Dust jumped under Nina’s sandals. The clay water jar thumped her hip like a scolding heartbeat.

“Careful!” Old Mr. Tembo called from the queue, his voice cracked like sun-baked earth. “Break that, and you’ll have to drink your own apology.”

Nina swallowed the retort. The well line curled around the stone rim, every face wearing the same dry shine: sweat with nothing to chase it. Months without rain had turned the river into a ribbon of mud and shame.

Behind her, two boys argued.

“I heard the clouds moved away because we offended them,” one said.

“With what? Bad singing?” The other scoffed. “If clouds had ears, they’d have left years ago.”

Laughter rippled through the line—thin, careful, like a resource that needed saving. Nina stared at the clay rim of her jar. Shyness was her defense, a cloak that rendered her invisible. People didn’t look at her much anyway.

When her turn finally came, the rope rasped hot and gritty through her palms. The bucket hit the water with a dull slap. She hauled, arms burning, the bucket reluctant to rise.

She poured half the precious water into her jar.

*Tap-tap-tap.*

A tiny fist against her shoulder.

She spun. No one stood close enough.

Her pulse skipped. The sound came again—not on her shoulder, but on the jar itself.

*Tap-tap… pause… tap.*

Not loud. Not even real, perhaps. Heat played tricks. So did desperation. But the rhythm settled into her skin, an itch she couldn’t scratch.

Grandmother Della sat in the thorn tree’s razor-thin shade, sorting dried herbs into piles as if organizing the world. Nina set the jar down on the hut's floor. The clay hummed against the earth.

“Your hands are shaking,” Grandmother said without looking up. “Either you stole the water, or the water stole you.”

“The jar...