“You saved her,” my mother said to me.
I swung the pestle.
Not at his head. My grandmother had taught me: Aim for the hand that holds the weapon. A man without a hand is just a man. night attack on my little sister
That night, Meera slept on the cot again. She held my hand so tight that her small nails left crescents on my palm. And I did not let go. Not when the jackal howled. Not when the wind moved the trees like fingers. Not even when sleep finally came, heavy and dreamless.
I saw her bite his finger.
We burst into the headman’s courtyard, and I banged on the iron bell meant for fires and floods.
I grabbed Meera’s hand. Her fingers were ice. Her palm was wet—not with blood, but with her own sweat and terror. “You saved her,” my mother said to me
It was a night sewn shut with clouds, no moon, no stars—just the thick, breathing dark of our village on the edge of the forest. I was twelve, my little sister Meera was seven. We shared a string cot on the verandah because the summer heat made the tin-roof house feel like a kiln.