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Chapter Twenty-One
Aziza
Sleep proved too lofty a goal. I hadn’t spent a single night off the island since the Esmeralda’s wreck. The gentle rocking of the yacht at anchor came too close to those first moments I’d washed up on the beach. The feeling of being in my mother’s arms too sweet, reality too bitter. Each time I’d close my eyes to sleep the motion away, I would be taken back to the night the Esmeralda went down. I hadn’t been able to sleep then either.
The electricity flickered back to life, reassuring me more than my father’s kiss had. “See, Princess, I told you everything would be fine.”
“It’s not fine,” I cried as Baba sat on the edge of my bed. “I want to go home!”
“Mira,” he pleaded. “When you wake up tomorrow, you’ll be on the most magical island. Beautiful beaches. Horses to ride. There is even a zoo full of animals.”
“Zoo animals don’t live on islands, Baba!”
“On this island they do! There is every animal your heart desires. And whatever it doesn’t have, we’ll get!”
“I want Mama and Am’maty Z.”
“I know, love. But they are in heaven, remember?”
I nodded. But I didn’t remember. Not really. Baba stroked a hand through my shorn hair. The kidnappers had done it to disguise me by making me look like a boy, or at least that’s what I’d been told. The way I remembered it, Am’maty Z had been the one who’d shaved my head. Trouble was, everything was foggy between the sleep and the medication. The long days at sea and so many foreign countries. Too many hours since I’d seen my mom or Am’maty Z.
“I want to talk to Zanji,”
Baba stiffened and squeezed his brows. “Where’d you hear that name? Who told you about Zanjibayl?”
“Am’maty Z. She said Zanji was my am’maty too. She said she lived on an island.”
“Zamarad told you Zanji was alive and living on an island?”
“Yes, we were going to get her.”
“No, Mira. Zanji is in heaven. She’s been there a very long time, since before you were even born. Mama is with her now, I hope.”
“No, I talked to her.”
“That’s impossible, Princess. Even if she were alive, Zanji didn’t speak. Noises maybe, but never words.”
“She didn’t speak words aloud, Baba. There are other ways to talk,” I said with a roll of my eyes. Sometimes Baba didn’t understand the most obvious things. “She typed them. I talked to her on the computer.”
“You talked to Zanji on the computer?”
“Yes, Baba, but online her username is Jingur.”
“Ginger?”
I laughed at him repeating me again. “Don’t you know, Baba? Ginger is the English word for Zanjibayl.”
“It is, isn’t it? You’re such a smart girl.”
“But Zanji spells ginger different from the English version.” I spelled it out for him the way she had in her username. “People do that, spell things in unique ways. Online, I mean. Are you listening? Anyway, she’s really nice and very funny. Smart. I was looking forward to meeting her. Is this the island where she is?”
“I’m not sure who you were talking to online, but you must be mistaken. Zanji wasn’t… She had something which made her…unique. Special. I don’t think you would’ve found her nice and funny. Smart, yes, I believe she was very smart and maybe nice and funny in her own way. But she wasn’t easy to connect to. Not the way your Am’maty Z is. Was.”
“I know. Mama told me all about it. She said Zanji is on the rainbow.”
“Spectrum, yes.”
“Zanji prefers the term rainbow, Baba. She uses the computer to speak for her. With it, she communicates really well. It wasn’t hard at all to connect with her. She told us where the island was and how to get to her. That’s why we left.”
