Everyone is talking at once. Some want to wait out at sea until dark, then go onto the beach. Others want to go along the coast to find an empty place to land. Still others are adamant about landing right away while there are still just a few people on the beach. In the end it is Tarek who will decide, for he is the pilot and the owner of their circular steed. Tarek has stopped hallucinating, but he’s befuddled by lack of sleep, and overwhelmed by the responsibility, on this, his first trip as a smuggler. Also creeping in is the growing realisation that without a compass or the astronomical knowledge of Yara, he may never, after dropping off his human cargo, find his way home. Even if he owned a phone with a navigation device he couldn’t risk using it, for the authorities would track the signal and arrest him for people-smuggling. He falls into panic as he pictures himself in a prison cell being beaten by guards, then is more disturbed by the very real sound of his stomach growling with hunger.
What with all these thoughts and sensations he’s unsurprised to see a tall dark woman in crimson clothes rise up from somewhere near Yara, step over the side of the boat, move across the water, and come to rest on the shore, where she turns around then stands perfectly still, looking out to sea. Sunlight catches the copper rings which form her crown, three of them, one above the other. Just below her throat there is a crescent of heavy brass, a row of red stones hanging from it on tiny chains. On her solar plexus rest three triangles the length of her fingers, moulded from dull silver, indecipherable patterns etched upon them. The triangles dangle from a copper rope, as does the huge curved rectangle below them. Bedecked with coloured stones, it rests on her belly; rune-like symbols splattered across it. As a backwash to all this fabulous metal the crimson fabric falls in folds, down to her bangled wrists and her ringed toes.
Tin Hanan, for this is she, continues to stand, looking at the sea, towards home, oblivious to the early sunbathers. They are foreigners, and when they see the ancient queen they believe she’s part of some local folklore festival, or entertainment provided by their hotel, so they start taking photos of her. One man stands right next to her, his arm around her waist, while his wife films a thirty-second video. But later that day, when they replay the film, the images are of the man in his fluorescent green trunks and his T-shirt with a purple leaping dolphin, his arm sticking out at a right-angle, curling at the wrist, encircling an empty space.
Tarek stares at the figure on the beach, then down at his torn canvas shoes, then up again at the figure. He’d thought the Lyrica had worn off, but now he’s not sure.
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