It wasn't an imaginary friend, though most people thought he was crazy when he talked to the thin air beside him. Raj had found Ymal—a creature of shimmering, translucent light—trapped inside a discarded glass bottle in the garbage heap behind the spice market. Ymal wasn't human. He looked like a smudge of stardust that refused to fade in the noon sun.
"Ullu, go home!" the tea stall owner would shout. "Stop talking to yourself!" ullu ymal best