It was P’s idea. Her great flash of genius. And of course K and S had to go along.

P was engaged to the zamindar from the next village. The wedding was to be held on the second day after the next new moon. He was at least three decades elder to her. Well everyone couldn’t have K’s luck. She had snagged a groom only ten years her senior. Quite a dashing young man he was;  K’s husband.

But look at S, her husband couldn’t be bothered to hire a new housekeeper after the old one died, so he remarried; for the fifth time. In a way S was lucky. He didn’t do things to her; wheras K’s was always doing things to K. Well of course S’s husbands already had an heir and two spares to boot. Besides he was really sick. P had heard that he had trouble getting out of bed on some days.

But K’s husband…Well he wouldn’t leave her alone till she gave him a son. P felt sorry for her. She wondered how her husband would be. He had a son from his previous marriage. But she had overheard the village gossips talking at the well. He paid a lot of women to pleasure him. They seemed to be convinced that he was taking P, a buxom and healthy girl of thirteen as his wife because he didn’t want to pay them anymore. She wondered how she could pleasure him. She could sing but not as well as S and could dance but was not as graceful as K. Surely there were other girls in the village more entertaining than her.

K never told her what exactly her husband made her do and what he did to her. She always cried whenever P so much as even hinted at it. P hated seeing her cry so never asked. And all S had to tell her was how to look after a sick old man. She thought of asking her mother but discarded the idea as soon as it was formed. She would only get mad at her.

Her father had called her as soon as the man went away. He had come to their house to “see”  her. She had asked her brother why he would come all the way to see her when he claimed that he had seen her at the village fair two weeks back. Her brother had scolded her (quite unnecessarily, she was convinced) for trying to meddle in adult affairs and that the man had come to settle the marriage contract. It was then that she had learnt that she was going to be married to him. Her father had demanded that she keep the man happy always and do everything he told her to do. When she had asked him, what he had to do to make him happy, he had got red in the face and demanded that she be taken away by her mother and taught manners before the marriage.

She liked the idea of marriage. She had lusted after the gifts K had got for her wedding last year and had loved S’s sari at her marriage two months before. She loved dressing up and being the center of everyone’s attraction for one whole day. Everybody called K and S beautiful on their wedding days. She was getting a thrill from just imagining everybody telling her how like an angel she looked in her red sari and gold ornaments. She had always wanted that red sindoor on her hair parting but mother insisted that only married women did that. Well now K and S got to wear it and she felt left out. But for not much longer now…she almost danced for joy.

At the village fair, there had been a man with a weird magic box. He made sit in front of it all dressed up in strange costumes, then disappeared beneath a black cloth behind the box, chanted something and then lightening would come out of the box. He claimed that he could get the box to capture their reflections on paper. She had the paper that her neighbour had purchased from him. It did have her reflection trapped inside it. When P had wondered if she would never ever get to see her reflection in the mirror or the village lake again, her neighbour had laughed and called her silly before telling her that every time a reflection is captured, another one is born to replace it.

But the papers were expensive and though she wanted very much to have S’s and K’s reflections captured with hers, she had no idea how to pay for it, She was never given any money like her brother.

And then the kind man with the box had offered to give it to her in exchange for one of her anklets. So now the three were on their way to get their reflections captured in the box and trapped inside a paper.

They had decided to dress like the white women who had visited last year, P thought the dresses were too cumbersome but S liked them and K just loved the hats the man had in his bag when they had first gone to see him.

So they went and had it done. The next day, when they went to get their paper, he had vanished. The village gossip told them that he had been caught stealing from the village temple and had been chased out in the middle of the night. P asked if he had left something for her, which earned her a withering glare and a command to go home peremptorily.

Well her mother had already bought her story about losing her anklet while bathing in the pond, so no harm was done. But she really wanted the paper with their reflections inside.