Photograph: Lake Köyceğiz, sunset from a jetty · Köyceğiz · small touch, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Alluvium carried by the Dalyan stream filled the Köyceğiz basin over centuries. The lake we see is one moment in a geological process still under way. Small islands sit on the water; Gedova, and the island known locally as Hapishane — Prison — or Aşık — Lovers' — Island, are two of them.11 This is where the narrative spine begins; the other five cases branch from it.