"It's been a year since the Big One--the Cascadia subduction zone earthquake--devastated Portland. While Meryem Zarfati's injuries have healed and her neighborhood is rebuilding, her mother is still missing. Refusing to give up hope, Meryem continues to search for her mother even as she learns to live without her in a changed Portland. Along the way, she struggles with her Jewish-Vietnamese heritage and what it means to honor her ancestry. After she receives a magical prayer shawl handed down from her maternal grandmother, a mysterious stranger appears and Meryem is called to save a young girl living in slavery--in sixteenth-century Istanbul. The third companion in the Oregon Book Award-winning Blue Thread series explores how we recover--and rebuild--after the worst has happened."-- From back cover.