Women are heaven.
Women are dharma.
Women are the highest sacrament.
—Chandamaharosana Tantra

On the seventh day of the week given to the aspirants for rest and recreation, Ishvari found Archini in her room, curled fetus-like beneath her quilt despite the rising afternoon heat. As she stared down at the frail body laying on the narrow cot like a broken doll, it struck her like a blow to the gut that her petite friend had fully surrendered to the malaise inexorably strangling her spirit.

“Hey, lazybones!” she called, pulling the quilt right off the slight body. “Get up, it’s only me!” Archini’s eyes fluttered open; she conjured up a watery smile, like a sickly child brightening at the sight of her mother, and then she...

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