows narrow. How quickly can one of your brethren be available for the next journey?”
My successor will arrive tomorrow, the bird reassures her before taking off.
