‘But something happened, Saisha, between you and Vasur?’ Bhavati entwined her fingers and pressed them to her breast. ‘I am thinking this tonight as soon as I saw you.’
‘Yes,’ I said, blushing like a teenage girl, eyes pinned to the remains of the rice on my banana leaf.
‘Kamadeva’s arrow was finding you. Having love—like medicine, isn’t it? Maybe one time is all you are needing, then the key will be fitting. The door opening.’
The curtains to Bhavati’s shrine room wavered in the briefest of cool breezes blowing in from the street.
I slept through dawn, through Jaya Malika’s loping up the stairs to Andal’s shrine, the milking of the cow, and the procession of Andal’s worn garland carried on a priest’s head, down the temple arcade, past her garden to the inner sanctum of the storm cloud
