DANA MARDUK

The Beginning

Pori QT lay awake in her bed, staring through her bedroom window at the wide, glittering night sky above “Rasht”, the green rainy city of northern Iran, near the Caspian Sea.

Outside, the world was quiet, but not completely silent. Rasht was never truly silent. Even at night, it seemed to breathe. Somewhere far away, a dog barked softly. A gentle wind moved through the leaves of the orange and pomegranate trees in the garden. The air smelled of rain, wet soil, and the green forests that stretched toward the mountains. If Pori listened carefully, she imagined she could almost hear the Caspian Sea whispering from far beyond the rooftops.

The stars were shining between slow-moving clouds. In Rasht, the sky was often covered with mist and rain, so whenever the stars appeared, they felt like rare guests visiting from another world. Tonight, they seemed brighter than usual, as if they were holding secrets just for her.

Pori loved the stars because her grandfather, “Bapir Setareh”, had loved them too. He had been Kurdish, a man of mountains, stories, and ancient memories, but he had also loved the green north, where “Nane Rana”, Pori’s grandmother, had been born. He used to sit with Pori near the window on rainy nights and tell her that every star might have its own world, and every world might have its own people, and every people might have discovered secrets that Earth had not found yet.

Three months had passed since Bapir had left the world, but Pori still felt that part of him lived somewhere in the sky. She missed his voice. She missed his stories about the Simorgh, the Zagros mountains, and brave heroes who walked into darkness because someone they loved needed saving.

She hugged her pillow tightly.

Since Bapir’s death, Nane Rana had become quieter. Before, she had filled the house with warmth, laughter, and the smell of northern food: herbs, garlic, walnuts, pomegranate paste, smoked rice, and tea from the green hills of Gilan. She used to tell Pori stories about Rasht, about the rain, about the Caspian Sea, and about the old houses with wooden balconies and gardens full of flowers.

But now Nane Rana moved more slowly. She sat for long hours beside the window, looking out at the rain as if she were waiting for someone who would never return. Sometimes she forgot where she had placed her glasses. Sometimes she began a sentence and never finished it. Sometimes she smiled at Pori, but the smile looked tired.

Pori was nine years old, but she knew something was wrong.

She did not want to lose Nane Rana the way she had lost Bapir. She did not want to simply accept that people grow old, become sick, forget, weaken, and disappear from the lives of those who love them. Everyone said this was life, but Pori felt deep inside that there had to be more to the story.

On her desk lay her purple notebook, the one Bapir had given her before he passed away. On the cover was a golden “Simorgh” with its wings open wide. Hidden inside the back pages was the strange feather Bapir had once placed in her hand. It shimmered with colors that were difficult to name: silver, gold, green, and blue, like sunlight touching the Caspian Sea after rain.

“One day,” Bapir had told her, “when the moment is right, this feather will show its power.”

Pori had never forgotten those words.

She looked from the notebook back to the sky and whispered, “Bapir, if you can hear me, please help me. Please help me find the answer. Please help me save Nane Rana.”

For a while, nothing happened. The room stayed quiet. The house slept around her. Somewhere downstairs, her mother Mina had left a soft melody in the air, as if even her silence was musical. Her father Dana had finally stopped working and gone to rest. Her older brother Arsam was probably asleep too, though Pori knew he would pretend tomorrow that he had stayed awake longer than everyone.

Pori kept looking at the stars.

Then, high above the wet rooftops of Rasht, beyond the dark trees and the misty air, one star blinked brighter than all the others.

Pori sat up slowly.

The star blinked again.