Excerpt from Moth by Melody Razak, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Roop," Alma pokes her sister, laughs quietly to herself. "Do you remember that time, when you slept in the third bed and woke up in the middle of the night and I asked you. What did you say?"

Roop giggles sleepily, her back still turned, naked but for white knickers. "I said I felt a bit pe-cu-liar." She says the word slowly as she has been taught to do. Bappu says speaking slowly and repeating is the best way to learn. "And then we put the bowl of kheer under the bed for Bappu's dead little brother's ghost, in case he was hungry."

Alma hugs her rosebud pillow. Everyone knows that spirits don't need to eat, but the gesture of friendship had been there. "Dilchain-ji found it. It was blue-black-green, and all those ants stuck in the middle squashed in the sweet milk and rice."

"They were dead!" says Roop, turning to face her sister. "Squashed," she says, pressing her little palms firmly together and nodding. "A family of greedy ants. Dilchain-ji said I wasn't allowed to cremate them and then she smacked me with the broom. On the bottom. Oh, it was so funny."

"I'm too excited to sleep. It's boring being excited alone," says Alma sitting up, sucking the inside of her elbow.

"Why?"

"It's better when you're awake too. Sit up and I'll tell you where the little mouse lives?"

"Where? I love little mice."

"In the courtyard."

"Where exactly in the courtyard?"

Roop sits up and rubs her eyes. A mouse in the courtyard will need a trap. A steel catch on a spring mechanism that will ping forwards and cut off its head. A mosquito buzzes by her ear, she claps her hands and stumbles off the bed. "Got it. Look!" she says, showing Alma the smear of juice and blood on her palm.

Alma pulls a face. "I'm getting married in this many weeks," she says, holding up five fingers. "Look."

On her wedding day, Alma will wear silver shoes with pearl buckles made to measure by the cobbler with the henna beard who sits on the far corner of Ballimaran Lane. Alma points her toes and slips on her imaginary shoes. The imaginary pearl buckles glow resplendent in the imaginary moonlight. At her wedding party, she will dance and dance and her husband will dance with her.

"What are you doing?" asks Roop. She is not at all impressed that her sister is getting married soon.

"Trying on my silver wedding shoes. When I'm married you can come to my house every Friday for jalebis and I'll let you eat as many as you want, hot from the pan."

"They won't be as good as Dilchain-ji's though, will they?"

Roop picks the wings off the mosquito and inspects them for translucency. She licks the mosquito pulp off her palm, wonders if "when I am married" is the most stupid thing she has ever heard her sister say. "Why are you wearing that in bed?" she asks, pointing to Alma's frock.

Alma arranges the creamy frill of her Sunday tutu like a fountain's spray around her. Recently, she has started to wear her best-occasion frocks—those meant for Sundays, holidays, parties, and trips to the Royal Cinema at the Queen Victoria Circle—every day. She won't leave the house without a red apple clip in her hair.

When Bappu had teased her about it, Alma replied that you just didn't know who would pass you in the street, and by who, she meant her husband-to-be or "the so-fair-boy" as she had started to call him. "You should always look your best because first impressions count for a lot."

When Bappu said she was right, first impressions did count for a lot but there was more to it than that, she asked if she could start wearing lipstick. He laughed. Absolutely not.

"Lucky for me you're such an intelligent girl," said Bappu, tweaking her plait. "Otherwise, I would disown you."

"I should disown you," said Alma, putting one hand on her frilly hip and scrutinising his khadi trousers, his khadi shirt, and the thin-rimmed glasses that he cleaned so fastidiously. "Bappu, you are so beige."

Excerpted from Moth by Melody Razak. Copyright © 2022 by Melody Razak. Excerpted by permission of Harper. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.