The drum started just after sunset, and Meera was already running.

The Nathdwara fair filled the lane behind the temple every winter — stalls of glass bangles, paper kites, hot jalebis curling in their pans, and, best of all, the kathputli show. Tonight the puppeteer had hung his little wooden stage between two poles, a bright cloth backdrop painted with palaces and forests. A lantern glowed behind it.

Meera squeezed to the front and sat cross-legged in the dust with the other children. The drum quickened. And then the puppets came alive.

A princess in a red skirt spun and dipped, her tiny mirror-work flashing. A warrior with a curling moustache leapt and slashed his sword. A wicked minister crept along on his strings, and the whole crowd of children hissed at him. When the warrior knocked him flat, they roared and clapped.

Meera clapped too. She had forgotten she was sitting in cold dust. She had forgotten the jalebis. She had forgotten everything except the little wooden people dancing their bright, fierce, sad story.

"He's so brave," she whispered, when the warrior bowed.

Beside her, an old man chuckled. It was the puppeteer's father, resting on a stool, his own performing days behind him. "Brave, is he?" he said. "And who makes him brave?"

Meera blinked. "He does. He's the hero."

The old man pointed up — past the painted palaces, past the cloth, to the top of the little stage. There, half in shadow, were two hands. Knotted, weathered hands, working a wooden cross strung with threads, lifting and twisting, tilting and tugging. The princess spun because a finger turned. The warrior leapt because a wrist flicked up.

"Every step that princess takes," said the old man, "every brave swing of that sword — it is my son, up there in the dark. The puppets do not know him. They are too busy dancing." He smiled. "The whole little world on that stage is moved by hands it never looks up to see."

Meera looked again. Now she could not unsee it. The dancing was still beautiful — but above it, quiet and unwatched, were the hands that made the dance.

She thought of what Dadaji had told her: that the world dances on three great strings, pulled by something most people are far too busy to look up and see.