Daybreak saved them. The first rays of the sun drove out the malevolent shadows. ‘We used to pray,’ said Salma when she saw the faint layer of light over the night. ‘What happened to that?’ None of them could remember when they had last prayed. When they had last prayed properly and it was not like brushing their teeth, going through the motions with their minds elsewhere. Noon jumbled into night, sunset mixed with dawn. They had come to the loch with their prayer mats and copies of the Qur’an, but they had not looked after them, they had not kept them safe. They had come to a country where people had stopped praying and not realised that they were the ones brought here to pray. They did not consciously take up the worship which others had left. They did not realise that they were a continuation, needed to fill a vacuum, awaited by the ancient forests and masses of rocks. They misunderstood their role. They underestimated their own importance and exaggerated their shortcomings. They inflated their problems and followed their egos, counselled each other but rejected what was right. Their quarrels taking up space, their connections weakening. And now they were far away, deep in the realm of consequence. Iman could not remember the words, neither Moni nor Salma could stand up straight. But they could pray with their hearts, couldn’t they? With their eyelids, with the breath they pulled in and out. They could, weakened as they were. Imperfect prayers, like those of the unclean and those who had not yet fully repented. Feeble prayers, but sincere because they were in genuine need.

The sun shrugged off the clouds and they saw ahead of them green and water, woodlands and glens. Beautiful and familiar, but suddenly Salma could no longer lead. ‘I don’t know the way,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure any more.’

They lingered and counted seven directions that they could take. North, south-east, over that hill, back towards the river. They could go straight, or they could go west, or they could head down to the beach.

Iman looked at Salma for guidance. Moni said, ‘Salma, you decide.’

But Salma could not guide them any more. She had brought them this far and now she was stumped. There was nothing she could add, no insight, no ideas. After saying, ‘We used to pray,’ she had run out of knowledge, she had reached the end of her usefulness. They were stuck. Time passed. A whole day passed. Perhaps Iman would sniff out a new trail. Perhaps it was Moni’s turn to take the lead. They waited for guidance, their urgency gone, the impetus disrupted.