‘He uses whatever means he can to recruit,’ Idhika said. ‘But not for too long. There’s been much talk within the Sabha and Samiti about his methods. Once we return—which we shall,’ she said, putting on a brave face, ‘we will expose him, and the Samiti will deliver justice.’

‘Aman,’ Savitri said, ‘how about you?’

‘My mum tricked me,’ he said, sitting up. Fayza continued looking heavenwards, not listening intently like the others, lost in her thoughts. She already knew the story. Aman explained how Sanaka had visited them; how his mother had handed him the cardboard box and promised to take him to Agra the next day; how he’d had an odd dream that night, and then the next day, when he woke up, he had been abandoned in a bus that brought him to the hills. He remembered how unwell and numb he’d felt the entire bus ride, and even later, when he passed out on the bridge in the jungle. That was until Sanaka had picked him up and carried him to Nandana. ‘I was certain I was hallucinating when the tree started moving, trying to kill me, or so I thought. But he was only trying to mend my knee.’

‘Wait, what?’ Lines formed between Idhika’s eyebrows. ‘Back up for me a bit—what did you say before?’

‘Well,’ Aman started, ‘I wasn’t myself the entire day. Very dizzy. Even before we made it to the bus, I had slipped in the bathroom and broken my left knee. It was almost as if I was intoxicated.’

‘No, I meant what you said before that.’ Idhika’s eyes narrowed. ‘About the dream. And why were you dizzy? What did you eat? Anything the day before?’

Fayza sat up. Aman was gazing into the fire. ‘I don’t recall . . .’

‘Think, Aman,’ Idhika said. There was a glint in her eye. ‘Did you eat anything that tasted funny?’

‘What are you getting at, Idhika?’ Fayza said.

‘Wait . . . There was this . . . I had a glass of milk at night, as usual. But it did taste different, now that I think about it.’

‘One final question, Aman.’ Idhika took a deep breath. She looked into the depth of his eyes, and her next question was full of meaning. ‘What exactly did you see in the dream that night?’

Aman froze. His heartbeat skyrocketed. ‘But, but . . . I was . . .’ He was so close. Why did it all seem so familiar? ‘I was flying between the clouds over a valley . . . I think—yeah—there was a lake below. The moon in its reflection. Wait . . . in the middle was . . . the Kalpavriksha, and . . . the man beside the tree.’

‘That’s Sparrow over Vanyasa,’ Idhika said. ‘Pray tell me! Did he look at you? Lord Indra, standing beside the tree. Did he look at you?!’

Aman remembered when he had opened his father’s box for the first time. How his mother had snatched it from him to ‘clean’ it. But there had been a jar in there—that she never returned . . . Madhu! A chill ran through him, his skin tingled, and then, like a blast of cold wind, it hit him. Aman’s face transformed into a mask of disbelief.