The city is waking up to a new day. We pause a minute, appreciate the heat already pronounced in the air, and then plunge into the chaos. The middle worlders whom we think safe are the ones we follow. Initially, they think us human and ignore us, but when we insist on talking to them, they realize we see them for what they are. Some of them question us, curious about who we are and what we’re doing in Agra. We give them nonanswers or elaborate lies.

We ask our own questions, like where to find the most delicious sabzi, which shops to go to, and, most importantly, who to be careful of in this city. We listen to what they say and we hear what they don’t.

Many middle worlders congregate in places thick with magic, and so we travel by rickshaw to monuments that serve as homages to human brilliance; we go to the Red Fort and spend a few hours walking around the Sheesh Mahal, wandering through the Anguri Bagh, and drinking in the hallowed splendor of Nagina Masjid. We find pockets of middle worlders, and all of them have something to say about Baarish. We do not even need to direct these conversations. These places we mention, though just words on a page to you, are steeped in history and memory. How can we hope to convey even a tiny bit of that to you? Due to the many lives lived and lost in these places, the magic is potent here, like deep wine. Those of the middle world who linger here are full to the point of spilling over from the power in these places. They speak far more easily than middle worlders hungry for magic would.

In a dim, crowded restaurant, over a silver thali containing little bowls of sambar, tamarind chutney, sabzi, and potato-stuffed parantha, we listen to a not-human girl tell us about Baarish’s grandsons (he has more than five) and her escape from them. It is not a pretty story, and she doesn’t dress it up as such. She shows us her scars.

On our way to yet another place with deep magical wells, we see a little human girl holding a broom in the doorway of a shop, staring at a bunch of giggling schoolchildren with such naked longing on her face that we pause, unsure how to respond. In the next moment, a woman comes and drags her inside by the ear.

In the late afternoon, we pass a market and we see a young woman holding plastic bags filled with groceries in one hand and a little baby in the other. Two little ones hang on to the pallu of her sari. She walks behind a man who swings his empty hands while walking, whistling as he ogles the women he passes.

When the sun fades into red streaks in the sky, we return to the hotel.