Athena is nine, and she has never heard the story.

She lives with her mother Marina in a white house at the bottom of a ravine on Tenerife. Her father, who was Indian, is gone. This autumn they fly to Kolkata for Durga Puja, to the city he came from.

In a sculptor’s workshop, between half-finished clay idols, Athena hears the legend of Durga for the first time, and the festival streets open onto the battlefield of the gods.