In the chap­ter titled “By the Riv­er Tigris, 2014,” Nar­in engages her grand­moth­er in a con­ver­sa­tion about the Flood, a sig­nif­i­cant event in their her­itage. Intrigued, Nar­in asks how it start­ed, prompt­ing her grand­moth­er to recount the tale of a sin­gle drop of water that her­ald­ed the impend­ing dis­as­ter. This drop esca­lat­ed into relent­less rain, ulti­mate­ly drown­ing the land and claim­ing many lives. How­ev­er, they, as Yazidis, were saved by a coura­geous woman named Pira-Fat, who float­ed above the chaos and pre­served their seeds, allow­ing them to repop­u­late the earth after the waters reced­ed.

Narin’s curios­i­ty expands as she learns there were poten­tial­ly mul­ti­ple Floods: the first affect­ed the chil­dren of Adam and Eve, while the sec­ond direct­ly impact­ed the Yazidis. This lega­cy of sur­vival rais­es ques­tions for Nar­in about divine inten­tions behind such calami­ties. Her grand­moth­er sug­gests these tri­als may serve as cleans­ing events meant to address human mis­deeds but empha­sizes her belief that God’s nature is one of benev­o­lence, steer­ing clear of delib­er­ate pun­ish­ment. She com­pares the world’s ongo­ing chaos to yogurt – still roil­ing beneath the sur­face, sym­bol­iz­ing the cycles of nature and his­to­ry, known as dewr.

The nar­ra­tive shifts to their fam­i­ly heir­looms stored in an ornate chest, which holds trea­sures like cro­cheted doilies and a dec­o­ra­tive qanun, an instru­ment with ties to Narin’s father. One poignant object is an ancient slab of clay inscribed with sym­bols, passed down from Narin’s great-great-grand­moth­er Leila, a gift­ed heal­er and divin­er, who once prac­ticed the art of see­ing the future. Narin’s grand­moth­er fond­ly recounts Leila’s beau­ty and tal­ent, intro­duc­ing a new dimen­sion to their family’s lega­cy.

How­ev­er, this gift comes with per­il. Div­ina­tion, as her grand­moth­er explains, can lead to pro­found pain and trau­ma, par­tic­u­lar­ly after wit­ness­ing a grim pre­dic­tion that scarred Leila for life. Fol­low­ing this event in Nin­eveh, Leila renounced her prophet­ic abil­i­ties, assert­ing that future gen­er­a­tions should avoid such bur­dens. Instead, they embraced their abil­i­ty to locate water under­ground and heal­ing, main­tain­ing a con­nec­tion to their her­itage while adapt­ing to the hard­ships they face.