‘We must return,’ she said. That was all she could offer. The others understood her in their own way. A physical return. Their bodies back to how they had been before, able to stand tall, to bend when they wanted to bend, to move with ease. This was the most pressing kind of return. A return to dignity, to humanity and strength. How else to imagine a future, a way of picking up where they had left off. A literal return to the grounds of the monastery and from it to their cottage? The cottage was only theirs until Monday morning. If they did not get there in time, what would happen to their things? Mullin would gather them all together, haphazardly no doubt, but with enough finality to prepare the cottage for the next set of holiday tenants. A spiritual return? Not yet. Their insides were too dark to contemplate a revival, their burdens too crushing.

We have to move, said Salma. The three of us together, we must find a way to make progress. She was the least mobile of them, the most helpless.

Moni said, ‘You must be in the middle, Salma. Iman and I

will be at either side of you. You will tell us where to go, but we will be the ones pulling you.’

They pulled her like a rug, dragged her across the floor of the forest. Moni clutched one arm under her elbow, Iman slung the other around her shoulder. There were no blue trails any more in the forest, no red trails or orange. They were on their own. Salma stared up at the bits of sky that showed through the treetops. She saw the sun and she said, ‘We need to head east, we need to move back this way instead of straight ahead.’

They moved as a group. Salma had Moni to her right, Iman to her left. Their pace was slow but matched, their progress even. Salma’s back began to ache. Dragged over roots and uneven paths, her skin became raw and bruised. They stopped for frequent breaks, to tend each other’s wounds, to catch their breath. For it was not only Salma who was struggling, Moni too had her fair share of bruises and Iman, although more suited to the outdoors, was often distracted and fretful, her protruding tongue a source of irritation, her whines more frequent.

‘Iman wants to sing for us,’ said Moni. And Iman did sing. Or at least tried to sing. She had forgotten all the words to her Euphrates laments. The tunes were still there, embedded in her altered mind. And though she was yowling, it made her feel better, achieving a certain kind of release. Tears came to Salma’s eyes when she remembered Iman’s beautiful voice. When she remembered Iman’s hair and her smoky eyes. We must return, she said to herself.