The Seventh Star

Maryam hardly slept that night. She lay under the blanket turning the paper over in her hands, reading the third riddle by torchlight again and again.

The seventh star... from where the light rises...

The mosaic floor in the courtyard was full of stars — eight-pointed stars that craftsmen long ago had made from tiny coloured pieces: blue, white and gold. Maryam knew there was one long row of them stretching right across the courtyard from one side to the other.

"The sun rises in the east," she told Ali early the next morning. "So we have to count the stars from the eastern side."

"And where's the east?" asked Ali, rubbing his eyes.

Maryam smiled. "We'll wait for the sun. It'll tell us."

The two of them sat on the steps, wrapped in one blanket, with Sultan the cat asleep between them. Slowly the sky changed colour: from dark blue to purple, then to pink, then to orange.