Paper Confines

xiii. Liebestraum

Sachiv grumbled. "You better find her before she runs off."

"I locked the doors," said Aavyan, who Nadya had hated since she could understand what hatred was.

"Then you better find her before anyone gets back!"

"Yeah," Vrushika agreed.

Nadya didn't even have it in her to roll her eyes. She stood slowly and kept to the walls. In the kitchens, her eyes were drawn naturally to the mural abreast the teacher's lounge, framed by stained glass, by Anglian Jesus, by twin tables sheathed in altar cloths. Nadya thought of the shrines scattered around Walkeshwar Temple, the birds chirping around the Banganga Tank in the morning, flowers and coconuts laid out on coloured cloths.

She clambered into the teacher's lounge on small, clumsy feet. The tables sat unattended, a few spoons staining the white handkerchiefs brown where they'd been abandoned mid-lunch, glasses half-full of liquid dark and red enough to be wine, chairs pushed from their designated slots. The details of the windows were clear here like she hadn't noticed on the other side. She couldn't remember the names of the men in the glass: the three who brought gifts to Mary and Joseph, but they carried gold, frankincense, and myrrh. She could remember that.

Her arm stung again.

Nadya pressed on the wound and winced, and suddenly there were footsteps outside again.

"We must have missed her in here," said Aavyan.

Nadya ducked under a table and the cloth fluttered behind her.

"Surely not."

"We've looked everywhere else! Aavyan said he locked the doors inside."

"Who checked the back?"

"I did," said Vrushika.

"Probably did a sorry job," Sachiv muttered.

The kitchen doors creaked open and wobbled shut. Nadya's heart hammered in her chest. She'd cornered herself.

She heard the cupboard she had previously been hiding in slide open, and Vrushika snickered. "There's blood in here."

"Vrushie's a dog," Aavyan said, snorting through his nose theatrically, "with that big nose."

Nadya heard a weak slap, and assumed Vrushika had whacked him across the arm.

Sachiv only crooned, "Nadya, we know you're in here."

She shrunk and held herself by the knees, and she felt five years old, sniffling under her covers, hoping her father would comfort her from a nightmare. She heard Sachiv's dress-shoes coming closer.

"You're under here, aren't you?"

"I'll bet," Vrushika whispered.

Nadya heard them lifting fabric, nearer and nearer, the soft clap of wind, and their breaths released upon finding another empty.

A shadow peered from the white lace threading the bottom of Nadya's tablecloth, and she knew his shoes before his face. Sachiv pulled the cloth up, and his eyes were molten under his dark lashes. Nadya held her breath, if only for the fact that she couldn't think of any words.

Sachiv's hair was in a mess over his eyes, and Vrushika crouched beside him; her dark pigtails frizzy at the ends, Nadya noticed spitefully, just like her own.

"Found you," she said with a grin.

Sachiv grabbed her by the arm and pulled Nadya out.

She cried. He was pressing into the cut he'd made, and he knew it. "A teacher will come!" she exclaimed, "Mr Malhotra! The big man will, and you'll be—"