Chapter 28Beyond those hills and oak woods,
Beyond those vineyards and gardens,
We passed in health and joy, glory be to God.
We were dry, but we moistened.
We grew wings and became birds,
We married one another and flew,
Glory be to God.
—Yunus Emre, thirteenth-century Turkish poet and Sufi mystic
9565 BCE
Site of modern-day Göbekli Tepe
Sixty-nine cycles, cries my mother, thinking she is old. My twin, Zirbani, and I, Sarpani, can see into her soul when the three of us pray together. And she is still young. She is still that young woman whom our father, Orzu, saved from a life of the unspeakable. I pray to God that my daughters, my granddaughters, never face the same choices—death or life worse than death.
But Nanshe’s body is old, and she says she may not have more days ahead
