his chapan a burst of color against the brown of the trees' bark.
She trips over a stone and almost falls, then regains her footing.
She hurries the rest of the way with the legs of her trousers pulled up. She is panting by the time she reaches the willows.
Mariam's kolba is still here. When she approaches it, Laila sees that the lone windowpane is empty and that the door is gone.
Mariam had described a chicken coop and a tandoor, a wooden outhouse too, but Laila sees no sign of them.
She pauses at the entrance to the kolba. She can hear flies buzzing inside. To get in, she has to sidestep a large fluttering spider web.
It's dim inside. Laila has to give her eyes a few moments to adjust. When they do, she sees that the interior is even smaller than she'd imagined.
Only half of a single rotting, splintered board remains of the floorboards. The rest, she imagines, have been ripped up for burning as firewood.
The floor is carpeted now with dry edged leaves, broken bottles, discarded chewing gum wrappers, wild mushrooms, old yellowed cigarette butts.
But mostly with weeds, some stunted, some springing impudently halfway up the walls. Fifteen years, Laila thinks. Fifteen years in this place.
Laila sits down, her back to the wall. She listens to the wind filtering through the willows.
There are more spider webs stretched across the ceiling.
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