“Not standing at the foot of the bed. Not hovering in the shadows. Sitting. Comfortably. As if she had been there all evening, waiting patiently for Hari to leave and Ananya to find the courage to open the book. She was exactly as the illustrations depicted her, exactly as Ananya had glimpsed her in the flickering light: short white hair curled close to the skull, dark eyes behind round spectacles, red lips pressed into a line that was not quite a smile and not quite a frown. She wore a black sari—plain, unbordered, the colour of deep water at night—and her hands rested in her lap, the fingers interlaced, the nails painted the same red as her lips.”