Excerpt from The Map of Salt and Stars by Zeyn Joukhadar, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Huda's sneakers cast red afternoon shadows. The high-faced buildings yawn up in yellow and white stone. Somewhere, someone pours a cup of water out a window, and the droplets run white and silver into the gutter.

Huda squats on the pavement in front of me, gathering the folds of her skirt between her knees. "Don't cry," she says. She dries my face with a cotton rose at the corner of her hijab.

"I'm not crying, Huppy." I stab my forearm across my face, missing my nose. Huda gathers me in, and I curve into her like a wooden bowl. She's warm, the heat of her red gold like McIntosh apples. I press my face into the soft folds of fabric where her scarf meets the neck of her shirt.

Zahra's laugh is all gravel. "What are you, three? Nobody calls her Huppy anymore."

I scowl at Zahra. "Shut up."

Huda says, "She can call me whatever she wants to."

We walk in silence the rest of the block to the spice shop, and Zahra dodges my eyes. I should have known better: nobody's said much about Baba since the funeral. Baba is the ghost we don't talk about. Sometimes I wonder if Mama and Huda and Zahra want to pretend his sickness never happened, that the cancer never rotted out his liver and his heart. I guess it's like the spinning game: sometimes you'd rather be on any magic level but your own. But I don't want to forget him. I don't want it to be like he was never here at all.

Inside the spice shop, the shelves are crammed with sacks and tins and jars, open bowls of red and yellow powder with tiny handwritten Arabic labels. A man smiles at us from behind the counter, spreading his hands. I stand on my tiptoes and push my fingers toward baskets filled with whole cloves and uncrushed cardamom pods like tiny wooden beads.

Zahra catches Huda's arm, her bracelet swinging.

"I thought of a game," Zahra says in English so I can understand. She smiles in a slow, careful way that comes off cruel somehow. "Why doesn't Nour ask for the cumin?"

Huda darts her eyes to Zahra. "Don't."

"She can practice her Arabic," Zahra says. She smiles with her hand over her mouth.

The man behind the counter waits, scratching the shadow of his incoming beard. I wipe my clammy hands on my shorts. Outside, the tea seller passes by. "Shai," he calls. "Shai."

I think, Tea. I know that word. I squint at a pull in a tapestry at the back of the shop, a loose thread of red wool shivering under the fan. I try to remember how to say I want.

The man behind the counter asks me a question I don't understand. His voice is all green swoops, the black dots of consonants between them.

"Come on," Huda says, "that's not—"

"Ana..." My voice breaks the heat, and everyone goes quiet. I've only gotten out the word I. I swallow, digging my nails into my palm, using the pain to stop my nerves. "Ana..." My brain pricks and boils, sunbursts of red and pink, and even though I can remember the word for cumin—al-kamun—I still can't remember how to say I want. I must have said it dozens of times, but with everyone staring at me, my mind goes blank.

The man says, "Shu?" What?

"Ana—al-kamun."

The man is laughing.

"You're cumin?" Zahra belly-laughs.

"Ana ureedu al-kamun." I say it again, louder. "I know how to say it. I do!"

"I know you do," Huda says.

Zahra haggles with the shopkeeper. I press my cheek into my shoulder to keep my eyes from tearing. The coins clink in Huda's palm while she counts them. On the way out, she lets out a low whistle. Over my tangle of frizz, she whispers to Zahra, "Mama was right about the price."

On the way home, Zahra refuses to shut up. "What kind of Syrian are you? You don't even speak Arabic."

Inside, I hear what she really means: that I don't know what it means to be Syrian.

Excerpted from The Map of Salt and Stars by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar. Copyright © 2018 by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar. Excerpted by permission of Touchstone. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.