“I think you can stop there,” Kamboja says. The rest of us snicker at Paheli’s disgruntled expression.

We turn our sights to Beirut once again. The ice cream, delicious as it was, has been eaten. The decision has been made. We are going to Byblos or, as it is now called, Jbeil. Before we do, though, we have to find out more about the he Josefa mentioned.

Valentina accompanies Talei, Ghufran, Ligaya, and Widad back to the apartment as they are not comfortable with the creature the rest of us are going to meet. Our destination is not too far, so we decide to walk. It takes us an hour instead of the usual thirty minutes because Paheli keeps getting distracted by the shops along the way.

When we reach Bourj Hammoud, it is early afternoon and the air is spiced with the aroma of food emanating from the nearby restaurants. Before Paheli decides she’s hungry, we march her to a patch of greenery found between Armenia Street and Mar Youssef. The pavement surrounding the greenery is a checkered pink-and-once-white. The pink is pervasive in the area. Narrow buildings, tightly squeezed together, also boast a pale pink color.

The green patch is not just a median strip but also contains umbrellaed tables where people can seek shelter from the sun. Though the day is bright, apart from one or two old men, the place is empty. A few flowers wilt sadly on one side of the strip while some art installations do their best to bring culture to the space. We head straight for the tallest palm trees growing near the tables and chairs.

Sevda breathes deeply of the air that admittedly smells little like a forest. Of all of us, she struggles the most with the lack of green in our lives. We are currently invisible to humans (and thus more comfortable), and so we garner no attention from the people sitting at the tables.

Paheli pokes at the trunk of the tallest palm tree and we wait. Nothing happens. She deflates and pulls Sevda to the front. “You do it. He likes you best.”

Sevda wrinkles her nose and touches the bark softly. Sure enough, there is an immediate response. A thin sheet peels off from the bark; it has two eyes and fleshy lips. Paheli dumps a bottle of water on it, and with a pop, it gains a vaguely humanoid form. An unclothed humanoid form. He is short, barely up to our shoulders. His hair is a bright green and his tummy is a large pouch hiding his genitalia.

Not all middle worlders have human forms; we have learned to accept them in all the ways they express themselves.

“Oh?” The creature we call the Greenich looks at us with eyes full of avarice. “Look at what the wind blew in.” He blows a raspberry at us. “If you want information, you need to pay.”