“This is lake water sourced from India. It is supposed to open your senses to magic,” a shop assistant says, appearing beside her. “Would you like to try it?” Paheli stretches out a hand in response, and the shop assistant uncorks the flask and sprinkles some of the water onto her outstretched palm. The water falls on the embedded star and immediately turns into steam. Paheli looks at the shop assistant blankly. “It’s not supposed to do that.…” The shop assistant gives her a suspicious look and, making an excuse about stocking, leaves.

We wait for some tragedy to befall us, but nothing happens. “It wasn’t a true conjury,” Paheli mutters, turning around to look at some bird skulls. Ten minutes pass as she examines everything on the shelves.

Suddenly, we hear Talei’s piercing whistle. We exit the store to find that clouds have taken over what was a clear sky just a few minutes ago. Taraana is frozen, his eyes on the sky.

“What is it?” Paheli asks, and grabs his hand.

“He travels by thunderstorm,” Taraana whispers.

“Show-off,” Paheli grumbles just as thunder shakes the old bones of the House of Voodoo and the store’s wooden sign lurches in the sudden wind. “Let’s go.”

We take a few steps out of the cover of the store awning and rain hurls down, punishing in its fury. Humans run for shelter while we look around for a wall uninterrupted by windows. We find a wall separating a garden from the sidewalk, and Paheli runs her fingers down the cement.

“Call a door,” she tells Taraana. She could do it, but she chooses to make him take the first step.

He cannot stop shaking.

“Taraana,” Paheli says, reaching up and cupping his cheek. “Listen to me.”

He blinks as if emerging from a trance. He lays a trembling hand on the wall. A door with its edges gleaming in gold appears. Thunder booms again and the skies crack open. We watch Baarish descend from a staircase made of what look like clouds. Before he can reach the ground, we are gone.

Some days we don’t get out of bed. We can’t. We fold in on ourselves and retreat from the world—and each other. We do not smile, joke, or pretend that everything’s okay. Some days we let the dark we carry inside slip out and cover all the colors we surround ourselves with. We cry softly and loudly—a broken anthem for our girl nation. On these days, the minutes stretch into hours and the hours become small eternities. We sink to the very bottom, and because we are among comrades, we emerge unscathed but for the wounds on the inside. The wounds that will never heal. The wounds that we have learned to live with.

The Library of the Lost and the Stories of the Silenced

I.