Dalia whispers in her mother’s ears, but she still doesn’t respond. She bends and kisses Asin’s stubble head. She has to tell the truth, but she is not sure what the truth is anymore. Where should she start? From her own childhood? From her mother? Her father? Or the stillborn babies? Should she start from their long and frustrating journey from Avij? Or the rough night she had spent on the stillness of the Island? She hasn’t eaten for two days and hadn’t slept properly the previous night. Hunger and tiredness won’t allow her to focus. Perhaps Lealy noticed that and gave her the chance to speak up after she ate. Right now, everything seems mixed up in her thoughts; her memory is not aiding her. All the scenes, noises, colours and smells have intertwined within her mind. She can’t recall the exact sequence of the events. She needs to find the important events and line them up as milestones and fill in the gaps with the happenings of the last few weeks. Perhaps she should go further back and start from her mother; everything falls back on her past.

Asin moans and opens her eyes. She wants to sit up but Dalia stops her. She asks what has happened with a shaky voice. She barely leans on her arms and raises her head to look around the cabin and at her poultice-covered body. She puckers her face with pain and moans again. Dalia tries to calm her down and explains how they got in the cabin with a few short sentences. She assures her that they are safe now. Asin lies down again. Dalia tells her that she should give up the baby’s grave and that its body is to be burnt. But Asin replies with her swollen lips telling her she would never allow such a thing. Dalia won’t argue with her. She knows where the baby is buried; at least she knows the whereabouts. And she will give it up for the sake of their lives. Perhaps she should have done so sooner and avoided all the beating and the hurt.

They had reached the shores around midnight after swimming for the whole day. Her mother had carried the dead baby with her, teething its buttocks and dragging it through water. The Island gates were closed and they had to swim to the narrow eastern coast of the island. It was dark but Asin had no trouble finding her way. Dalia had to keep her eyes on her mother’s dark figure and follow her pace. It was Dalia’s first steps on land. Feeling the cool, soft sand with her feet had made her shiver and her toes itch. But Asin felt comfortable on the beach and unlike Dalia who could hardly keep her balance walking on the loose sand, she took light and steady steps. They had reached the Island walls and her mother had told her that they would spend the night there.

But Dalia knew what her mother wanted to do and she was going to stop her. She had begged her mother to let go of the baby and throw it in to the sea while they were still in deep waters. Asin wouldn’t listen, she had pretended as if though she was deaf. She had carried the baby in her mouth so that she wouldn’t argue with Dalia, even though she could have tied the baby to her back and swim more easily. She didn’t pay attention to Dalia’s warnings about the Saviour Rules and what it was believed as forbidden.