“I was only five when I lost my mother, not that there was much to lose. Yara, for that was her name, had been reduced to nothing by Oumaima’s magic. A couple adopted me and I lived in their forest home somewhere between here and the west coast. I don’t know exactly where. I’m disorientated by all the changes here since I left the island sixty five years ago. The couple were kind, and insisted on getting me educated. But all through those years I missed my mother, and I became weary of the mischief done by the island’s interior. It poked at my flesh, disrupted my studying, disturbed my thoughts.”
I don’t mention how I also missed Tin Hanan, the queen of my world for the first five years of life. The woman doesn’t mind me talking about the island, though. She seems to understand perfectly why she has to lock her doors and close the blinds at sunset. She has to stay here so she’s accepted it. The island is the beast she lives with, and on. It gives her her livelihood, her existence, and as long as she’s careful it doesn’t harm her. She asks me what happened to the other fourteen passengers on the circular boat.