Chapter 1BeddouHigh Atlas Mountains, Morocco1899In springtime, in the year after the year of the big flood, Aisha stood before a bundle of cut sage that rose to almost twice her height. Her work of gathering now finished, she needed to carry this load back to her village, about six miles down the mountain from where she now stood. Sucking in her breath, she curled herself over the firm globe of her rounded belly and then exhaled and hefted the heavy load of kindling onto her back. With a few deft movements, she secured the giant bundle in place, crossing a goat-wool rope under her chin and around her chest with an X-shaped twist. She'd just tied the knot when she felt a viselike cramp starting just under her breastbone and spreading down, like wind blowing across a field of wheat, until a strong hand gripped her between the legs. Breathing slowly as the hand unclenched, she took off at a rapid pace, zigzagging down a steep incline. Her red headscarf glittered with sequins, her two loops of braid, one at each ear, shone like cobalt in the sun. Each time the wave hit and the hand gripped, she breathed in and out, pulled on the rope and bent over, but she never broke stride. Each time she felt the pain coming on, she fingered the necklace of fat amber beads that hung around her neck on a red silk cord.
She was not yet halfway down the mountain when she felt a gush of warm water pouring out, cleansing a path down her dusty bare legs, leaving flecks of white grease on her sandals and between her toes. The village was still far from sight. The gripping hand squeezed as fast and hard as a woman kneading bread. She stopped, bent over, awaiting release. The path led her through an isolated gorge, alongside a precipice, and at last she could see the final bend—the village lay just beyond.
But a force was pushing down on her from the inside, compelling her to squat, and with a giant burst of fire an eager newborn boy slid into the world. Aisha reached down, grasping his slippery form. Before she'd even raised him to her breast, he let out a lusty cry. A moment later, the hand gripped her again, and the afterbirth slipped out behind him, fat and purple, slick with silvery membranes. Her heart beating fast in satisfaction, she wrapped newborn, placenta, and cord into her skirt, wiped away the thick rope of blood that trickled down her leg, and continued walking, more steadily now, down the path toward home.
Aisha tended to her son Beddou with a fierce devotion. She put dirt and a live earthworm into his nose. She carried him on her back in a sling as she did her daily work, and when she slipped him around and pulled out her breast he nursed with vigor, finding the nipple himself without help. By the next spring, he could walk on his own, and at the second spring he was so clever he could speak almost as well as a full-grown child. After four turns of the season, he helped her as she toiled, bringing her kindling for the fire, milking the cow, giving a hand at the butter churn, and so Aisha knew it was time to call the agouram, the local medicine man, to shave her son's head, leaving only a tashayout, a single braid near the crown. He then painted Beddou's bare scalp with henna to ward off the evil eye. "You will keep this braid until you are old enough to chase a jackal," the man told Beddou. And Beddou grew up healthy. His legs were sturdy, and his keen eyes could pick out his father coming in from the distant fields in his long brown woolen robe.
His father, Abdellah, a tall, spare man with a mournful oval face and wiry arms fine-tuned from hours working in the fields, enrolled his son in the local Koranic school. Beddou was a quick study, memorizing verses faster than any of the other boys. But he was like a rabbit hopping, and so he always came home with welts across his palms for his failure to sit still.
Even so, Beddou reliably returned from school in the afternoons with a new verse to recite to his proud father, who gave his son a sweet, plump date for each new one he learned. One day, Beddou and his father were in the fields when the local tribal leader, the sheikh, was riding past on his large white stallion. Father and son paused to admire them. As the sheikh approached, looking down at the pair from his horseback perch, Beddou began to recite Surah Al-Adiyat, "The War Horses."
I call to witness the chargers, snorting, rushing to battle before the others,Then those striking sparks of fire,Then those charging in the morningRaising clouds of dustThe stern-looking sheikh pulled up his horse, listening as the boy recited the verse, and then nodded his approval. That night, Abdellah gave Beddou an extra chicken wing from the family's tajine. The meaning of the words in the language of the Holy Koran was indecipherable to Abdellah and Aisha, even if beautiful to their ears. The people of the High Atlas Mountains spoke the Berber language, not Arabic, but as Muslims they revered the holy book and its sacred language and were proud of their son's cleverness. Perhaps Beddou would grow up to be a religious scholar. But just the next day, the wizened schoolmaster showed up at Aisha and Abdellah's door saying that Beddou had not been in school for over a month, even though his father had been paying the schoolmaster every week. Abdellah picked up a length of rope and threatened to beat Beddou, but Aisha stilled his arm, and Abdellah, gentle by nature, put the rope down. No beating was needed. Beddou immediately confessed. He'd been romping in the mountains, shooting sparrows with a slingshot, catching trout in the river with a piece of string, helping the shepherds by hunting for strays of their flocks. Abdellah stroked his wispy beard, his eyebrows arched up like a pair of hawk's wings. By what devilment had Beddou memorized verses of the Koran without attending school?
Beddou had a heart-shaped face and brilliant white teeth. He grinned winningly. He could explain. He had been hiding behind the mosque on Friday while the fkih was praying and he'd collected five verses, one for every day of the week. This took only part of one day, not the interminable hours bent over a slate each week. Abdellah continued to stroke his beard. He frowned, unsure what to do with this news. Aisha begged Abdellah not to punish the boy for his resourcefulness, and Abdellah, who had no appetite to punish his only child, agreed. If he didn't want to go to school, surely a clever boy like him could go to work. A distant cousin had been asking if he'd allow the boy to become indentured as a shepherd, and until now Abdellah had said no—but perhaps it was time to send the boy away. Beddou was six years old and strong, and from now on he could earn his keep.
Abdellah had been watching the heavens. He showed Beddou the outline of a cluster of stars that formed the image of a small cloth tied into a sack, a constellation called takoumist. Each night before their departure, he checked its position. They would leave when the constellation had rotated into the part of the sky that portended a good departure. Aisha rolled three freshly baked loaves of flatbread and tied them in a clean cloth. She gathered up a precious handful of dates, and another of walnuts. In the six years since this baby had slid out of her in a hurry and largely without protest, she'd delivered four more—two stillborn, one who lived two months, another who'd lived just shy of two years. Aisha had pleaded with her husband not to send away their only living child. But Abdellah had soothed her, promising that if the boy wasn't happy, they could buy back his contract and bring him home.
On the day of his departure, Aisha tucked the bundle into the generous hood of Beddou's tazanart, a long cape woven from white sheep's wool thick enough to keep him warm on the coldest nights of a mountain winter. He would walk with his father through the mountain pass known as Tizi n'Isli, the Groom's Pass, and then his new employer, a distant cousin named Saïd, would take him the rest of the way to his new home. Beddou was almost around the bend when Aisha sprinted after him. When she caught up, she placed a hand on her son's shoulder. "You will carry a circle of six suns along with you on your journey. Mind them well. The suns will keep you warm. The circle will bring you home."
Beddou didn't trouble himself much over her cryptic words—he was excited to begin the journey.
"I'll be back before long," Beddou said, waving gaily, pleased to be off on such an exciting adventure.
"If the Lord is willing," she said, her smile not hiding the sadness in her eyes.
After a two-day climb through the mountains, they met his distant cousin Saïd near a small village that clung to the side of a steep rocky slope. Beddou was seized with shyness and hid behind his father's robe. His cousin was a stranger to him, a tall man with a broad flat face and ears whose tips folded down like a lamb's. But Abdellah gently pushed him forward. "Go along, Beddou. Your cousin will look after you, and in six months I'll come and bring you back home for a visit. Think how proud your mother will be when you return, carrying the wool you've earned."
Beddou looked back at his father, the excitement of this adventure now forgotten. The desire to scream No, take me home! lying under his tongue like a glowing ember ready to burst into flames when fanned. He spun and pushed his face into the rough fabric of his father's woolen robe.
"Baba!"
Abdellah's face softened for a brief flicker of a moment.
Copyright © 2026 by Elizabeth Letts. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
