another bride immediately, without the stigma of divorce. And that meant Amma would hunt Megha down and kill her with her own two hands to get what she wanted.
That left Megha with no place to go and no one to turn to. She was alone in the world—completely alone. She had no home and no family to speak of anymore. All at once, desolation struck her. Blind to the dust and debris around her, she sank to the footpath for the second time and buried her face in her hands. What was she going to do?
Hard, painful sobs racked her body as she surrendered to the hopelessness that engulfed her.
Her father would never be able to come up with the dowry. So why had he promised the Ramnaths a dowry he couldn’t afford? How could her parents do this to her? She would have been better off remaining a spinster. Was marriage so important in a woman’s life that cruelty and even death wouldn’t be considered too great a sacrifice? Why did people like her parents insist on having children they could ill afford in the first place? Just so they could give them away in marriage to murderers? Didn’t a precious human life mean anything anymore?
In that instant, she hated her parents with a passion she never knew she was capable of. In fact, she loathed them even more than she loathed Suresh and her in-laws. She could never forgive her father for this. He was a monster for selling her to the lowest bidder.
But she despised herself more than anyone. Why hadn’t she had the guts to stand up to her father and refuse to marry that ass named Suresh? Why hadn’t she lashed out at Amma and her meanness? After hearing about the murder plans why hadn’t she marched over to the neighbors’ house and summoned the police? Because she was afraid.
Once the cathartic weeping fit was over, Megha wiped her eyes and began to think hard and take stock of her situation. Most important, she was still alive. And her chief priority was to stay alive. She had to get out of the immediate vicinity first—find a relatively safe place to hide. Ignoring the small puddle of blood her injured foot had left behind and the throbbing pain, she looked around, trying to figure out which direction to take. And she froze.
A man sitting huddled under a sheet was watching her from several feet away. Where had he come from? Had he been there all along, observing her while she had taken cover behind the box and then cried like a baby? Why had she not noticed him all this time?
When she glanced at him again, he rose to his feet, dropped his sheet and stretched to his full height. He was looking directly at her. Something about the tense stillness of his body told her he was going to make a move on her any second. He had the look of a predator, crouching, silently poised to pounce on its prey. He started to walk toward her. His white teeth flashed at her in the muted light—a sinister smirk that terrified her to the very marrow of her bones.
Dear God, he probably thought she was a prostitute, ripe for the taking! She had never been out on the streets alone at this time of night. She had no idea what kinds of peril stalked the town after midnight. Purely on instinct she shot to her feet. Sprinting across the street, she lost herself in the shadows of a dark alley. The fog seemed thicker there, making it hard to see anything, but she ran on.
She heard the man’s footsteps behind her. He was now running to catch up with her. Since he had probably not expected her to take off so abruptly, he might have been taken by surprise, and that fact alone had allowed her a few precious moments to get a head start. But she was still in serious danger. His feet were pounding the alley’s surface.
Her breathing began to deteriorate into desperate huffing. Nothing could have been more terrible a few minutes ago, she’d thought. She was wrong. Things had just gone from bad to worse, to much, much worse! Just as she was running to save her life from a fiery death, a derelict man had discovered her—was chasing her. I can’t allow him to get me! He will not rape me…I won’t let him, she vowed in silence, staying in motion with difficulty. But how long could she elude him?
Ahead she noticed a large wall looming to her right. A stone wall encompassing someone’s property, she guessed. Sliding to a stop for one breathless moment, she quickly studied the wall. Surrounded by darkness, it was impossible to tell whether there was a gate in it. There was only one thing she could do: climb over the damned wall and take her chances with a vicious guard dog. If she kept running she’d soon be out of strength and eventually collapse. Her hunter would catch up with her. He had looked big and muscular—a man accustomed to the hard, violent life on the streets.
She eyed the wall again. Could she scale it? The man was gaining ground behind her. She could feel his presence closing in. It was now or never. Clenching her teeth hard with the effort, she gripped the top edge of the wall, pulled herself up with one strong thrust and vaulted over it.
With a dull thud she fell into a garden of some kind, wincing as her bottom hit the hard ground and her arms and legs got scratched some more by low-lying plants. Swallowing against the sharp sting, she gave herself a moment to recover then tried to rise to her feet. She couldn’t—her legs were paralyzed rubber. Could she have broken a bone somewhere?
Setting all thoughts of injury aside for a second, she cocked her ears to listen for sounds. The hastening steps were unmistakable. He was coming! She’d made it over the edge not a moment too soon. Her pursuer had reached the spot where she’d been standing mere seconds ago, and come to a stop. She could hear his labored breathing clearly on the other side. Even the combined stench of his stale-liquor breath and body odor was wafting up and over the barrier.
Paralysis worked to her advantage, however, since she seemed to have frozen on the spot, although she hoped her own hard wheezing wasn’t too loud. Even the beat of her heart sounded like drumbeats. With any luck, the miserable bastard was too intoxicated to be able to hear well.
For what seemed like endless minutes, Megha heard the man inhale deeply. Did he know she was on the other side? Is that why he stood there, waiting for her to reappear?
She glanced about in panic, looking for an alternate escape route in case the man decided to scale the wall and come after her. A large house stood in the background, shrouded in dark silence. If there was a way around the house, she couldn’t see it. Thank God there was no sign of guard dogs. Maybe there was a garden tool or a piece of wood or something she could use to defend herself. But it was too damned dark to see anything. The fog was proving to be one hell of a nuisance.
“Kidhar gayi salee?” she heard the drunkard murmur in Hindi. Where did the whore go?
So he didn’t know where she was! Megha exhaled a deep but quiet sigh. Thank you, God! The bum hadn’t seen her leap over the wall after all. Good thing she was wearing a dark sari. And the fog, which she had considered a curse a second ago, was proving to be a blessing in some ways.
She seemed safe for the time being. But she didn’t slump in relief or budge from her spot despite her temporary sense of reprieve. The man was still very much there. She could hear the profanities he kept grinding out and his cough, a deep, guttural, phlegm-packed sound typical of people who smoked beedis: tobacco leaves hand-rolled into tubes that resembled thin cigarettes. A beedi was the poor man’s cigarette.
After a minute, Megha’s brain thawed a little and her numb limbs seemed to come semi-alive. She flexed her hands, wondering if she would be able to climb back over the wall. What if that wretched beast decided to camp out right there for the night?
Another round of panic shot through her when something soft skittered past her feet. Snake? She was terrified of reptiles. Or was it a rat? She hated rats, too. Could it be the blood oozing from her injured foot that was attracting some kind of blood-sucking creatures? She sat still, hoping to play dead. Maybe they’d sniff and go away.
God, what had
