“By God, I want to thank you for asking me to do this, Little Sister. It’s reminded me that God, in all his greatness, also has a sense of humor. The Arabs fight the Israelis, who are nothing but their cousins. Laila is betrothed to a man older than her father. And tonight, Salim ibn Hamid will bay the moon for my sister, dreaming that she is a boy.”

Malik could not seem to stop laughing, and then Amira was laughing, too— with relief, with joy, with youth, with her taste of forbidden freedom. All the way home, every little thing they said or saw set off another round of laughter.

7. Black Dream

Black Dream

The desert was bright all around, the wide sky flawlessly blue. Jihan was standing in a shallow pit in the sand. It only came up to her waist, but when she tried to step out, she couldn't. The sand slid beneath her feet, and somehow the pit grew deeper. The harder she climbed, the deeper she sank. Soon, the rim was over her head. She used her hands, but the hot sand crumbled as she clawed at it. The hole deepened, and the sand choked her. She screamed for help. People appeared above her against the shrinking sky. Shouting something she could not understand, sand cascading down under his feet, Malik leaned in, smiled encouragement, and turned away. Amira knelt on the rim in tears before fading like a mirage; Jihan’s parents shook their heads sadly before walking on. The pit was black, the hissing sand as suffocating as smoke. Now, only a small, faceless figure perched on the rim, high against the last of the light, calling her name.

Jihan woke up, heart pounding, shivering in sweat.

Like most Remalis, she took great stock in dreams, and she knew exactly when she had first had this one. It was noted in a small diary she kept. Black Dream, the entry said. She did not bother to elaborate or—as she sometimes did when a dream was portentous but mystifying—to hire an interpreter. She needed no professional to tell her that this was a dream of her own death.

Black Dream, and then, a few weeks later, the same notation, followed after another two weeks by dream again. Soon, the dream took on a presence almost as real as the people around her, and Jihan knew with a certainty that what terrified her would never go away.

She looked through the pages of her diary to confirm the timing of the first dream. Yes, it had come exactly three days after the entry: Omar tells me he is taking another wife.

8. The End of Childhood

The End of Childhood

Laila was married in early fall. Malik had already left for Cairo. The wedding was the most elegant Amira had ever seen or could imagine.