They walk uphill this way for two hundred yards or more. Then the path levels, and opens into a flatter patch of land.
They stop, catch their breath. Laila dabs at her brow with her sleeve and bats at a swarm of mosquitoes hovering in front of her face.
Here she sees the low slung mountains in the horizon, a few cottonwoods, some poplars, various wild bushes that she cannot name.
There used to be a stream here,Hamza says, a little out of breath. “But it's long dried up now.”
He says he will wait here. He tells her to cross the dry streambed, walk toward the mountains.
“I'll wait here,” he says, sitting on a rock beneath a poplar. “You go on.”
“I won't—” “Don't worry. Take your time. Go on, hamshireh.” Laila thanks him.
She crosses the streambed, stepping from one stone to another.
She spots broken soda bottles amid the rocks, rusted cans, and a mold coated metallic container with a zinc lid half buried in the ground.
She heads toward the mountains, toward the weeping willows, which she can see now, the long drooping branches shaking with each gust of wind.
In her chest, her heart is drumming. She sees that the willows are arranged as Mariam had said, in a circular grove with a clearing in the middle.
Laila walks faster, almost running now. She looks back over her shoulder and sees that Hamza is a tiny figure,
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