The soul drained out of her, down her legs, through her feet and into the Omani ground. Love and fear.
Gabriel came over with her sleeping bag. “What are you looking at?”
“There’s no . . .”
“Reading my messages now?” He winked, shook out the sleeping bag, scattering sand.
“No Max,” she said, “in your Contacts.”
Gabriel kneeled down to roll up the bag.
She stared at the names.
“Yeah, well. Max is Max. He doesn’t have a phone, just like he doesn’t have a life.”
“Kim thinks he might actually have died, that that’s why—”
“It amounts to the same thing. If you’re not really living, you might as well be dead. Now hurry up or we’ll never make it to the cave.”
“I’m going to Muscat.”
He looked up, stood up. “No.”
“Take me back to Muscat! I need to go home.”
Gently, swiftly, before her very eyes, Gabriel slid into his fretful self—grimacing against the sun, moving back and forth, watching her. In a flicker of sunlight, he became the stranger of the night before—his movements jerky, his words fast. “You don’t know where you need to be, Prudence.”
Seasick, Thea took on another slope and climbed it, holding Gabriel’s phone high, waiting for it to properly find its home, click into its beam and display a stronger signal. A way to the world. . . . Instead, that one bar of signal vanished. There was no way to call Abid, to beg him to come and meet them along the road, to save her from Gabriel and Gabriel from his curse. Her head pounded. Her throat was parched. They needed to drink, both of them, then, somehow, she would persuade Gabriel to drive to the nearest town. Meanwhile, they were alone. Almost.
Thea turned.
There she was.
Down on the flat, Gabriel was talking to her.
To her. Same clothes, same hair, same self.
“Go away from here.” Thea’s hand, burning on the hot bonnet of the jeep, was the only thing keeping her upright.
You would repel her.
You are stronger.
They turned. She was holding a bottle. She said, “It’s only me,” and lifted the bottle to drink. The scraping thirst in Thea’s throat eased.
Gabriel stepped toward her. “Thea—”
“Why is she me?” It wasn’t like looking in the mirror, or watching a home movie, or being out of body. No. Seeing another person who was her own self was like being in Hell. She managed to speak. “Go away.” Three times, Abid had said. Tell them three times to leave, the Prophet, peace be upon him, says in the Hadith. “You can’t have him anymore. Leave us al—”
“Don’t!” Gabriel cried. “Don’t say it again.”
Double vision. Double perspective. Whose arms were these? Whose eyes? “Get into the jeep, Gabriel. You’ll be all right. We’re leaving.”
Prudence poured water over her face. It wet Thea’s hair and cooled her body, as she cried out, “Go from here! Go!”
Someone said, “You can’t leave, Thea.”
“No? I have the keys. And the water. Get in the car, Gabriel. This is over now.”
Not quite. The other, suddenly, lurched at her.
Terrorized, she heard a growl come from deep within her chest and, gathering all her own limbs and with a punch of determination, she pushed past Gabriel, fought him off, clambered into the driving seat.
Ignition. Accelerator. Thrust.
Sand flew out as the wheels took the slope.
Behind, Gabriel was running.
Acknowledgments
There is a small army behind every novel, and I would like to thank mine. I am indebted to Dettia O’Reilly, Honorary Consul of Oman in Ireland; to David Sergeant, Hatim Altaie, Yayha Al Hashmi, and Aziza al Habsi for their guidance, knowledge, and generous hospitality on the ground in Oman; and to Kathleen Hindle, the most amenable of traveling companions, and our driver, Rashid. Warmest thanks and appreciation also to the team at Hoopoe Fiction, especially my wonderful editor, Nadine El-Hadi, for her clarity, conviction, and wisdom; my peerless copyeditor, Hazel Orme; Katie Holland, for her extraordinary patience, and Neil Hewison, for opening the door. It is an honor and a delight to be published by the American University in Cairo Press, not least because the first paragraph of fiction I ever wrote was inspired by Cairo.
I am indebted to the Arts Council of Ireland for the Literature Bursary Award and to Cork County Council Arts Office for the Artists’ Bursary Award. The dedicated work of arts administrators—those who keep the arts and artists afloat—often goes unseen, so I would like to acknowledge the support of Sarah Bannan, of the Arts Council of Ireland; Francis Humphrys, of West Cork Music; and, most particularly, Sinead Donnelly, of Cork County Council Library & Arts Service.
Thanks also to Sue Leonard, Elaine Cotter, Bernadette Gallagher, Ahdaf Soueif, and Anita Desai; to Vincent Woods, for permission to quote from “The Good People”; to Tim Mackintosh-Smith, my guide in all things literary; to Finola Merivale and Tamzin Merivale, for being assiduous, shrewd, and fair readers; and to William Merivale, the writer’s perfect companion.
My agent, Jonathan Williams: six books, twenty years; so much learnt, so many thanks.
Finally, Aingeal Ní Murchú, who loved the unseen. Now unseen, but ever here.
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