In the Shadow of Crows Read Online Free Page A

think too long, she would unleash a weeping cry for the loss of her daughters that would never cease. Every day she doubted that she had made the right choice for her girls. So every night she reminded herself of their shared hunger, huddled together for sleep in the bamboo hut they had built for themselves on the abandoned burial ground, the only land for which nobody demanded payment.
    There had been a time, and not so long ago, when there had been no hunger in their home, with food enough for all six members of the family. Food enough, until the day Kailash had not come home. He had been a good husband and father, a good friend. Now waiting for her tonight were just the two boys, Jyothi and Jiwan. Light and Life. So long as they kept hunting out wild iskus and tapioca roots in the forest, they could manage. So long as they still came home with a pocket of spilled grain collected from the roadside, she could keep them together a little longer.
    It was as she approached the shaktiko roukh , the dedicated Shakti Tree, its broad trunk bound with offerings of coloured thread, that Bindra slipped and fell on the stones.
    â€œTwice in an evening, you clumsy thing!” she groaned. “Come on now, you’re better than this.”
    Bindra sat to rub her shins and elbows with wrists and forearms. “No harm done,” she assured herself.
    It was dark beneath the spreading branches. Bindra found her way to the painted image of Durga that lay embraced amongst the tangle of roots, daubed with dung paste. She sought the remains of any sidur at the feet of the tiger-riding goddess and marked her own forehead with a smear of the scarlet pigment, to remind herself that she was as much an expression of the universal forces represented by Durga as the bark of the distant dogs, the moon above, the breath in her lungs.
    â€œJaya Ma,” she voiced into the darkness. “Give me victory.” Bindra took a carrot from her bundle and winced at the deficiency of her gift as she placed it amongst the roots.
    â€œ Aung hring dhung Durga devyai namah-aung ,” she repeated, even as her voice wavered and the hands clasped at her heart trembled. She had determined to invoke the strength and wisdom in herself to overcome what she knew to be her gathering enemies, Fear and Despair.
    As she approached the shack, Bindra could see through the wide gaps between the bamboo slats that her two boys already had a low fire burning on the mud floor. With a single call, they came running to relieve her of her bundle.
    â€œWhat did you sell, Ama ? And what did you buy?” they both asked with excitement.
    â€œNothing and . . . nothing!” she smiled with disappointment. “But fetch the tasala and I shall make us a feast!”
    The boys cheered just to brighten her and ran to lift the blackened pan from its hook on the wall.
    As Jiwan turned, his face drew tight with horror.
    â€œ E Ama !” he gasped, his finger pointing to the little toe on her right foot. Whilst they had seen it gradually curling under during the past months, the toe was now twisted, torn and bleeding.
    Bindra looked down and cried aloud at the sight of tattered flesh and splintered bone.
    She had not even noticed.
    ***
    I met Priya at a party.
    My eyes were first drawn to the Siouxsie Sioux backcomb as it bobbed through a crowded, monochrome kitchen. I had heard her name for weeks as two acquaintances had independently confided that they intended her for themselves. I leant with calculated disinterest against the black Formica breakfast bar to watch Tom and Toby take their turns with practised chat and artful nonchalance. I sipped at something sickly in a plastic cup, looking on in envy at their boldness and in pity at the impotence of their stumbling seductions.
    It was as her glazed gaze drifted from their competitive attentions that Priya discovered the intensity of my interest amidst the throng. I felt my face flush furiously, but could not look