The Chaos Curse

by Sayantani DasGupta

  “I adore you, my sly sweetheart, my fanged femme fatale!” Sesha leaned to kiss her, and the two became a single silhouette against the light of the room. Neel made a disgusted face, and I felt like puking too. “Our love may be forbidden now, but it won’t be after you choose me as your consort!”

  “They say you just want me for my power!” Pinki scoffed. “I know you love me for myself!”

  “Oh, I do! I do!” Sesha sounded way overconfident. “I adore you, my demented dumpling!”

  Neel looked like he was about to burst. I felt like I was going to scream, or laugh, I wasn’t sure which. Sesha and Pinki had been forbidden high school sweethearts? Like an evil Romeo and Juliet? And she actually trusted him? I was starting to wonder if Neel wasn’t a little bit right about his mom being fooled by Sesha into marrying him.

  “I’ll see you at the ceremony,” young Pinki was saying. “Don’t be late, now. You’re allowed to wander around Demon Land freely only for another few minutes. I had to work on the headmistress hard to get you special permission.”

  “I told you, as soon as you choose me, and we are officially engaged, the centuries-long trouble between our people will be over!” Sesha said smoothly. “The Kingdom of Serpents has decided that the rakkhosh will be given their own homeland, separate from the humans! The newly formed Demon Land and the Kingdom of Serpents will be allies now and forevermore! And we will reduce what’s left of the Kingdom Beyond Seven Oceans and Thirteen Rivers to ashes!”

  Neel and I exchanged shocked looks. Eek. That wasn’t good.

  “Not long now, my love!” Pinki said. “Among all the other graduating seniors at Ghatatkach Academy of Murder and Mayhem, I was chosen as Demon Queen. So it’s my decision to choose my consort, and mine alone, no matter what Ai-Ma or the headmistress think about you.”

  “Oh, those old biddies are just jealous that you get to have me and they don’t,” said Sesha obnoxiously.

  “Oh, I adore you, my slithering snaky suitor!” Pinki purred.

  “I worship you, my ravishing rakkhosh-radish!” Sesha answered.

  “Now go, silly snake boy. Let me get ready for the ceremony!”

  “I’ll see you there, you demonic darling!”

  Our parents walked back into the room, away from the balcony. I whispered to Neel, “I can’t believe it!”

  “That was bonkers!” he hissed, pointing at the now-empty balcony. “They were in love? Your dad and my mom? Maybe she really is as evil as you said.”

  “I don’t know. I was wondering if maybe that’s why they’re getting married now—because they were childhood sweethearts?” It sounded revolting even to my own ears.

  “What happened back then—I mean, now—do you suppose?” Neel bit on a rakkhosh-length nail.

  “Well, it didn’t work out, obviously. She married your dad, not mine,” I said. “I mean, otherwise, you wouldn’t have been born. And the Kingdom Beyond would never have been!”

  “I guess.” Neel shrugged. “And then there was all that stuff about Demon Land being formed? But let’s not worry about that now, let’s find that champak tree and get out of here. We’re here to save Naya, not worry about my mom and Sesha’s past love lives!”

  I looked at Neel a little more closely. “Um, Neel?”

  “What?” He was standing up and dusting off his clothes.

  “Look at your hands,” I whispered. Oh, this was bad.

  Neel looked down. The edges of his hands, like the edges of his body, were a little blurrier than they had been a minute ago. He looked up sharply at me. “What’s happening to me?”

  Just then, I saw a little blue insect fly by through the branches of the tree. I took in a sharp breath.

  “The butterfly effect!” I whispered. “But not the way I thought.”

  “What do you mean?” Neel was looking panicky now. “Oh no. What’s happening to me, Kiran? I feel so … wispy. Like I’m disappearing!”

  “That’s because you are! Oh my gosh—I thought if we came back in time, we’d mess up the future,” I said. “But it looks like we’re here just in time to fix the future! Neel, if we don’t stop Pinki and Sesha from getting married, you’ll never be born!”

  “You mean I’m disappearing from existence?” Neel yelped, checking out his rapidly blurrifying form. “How do we fix it?”

  “We’ve got to convince her not to choose Sesha, but your dad instead!” I bit my lip. Every second we talked, Neel was getting blurrier and blurrier! “I think I have an idea!”

  I picked up a rock and hurled it at Pinki’s balcony, hitting it with a little thunk. When nothing happened, I threw another rock, and then another.

  “Stop!” Neel grabbed my arm with his own smudgy one. “What are you doing?”

  I shook him off. “I’m trying to get her attention! She kicked Sesha out so that she could get ready! This might be our only chance to talk to her alone!”

  Sure enough, almost as soon as I had finished saying the words, Pinki came out onto the balcony. Silhouetted by the light from behind her, she glowed like a horned and fanged angel.

  “Who’s there?” Neel’s mom leaned out over the balcony even as we shrunk back more into the shadows. “Aakash, is that you, you air clan loser? Still upset I beat you out for the crown? Still whining you didn’t become Demon King?”

  “Listen to us—we’re friends, my lady!” I said in a wheezy, and I hoped demonic, tone. “Here to tell you Sesha’s way shady!”

  “How do you know about Sesha? Who are you?” Pinki demanded, leaning out even farther and squinting into the night.

  “He wants you just for your power,” Neel called out in a terrible fake voice. He waved his hands at me in silent panic as he tried to think of a rhyme for power. Finally, he finished, “Not because he thinks you’re a flower!”

  “Show your faces, you rakkhosh rubes! Or I’ll mince you into little cubes!” Pinki snarled, growing into her full rakkhosh height and form.

  I tried desperately to think of an explanation that would convince Pinki. “Rontu’s soft, him you can control,” I finally said. “But Sesha will dump you in a dark hole!”

  Pinki’s eyes scanned the darkness, panicky now. “Not true! Where are you?”

  “Isn’t it better to be independent?” Neel began, then, clapping a hand over his mouth, looked over at me. “What rhymes with independent?” he hissed.

  “Transcendent? Attendant?” I volunteered in a whisper. “Why didn’t you think it through first?”

  “Than give birth to a bunch of snaky descendants?” Neel finally concluded.

  “How dare you, Sonny Jim? I’m coming down there to rip you limb from limb!” screeched Pinki, turning away from the balcony.

  “We better get out of here!” I tugged at Neel’s arm. “Oh no, you’re still not back to normal. Just look at yourself.”

  “Oh man! I’m better, but still kinda transparent,” Neel said in a panicky voice. “There’s still a chance I won’t be born, isn’t there?”

  “Looks like it,” I sighed. “We can’t leave Demon Land just yet, not until we’re sure your mom chooses your dad as her consort. Come on, we’ve got to get to the choosing ceremony before she comes out here and finds us!”

  Hurry up!” I hissed at a blurry-edged Neel, who seemed to have trouble running with his blurry feet. “We’ve got to find out where this choosing ceremony is happening!”

  “Probably where all those demon students are going, I’d guess,” Neel said. The students, to my surprise, weren’t walking toward the school, but away from it. We followed them, trying to get lost in the crowd just in case Pinki actually came after us.

  The rakkhosh students all around us were pumped up—cheering, chanting, shouting about tonight being the night of the choosing. I saw that there were different sorts of rakkhosh all walking more or less together, and in front of each group were their clan banners. There were waves for water clan, flames for fire clan, wings for air clan, and a rocky mountain for land clan.

&n
bsp; And all the rakkhosh students seemed to be dressed according to their house colors.

  “Where’s your shawl, you dirty ace?” a young guy with a warty nose asked Neel. “Headmistress catches you, she’ll bite off your face!”

  “Here!” A friendly-faced rakkhosh thrust two brown-and-green-colored shawls at us and we gratefully took them. We didn’t have wings, or fiery breath, or webbed fingers, so I guessed we were land clan now.

  “Hey, did you ever think about how much these rakkhosh clans are like that other story—with the magical students and their four school houses?” I whispered to Neel.

  Neel looked annoyed. “Who’s to say those witches and wizards didn’t get the idea from us?”

  Night had fallen as it always did in this dimension—fast like a curtain. The new darkness was already heavy with the smells of night-blooming flowers. In addition to the sound of rakkhosh students’ chatter, all around us were the sounds of crickets and, somewhere in the distance, a running stream. The path from the school’s main entrance was illuminated by rows of prodeep, teardrop-shaped oil lamps with burning wicks. I noticed with a shudder that each prodeep was held up by stakes designed to look like disembodied monster arms.

  The lighted path ended in a beautiful outdoor grove. We entered the grove—which was made of four giant banyan trunks surrounding one central raised dais. The water, fire, air, and land clans each went to what looked like a designated tree. We settled ourselves on a thick banyan root with the rest of the land clan.

  “Look!” Neel said. “There it is!”

  I looked where he was pointing. On the central dais was an empty throne, I guess waiting for Pinki. Before the throne were two empty chairs—probably for her two potential consorts. And right next to the throne was the thing we had come all this way to find. The beautiful school tree with the fluttering, almost-alive-looking blue champak flowers.

  “If only we could grab some and get out of here!” Neel said.

  “Oh, sure, that’ll be really easy to do right in the middle of these hundreds of rakkhosh!” I hissed. All the students looked powerful, and some were downright scary. “Anyway, we can’t leave yet, not until we’re sure your mom makes the right choice and you actually get born in the future!”

  “Hey, wait a minute, check out the tree trunk,” Neel whispered. I squinted at the champak tree and realized all its wood was etched with words.

  “Did someone carve those?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Neel whispered. “Shh, that must be the headmistress.”

  I wrapped my long shawl around my shoulders to protect myself from the buzzing mosquitos, and turned away from the tree to face the demoness climbing onto the platform. The headmistress of the Academy of Murder and Mayhem was a tall, formidable rakkhoshi, in a gorgeous silk sari shot with the colors of all the Ghatatkach clan houses. The shawl she had wrapped around her shoulders too was mixed with all the clan colors—brown and green for land clan, red and orange for fire clan, shades of dark blue for water clan, and light blue and white for air clan. The headmistress’s dark hair piled at least three feet high above her broad forehead. She had fangs and long nails, but clear skin and an actually pretty face. Pretty if you ignored the fact that she had no nose.

  “Her name’s Surpanakha,” whispered Neel. “My mother mentioned her. She became headmistress here after her nose got cut off in some kind of legendary battle. The students apparently used to make up funny names for her behind her back, like the Nosemeister and Smelly Smellopolis and stuff like that.”

  Huh, that nickname stuff sounded a lot like what Zuzu, Jovi, and I had been doing with Principal Chen. Back when I thought she really was Principal Chen, that is. Weird to think I had that in common with Neel’s mom.

  Headmistress Surpanakha stood stock-still, studying the rowdy students through the horn-rimmed glasses that somehow balanced on her noseless face. Then she cleared her throat and spoke.

  “Students of Ghatatkach Academy. As you know, today is the day of the great choosing ceremony. When our newly elected Rakkhoshi Rani will become settled into her powers and select her consort for life!” She paused dramatically, waving her long-taloned hands in the air.

  “Nose-illa is doing jazz hands,” whispered Neel. “Maybe she’s practicing for the wedding sangeet.”

  “Shh!” I poked him in the ribs, almost laughing out loud from nervousness.

  I was surprised at how unfazed Neel was to be sitting here in this clearing full of hundreds of young, strong, drooling rakkhosh. I, on the other hand, was seriously fazed. Like, armpit-sweaty fazed.

  There was a great wailing of shehnai, and the ulu-ulu call that marks auspicious occasions, and then there she was—Pinki. Up close to her now, and not yards below her balcony, I saw that she was dressed in elaborate wedding finery—a red sari embroidered with gold thread, golden rings attached by chains to the bangles on her arms, a nose ring attached by gilded chain to the ornaments in her hair, and heavy earrings. On her dark hair was a white shola pith tiara, like the little dolly I’d seen when I was looking for my moon mother. She was accompanied by several rakkhosh, and was led with great pomp to her throne to raucous cheers. Even the headmistress bowed as the new Demon Queen approached. Pinki smiled as she sat, breathing out a swath of fire and smoke as she did so.

  “Look who else is with her!” Neel said, and I choked back a sob. Because right behind Pinki came Ai-Ma, looking just as wacky and gangly as she always had but a little younger, with more teeth and hair and substantially less drool. Her eyes glowed with such pride as she looked at her daughter that I felt like crying.

  “Ai-Ma! Oh, it’s Ai-Ma!” I didn’t dare say it in anything louder than a whisper, but it was really hard not to go and throw myself into Neel’s grandmother’s warty arms. She might be a powerful rakkhoshi, but Ai-Ma had saved my life more than once, and she had actually died so that I might live. It felt so wonderful to see her again but bittersweet too, because I knew there was no way she would know who we were. The attendants led Ai-Ma to a smaller chair just behind Pinki’s.

  Then, with another call of the shehnai as well as a tabla drum roll, two more people were led out to the stage. Neel’s dad, Rontu, and Sesha, both in splendid white wedding clothes—sparkling kurta and dhoti and even the pointy dunce-cap-like topor that bridegrooms wore in the Kingdom Beyond. But the moment they sat down, to my shock, there appeared around their chairs two giant, glowing cages, like they were giant, captured birds! The entire audience burst out in hoots and curses.

  “What’s up with that?” I wondered aloud. Neel’s dad looked a lot like Lal, only softer, and was obviously terrified. He gave a little whimper from inside his cage.

  “It’s terrible to see him like this,” Neel whispered. “I mean, I know he doesn’t like the fact that I’m half rakkhosh, but I hate seeing him as a prisoner.”

  “It’s so weird. I didn’t realize that part of the choosing was locking up the potential bridegrooms!” I murmured.

  As opposed to Neel’s dad, Sesha looked like he thought the cage was a joke. He grinned at Pinki through the bars, blowing her kisses and waving. For her part, I noticed, Pinki didn’t look at him at all. Maybe our words to her were having some effect?

  “Pinki of the fire clan has been elected our new Demon Queen due to her skill in the classroom and the combat yard, and of course due to all of your faith that she will fulfill the great cosmic duties of demon-kind,” Surpanakha was saying. She peered around the clearing with her sharp eyes. On either side of her lounged two fierce-looking jackals on golden leashes that she held in her hand. Even as the animals feasted on some kind of bloody meat, their sharp eyes moved over the students just like their mistress’s.

  “Tonight, as has been our custom since the beginning of time, we have captured the princely sons from two neighboring kingdoms—from the Kingdom Beyond and the Kingdom of Serpents. One of these future rulers, Pinki will choose as her consort.”

  “She just said that they captured the two pri
nces, but Sesha wants to be here!” I whispered to Neel.

  “Obviously, Pinki and Sesha bent the rules because they were into each other!” Neel hissed back.

  The headmistress went on, “Before our new queen makes her choice, she must swear to keep the balance of the multiverse. For the seeds of the multiverse’s origins—the singularity—reside in our queen, and on her shoulders falls the responsibility of rakkhosh-kind: to keep in balance the light and the dark, birth and death, story and silence. On her shoulders falls the responsibility to keep the diversity of the multiverse ever expanding.”

  “Whoa,” I whispered. It was all that stuff the scientists had been talking about. About the origins of the multiverse coming from something within black holes—aka rakkhosh. But that last bit, about rakkhosh-kind being responsible for keeping the multiverse expanding, that was the exact opposite of what Sesha was trying to do. I wondered if Neel could be right after all. Was Pinki not a part of the Anti-Chaos Committee but actually, somehow, Sesha’s prisoner?

  “To fulfill this great duty,” Surpanakha went on, “our queen must gain the power of all four clans. She already has the power of her own fire clan, but tonight the other three clans will be sharing their power with her with offerings of symbolic gifts. I call first upon the air clan to make their offering.”

  “Look at the tree!” As the headmistress was speaking, my attention was captured by the blue champak tree to the side of Pinki’s and Ai-Ma’s chairs. The tree was full of bright blue champak flowers that seemed to be moving—almost as if the flowers were actually butterflies!

  “Do you see what I see?” I hissed. Neel just made big eyes and nodded as one of the flowers-slash-butterflies took off from the tree and flew into the darkening sky.

  “Wonder who’s gonna be the gift giver for our clan?” singsonged a tall rakkhoshi sitting on the next root from us. She had on a necklace with her name, Harimati, in Bangla script, and giant jhumko earrings. She also had yellow eyes and fangs so sharp they looked like she’d stolen them from a saber-toothed tiger.