Aman opened the box and dug out the palm leaves first. Were these the notes his mother had mentioned? He wanted to study them thoroughly. He pulled out the bundle and untied the string that held them together. They were filled with scribbles and drawings of all sorts, but all in Sanskrit. Aman was unable to decipher more than a couple of words that read ‘The Preservers’.

‘Ma?’ he asked. ‘Can you help me understand—’

‘Uncle Deepak may be of help tomorrow. I don’t understand it myself. That reminds me, I will phone him and let him know we’ll get there early,’ Upasna said, adding sugar to the steaming pan in front of her.

Aman looked at the pan and grimaced. He had to drink a glass of milk before bed every day and despite the extraordinary events, today seemed to be no exception. He turned his attention back to the box. He noticed that the photographs were of his father and a group of men—all bare-chested and clad in orange dhotis—standing beside a humongous tree, the likes of which he’d never seen. Aman couldn’t bear to look at his father—he missed him too much, the man he’d known anyway—so he quickly put the photographs away.

He opened the string pouch last. Inside, he found coins made of stone. They had rough edges, and unpractised carvings of images of the sun, trees and flowers.

‘That’s enough for tonight,’ Upasna said, holding out the glass. ‘Finish your milk.’

Aman gulped it down in one go. She waited until he was done, switched off the lights and said, ‘Go to sleep now, beta. We have to take the bus to Agra early in the morning.’

As he prepared to go to bed, Aman couldn’t recall the last time he had felt such anticipation. He could tell that his life was about to change forever. His feelings of resentment against his mother had dissipated. She’d finally taken the lid off the box of secrets about Avi Chandra, quite literally, and handed it to him.

So, the last thing he wanted was to continue keeping his own secrets. But he had one, buried deep in his bag. He waited for his mother’s light snores to begin. After a while, he expelled his breath and slowly stood up. He tiptoed to his school bag and pulled out the gift Prakash had given him.

He looked at his mother once more and slowly flipped the book open. One thin cannabis cigarette and a matchbox were neatly tucked inside a rectangular hole at the centre of the pages.

He collected the items and put the book back into his bag. Stealing into the balcony, he peered over the railing to make sure there was no one below. And then he let go: the joint and the matchbox soon fell from his hand into the darkness of the street.

I was right to reject it earlier; now I will never touch it again, he told himself.

Aman went to sleep, feeling lighter than he had in years. He didn’t know it then, but he would later tell many of his dream that night. In the dream, he was on a cliff in the middle of nowhere and jumped off it against his will. But instead of falling, he only rose up, until he was above the clouds. Somehow, he was flying over a dark forest, and he could see a valley below. It seemed as though God had sculpted the ring of mountains that hid the valley within the woods. In the middle of it lay a lake. The moon shimmered in its rippling waters, and the lake’s shores glowed with extraordinary vitality.