There Are Rivers in the Sky

As Arthur oversees the excavation at Nineveh, he realizes that many precious antiques and artifacts have been accidentally lost or destroyed in the past. Spending time in Nineveh brings Arthur humility, as he thinks about how even the greatest of empires and civilizations have been met with ruin. 

After work, Arthur returns every day to the Yazidi village. He enjoys spending time with the villagers and wishes to defend them against all the slander they face. He especially enjoys spending time with Leila and listening to her tell stories of the olden times to all the villagers in the evenings; most of her stories feature water. Arthur gifts Leila the qanun that he brought with him from Constantinople.

Over the next few days, the water sources in Yazidi settlements are systematically poisoned, and entire groves of trees are set alight. Khaled, on his way to Zêrav from Baghdad, is worried that they are unsafe and should return to Hasankeyf. However, he trusts that the Kurdish forces entrusted with protecting the village will keep Narin and Besma safe. 

Two days later, the Kurdish forces withdraw overnight from all the Yazidi settlements in Nineveh. Militants arrive at the village where Khaled is staying and round up all the Yazidis. Khaled recognizes the man helping the militants—Hajji Amer, a man whom Khaled previously considered a trusted friend. The militants separate the men and boys from the women and children and give everyone an ultimatum: convert to Islam or die. When the Yazidis refuse the former, the men are all marched away and shot.

Khaled survives the shooting and manages to warn Besma about the militants using the cellphone he has hidden in his sock. He tells them to flee to the mountain, promising that he will try to make his way there. Besma wakes up Narin in the middle of the night, and along with a few other Yazidis she has managed to convince, they all drive off to Mount Sinjar. The caravan of cars is ambushed by ISIS militants lying in wait along the way; a handful manage to escape, Besma and Narin among them, and they join the 50,000 Yazidis fleeing for their lives.

Arthur witnesses the celebrations for Çarşema Sor, the Yazidi new year, in April. Leila sings a traditional song, and Arthur notices that the words are reminiscent of Akkadian, an ancient Semitic language spoken in Mesopotamia. Arthur wonders whether the Yazidis could be descendants of this ancient civilization.

That night, Leila has a vision of a coming massacre. She relates how when the firman strikes, sacred sites will be destroyed, men will be massacred, and women and girls will be abducted. She warns everyone to run to the mountain then and not to go near any source of water. Leila’s premonition weighs heavy on Arthur, and he feels a deep sadness for the Yazidis and their uncertain future.

Zaleekhah finally meets Helen, who tearfully reveals that Lily is in need of a kidney transplant; Uncle Malek is desperately helping them hunt for a donor.

Zaleekhah visits Nen’s tattoo parlor, and Nen’s brother redirects Zaleekhah to the British Museum, where Nen is visiting the Nineveh exhibits. Zaleekhah finds Nen sketching a lamassu, an activity that Nen finds therapeutic. They look at the various exhibits on display, discussing how Ashurbanipal was an extremely learned and well-read king but also one of the most brutal of Assyrian rulers. Nen and Zaleekhah examine the scorched hoof of one of the lamassus, with Nen expressing her belief that it witnessed something terrible. 

Nen reveals that she dealt with mental health conditions growing up and that Ancient Mesopotamia was her imagined sanctuary. She has also struggled with alcohol addiction. Zaleekhah, in turn, confesses that she has been depressed for a long time. That evening, Zaleekhah gets a tattoo on her wrist at Nen’s parlor: “Three marks in blue ink, the colour of lapis lazuli. The sign of water” (368).

One morning, Leila accompanies Arthur to the excavation site. She tells him about her “soul sister” who lives in Castrum Kefa, claiming that that’s where she would go if she ever needed help.

The pasha invites Arthur home again and interrogates him about his work and his friendship with the Yazidis. While Arthur is at the pasha’s place, the qadi visits, and Arthur witnesses the two men make a thinly veiled plan to harm the Yazidis. Arthur excuses himself, and back in the village, he grapples with whether he should tell his hosts what he saw.

Later that evening, Arthur looks through the objects he has brought back from the excavation site and discovers that he has found the missing portion of the tablet. He spots Leila sleepwalking again and whispers out to her, without any hope of being heard, that although he has found what he was looking for, he does not want to return yet because he loves her. However, he has no expectations of reciprocation, as he knows that the Yazidis cannot intermarry outside their sect. Leila, appearing to have heard him, approaches him and kisses him on the cheek before she disappears.

The Yazidis sheltering on the slopes of Sinjar quickly run out of water. A small group breaks away to collect water from a fountain at the base of the mountain for everyone else, and they are ambushed and killed by ISIS militants lying in wait. Besma gives Narin the last drop from a plastic bottle that she has carried; it is the same droplet that fell onto Ashurbanipal’s hair thousands of years ago in Nineveh.

Besma decides to find water for her people using her water-dowsing gift, and she asks Narin to stay behind. Just as she believes that she has found an underground reservoir, however, she is found by five ISIS militants. They also capture Narin, who secretly followed Besma.