The terminal was a din, commuters bickering in languages she did not understand. A man nearby flailed a flimsy sign on which he had scrawled her name in magic marker. Antsy, his feet rising and falling in place, he stood shorter, stouter, perhaps less intimidating, than Prithviraj.

"Mr. Dalal?" She meandered at his side instead of facing him.

"Aap kaise hain?" His sign sagged to the ground. "You may call me Vaibhav!"

She flinched at his enthusiasm. "Vaib—"

"Come along! Hup! Tut-tut!" He plowed through shoulders while navigating from one end of the terminal to another, startled heads spinning in his direction, Yashvi trailing awkwardly behind him.

"Prithviraj has told me wonderful things about you, ah? Says you're a hard worker, dependable, perfectly behaved!" He tugged her along. "Is this true?"

"I try to be cooperative, Vaibhav, sir."

He chortled, his cellulite-rippled belly bursting out his tank top and jiggling, jiggling. "I can already tell!"

A smile dented her cheeks.

"What do you do for fun, anyway?" he said. "Do you have a favorite movie?"

"I've heard about tons of films but never actually seen one except those that play in stores, which the shopkeepers don't want us ogling."

They reached his van; he unlocked the passenger side first. "Never seen a film, ah? Shame, shame. We'll have to fix that right away. As soon as possible, in fact!"

Glancing intermittently at bystanders, he guided her to the passenger seat. "What would you wish to see?"

"Hmm, there's a movie called—"

The passenger door slammed shut. She peered through the rearview mirror as he sauntered around to the driver's side and plopped on in.

"Anand," she lisped. "A 1970s drama. When I was young, uh, younger, my parents said they'd rent it on DVD for my birthd—"

"Shut up, please." There was no malice in his voice when he said this. It was merely a statement of law: the conversation had ended.

He jammed his key into the ignition, but the van wouldn't start. Up came the hood, smoke enshrouding him as he fumbled and tinkered. "Heap of useless—stupid—bucket of—filth—nonsense—turd—"

In a cloud of exhaust his van eventually pulled out of the lot, and Yashvi saw the terminal shrink away. He adjusted the tuners of his radio. Yashvi hoped he would play music, like Prithviraj does, but instead the babble of newscasters filled the vehicle. She listened without opinion.

A packaged slab of ice thumped into the microwave and rotated, melting into sludge. Yashvi struggled to chew the instant meal, due to its rubbery texture. Vaibhav owned no chairs, no sofas, no kitchen table. He took advantage of her twice, both times on the blanket lain over the floor in the parlor where she was meant to sleep. He yelled all evening long into his cellphone that he clipped to his belt when not in use. She sat on her blanket the whole while, her legs tightly shut, and ate only every other day when he passed her a paper bag dripping grease. He had not addressed her once since the ride from the terminal to his flat, but he exchanged with her brief eye contact.

Next week, as he transported her to be sold, she tilted back the seat of his van so she could gaze straight up skyscrapers, a canopy of cold steel adorned with the many jewels of windows lit from within. Perhaps the student from the terminal was up there, she thought, remembering his teeth, his facial features: so symmetrical and even delicate; the way he'd responded to her as he lingered with his papers, a melody in his voice.

Okay, miss. Thanks again! Thanks so much!

Presently she rolled the window down but a crack and inhaled, almost furtively, praying Vaibhav would not catch her huffing at the night. Her head dipped in fatigue, banging the window on occasion. Traffic rendered every vehicle immobile. Protestors, their signs high, thronged the van, pressed against it. Yashvi placed her hand on the window, on the other side of which a beggar had placed his own hand. She felt his warmth through the glass.

Vaibhav parked in a driveway without streetlamps. His antsiness returned, and he drummed on the steering wheel with his thick wrists. She wanted to pat him, to tell him it was all right. To tell him to count.

A goonda emerged from the flat and gave Vaibhav an upward nod. Vaibhav went to meet him. They strolled out of earshot, but Yashvi watched their mouths move, their hands gesture, and understood. Vaibhav would go no lower than 90,000 rupees and insisted such was more than reasonable. The goonda argued that he could get a better deal elsewhere. Vaibhav threw up his arms. "Impossible!" "Ridiculous!" The goonda said he was willing to pay up to 50,000 rupees. Vaibhav would settle for 80,000, though at this point he considered the other man a thief and would never do business with him again. Vaibhav maintained that no greater bargain than his existed, and he pointed irately into the van, where Yashvi rolled up the window a little at a time.

Such ludicrous business insulted Madam, Vaibhav groused, pounding the earth with his boot. The girl was healthy, young, and teachable. The goonda remained adamant that he should not pay any more than 50,000 rupees and Vaibhav was adamant that he would accept no less than 80,000. After much flying of arms, jolting of heads, and kicking of dust, both men stomped off.

When Vaibhav exploded back into the van, Yashvi was gawking at her lap. Fat idiot, she thought. I could get 100,000 rupees for me, easy. The key is to not get angry. Make them believe you could care less whether you make the sale or not, but that you are merely there to befriend them.

The ignition growled to life. He breathed loudly through his nose. The van did not move yet, only vibrated, grumbling low. Her eyes darted up for a quarter of a second and his fist came careening into the side of her head, knocking her against the passenger door.

A coolness filled her right ear as her vision blurred, her pressure points ablaze, and she fainted against the glass.

"Let me show you something." Prisha taps on one of the floorboards until it pops loose. She lifts it to uncover that she has chiseled out a hole in the subfloor, removed the insulation from between two joists, and created a secret compartment. She sticks her hand inside and removes a small novel. "Check it out!" She tosses the literature up to Yashvi, who fails to catch it, and it bounces off the mattress onto the floor with a racket that causes the girls to cringe.

Prisha sets the floorboard back in place, pinches the splayed book by its spine, plants herself at the foot of the bed, and flips pages. "Did you ever read fiction, Yashvi? You've such creativity already." She reaches a page whose top corner has been folded down. "See, this one's by a fantasy author called Wezley Brookz. It's entitled The Fae Perspective, and it's about Seileah and her mystical adventures through the mountains." She reads, pausing now and again to sound out difficult words: " 'The celebration began with a woodland' . . . kruh-shen-dow . . . 'crescendo, the breezes rose, the leaves swirled in seven swirls, peaking as tiny pan-flutes blew in a final frenzy. The high pitch of ruffling reed' . . . ruh-vur-br-ei-tuhd . . . 'reverberated—then silence.' "

Yashvi crawls across the bed to peer over Prisha's shoulder. " 'As the hush settled into the forest,"—Yashvi's finger moves along each word—" 'all who knew the celebration was to occur in the heart of the hollow, waited for any signs of excitement that would indicate the procession's beginning.' "

"You read better than me." Prisha hands over the book.

" 'The grey poplars,' " Yashvi resumes, " 'had turned silvery-white and the brilliance of sun seemed to point at each colourful gem, brighter than the day, so each one might stand out—gleaming, just for her.'

"Just for her," she repeats silently to herself. "Just for her."

Prisha gathers Yashvi's tresses and braids them. "We can fit more books down there, you know?"

Thread fragments drizzle onto the floor. With a small pair of scissors Madam snips at the stitches of Yashvi's ear, and one by one they unravel.

The wound has sealed, the pain gone, save mild inflammation. There is minimal scarring, though the helix is ever so slightly deformed, causing the right ear to stick more outward than the left, and Yashvi of course sees the change in its dullest hue, exclaiming that her ear resembles the cross section of an artichoke. She covers it with her hair, vowing never to sport a ponytail again.

Madam runs her knuckles gently across Yashvi's temple.

"Something wrong, Madam?" Yashvi shrinks under the old woman's scrutiny.

Madam's eyes gloss over with tears. "Have you seen yourself, child? You're sunlight."