drank more water, but she was weak from the loss of blood. Without being aware of it, she often held her belly when she slept.
South of Gabes, a day and a half later, we came out of the desert and the mountains. Birds circled overhead, and even though we couldn’t see it yet, we could smell the salt and the sea air of the Mediterranean.
We camped that night near a rocky outcrop on the high plain between Gabes and Sousse. Star was pale and drawn and I couldn’t seem to make her comfortable. Her sleep was more delusional. I tried to think of what Emme would do. Sirius was as bright as a streetlight in the sky. Star opened her eyes once and stared at it, then mumbled something in the old Berber dialect and fell back into her restless sleep.
Then, as if someone had whispered it to me, I remembered something, something that had once been a pillow of dreams for this daughter of Carolina, something I still carried with me — my mama’s glove. I reached in my pack and pulled it out. Carolina had said she would never forget it. I unwrapped the old scarf with the drowning Chinamen and held it in my hand. I put my other hand inside the glove and pounded the pocket with my fist. Everything worked, everything felt good. I slipped my hand out of the glove and placed it under Star’s head. I put the scarf in her hands and covered her with a blanket. The rest would have to be magic. It was the only medicine I had. I had already decided that if she didn’t improve by morning, I was going to find a town and a doctor.
As soon as I awoke, I knew something had changed. Star was awake and staring at me. It was not hostile or even lively. It was as if she was searching for something underwater and couldn’t quite get the physics right, couldn’t quite reach it. But she was alert and conscious. I rose up and faced her, sitting cross-legged the way Carolina, Georgia, and I used to. Neither of us spoke. She saw Jisil’s horse not far away and, without taking her eyes from mine, nodded toward the horse. I slowly shook my head and she looked down once, but that was her only reaction. She reached one hand up from her belly and held it over her wounded shoulder, asking me with her eyes if I was the one who had attended to it. I nodded once. I showed her Jisil’s map and pointed to Carthage, asking her with my eyes if that’s where we should go. She nodded once. I smiled and she didn’t. She hadn’t decided yet if she trusted me, but she held on tight to Mama’s glove and the old scarf. I stayed silent and we traveled that way. The fact that I was still a child, still “physically” the same, was a blessing and a curse. It would help her remember her past, possibly, but never explain her present. I stayed silent and tried to let the present win her trust. The past would come later.
We rode overland and off the trail the last fifty miles approaching the ruins of Carthage. Only Jisil’s horse had drawn any real attention. Our skin color and appearance seemed to have little effect on the few people we saw. It was another world to the one in the deep desert. Star had to dismount twice along the way because of the pain, not in her shoulder but in her belly and back. We were walking with the horse between us when we stopped on a natural rise that opened up two views around us. It was twilight and the sun was setting in the west over what I assumed were the Atlas Mountains. To the north and east, in the long shadows, were the fields and pastures, roads and ghosts of roads leading to what had once been Carthage and the harbor beyond.
It was a good place to camp and let Star rest. I had no idea of the final arrangements in the deal Jisil had made. I knew I’d never seen Cheng work alone and I didn’t expect him to now.
The site was not inhabited nor was it deserted. There was evidence of excavations begun and abandoned. Some fields had been plowed and sowed around the broken stones of temples and markets. Robber trenches from centuries past crisscrossed the various sections of the old city. It was haphazard and ragged. The Romans hadn’t left much standing and time since had given it no dignity. The wind blew in from the north. The Mediterranean was a dark blue band in the distance. I smelled the faint scent of goat in the air and looked down the rise toward the remnants of a stone gate or tower. Foraging in and around the ancient foundations were a few goats and sitting on one of the stones with his back to me was a boy about my size, the goatherd. He seemed harmless, but I didn’t want any surprises. I was going to leave Star where we were and try to find Cheng somewhere among the ruins, before he found us. I decided to find out who the boy was. He might have heard or seen the movements of someone like Cheng. Another boy, another goatherd, would not intimidate him and any information he gave me would be more than I had at the moment.
I helped Star lie down on her side and covered her up, making sure she was out of the wind and had Mama’s glove under her head. She held her belly constantly and grimaced at times, but never made a sound. I knew she would need attention soon, the kind of attention I knew nothing about. I waited for the last rays of light, then walked slowly around and down the hill, toward the goatherd.
I had barely rounded the hill when I felt it, more acutely and more powerfully than I ever had before. The impact literally hit me like a blow to the chest and I changed my gait, slowing to a single measured step at a time. It was the presence of Meq, and more than one, I was sure of it.
I looked down at the goatherd. He hadn’t moved. He sat on the stones facing west, but his goats were nowhere in sight. I walked silently, listening with my “ability” and drawing closer. He wore the heavier cloth of the northern tribesmen, with no turban. There was a hood instead, attached to his robe and gathered at the back of his neck. He kept his head averted. I could not see his face. When I got to within ten feet, I stopped and waited.
“Where have you been?” the voice asked.
Suddenly an arm and a hand reached out from the robe. The hand waved me over. There was a small ring on the first finger, a star sapphire mounted in silver. It was the same hand that had come out of the darkness of a carriage long ago in St. Louis and helped me in. It was Sailor.
I sat down on the stone next to him without a word. As he turned to face me, I noticed his high-laced boots under his Arab robe. His star sapphire sparked with color in the starlight. I looked at his face and in his eyes. The same. His “ghost eye” winked at me.
“I think it was Mencius, the Chinese philosopher, who said that a great man is he who does not lose his child’s heart,” Sailor said. He smiled faintly. I was staring at him, speechless.
“I think he meant to say ‘a great-looking man,’ ” he finished with a broad smile. “Do you not agree, Zianno?” He posed in profile, then laughed out loud.
I was still in a stunned silence.
“I felt your presence as soon as you came around the hill,” he said. “I was hoping you would come soon. I have been expecting you for some time and I could have used your help.”
That woke me up. “
“No, that was why I asked.”
He acted as if I’d seen him only yesterday. At first I was angry, then just as quickly I realized that time and its passage were different for Sailor and all the old ones. The desert had taught me something, but I still had much to learn from my own kind. Sailor was not alone, however, and I could feel the presence of another. It was strong and familiar. I finally smiled and Sailor and I embraced warmly. As we did, I whispered in his ear, “We’re not alone, are we?”
“No,” he whispered back. “There is another and she is the reason I knew you would return.”
I pulled back and stared at him again. What did he mean? Who did he mean?
“Why are you here, Sailor? I mean here, in this spot, now?”
He paused for only a moment and unconsciously turned the sapphire around his finger. “Because I have found Opari,” he said. “And she is here.”
“Opari?”
“Yes.”
“Why would she be here?”
“To buy a slave. She has done it for years. I have followed her since that night in the Forbidden City. Zeru- Meq discovered her escape and I began following her in Macao. She has always bought slaves, traded in them, but never personally made the transaction. This is a first. I have already seen her here with that baboon of a eunuch who usually buys them for her. They are waiting for the slave now. A girl, I believe, coming from the south with an Arab chief.”
I looked back toward the hill where Star was resting. I listened hard for anything out of the ordinary.
“They are waiting for me,” I told Sailor. “The Arab chief is dead and I have the girl.”
“Then we shall use the girl as a Trojan horse, so to speak, and confront Opari.”
“No,” I said. “This girl will be no slave for anyone any longer.”
Sailor gave me a studied look and his “ghost eye” clouded slightly. “Why?” he asked.
