Chapter Six

Selvi stared at him, unsure of what to do. Her eyes flicked to the back door. Mother was inside, hopefully busy with her work and unlikely to come out here and see this.

Jansz looked at her in a slow, languid way. If she didn’t know any better, she might have thought he was just lazy and harmless.

She righted the basin on her hip. Her feet were flecked with mud because of the water she’d spilled.

“Here,” said Jansz, holding out something. “I think this is yours.”

Without a word, Selvi held out her hand and he dropped her anklet into it.

“Look,” he said, speaking heavily as if it was a lot of effort for the words to come out. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Selvi decided to stay quiet so he’d keep talking. “We know that was you on the mountains.”

Still she said nothing. He wasn’t very bright. Obviously it was her. She’d admitted as much when she accepted the anklet.

“What you saw before,” continued Jansz. “That was nothing, and none of your business. I want you to forget you saw anything.”

She couldn’t stay quiet anymore. “You can’t go around killing leopards! There are laws—”

He held up a breadfruit-sized hand, talking over her. “Now, if you decided to tell someone . . .” He paused for his words to sink in.

Selvi shifted the basin on her hip. She couldn’t let him threaten her into silence. There was no way she would let him kill Lokka, no matter what it took.

“It’s just you and your mother at home, isn’t it?” Jansz looked back toward the house and stroked his face as if thinking hard. “Wouldn’t be very nice if something were to happen to her.”

A cold fear clutched Selvi. No. Not Mother. She couldn’t let anything—

“Leave my mother alone!” The words came out as a scream, and she had to work hard to stop the shaking in her voice. She took a deep breath and made a decision at once. “You have my word. I won’t tell anyone.”