She sang the words of the old poets: "Var git ölüm, bir zaman da gene gel..." (Go away, death, and come back another time).

He walked out into the mist without a backward glance. Elif picked up the hourglass. The blue sand began to flow again, but very, very slowly—one grain for every year she had left to sing.

The village of Gümüşakar sat on a jagged tooth of a mountain, so high that the clouds often drifted through the open windows like uninvited guests. In the highest house lived Elif, a woman whose hands were stained permanently purple from the dyes of her looms.

Elif opened the door. There stood a traveler wrapped in a cloak the color of a starless midnight. He carried no bags, only a small, silver hourglass.

As she played, the music seemed to thicken the air. She sang of the smell of rain on dry soil, the weight of a newborn grandchild, and the way the light hits the valley at dawn. She didn't sing to ignore death; she sang to remind death of what it was missing.