Malini awoke at dawn. The clouds in the east towered into the sky. Birds were calling in the forest – wood pigeons and bulbuls. The thing she was most aware of was the cold. She prepared herself for the first of the day’s complaints from her little sister – probably to do with being hungry and dirty.

But when she turned over, she saw that the rest of the ditch was empty. Malini seized hold of the sari, left draped over the edge of the ditch, as if, impossibly, Banni was hidden beneath it. She leapt from the crater and shrieked her sister’s name. Birds rose from the trees in alarm. Again and again she shouted, rushing first one way and then another. In her panic she even added a threat to her cries. ‘Banni, if you are playing games with me, there will be a smack!’

Where would Banni go? Why would she leave the crater? Was it possible she’d been abducted? No, that was nonsense. This was Banni just being Banni, Malini hoped, finding every way she could to make her sister’s life even more difficult.

Malini shouted until her throat was raw, then, in a lull between cries, she heard a girl’s voice, singing. Malini stood stock-still, trying to pick up the direction. Then she recognised the song – it was the theme song from Sesame Street, a favourite of Banni’s when she was younger.

Relief flooded through Malini like warm honey.

Banni strolled out of the forest towards Malini with a garland of wildflowers in her hand.

Malini kept her temper, just barely. ‘Banni, you mustn’t wander away like that. You made me sick with worry. Why didn’t you answer me when I called you?’

Banni smiled innocently and pushed a strand of hair back from her forehead. She held the wildflowers out to her sister. ‘Mannikkanum,’ she said, apologising. ‘For you.’

‘Thank you,’ said Malini. ‘That’s a lovely thing. But did you hear what I said about—’

‘I wanted to do something nice for you,’ said Banni.

‘Something nice for me?’

‘Yes.’

Malini felt guilty. This was the thing about Banni: she could be a nuisance all day, then suddenly do something so sweet and charming that you felt bad for scolding her.

Malini wrapped herself in her sari and tied on her sandals. She had eaten so little, yet she wasn’t hungry. Her anxiety about her parents had taken away her appetite. She said to Banni, ‘If I can find you some food, I will. But will you be brave until then?’

Banni said, ‘I am always brave.’

The two sisters set off along the forest path, Malini holding in one hand her little garland of wildflowers.

Malini knew that if she started their journey from the heart of the island and chose to go north, south, east or west, they would come to a village within an hour. Her island home, carpeted with small villages, had been settled for thousands of years, and for most of those years, people had grown the food they needed in fields just beyond the fringe of their villages. Many villages were self-sufficient. Within each small community, someone would weave, someone else would have learned carpentry, and yet another villager would know about medicinal herbs. A bone-setter would go from village to village, tending to fractured limbs; a travelling dentist would pull teeth. Villagers usually lived their whole lives in the place where they were born.

Each Tamil village was under the authority of a council of elders, and that council itself was headed by a village chief. Malini knew that if they entered a village on their journey to Ulla Alakana, the chief would take her and Banni under his protection. He would not allow the two girls to wander back into the wilderness in search of their grandfather. Nobody knew what was going to happen now that the war was coming to an end: families scattered all over the place might never find each other again.

But the problem of food was becoming urgent. How could they walk all that distance without nourishment? Malini didn’t know the answer, but she decided never to surrender herself and Banni to a village chief. She told herself, Keep to the plan. Then we have a chance.

Banni’s good mood didn’t last. She went silent for a time, then stopped and sat on the ground. Malini had to coax her to her feet.

Overhead, rainclouds were gathering from the east. The sun became a pale yellow disc lost in the mist.

Banni said, in a strangely grown-up way, ‘It’s too much. I’m only a child.’

Malini said nothing for a minute or more. ‘Banni, in a war there are no children. There are only those who die and those who live.’

‘I don’t care if I die.’

Malini put down her garland and threw her arms around her sister. ‘Never say that. Never, never. At this very minute, Amma is thinking of you. She’s saying, Dear Lord Shiva, keep my baby safe.’

Banni shook her head. ‘I don’t care.’

Malini stroked her sister’s hair and murmured soothing words, thinking, Where will I find food? Where? And as she thought this, her gaze was fixed on something green on a tree a way off in the forest. She didn’t know what she was looking at for a time, and even when she saw the mango clearly she still thought, I cannot be seeing what I think I’m seeing. Mangoes often grew wild, but to find one just at this moment was astonishing.

Malini seized Banni’s hand and hurried into the forest, right to the base of the mango tree. ‘Do you see, Banni?’

Banni had another talent, apart from complaining: she could climb like a monkey. The trunk of the mango tree, though fairly smooth, had branches sticking out all the way up. Banni scampered up. She braced herself in a cleft, twisted the mangoes from their stems and dropped them, one by one, down to Malini. The mangoes were not fully ripe, but they would do. Then she paused. ‘Sister?’ she called.

‘The last one, Banni – throw down the last one!’

‘Look!’

Malini turned to see a child, perhaps as young as four, standing a few metres away. Malini gasped, but she was more curious than frightened.

‘Who are you?’ she asked.

The child said nothing. Barefoot and dressed in shreds of clothing, he or she – it was impossible to tell – stared first at Malini, then at the mangoes out of eyes that glittered with the fever of hunger.

‘I won’t hurt you, poor thing. Tell me your name.’

The child – Malini now thought him to be a boy – took two wary steps forward, then stopped. He was in a wretched state. Wood lice crawled in his bushy hair and his bare legs were almost as thin as Malini’s wrists.

‘Where do you live?’ asked Malini.

Not a word came from the child.

Malini knelt down and opened her arms. ‘Come,’ she said.

The boy took one more cautious step forward, then, without warning, darted past Malini, snatched up a mango and sped off into the shadows of the forest.

‘Chase him,’ Banni cried from her perch in the tree. ‘Thief! Thief! Shiva will strike you dead!’

‘Banni, stop it. Get the last one and come down.’

Banni dropped the last mango then scampered down the trunk. ‘We must find that demon and punish him,’ she said. ‘This is our tree!’

‘Banni, it is not our tree. We found it by good fortune. That boy was starving. Perhaps he didn’t have the strength to climb like you, and he was waiting for the fruit to fall.’

Banni, indifferent to her sister’s sermon, was tearing open one of the mangoes with her fingers. She scooped out the yellow flesh and stuffed it into her mouth. Streams of juice ran down her chin.

Malini opened her own mango. She worked the thick skin into a hump with her thumb, then peeled it back, using a small stick to loosen the flesh. Banni had eaten two whole mangoes before Malini had finished half of one, and was about to start on her third.

‘No,’ said Malini. ‘We save two for later. Have some forethought! With you, it is all about the present moment.’

Carrying the two mangoes and her bouquet of wildflowers, Malini led her sister along a path that descended through satinwoods and thorn bushes. It was Malini’s guess that the path had been beaten by animals coming down from the forest to a source of water – a spring or a rivulet.

She halted suddenly when she came across the skin of a mango. This must have been the track the boy had taken.

Banni said, ‘Hah! When I find him, I will punch him hard with my fist!’

‘You will do no such thing, Banni.’

Malini slowed her pace, following fragments of mango flesh in the grass. The boy must have eaten the fruit without stopping. But where had he come from, and where was he going? Did he come from a village? If he had, Malini knew she would have to be cautious. She didn’t want to stumble into a village, and then not be permitted to leave.

Fat drops of rain had begun to fall. Within five minutes, Malini knew, the sky would turn white and the rain would tumble down like water pouring from a cauldron. And although the rain was warm, if you got soaked it brought sickness and fever. The only shelter that Malini could see was the cover of the satinwoods, but the satinwood leaves were not broad, and even sitting against the trunk they would be drenched if the rain lasted more than ten minutes.

Better than nothing, Malini thought. She hurried Banni off the track through the tall grass and into the forest. Together they sat huddled beneath the bushiest of the satinwoods while the rain gathered force. A roll of thunder tore the sky open, and a minute later the intensity of the downpour doubled.

Malini tried to shelter her sister with her own body.

Banni shrieked, ‘I don’t like it! Make it stop, Malini!’

The roar of the rain on the foliage of the trees was deafening. Malini had to shout into her sister’s ear. ‘Be strong. A few more minutes and it will stop.’

And then she saw the strangest thing: through the blur of the tumbling rain, three children appeared, each holding the hand of another, their outlines barely visible. The children skirted the big satinwood that sheltered Malini and Banni, all in rags, all as thin as sticks. The child who was leading – a girl, taller than the other two, perhaps twelve years old – stopped still and stared at the two sisters huddled against the trunk of the satinwood. Malini made a beckoning gesture with her hand, inviting the children to take shelter, small as the space was. The girl seemed to consider, staring straight at Malini, who called, ‘Come. You must! Come!’

Still the girl held off, perhaps struggling with suspicion, but then, as if a silent agreement had been reached, the three children crowded under the satinwood, pressing themselves against the trunk.

Banni cried out, ‘Pooh! They stink!’

‘Your manners, child,’ Malini admonished. In the custom of her Tamil people, she gestured with clasped hands in sincere welcome. The haunted eyes of the children remained fixed on Malini’s face, as if kindness itself aroused both wonder and wariness.

When the rain ceased, it ceased completely.

Malini, Banni and the three children sat in silence, listening to the forest as it shed the remains of the downpour, a musical series of notes as droplets higher up fell onto leaves below.

Malini had recognised that the children were not Tamil but Sinhalese. The girl had spoken a few whispery words in Sinhala to the younger children, both boys. Malini’s father had made sure that both Malini and Banni had learned Sinhala.

Malini said to the girl, ‘We are fleeing the soldiers. I am Malini. This child with the bad manners is my sister, Banni. You follow Lord Buddha, isn’t that true?’

The girl made no reply, but she had understood – Malini could see that.

Then, Malini said, ‘How is it that you are here?’

The girl averted her eyes, but said nothing.

‘Have you suffered?’ said Malini. ‘You have nothing to fear from me.’

She reached for the girl’s hand, and held it. The boy who had stolen the mango gave a yelp of fear, as if Malini were about to take the girl prisoner.

The girl told him, ‘Calm yourself!’

The two mangoes that Malini had carried with her from the tree were being closely guarded by Banni, who was watching the newcomers with sharp suspicion. The boys were staring at the fruit.

Malini reached for one of the mangoes.

‘No! Let them find their own tree!’ Banni said.

‘Banni, we will share.’

With great reluctance, Banni handed one of the mangoes to Malini, and Malini gave it to the girl.

‘Eat,’ said Malini.

The girl sliced the mango open from top to bottom with her thumbnail, stripped it off its skin and allowed the boys to scoop the flesh into their mouths. The children ate noisily, moaning with pleasure. The girl did not eat, but watched silently. Malini thought, She has the same task that has been given to me.

Malini reached for the second mango.

Banni cried out, ‘No!’

‘Yes.’

Banni, with tears in her eyes, gave the last mango to her sister, who handed it to the girl.

The girl again sliced the mango open and tore back the skin. But this time she held the fruit out to Malini, who took a small portion, and to Banni, who shook her head in refusal.

‘You won’t eat, Banni?’ said Malini.

‘Her hands are dirty.’

The girl smiled. ‘I am sorry for my hands.’

Banni had spoken in Tamil, and the girl made her reply in Tamil. Banni stared in surprise. The girl ate some of the fruit, then passed the mango to the boys.

After they had eaten, beneath the satinwood with the sky clearing above, the girl responded readily to Malini’s questions. Her name was Nanda, and she was not as guarded and suspicious as she had seemed at first. But, even in her more talkative state, Malini thought, there remained something slightly on edge about her. She rubbed her hands together and kept reaching up to her face to touch her cheek. And her eyes darted constantly, from the two boys to Malini, to Banni, and back to the boys.

Nanda told a harrowing tale. She had been moved from one orphanage in Colombo to another since birth – she had never known her mother and father. Two years ago, a charity with its headquarters in Australia had taken fifty children from orphanages in Colombo and made a rural home for them in the North Central Province. The idea was that the new orphanage would grow its own food, and the children would be taught how to raise crops and how to read and write in Sinhala and English. They would emerge from the orphanage ready to make a living other than begging.

But the war was never far away. At the orphanage, Nanda had been given some responsibility as she grew older. The children called her Mama.

‘It was so hard,’ she told Malini. ‘All of those children without love, all wanting me to be the mother in their lives, and so many times I had to find a place by myself to weep.’

Two months ago, men came to the orphanage with a notice saying that it must be shut down. The men did not wear uniforms. They had two trucks to take the children away. The orphanage officials protested, and one known as Master, a kind man, was immediately shot dead. Panic broke out. Nanda was thrown into the back of one of the trucks, but during an argument among the soldiers, she grabbed the two boys and sprinted into the forest.

‘I saw that the men wanted to do something bad,’ said Nanda. ‘I saw it in their eyes. This was an orphanage, but they had come to use their guns.’

Nanda hid in the forest with the boys. She heard gunfire, she heard explosions and she saw the smoke, black smoke, climbing high into the sky.

‘I stayed in the forest for three days. We went back when I was sure the men had gone. I was full of fear. I was shaking. I did not want to see what I knew I would see. But it was worse than I had imagined.’

The orphanage had been burned to the ground. Only some stone walls still stood. There were bodies to bury – all of the orphanage officials; five children.

‘We made shelters in the ruins,’ said Nanda. ‘I knew the men would not come back. We have lived for weeks here. Nobody comes. We eat roots, grass; sometimes we find wild fruit. Gayan came to that tree a few minutes after you. You must excuse him for taking your mango.’

Malini told her own story, while Banni sulked.

Nanda said to Malini, ‘God willing, your trials will come to an end now.’

Malini said, ‘Nanda, you will die here if you stay. I’m sure of that. There are no Sinhalese villages in this area. Poor child, you must come with my bad-mannered sister and me to Ulla Alakana.’

This was too much for Banni. ‘Never in my lifetime!’ she said, mimicking a phrase their mother used.

The boys seemed to listen closely as they chewed on the skin of the mangoes. Malini doubted that they understood Tamil, but they may have been picking up a few words. She could see how easily their thin bodies could succumb to an illness. And except for their thin bodies, the boys were no longer children – robbed of their innocence by having witnessed things so frightening that they were shocked out of childhood.

Nanda looked away from Malini. Her hand went up to her cheek and rubbed at it, as if she were trying to remove a mark. Nanda had seen such terrible things, and yet she had such a beautiful face! Whenever she averted her gaze, she looked as modest and shy as a village girl who had never been beyond the front door of her house.

She spoke to the boys briefly in their native Sinhala. One of the boys remained silent, looking down at the ground. The second shrugged.

‘We will come,’ said Nanda. ‘Malini, Banni, will you hear the names of these children?’

‘Please,’ said Malini.

As Nanda gave the name of each boy, she reached out and lifted the chin of the child she was introducing, forcing him to look Malini, then Banni, in the eye.

‘This one is Amal. He is five years old. Do you see the scar on his neck? He was in a fight in Anaradhapura. An older boy cut him. Amal has a good voice for singing – it’s true.’

Nanda switched to Sinhala to ask Amal if he loved singing. ‘Aetta-da, is it true? Boru-da, false?’

‘Naeh,’ said Amal, ‘no.’

Nanda had embarrassed him. When she urged him again, he slapped her on her knee, hard, and buried his face in his thin arms.

‘When he knows you better, he will sing to you about the Lord Buddha and the old woman on the mountain. It is a children’s song. And this one is Gayan. He has been in too many orphanages to count. He is eight years old.’

‘Eight!’ Banni blurted out. ‘I thought he was four.’

Malini put a finger to her sister’s lips. ‘Shush.’

Banni’s surprise was understandable. Gayan, although elder, was the smaller of the two boys. Malini had noticed that he walked with a limp. Speaking Tamil, which Malini realised the boys couldn’t follow, Nanda explained in a rapid whisper that Gayan had seen his whole family murdered when he was three – some shot, some hanged. In his headlong escape from the massacre in his village, he had fallen and broken his leg. It had never been set, and was now permanently crooked.

Malini attempted to stroke Gayan’s rough tussock of hair, but he struck her hand away and burrowed into Nanda. Banni snorted in disgust.

‘Then we are together,’ said Malini, turning to more immediate problems than Gayan’s rejection. ‘What we will eat, I do not know. But what we find, we will share. Is that agreed?’

‘It is agreed,’ said Nanda.

Banni said again, ‘Never in my lifetime!’

Nanda showed Malini and Banni the ruins of the orphanage. A signboard that had survived the fire now formed part of the wall of a shelter. The words read: Children of Lord Buddha, in Whose Wisdom we trust forever. The rain had roused the stink of burning, even weeks after the fire. An iron wood-oven sat unevenly on its four stout legs in the charred debris of what must once have been the kitchen. Nanda showed Malini the steel frames of classroom desks, all the timber burned away. She said, ‘It was the best orphanage in our whole land. There were three classrooms and a special room that we used as a temple. Even the smallest children learned to revere Lord Buddha. Our teachers were kind to us, especially Master. They did not run away when the men came.’

Eleven graves lay outside the perimeter of the ruined orphanage. Nanda said, ‘We buried them. We had no shrouds, so we covered them in leaves then put earth on top.’

Malini said, ‘The men who came – were they Tamil or Sinhalese?’

Nanda said, ‘I don’t know. Maybe they were bandits. They spoke both languages. Whoever is their god, they did not bring Him with them.’

Nanda and the boys gathered what few possessions remained to them: two spoons, a short-bladed knife, a soft toy kangaroo that had somehow escaped the flames, and a set of coloured pencils in a tin box.

‘And this,’ said Nanda. From beneath a stone wedged against the base of a satinwood, she produced a wad of cloth. When she unwound the cloth, she revealed a number of thousand-rupee notes.

‘But Nanda,’ said Malini, astonished at what Nanda was displaying, ‘why did you not buy food in a village? You have thousands of rupees here.’

‘If such a person as I entered a village, the money would be seized from me and I would be locked away.’

‘The men who came here did not find the money?’

‘Master hid it. I knew where to look.’

Malini thought for a minute. ‘If I could find a way, would you permit me to buy food with this money, Nanda?’

‘With all my heart.’

They set out on the road that led west. Not that there was a road, or even much of a track. Malini and Nanda walked ahead, the children following. Banni insisted that the ragged orphans keep their distance from her. Whenever they encroached on her space, she turned and gestured for them to observe the rules. ‘Do not come close to me. Do you hear?’ she admonished in Sinhala.

Amal and Gayan smiled at these admonishments. But they played the game.

Malini’s thoughts were all to do with a strategy for buying food. Ten thousand rupees would feed them for a month. But unless she was clever, she would get nothing; the money would be taken from her, and she would be confined by the village chief.

‘Nanda, did peddlers ever come to your orphanage?’

‘Many times,’ said Nanda. ‘They had cloth for sale and a hundred things – spices, rice, ornaments, even toys. They will never come again.’

‘No, Nanda, they won’t. But the track that leads to the orphanage must join up with a road that the peddlers use. Let’s find that road.’