The Serpent's Secret (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond #1)

by Sayantani DasGupta

  And then I don’t know what the heck got into me.

  “Well, if you’re not going to help your brother, I will!” Pushing off Neel’s back, I slid from the dark horse and ran at the rakkhosh. Unfortunately, I only reached the monster’s waist. I grabbed Lal’s sword, which had fallen from his limp hands, and stabbed the hairy demon in the foot.

  “Let him go, halitosis-head!”

  Some instinct told me to plunge the sword into the soft spots between the demon’s toes. I was scared, but felt something else besides fear coursing through my veins. Something brave and strong and heady. Like I’d been fighting rakkhosh all my life instead of doing inventory on two-liter soda bottles and pine tree–shaped car deodorizers.

  “Princess smells like yummy pickles!” the demon snarled. “Stop it! Stop it! Ooo, that tickles!”

  I felt the monster grab my hood. “You best not rip my favorite sweatshirt, you drooling toad!” Sure enough, as the monster lifted me up, I heard the material start to tear.

  I hung from the monster’s fingers ten feet above the ground. I kicked my legs, swinging my sword in a wild arc. Lal, still hanging unconscious, was suddenly very close.

  “Here, horsey! Come catch your master!” I sliced through Lal’s tangled sash, freeing him. The unconscious prince plummeted toward the earth.

  Luckily, the monster was too occupied with me to worry about Lal, and too shortsighted to see the winged horse that swooped up, catching him on its snow-white back.

  “Good job, Snowy!” I could have sworn the horse smiled at me as it flew back toward where Neel and the black horse still stood at the far end of the lawn.

  As the rakkhosh lifted me face-high, it was hard not to faint at the smell coming from its mouth. Holding my breath, I took aim at its teeny, bloodshot eye and stabbed the sword forward with all my might. Unfortunately, sword fighting wasn’t on the curriculum at Alexander Hamilton Middle School, and my aim wasn’t exactly perfect. I looked in horror as Lal’s weapon lodged itself right in the middle of the monster’s bulbous nose, resulting in yellow streams of rakkhosh snot streaming out of both nostrils.

  “Barf!” I yelled as the monster’s sinuses drained all over me. “Neel, anytime now, some help would be awesome!”

  If it was possible, the monster looked even more furious. “Princess mean, but she’ll be sweet! Princess meat is good to eat!”

  I was done for—abandoned by my parents, covered in rakkhosh snot, and about to be eaten. This was the worst birthday ever!

  The rakkhosh lowered me toward its toothy mouth.

  Just then, something glinted by me with a swish. It grazed my arm and cheek before getting stuck upright between the demon’s lips. My right sleeve was sliced open. The side of my face felt on fire, and not because I was blushing. I realized what it was. Neel’s sword.

  “Gaak!” The monster thrashed around, grabbing its mouth. In its confusion, it dropped me, and I fell toward the hard ground. If only my dad hadn’t savaged all signs of life from our lawn, I thought as I plummeted to my doom, maybe there would be something there to cushion my landing.

  “Yagh!” I yelled, or something like it. “Yeek! Yegads!”

  Somebody’s strong arm grabbed me around my waist. It was Neel, flying up on the back of his black steed. He threw me in front of him, swinging me over the horse like a sack of potatoes.

  Now, if you’ve never flown on the back of a winged horse like that, I don’t recommend it. It’s not just the ungraceful butt-in-air aspect, it’s the mouthful of sweaty horsehair you get in the bargain. Technically, I guess Prince Neel swept me off my feet. Actually, it was the exact opposite of the gallant rescuing you read about in fairy tales.

  There was an awful wailing and crashing, which I learned later (I was still doing a face-plant in the side of a horse at the time) was the rakkhosh—with one sword protruding from its nose, one trapped in its open mouth—flailing around. Finally, it tripped over a tree trunk and fell with a shaking crash to the ground.

  “Somebody’s gonna have a terrible migraine!” Neel drawled as he dismounted.

  I managed to slide ungracefully off the horse, holding my aching ribs. It was a relief to see the demon lying across my lawn, out cold.

  “I was doing fine there without you, Mr. Late-to-the-Show!” I snapped at Neel. “You didn’t need to swoop in at the last moment and do the whole princely rescue shtick.”

  Neel gave me a hard look that made my face warm. Then he looked at my torn sweatshirt and my now exposed right upper arm. He raised his eyebrows, but only said, “You’re welcome.”

  Humiliation washed over me. I hated people seeing my scars. I tugged the torn material over the freakish mark and glared back at him, imagining little daggers coming out of my eyes.

  With a most casual air, Neel walked up to the rakkhosh, plucked his own slobbery sword from the monster’s mouth, and then retrieved Lal’s sword from its nose. He handed the weapon to his brother, who was just waking up.

  “Werewevictoriousbrother?” Lal slurred.

  “Yup.” Neel got super busy cleaning off his slimy sword on a leafless hedge. “You completely kicked that demon’s butt, Bro.” Then he glanced up at me. “With a little help from this one.”

  “Whatever.” I mopped up the blood on my cheek with my sleeve. I didn’t like being called “this one” almost as much as I didn’t like getting nearly decapitated with a sword. Even by somebody who saved my life.

  Neel put his sword into a sheath I hadn’t noticed on his back, and petted his horse’s sleek nose. It was like he’d totally forgotten about the rakkhosh. And why was he lying to Lal and not taking credit for defeating the demon?

  “Aren’t you going to … uh … kill it?” I asked in a low voice. Whether adults could see it or not, how I was going to explain an unconscious demon on our front lawn was beyond me.

  Neel shook his head. “Yeah, I’m not really into the whole rakkhosh-killing business; that’s all a little too show-offy for me.” He nodded at his brother. “There’s only room for one storybook hero in this family.”

  I saw something twitch in Neel’s face—what was that, jealousy? But that couldn’t be right. Neel was bigger and tougher than Lal and definitely—by most people’s standards anyway—cooler. Maybe it was that Lal was more movie-star handsome? But that didn’t seem right either. Boys were weird.

  “Come on, let’s go!” Neel urged. “That demon ain’t going to sleep forever.”

  I bit my lip, suddenly super unsure.

  “Lady.” Lal’s words were gentler than his brother’s. “I know this is all confusing right now, but you need to trust us.”

  I remembered Ma’s letter, but I hesitated, looking from one brother to the other, and then finally down at myself. As I did, I realized I was a mess. The scratch on my cheek was still bleeding a little, my now one-armed, hoodless sweatshirt was covered in demon snot, and I was pretty sure I smelled like a skunk after a hard night partying with some dung beetles.

  Neel dug a grubby-looking handkerchief out of his pocket, but I shook my head. I didn’t meet his eyes, but swiped at my face again with my sleeve.

  “I’m not a damsel in distress, you know; I can take care of myself.” Despite my words, my voice sounded shaky.

  Neel’s mouth quivered a little, somewhere between a smile and a smirk. “Fine, suit yourself.”

  “You must hurry and pack a few things,” Lal urged. “We should be on our way to find your parents.”

  A cloud parted within me. Ma and Baba!

  “Are they okay? You guys know where they are?”

  “I thought you didn’t want our help,” Neel reminded me with an annoying raise of one eyebrow. “I thought you could take care of yourself.”

  “Brother, for shame!” Lal scolded.

  “That’s right.” A flash of anger shot across Neel’s face. “The shame of the family, that’s me.”

  “That’s not what I—” began Lal before I interrupted the brotherly interchange.

&nbs
p; “Could we get back to the part where you guys tell me where my parents are?”

  “They have passed through the mouth of the beast into that other place,” Lal said.

  I really, really hoped this “mouth of the beast” thing was some kind of metaphor. My heart hammered as I thought about the demon’s lolling tongue, its enormous teeth.

  “Are you trying to tell me they got eaten by the rakkhosh?”

  “No.” Neel turned his back to me as he tightened his horse’s saddle. “Not literally eaten.”

  “How do you get eaten un-literally?”

  “They have been transported into another dimension.” Lal spoke like he was reciting something he’d memorized. “These protective spells—like the one that was over your family—they are very unstable once they reach their expiration date.”

  I knew he wasn’t talking about spoiled milk. “It’s my twelfth birthday,” I blurted. But the brothers nodded, like they already knew that. Everywhere in my body felt shaken and scared and raw. I needed some answers—now.

  I made my voice as firm as I could. “What. Happened. To. My. Parents?”

  “You wouldn’t understand. It’s too complicated to explain …” Neel grumbled.

  “Imagine”—Lal pointed dreamily to the sky—“when a star is dying. It grows bigger, then smaller, and finally it implodes into a black hole.”

  Okaaay. No matter how stupid Neel thought I was, I knew about black holes. I’d been to the planetarium. I even loved watching that public television science show with Shady Sadie the Science Lady.

  “But what does that have to do with my parents? Or spells? Or rakkhosh?”

  “The spell that was protecting your family has, well, run out of gas,” Lal stammered.

  “Gas?”

  “The spell’s begun to lose power,” Neel said. “As it gets closer to imploding, it first shoots the matter within it—your parents—into a new place, a new dimension.”

  I struggled to form a question. “But … I’m still here.”

  “It must have been placed over them specifically, or it could be there’s an additional spell protecting you,” Lal said. “Anyway, an expired spell also makes everything around it unstable—in this situation, the boundaries between the various dimensions.”

  “Which is how the rakkhosh came into your world,” interjected Neel. “We’ve been tracking him since he got your expired spell scent. There’ll be more where he came from if we don’t get you out of here.”

  My head was spinning. Spells. Dimensions. Black holes. And my … expired spell scent? Like, eww!

  Then I remembered something I’d learned from Shady Sadie the Science Lady’s show, as well as endless reruns of that old outer space program, Star Travels.

  “But nothing can survive inside a black hole, not light, not matter …” My words tapered off as my voice was seriously wobbly. I coughed.

  “You are unfortunately correct. Most of what you understand to be black holes manifest in other dimensions as demons—terribly greedy rakkhosh—who gobble up everything around themselves,” Lal said.

  “Think of them like giant galactic vacuum cleaners,” Neel added totally unhelpfully.

  The vivid image made my throat feel even more like it was closing up. I let out a terrified squeak. He was talking about my parents being hoovered up by some outer-space-phenomenon-slash-hungry-demon. This was no joke.

  “But enough with the astronomy lesson,” continued Neel. “All you need to know is that there’s still some time before the spell completely collapses and goes all … celestial stardust. Which is why we’d better boogie.” He pointed me toward the house. “Now.”

  The princes stayed by the horses and the snoring demon on the lawn while I rushed through the disaster movie that was once my home. The bedrooms were still intact, and the bathroom worked, even though it had a new skylight courtesy of demon renovations. I threw on a fresh T-shirt and hoodie, then tossed a toothbrush and change of clothes in my backpack. I tried to call Zuzu, but only got her family’s voicemail.

  “The Tomopolous family is visiting Mount Olympus right now. The Mount Olympus Diner and Bowl-o-Rama, that is! Come to the heart of Parsippany to strike the best baklava this side of Delphi! And if you’d like to leave a message for Marina, Costa, Athena, Alex, Frankie, Niko, Zuzu, Grandma Yaya, or Zeus the dog, do so after the beep! Opa!”

  What was I supposed to do? Tell her a demon had broken into my house? That my parents were trapped in an imploding spell? That I was about to fly off with some princes to rescue my family from an intergalactic demonic vaccuum cleaner?

  In the end, I fudged the truth.

  “This is a message for Zuzu. Uh, this is Kiran. Hi, everybody. Listen, we, uh, have some unexpected out-of-town guests. From, uh, really far away. And I … um … I need to do something for my parents. Something really important. We’ll be back … probably in a few days. I guess … um … you could tell ’em at school, and … collect my homework.” I was getting a little choked up, so I thought I’d better end the message. “Don’t worry, I’ll be …” The recording cut me off before I got to “okay.”

  I stared stupidly at the phone in my hand. Now what?

  “Hurry up, Prin-cess!” I heard Neel yell. “The big guy’s gonna wake up soon!”

  At the last minute, I shoved Ma’s red-and-gold wedding sari into my pack, along with her small jewelry box. My eyes fell on a framed family photograph on Baba’s nightstand. It was taken in front of the Convenience Emporium. My mother was reverently holding a statue of the blue-skinned Lord Krishna as a fat baby, a stolen dab of butter in his hand. Right next to her, my father sported a T-shirt we carried in the store embossed with a New Jersey Turnpike emblem. And I was in between them with a Giant Gulpie in my hand, smiling like a loon.

  “I may not have always been the perfect daughter,” I muttered, “but I swear I’ll get you back.”

  I threw the photo in my bag and raced out the door.

  The rakkhosh was still on the ground, but rubbed its closed eyes with its enormous hands. I held my breath and ran by.

  “No time to be lost, my lady!” Lalkamal urged. “It’s time to go home!”

  “Come on, get a move on!” Neel waved me toward his horse. “Let’s get out of this place!”

  I felt a last pang of hesitation. “Wait a minute!” I looked from brother to brother: one smiling, the other frowning. “This”—I gestured to the rubble in front of me—“is my home!”

  “Does she not know?”

  Neel scowled. “I guess not.”

  “Know what?”

  “This is not your home, my lady,” Lal said. “You are from a place far away, a Kingdom Beyond Seven Oceans and Thirteen Rivers.”

  “We don’t have time for this, dude,” Neel urged. “Just grab her; let’s go.”

  “No one’s grabbing me!”

  Behind me, there was a groaning noise as the demon started waking.

  “My lady, you have always known you were different?”

  I nodded.

  “Perhaps even, not of this world?”

  I stared.

  There was a low-pitched moan from the direction of the demon. Both horses were flapping their wings and stamping in fear.

  “Oh, wake up!” Neel snapped. “No one ever told you about how they found you in a clay pot floating down the River of Dreams?”

  “What?” My eyes widened. “How did you …”

  And then he said it.

  “No one ever told you that you were really a princess?”

  There it was. The truth. Staring at me right in the face this whole time.

  (Yeah, you don’t have to say it. I know it’s a little ironic in light of my previous attitude toward princesses in general.)

  “Hai, mai, khai!” The ground rumbled beneath my feet.

  “Run, Princess Kiran!” Lal yelled.

  “I’m riding Snowy,” I called, sprinting toward Lal’s white horse. This time, it definitely winked at me.

 
The horses had just launched off the ground when I looked down and saw the frothy-mouthed demon bolting toward us. It stood on my front lawn, shrieking as we sailed higher and higher into the night sky.

  I was flying.

  No. Way.

  I was flying.

  Cool wind whipped through my clothes and hair as we glided into the night. Despite everything, I was in awe. If I were to reach out, I could pluck the very moon from the sky and put it in my pocket. The houses below me were like teeny toy villages, but I wasn’t freaked out. Instead, I laughed out loud. Even the stars seemed to be twinkling at my pleasure.

  “It is most wonderous, is it not?” Lal pointed out a few constellations. “You know, every one of those stars is a spell.”

  “Are we riding into outer space?” Despite our lack of pressurized space suits and oxygen tanks, it didn’t seem like an unreasonable question to ask.

  “Alas, no. Just a different dimension.”

  Oh, well, that explained it perfectly.

  Not.

  I gulped in some crisp night air, feeling strangely new. My parents were missing. My house was a wreck. I was flying off to who knows where. The situation sucked, to put it mildly. But I’d faced down the scariest Halloween monster I’d ever met, and I hadn’t hidden or backed away or anything. I’d acted. I’d fought. I’d done something useful and brave. And that part of it felt kind of, well, amazing.

  As we rode, I found myself actually relaxing, if that makes any sense. It was super easy to talk to Lal. Turned out, he was a great sky-tour guide, and kept pointing out things like cloud formations, flocks of Canadian geese, a shooting star—which was a spell being cast, he explained. After a while I couldn’t see the ground below us. The funny thing was, I wasn’t scared of falling—not at all. I got the feeling I’d always lived up there with the sky and the stars. Maybe it was all that curtainless sleeping in the moonlight, but it felt comfortable and familiar, like the moon itself was looking out for me.

  Lal even let me take the reins. Neel was right; I’d never been on a horse before (riding lessons weren’t exactly in our family budget), but Snowy was gentle and responded right away to my touch. A good ways ahead, Neel’s black horse—whom I’d started to think of as Midnight—bucked and snorted as he galloped in the air. I could only see his vague outline by the thousands of twinkling stars that lit the way.