Ajji has gone there that evening because Gowra has been playing kuntebille and marakothi with Byregowda the whole day and is too tired and sleepy to take Annaiah his food. As she approaches the temple, she sees a form standing near the banyan tree. She peers, but cannot make out who it is in the gloom. Then she stops, a wave of gladness and sorrow washing over her as she hears her sister’s voice softly calling her name. It is indeed Chikthayi, looking tired and haggard. Ajji looks at her worriedly. Has she come all the way from her distant village by herself? There is no sign of her brother-in-law or the child.

Chikthayi is looking at the temple entrance. Ajji looks too. Annaiah is standing there, guzzling from his goatskin pouch, one arm stretched to the sky, unaware of their presence. The moonlight outlines every line of his naked upper body as it stretches out, light, airy and angular, reaching for the source of the light.

Ajji averts her eyes but Chikthayi goes chalk-white, drawing in a swift, sharp breath. Ajji puts out a hand to touch her, then thinks better of it and doesn’t. She just stands there silently. Finally the tension leaves Chikthayi’s body. Ajji doesn’t have to look. She knows Annaiah has gone inside, out of Chikthayi’s line of vision.

Speaking as though she is reciting a poem, learnt with difficulty, Chikthayi tells her story. Last year, on the night of Putti’s seventh tithi oota, she sneaked out of the house when everyone was asleep. Ajji knows that is not true: she herself stayed awake all that night, soothing Chikthayi through her fever, putting wet cloths when her forehead burnt. Ajji knows that she closed her eyes only when the first rays of the sun came up over the horizon. But she says nothing.

Chikthayi says that she came here, to the banyan tree by the wall, where she and Putti last saw Annaiah. She knew he would be waiting there and he was. He opened his arms to her and she, starved for him, rushed in. He lifted her up, onto the banyan tree branch that went over the wall. Knowing what she had to do, Chikthayi scrambled over, like Putti had all those years ago, and Annaiah followed.

Once across, Chikthayi looks around her at the strange, shining world she finds herself in. All her senses seem meaningless here. Annaiah pulls her into his lap and leans against the banyan tree root.

Annaiah’s vision merges with hers. She sees with his eyes the gigantic stalks of the flowers in Deyi Baidethi’s garden growing as big as boulders. The large ruby-red jayatilake; the pumpkin-sized blue-green suramohika; the lilac-shaded cone-like ananyamohini; the snake-shaped black-yellow-gold nagakanya peeping from under a leaf; and a myriad others in the wildflower garden leading to a centre pulsing with energy.

Chikthayi closes her eyes as the shock of the radiance hits her. Annaiah turns her around to face him. It was just like that time, leaning on the wall of Dasegowda’s house. He slowly loosens her tight braid to caress her scalp. He is really there. Annaiah. Touching her, holding her, caressing her.