Desert Stars (42 page)

“
You’re chasing ghosts,
woman,” her father said, his voice carrying just enough of an edge
to keep
Shira
from shouting. “We sent Mira
on the pilgrimage with Jalil to persuade him to return and marry
her. She returned without him, but now he has come back, and has
offered to marry her. What more could we possibly ask?”

“
It’s not that simple
anymore,”
Shira
said, her voice dangerously
soft. “If he had returned with her at first, we could have married
them off quietly. Now, there’s the family honor to
consider.”

What honor?
Mira thought bitterly to herself.

“
But this absolves the
family honor,” her father said, spreading his hands palm up in
front of him. “How can it not? And even you must admit, our
daughter accomplished exactly what we set her out to
do.”

Shira
’s eyes narrowed, and she
shot a poisonous glance at Mira.
She is
not my daughter,
the expression on her
face seemed to say.

“
It would be one thing if
he returned solely to marry the girl, but what is all this nonsense
about the end of the world? If I were you—”

“
But you are
not
me, woman,” Sathi
said forcibly.

“
Forgive my
impudence,”
Shira
said quickly. “Nonetheless,
I think we should refuse to marry them unless we receive certain
assurances of Jalil’s good will.”

“
Such as?”

“
Such as insisting that
this girl he’s brought with him depart, and take her demonic
sky-caravaneer with her.”

Shira
’s last statement was enough
to make even Mira sit up and voice her indignation.

“
How could you even
suggest such a thing?” she said, her arms quivering with anger as
much as nervous energy. “That girl is his own sister! To throw her
out so rudely—”

“
Silence!”

“
No. Mira’s right,” said
her father. “To cast out Jalil’s blood sister on the day of his
wedding—I cannot think of a more shameful way to violate our
hospitality.”

“
Yes, but if we don’t,
what is there to keep Jalil and Mira from simply running away on
us?”

Weren’t you the one who
tried to throw me out?

“
Besides, how do we know
that this girl is Jalil’s sister?”
Shira
continued.
“How do we know that he isn’t lying? He shamed us once by
abandoning our daughter; what’s to say that he isn’t simply playing
two women at once?”

At those words, something inside of
Mira snapped.

“
No,” she said, clenching
her fists as she rose to her feet. “Jalil isn’t that kind of man.
You don’t understand—you’ve never understood!”

Her mother’s face turned red with
exasperation. Before they fell into a shouting match, however,
Sathi cut them both short by stepping between them.

“
Enough!” he bellowed.
“
Shira
, you’ve made a good point;
we’ll continue this conversation in private. Mira?”

“
Yes?” she said, her whole
body trembling.

“
Mira, dear, I think we
owe you an apology for the way we’ve treated you. Please, forgive
us.”

Her father’s words blindsided her so
fully, she didn’t know what to say.

“
I want you and Jalil to
marry sooner rather than later, and not just for honor’s sake. Now
that he’s returned, we must do all we can to keep him here before
he changes his mind. Do you understand?”

She blinked, barely comprehending. It
was all she could do to nod.

“
Good. Then let’s sit down
and drink our coffee.”

But what if I don’t want
to marry him?
Mira thought silently to
herself. As she gently pressed the coffee to her lips, she realized
that she didn’t know what she felt anymore.

Chapter 20

“
I don’t get it,” said
Jalil, pacing the narrow cabin of the
Bridgette One
. “Why is everything
going so wrong?” He kicked an open panel in the wall, slamming it
shut.

“
Watch it,” said Michelle,
not bothering to look over her shoulder. Her full attention was
focused on the instruments in front of her.

Jalil sighed and sank into
the seat behind her, resigning himself to wait until she was
finished. The
Bridgette’s
low planetary orbit brought them into contact
range every ninety minutes or so, but only for a brief period of
time, and all the satellite bands were too expensive for
them.

“
Hello?
Bridgette,
this
is
Bridgette One,
can you hear me?”

“…
ear you,” came a voice
over the static. “… an yo… ear me?”

“
Nash! Hold on a sec, let
me make some adjustments.”

Outside the narrow cockpit window, the
cloudless sky shone a deep purple as the sun set in brilliant
shades of orange. The craggy, rust-red mountains quickly turned to
silhouettes against the burning horizon, and the tents and adobe
huts of the Najmi camp cast long shadows across the rocky ground.
Overhead, the stars and satellites began to come out, their light
filling the void left by the sun’s swift departure. It was a
beautiful scene; if Jalil weren’t so uptight from the events of
that day, he might have even enjoyed it.

“…
any news from Karduna?”
Michelle asked, oblivious to him as she wrapped up her radio
conversation.

“
Sorry,” came Nash’s
garbled voice. “I haven’t heard anything new, dear. I’ll keep an
ear out, though.”

“
What about the Hameji?
Are they any closer?”

“
Right now, it’s anyone’s
guess. A few thousand people have left the system, but the
authorities are discouraging any mass evacuations. They claim to
have things under control.”

“
Sure they do,” Michelle
muttered.

“
In any case, I’m passing
out of line of sight soon. I love you, dear.”

“
I know. I love you,
too.”

The static grew louder on the other
line.

“
How much… onger will you
be down there?” Nash asked.

Michelle smiled. “Miss me already,
huh?”

“
of… ourse.”

“
It shouldn’t be more than
a few days. I’ll be back as soon as I can—I promise.”

Only a few days,
Jalil thought anxiously to himself. God-willing,
it would only take that long.

“
All right,” said
Michelle, switching off the transmitter as she turned to face him.
“What’s up?”

Jalil sighed. “Nothing is going the
way it’s supposed to. No one believes me. They must think I’m crazy
or something.”

“
Are you sure?” asked
Michelle. “Everyone seemed super nice to me. Especially that one
girl—what’s her name?”

“
Tiera?”

“
Yeah, that’s the
one.”

“
You don’t understand my
people. They’ll be polite and put on a good show of hospitality to
your face, but beneath the smile, they won’t pay attention to a
word you say.”

Michelle frowned. “Okay. So what do we
do?”

“
I don’t know,” said
Jalil, shaking his head as he leaned forward. “I never expected it
would be this difficult. They’re treating me like an outsider—a
foreigner.”

“
Well, did you leave them
on bad terms?” Michelle asked. “Maybe if it’s because of something
you did before, we can figure out what it is and set it
right.”

“
God-willing.”

“
So what could it
be?”

Jalil leaned back in his chair,
pausing for a moment to think. “I didn’t leave the camp on bad
terms, but later…”

“
Later?”

“
There was…
something.”

“
Like what?”

Jalil hesitated for a moment, unsure
how to explain. He hadn’t told Michelle about Mira yet—hadn’t told
anybody, in fact.

“
It’s, uh—”

“
Is it about a
girl?”

As he began to blush, Michelle’s face
lit up. Apparently, that was answer enough.

“
It is! Do tell,” she
said, resting her chin on her arms as she leaned forward against
her seat-back.

“
I don’t know…”

Michelle laughed. “Gavin, you should
see the look on your face. But don’t worry; I won’t tell anyone. I
promise.”

Jalil’s cheeks burned with
embarrassment, but he went ahead anyway. “Before I left the camp,
the family wanted me to marry one of their daughters.”

“
I see,” said Michelle,
listening with rapt attention.

“
They, ah, went to some
pretty extreme measures to set us up together. I felt
manipulated—both of us did, I think. I never wanted to hurt her,
but—”

“
Is it Tiera?”

“
Tiera?” he said,
frowning. “No, of course not.”

“
Then who?”

He swallowed. “It was
Mira.”

“
Ah, the quiet
brown-haired girl,” said Michelle, nodding in a knowing way. “Tiera
pointed her out to me during the feast. She’s quite a
cutie.”

Jalil blushed even redder. “You could
say that.”

“
So you’re afraid that you
hurt her feelings?”

“
Yes. Except… it’s more
complicated than that.”

“
Complicated
how?”

“
Well, it has to do with
the family honor. Adopted or not, I’m the only living son who has a
right to lead the camp, so—”

“
But this girl,” said
Michelle, cutting him off. “How do you feel about
her?
”

“
I don’t know. After being
away for so long—I don’t even know how to describe it.”

“
Do you love
her?”

Jalil froze up, not sure what to say.
Part of him wondered whether the question was even relevant—after
all, had Lena loved Mazhar before she’d married him? Had they even
known each other at all?

“
What do you
mean?”

Michelle sighed and rolled her eyes.
“Do I really have to explain it to you? Love isn’t something you
have to think about—it’s something you feel, something you can’t
deny. So tell me—do you love her?”

“
I suppose.
If—”

“
Look,” said Michelle,
stopping him with her hand. “If you really love her, you can’t
possibly imagine living without her. If you love her, she’s such a
part of your life that being separated from her feels like,
like—”

“
Like being cut off from
home?”

“
Exactly,” she said,
snapping her fingers. “So tell me, do you love her?”

Sweat formed on Jalil’s forehead, and
his heart began to beat a little faster. The image from his dream
came back to him—of Mira as a mother, surrounded by their children.
A lump rose in his throat, and he realized that Michelle was
right—he couldn’t possibly imagine life without Mira. The very
notion was abhorrent to him. And the more he thought on it, the
more he realized that he’d always felt this way, perhaps even
before the pilgrimage.

“
Yes,” he said softly. “I
do.”

Michelle smiled. “I think you’d make a
good couple.”

“
But that’s the problem,”
said Jalil, waving his hand. “I offered to marry her at the feast.
You know what she did?”

“
She walked out on you,”
said Michelle. “I was there, I saw it. And honestly, I’m not
surprised.”

“
Not surprised?
But—”

“
You just said that you
hurt her feelings. You really think that you could just go back to
the way things were and ignore everything else that had happened?”
said Michelle, folding her arms. “That’s not going to
work.”

“
Why not?”

“
Because you
can’t
ignore it. You
have to acknowledge all the pain between you and move on as best
you can. Trust me—pretending that this problem doesn’t exist won’t
make it go away.”

Once again, part of Jalil wondered why
his feelings even mattered. But deep down, he knew Michelle was
right.

“
So what do I
do?”

“
Apologize. Meet with her
in private and talk things out.”

“
Talk things out?” said
Jalil, frowning. “How does that solve anything?”

“
Just trust me. If she’s
got any feelings for you at all, I think you’ll be
surprised.”

Jalil nodded, more than a little
nervous. “God-willing,” he said. “God-willing.”

* * * * *

“
Mira?” Tiera whispered
from the other side of the door flap. “Mira, are you
there?”

“
I’m here,” said Mira,
sitting up from her mattress. “Come in.”