Wasn't it yesterday we used to laugh at the wind behind us?

[gotbottle]

It's another slow Monday mid-morning at Twice Sold Tales. Not quite so deadly as the last time the narration visited this establishment on a Monday morning; there are a few people hanging around the store. There just aren't as many as you'd find much later in the day

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[sittinontrains]

Jamal sometimes wanders into places that he doesn't belong.

Okay, so it's more like all the time. He's a curious kid. Plus, he's always looking for the next way he can make another buck, especially now that he has plans for it. Jo and him are going to have a house with real beds and good food. They will be safe.

Safety requires money.

He wanders into Twice Sold Tales, and recognizes the magazines immediately. Jamal doesn't even notice the women reading them. He runs over to the stack so happy to see words that he can read that he picks one off the top, grinning wide. "I know this! I know these words!"

[carefullychosen]

Ananya looks up sharply, surveying the newcomer with a critical eye. She's generally got no use for children, but clearly this one's a long way from home. And he can read what she's got stacked beside her, and he's very excited to be doing so.

Was I ever that age? she wonders idly, eyeing him. The overall effect, however, makes her slightly more indulgent than she normally would be.

"It's been a while since I had occasion to have news from home," she says. "The same for you, then?"

[sittinontrains]

Jamal sets the newspaper down enough so that he can see who it is that's talking to him.

He's still grinning as he nods. "You are from India, too?"

His gaze drifts back to the familiar magazines. He does miss home. He misses his brother and Latika, but at least, he has Jo now even if it's not just her and him anymore in the sewers.

[carefullychosen]

"I am, yes," she replies, setting her newspaper aside. "I'm from Chennai. It's been a very long time since I was home, though. I miss it, at times."

She looks at Jamal appraisingly. "What about you, young man? Are you here with your mum and dad?"

[sittinontrains]

Jamal presses his hand against his chest. "I'm from Mumbai. I miss it, too. I never wanted to leave."

He shakes his head frowning as he touches the pages of the magazines tracing the words with his finger. "No dad. Mom killed. Fell through swirly circle and can't go back."

[carefullychosen]

Ananya chuckles softly. "I couldn't wait to leave Chennai," she confides. Perhaps there's something about talking with a small child that makes one more open to candor. "But I was much, much older than you at the time. I imagine it's a phase all young adults go through. I merely acted on it. I never intended to be away this long, however."

She frowns. "That's no good, yeah? Swirly circle... d'you mean the Rift, little one? You're a Wanderer, then?"

[sittinontrains]

"What made you stay away so long? Can you not go back, too?" If so, Jamal understands that pain. Alas.

He flips through a different magazine scanning the pictures, the advertisements, and reading.

Jamal looks at her, and then nods. "Yes. Someone's called me that before. They called the circle a rift, too."

[carefullychosen]

Ananya watches him flop through the magazine. "So you are one. Pity that." Especially for one so young. Even to someone as generally unconcerned with concepts of right and wrong as Ananya, that seems particularly unfair.

A very faint smile slides across her lips. "I'm not a Wanderer," she tells him. "I suppose, if I wanted, I could go back now. At first I couldn't. There was... some trouble..."

If inciting an entire garrison of British soldiers to suicide could be classified merely as "trouble"...

"...and my father died and it was just altogether too painful to be there. That was many years ago, however. I just haven't tried to go back since."

[sittinontrains]

"You don't want to go back?"

Jamal can't imagine that, but then he has only been away a little while and he was forced away from India.

"I want to. Someday I will go when I get big and strong and have all the money. And I won't live in the slums. I will live in a house with my friend, Jo. And Malek will visit and the man in the tree and Chance. You can visit, too! We'll have pillows and beds and a whirlpool."

[carefullychosen]

"I suppose I hadn't really thought about going back," Ananya muses. "I got so wrapped up in other things. Perhaps I shall, some day soon."

The slums. They had slums in Chennai, too, and Ananya had always considered herself fortunate that--by however slim a margin, sometimes--she and her family hadn't had to live there. "Well," she says, bemused, "if you do go back and get a nice house, and if I go back... I'll have to look you up, yeah?"