‘Praise the lord! Finally, our saviour, the Eka, has arrived,’ Aarti pronounced upon seeing him. Payal laughed.

All right then, Aman noted. This is going to be no different from school. He didn’t know them yet, but in the front row, close to the podium, sat Idhika and the bespectacled Dhara, both looking ahead intently, unaware of each other’s presence. Fayza sat farthest away, at the edge of the glade, increasingly sceptical of her place in Vanyasa. A few paces away from her were Jagrav and Savitri, chattering away. Ujal sulked by himself, twitching, eyeing his sister, Prithvi, who sat with Aarti and Payal, like sycophants, by the podium, a little away from the Child of the Valley.

Aman thought it best to sit away from Aarti and settled beside Fayza.

‘Don’t worry,’ Fayza whispered in Aman’s ear. ‘She’s playing mind games. Aarti’s as clueless as you or me.’ Macchli, a brown-furred dog, bounced over to Aman, wagging her tail, and sniffed him. Fayza flinched, but resumed, whispering, ‘The only one who isn’t clueless is the Child of the Valley—there’s always one native among the Souls of Samsara. She might truly be the Eka.’

‘Who? Then why put me through Adwaita?’ he asked.

‘Because there is no way to know for sure,’ she said, eyeing Idhika. ‘The Child of the Valley was born here. She’s immune to Madhu, so there can’t be any Adwaita for her. Only time will tell if she’ll lead our Mahayatra.’

‘Huh?’ Aman recalled the Mahayatra as something Sanaka had mentioned.

‘Okay. You’re clearly more clueless than I am. The Mahayatra is why we’re here. It’s the final test to determine if we are fit to join this place as permanent residents, obviously notwithstanding whether or not we want to live here at all. Some actually do. I believe the tribal twins as well as your biggest supporter, Aarti, want to excel here; she’s set to step up as the Eka.’

Aman and Fayza sat close together, their knees only separated by the breadth of a needle, touching every now and then. He found himself stealing glances at Fayza. It had been so long since he had had a genuine conversation with someone his age. He constantly grounded himself, not forgetting he was destined to be an outsider.

Fayza asked, ‘So . . . what’s your name, Eleven?’

‘Aman.’

‘Tell me, did you have someone special in the plains?’

That was out of the blue, and although this was the first time they’d met, something about her reminded him of the past. Aman mustered up the courage to meet Fayza’s eyes. He saw the small mole on her temple half-hidden behind the frame of her glasses, the thin scar at the end of her right eyebrow, her eyes which looked like pools of honey. He tried to think of where else he’d seen the same mole and scar. He felt a gush of comfort and found himself wanting to tell Fayza about his whole life, and his trip to the valley—from the moment his mother had left him on the bus to when he passed out on the bridge. But he stayed silent. That just wasn’t him, the speaking kind, the trusting kind. So, he chose not to mention any of it, not even the cardboard box he now so desperately wanted.