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Maggie only turned when the name was called for a third time and only because of the impatient tone, but then she realised the summons was aimed at her.
Ah, yes, for tonight, she was Suzanne.
The organiser waved her over and gestured to the area that would be Maggie’s home until sunrise.
It was a small, tented area, with a simple mattress where she could either lie and continue to view the night sky or, as was strongly suggested, she could pull the canopy over.
Maggie nodded and thanked him. Refusing to give in just yet, she kept the canopy open, and kicking off her shoes bedded down for what remained of the night.
There appeared not a single star in the sky.
To her left, the couple who had argued about everything were now complaining about the hard mattress and there was a man snoring to her right.
Of all the many highlights of her year, Zayrinia had become her favourite. She had instantly felt somehow drawn to the land.
That in itself was rare for Maggie.
She had learnt not to get attached to people, let alone locations, yet there was something about Zayrinia that entranced her.
It really did, Maggie thought as she gazed up at the dark, heavy sky.
While there wasn’t a star to be seen, the clouds billowed and raced so swiftly it was as if the sky had been placed on fast forward, and soon the sounds of her fellow tourists were drowned out by the cries of the wind whistling through distant canyons.
It really had been the most amazing year. One that Maggie would never have embarked on had it not been for her mother.
It wasn’t the lack of stars that had tears pool in her eyes, or the knowledge that her trip was drawing to a close.
The threat of tears was reserved for the very reason she was here.
Maggie missed her mother so much.
Erin Delaney had fallen pregnant when she was just seventeen and Maggie had never known her father.
Even though she had been a single, teenage mum, Erin had given her daughter a very happy childhood.
Still now, when Maggie felt alone or scared, thoughts of innocent, happy times would come to mind.
Maggie lay there remembering a time they had come from the baker’s and had got caught in the rain. They had ducked under the awnings of a shop that had, though Maggie hadn’t really understood then, been a travel agent.
‘You need to see the world, Maggie,’ her mother had said as they’d looked at a huge map in the window.
‘I like it here.’
‘I know you do, but there’s a whole world outside London. I was going to go travelling and see it for myself...’
‘But you had me instead.’
‘You’re the best mistake I ever made!’ Erin smiled. ‘But seriously, Maggie, you make sure you see the world. I’m saving up hard and next year we’re going to Paris.’
They hadn’t got there, though.
After a short, hard-fought battle with cancer, Erin had passed away. She’d had little money but she had left a small sum for Maggie to inherit when she turned twenty-one and it had been accompanied by a letter. In it Erin had told her daughter that she had been and still was deeply loved. Erin had said that she hoped Maggie would consider spreading her wings and taking in this wonderful world in a way that she had not.
The money had been enough to cover the airfare, but it had taken Maggie two years to save up enough to take the trip.
She had taken the train first to Paris and from there Maggie had travelled through Europe before heading to America and then Asia and Australia and home via the Middle East.
And now on the final leg of her journey, Zayrinia had won her heart.
On Monday she would be on her way back to London and a week after that she would be back working at the café.
Maggie fought to keep her eyes open, for she wanted to savour every last moment. But the day had started early and an awful lot of it had been spent in the sun. Maggie’s eyes were soon closing.
At first she thought the rustle of the tent was just the wind but then Maggie felt a hand on her shoulder. For a brief second she thought it must be the guide telling her to wake up, but then the hand gripped her tighter, roughly, and even before Maggie thought to scream, she felt a hand clamp over her mouth.
It all happened so quickly—one moment Maggie was sleeping, the next she was being dragged under the canvas and through the sand.
She fought and kicked but there was more than one person and the wind was her enemy now, for it drowned the sounds of the struggle she made. She smelt body odour and felt the rough fabric of their clothes against her cheeks. But their grip on her arms and thighs only tightened as she twisted to free herself.
All to no avail.
It took less than a minute to be bundled into a vehicle and Maggie fought each second of it even as she was driven away.
‘What do you want?’ she asked as the hand was removed from her mouth, but there was no answer.
The vehicle came to a halt and she was dragged out. Maggie thought she had already tasted fear, but that was nothing compared to how the sand stung as it whipped at her cheeks and the wind took her breath away as she cried out at the lights from a helicopter.
‘Yalla! Yalla!’ a man urged loudly, and Maggie knew they were being told to hurry.
‘Please...’ she begged, not just because she was being kidnapped, but because surely it was way too windy to fly. Nothing she said or did made a difference; Maggie knew she was outnumbered and knew somehow that it was better to save her energy than to fight.
And still she refused to cry.
Careful what you wish for!
Just a few hours ago, Maggie had silently bemoaned the fact she was not deeper in the desert, and now she watched as it spread like a never-ending ocean beneath them.
It was not the first time Maggie had been wrenched from her bed.
Memories were stirring and she tried to stuff them down, but as they grew stronger she gave in, for there was strange comfort to be had in remembering those days.
As she looked through childhood memories with adult eyes, she found she could make sense of things. Time had given her perspective; what had happened to her made far more sense now than it ever had when she had been living through it.
The memories came thick and fast now. The drenching light and her bedroom full of strangers had, in fact, been the first responders when her mother had taken a serious turn for the worse.
Erin had called for an ambulance and, Maggie realised now, she must have told them she had a child sleeping in the flat.
It had felt like an invasion at the time—being lifted from her bed and carried to an ambulance.
She had held her mother’s hand throughout the journey and told her she loved her over and over. At the hospital she had been led to a small room to wait and it had been there she had been told that her mother was dead.
That was fear, Maggie told herself as she stared out into the dark night.
She could deal with this.
And there had to be a logical explanation.
She remembered being driven through the night some time after her mother had died.
Again, she had been awoken, seemingly in the middle of the night.
Now, though, she recalled arriving at yet another new temporary accommodation. A couple had been eating their dinner. It had been the middle of winter and dark, but