Her father had protested, “The people in our community, even the poor, are happy to offer a goat as a gift to the gods. The leopards are more interested in keeping the stray dog population in check than harming us. There’s no issue with livestock. The leopards have been part of our families for generations.”
Those were the last words her father had spoken in public. She always woke at this point, remembering only that they’d taken him that same night. Her entire mind was filled to bursting point with the moment they’d dragged him away and the way he’d looked at her and Bagheera. And how she’d fled to the Christian mission in the south and hidden there for months, a girl without family, community, or hope. She went through the same loop of jumbled images and heartbreak again and again. Why
