Pankaj Desai Chapter 1: The Retreat Begins The hills looked the same, but Noor Rahmani knew better. The sky above them—wide and velvet blue—stretched out like memory itself: vast, layered, unknowable. The bus rumbled to a stop on the gravel slope, its brakes sighing like an old friend weary from another year’s journey. Noor stepped out, inhaling the sharp scent of pine and the faint tang of burnt diesel, and tried to shake off the strange weight that had been pressing against her chest since the previous night. The retreat grounds spread before her, a patchwork of stone cabins, wooden…