Kimya was born in an Anatolian village near Konya, and as a child she went into trances when she would black out and enter another dimension losing all track of time, and that her love for God was all-consuming, shaping what she became. As a young child Kimya frequently wonders, "Why am I alive? Where was I before I was born?" She appears to have been where Rumi and Shams are long before she meets them. Following one of her reveries she tells her mother sobbing, "I was somewhere where I was so happy. Then it was all over." Maufroy writes about it

"And for a second it seemed the child had been touched by a beam of light."

In turn, Kimya's Greek Christian mother Evdokia wonders how Kimya happen to be her child, and her Turkish Muslim father Farokh jokes whether perhaps she might be a witch. Both parents feel she does not "belong" to them.

Author infuses the pages of her book with narration of how Farokh talks of nearby cities, Konya and Laranda, where his cousins used to visit and would return to tell stories about houses carved out of stone and "people speaking strange languages and wearing even stranger dresses." Kimya's father tells his inquisitive daughter of his nomadic childhood herding goats and sheep, bartering and selling milk, cheese, wool, and rugs, while living in tents made of felt, looking up to shamans for spiritual guidance.