I looked at my hands. They were still wrapped around the pestle. My knuckles were white.
The dark under the jackfruit tree was absolute. But shapes moved there. Two men, low to the ground. One held a jute sack. The other—his hand was over Meera’s face. She was kicking, her small legs flailing, her eyes wide as broken plates. night attack on my little sister
Behind us, the man with the broken wrist was shouting. The other was groaning. But we knew the path to the headman’s house—every root, every turn. We ran barefoot through thorn and stone, and Meera did not make a sound. Not one. I looked at my hands
“Let her go,” I said. My voice belonged to someone else. Someone older. Someone who had already died once and had nothing left to lose. The dark under the jackfruit tree was absolute
The next morning, my mother washed Meera’s feet. There were cuts on the soles. She did not cry.
I swung the pestle.
Some attacks are not survived by bravery alone. Some are survived because a little girl refused to make a sound, and her older brother refused to be a child any longer.