Besides, if I was going to pay him, the least he could do was drop me closer to the door.īut, God bless him, the merchant insisted more frantically, his raised hand turning into an aggressive shooing motion. Even so, it was my last bit of money, at least until this new job paid.

And it had a tarp to lie under for shade. Plenty of room for me to curl up and rest, even if I had to share the space with the merchant and his clay pots of spices. A simple sheet of wood raised between two sturdy wheels on the back end and a sweating mule hitched to the front. The cart had been a godsend after six others had vehemently refused.

My frizzy curls stuck to my temples and the back of my neck as I fished a sweaty bill from my pocket, but the merchant held up his hand against it like I was offering him a spider. Nothing but me, the merchant I’d caught a ride with in town, and that towering mass of structured stone in the distance that was to be my new home. They were all just the desert’s cruel trick. Or an Afar caravan carting slabs of salt cut from the desert’s floor to be sold in the market. Others, a snake looking to escape under a rock. Sometimes they came as ripples on a pool of water. Heat waves created illusions of life out on the sand. I clutched my satchel, squinting against the dying sun. Sweltering heat hit me like the sudden leap of a bonfire when I traded the protection of the mule-drawn cart’s tarp for burning sand.

Book within these wicked walls