Are you safe? I waited, staring at the screen. But she didn’t answer. I read and reread her message, trying to elicit more information than was actually there. Having spoken with stone-cold Uncle Ishat, I wasn’t surprised he didn’t want her. But sell her? For ten thousand rupees—how much was that, anyway? I went to the den, where Mac and I were staying on a sofa bed (Ben was happily camping in a sleeping bag on David’s floor), and pulled the laptop out of my backpack. Cross-legged on the floor, I booted up and started Googling. I began with a literal search, based on what Dathi had told me, and typed girl sold to agent in India in the search box. At the top of the list was a link to the Times of India: “Young girls sold for Rs 2 lakh.” A lump formed in my throat at the mere suggestion of girls being actually sold, though I had no idea what a lakh was. I clicked through to the article, which described an active marriage market for young girls and women.
