Excerpt from first draft of Saira and Eighth Guardian

Saira was cleaning the kitchen floor when somebody knocked at the front door. Putting aside the broom, she went into the living room and before walking across to the front door, glanced at the clock on the wall at her right side. It showed ten past seven. It was too early for her masters to be back. They had sent their friend’s servant, just an hour ago, to inform her that they won’t be home before it stopped raining. Still, it was raining pretty heavily accompanied with fierce winds.
It’s a thunderstorm! How can they travel in such weather when they were so afraid of rain?
She hurried to the door as the thought of what she had suffered once, when she had delayed opening the door for her masters, came to her mind. She held open the door, slightly. She was taken aback by the appearance of a stranger at the door at such an odd hour. She stood puzzled for a second and then spoke in her thin voice, “Yes...”
The man removed his hat and bowed to Saira, exposing his bald head. Water was dripping from his clothes. He was an old fat man in his sixties. He was only as tall as Saira who was shorter than most of the girls of her age. Saira could not make much of his features but the numerous lines that traversed his face.
“Oh beautiful young lady, accept my greetings for you and your family and my apology for troubling you...” said the old man. He waited for sometime but with nothing coming from Saira, continued, “My dear lady, I am Hrum...Hrum Krofti. I come here to see Miss Saira...can I depend on your courtesy to please call Miss Saira for me and won’t it appeal to your generosity to let me inside when the weather outside is so bad.” The man’s voice was polite but husky, echoing over the thunderstorm.
The old man waited for Saira to let him in but Saira did not seem to hear him. She kept her gaze fixed at him. She could not believe that anyone in the world would ever come to visit her, not to talk of the worst weather chosen as the occasion for such delight.
“Young lady, if you don’t want to take me in, please call Miss Saira here. I have an important business with her and have come for it from far away in such weather. Have some empathy with old Hrum...I need to see her for her mother’s sake...”
Saira felt her heart skip a beat at the mention of her mother.
Who in the world is he...talking about my mother...how does he know her when even I know nothing of her.
“Who are you?” asked Saira at last, her thin voice almost squeaking.
“Young lady, I am growing impatient with this indifference and interrogation of yours. Call Miss Saira immediately...I will answer to her only.”
“I am Saira and I don’t know you. Who are you...you can’t know about my mother...nobody knows...”
“Miss Saira! Really?” said the old man, more amazed at the revelation than Saira had been at any moment since opening the door for him.
“Yes, of course. What do you think? I am playing jokes around. Tell me at once...who are you and what do you want? Get to the point of your coming here or leave at once...you seem to be an imposter to me...either tell me the truth or get out of here,” said Saira feeling agitated at the old man’s slow talking and ancient manners.
Though she was curious to know more about the old man yet she could not entertain him. Her masters could be home anytime and she wanted the man out of the way before they came. No friends or visitors of hers were ever allowed in the vicinity of house.
“Young lady, I don’t believe your words. A lady belonging to a family of such a stature and blood as Miss Saira can never speak to an old man the way you just did. If you are Miss Saira show me your pendant,” said the old man, looking at Saira with disdain.
“What pendant are you talking about...?”
“Ah! I knew it. Had you been Miss Saira, you would have known about the pendant. I could have guessed that from your clothes too...”
Saira became annoyed at this sudden remark about her appearance. She felt like closing the door on his face but was determined to make a counterstrike.
“Look who is talking, an old man who intrudes the comfort of strangers even in such a thunderstorm. What family and blood of stature were you talking about? I...Miss Saira...have grown up in this house and I don’t know anything great about this family and their blood. I know about their barbarity and I too can behave like them...do you want to see how they treat my visitors. I bet you don’t. So now, get lost before my masters come back and treat you even worst,” said Saira, her voice almost roaring above the thunder.
The old man’s anger was mounting and he was no more contained. The calm he had been trying to maintain all the while had disappeared. He said, “Young lady whoever you are, I don’t take insults from anyone. I would have shown you what it means to offend Hrum if I did not have a more important business on my mind than mending your ways. Moreover, my dislike for you humans is so strong that if I will see you for some more time then I will forget the code of conduct and set my powers loose on you...”
Saira burst into anger, “What do you think...” but her voice faded into the spattering of rain as Hrum raised a hand to shut her up and his eyes glared with fury. Both of them had forgotten about the thunderstorm as the altercation between them was growing stronger and fierce than the thunderstorm itself.
“Lady, Hrum orders you to take this to Miss Saira...” said Hrum, holding out a small leather pouch, “I am waiting here till she comes to meet me.”
“What’s this?” said Saira taking the pouch from the old man. Her eyes were fixed upon the pouch which was deep red with its mouth bound by a golden thread. She held it firmly in her hand and began opening the thread knots to see its content. She had almost forgotten about the old Hrum standing before her when she was startled with his voice.
“What are you doing? Take it to Miss Saira straightaway and tell her I am waiting here,” said Hrum impatiently.
“Oh! Will you please stop talking that nonsense again and again? I beg you, please don’t rob me of my identity...my name is the only thing my masters did to me as per my mother’s last wish,” said Saira, her voice more composed than before and her wet eyes sparkling in the lightening.
A mixed expression of pity and disbelief crossed Hrum’s hard features at this unexpected change in his host’s manners. He stood with his eyes fixed suspiciously on Saira and said, “Open it.”
As Saira struggled with the knots of thread tying the pouch, he watched Saira carefully, closely following every single change of expressions on her face. When Saira unknotted the pouch and tilted it on her hand to withdraw its contents, her mouth fell open with awe. Her astonishment did not go unnoticed by Hrum who looked aghast and pale as if bitten by a snake.
“Where did you get it?”
“Do you recognize it?”
Both of them shouted together with disbelief at what they were witnessing. Saira looked straight into Hrum’s eyes, questioningly. Hrum, who had been looking very keenly at Saira by now, dropped his gaze, still skeptical of what was happening. With her eyes wet with fresh tears, Saira looked down at the content of pouch that lay bare in her hand. She unconsciously held out the empty pouch towards Hrum, without looking at him. He got hold of the pouch, as soon as he saw it being offered back, and again dropped his gaze to the ground, tugging at it with his shoe.
“So you knew her...but how?”