“Enchanted assistant, sidekick, comic relief, et cetera, et cetera,” said Boo. He continued to lie across her palms. “Sometimes the heroes in epics are assisted by eagle kings and clever monkey princes. But it’s been quite some time. The world is rusty at being dazzling, and so…here I am.”
“Heroes got eagle kings and we got a—” started the other girl.
Aru coughed loudly. “We got a being of former renown and illustriousness.”
Illustriousness was a word she’d once heard in a film where people kept addressing a grand empress. Aru assumed that it meant illustrated, because the empress’s face was certainly drawn on (no one had eyebrows like that). But important people didn’t seem to take this as an insult. Even Boo gathered himself on her hands, shook out his feathers, and nodded.
The girl shot Aru an are-you-sure? look. Aru shrugged. Maybe it had been a lie to make the bird rally his energy. Maybe it was the truth. Talking this way came easily to Aru. She had done it all her life: looked at something not so great and told herself all the things that made it great.
“I’m Aru.”
The other girl blinked. “Mini.”
“What?”
“I’m Mini,” the girl repeated.
“I mean, I guess you are short,” said Aru. “But—”
“As in that’s my name.”
“Oh.”
“So…we’re siblings? But not like related-related. Like soul-related.”
Mini seemed way calmer than Aru had been when she’d learned she was a Pandava.
“Something like that?” answered Aru.
“Oh.”
There were so many things Aru wanted to ask. Mini’s parents must have told her about her true identity, because she was—in her own way—prepared. She knew what was happening. She knew that Aru had to be some kind of relation to her because she, too, was a Pandava.
But the situation didn’t sit quite right. It felt as uncomfortable as walking in shoes a size too big.
If Aru was being 100 percent honest with herself (she was the only person she was totally honest with), she felt a sharp pang of disappointment. But what had she expected? Often the amount of amazement she wanted to feel never quite matched reality.
Last year, when she’d heard about the middle school homecoming dance, she had imagined something from a Bollywood movie. Lights glittering. A wind—out of nowhere—making her hair fly, and everyone breaking into a choreographed song and dance at the exact same time. When Aru had walked in, no wind had blown her hair. But someone did sneeze in her face. All the sodas were lukewarm, and all the food was cold. Forget about choreographed dancing (aside from the Cha Cha Slide, which shouldn’t count). The kids who were dancing—to bleeped-out pop hits—were weirdly…enthusiastic. A chaperone had to keep yelling, “Leave enough room between you for Jesus!” By the end of the night it was: “LEAVE ROOM FOR THE HOLY TRINITY!” And to crown it all, the air conditioner drew its last breath halfway through the dance. By the end of it, Aru had felt like she was wading through a steam of post-recess middle school body odor. Which was, to put it bluntly, the worst.
Meeting Mini was better than a middle school dance. But Aru still felt cheated.
She had wanted a sisterly smile that said I’ve known you all my life. Instead, she was faced with an odd stranger and a pigeon whose sanity was slowly unraveling. Maybe it was supposed to be this way, like part of a trial. She was a hero (kinda?), so maybe she just had to be patient and prove that she was worthy of her Pandava role. Only then would the magic happen.
And so Aru fixed Mini with what she hoped was her friendliest, most blinding smile.
Mini took a step back, clutching her EpiPen tighter.
She didn’t look like a reincarnated Pandava any more than Aru did. But Mini was very different from Aru. There was an upswept tilt to her eyes. Her skin was light gold, like watered-down honey. Not like Aru’s chestnut brown. It made sense, though. India was a very big country with about a billion people in it. From state to state, the people were different. They didn’t even speak the same languages.
Boo lifted off Aru’s hands and hovered in front of the girls’ faces. “You’re Mini, she’s Aru. I’m exasperated. Salutations done? Okay. Off to the Otherworld now.”
“Exasperated, how do we get there?” asked Mini.
Boo blinked. “Let’s hope you inherited some talents, since irony evidently eluded you.”
“I have an iron deficiency. Does that count?” offered Mini.
Before Boo could face-plant once more, Aru caught him.
“Don’t we have somewhere to be? The Sleeper is off somewhere freezing people, and if we don’t stop him by the ninth day, all of them…” Aru gulped. It hadn’t seemed so real until she said it out loud. “They’ll stay that way.”
“To the Otherworld!” cried Boo.
It could’ve sounded really epic. Like Batman hollering, To the Batmobile! But it was barely intelligible, because Boo was squawking from inside Aru’s cupped hands. She placed him on a nearby tree.
“I don’t remember how to get there,” said Mini. “I went once, but I got carsick.”
Envy shot through Aru. “You’ve been to the Otherworld?”
Mini nodded. “My parents took my brother when he turned thirteen. I had to go, too, because they couldn’t find a babysitter. I think all the parents of Pandavas are supposed to take them to the Otherworld once they show signs of being demigods. Didn’t yours?”
Didn’t yours?
Aru hated that question and every variation of it. She’d heard it all the time growing up.
My mom packed me a sandwich for the field trip. Didn’t yours?
My parents always come to my choir practice. Don’t yours?
Sorry, I can’t stay long after school. My mom is picking me up. Isn’t yours?
No. Hers didn’t, doesn’t, isn’t.
Aru’s expression must have been answer enough. Mini’s face softened.
“I’m sure she meant to and just never got around to it. It’s okay.”
Aru looked at Mini: the flattened mouth and pressed-together eyebrows. Mini pitied her. The realization felt like a mosquito bite. Tiny and needling.
Just enough to irritate.
But it also made Aru wonder. If Mini’s mom had told Mini everything, then did that mean their moms knew each other? Did they talk? If they did, how come Aru didn’t know?
Perched on a myrtle tree, Boo began to preen himself. “Right. So, here’s how to get there: You—”
“We’re not driving?” asked Mini.
Aru frowned. She didn’t know much about magic, but she didn’t think the Otherworld should be within driving distance.
Boo shook his head. “Too dangerous. The Sleeper is looking for you.”
Goose bumps prickled across Aru’s arms. “Why?” she asked. “I thought he just wants to go wake up the Lord of Destruction. What does he want with us?”
“He’ll want your weapons,” said Boo. “The Lord of Destruction is surrounded by a celestial sphere that can only be shattered by an immortal device like those weapons.”
Aru was getting a headache. “Wait, so, we need weapons to protect our weapons from becoming…weapons.”
“But we don’t have any weapons!” said Mini. “Or at least I don’t.” She turned pale. “Am I supposed to have a weapon? Do you have one? Is it too late for me to get one, too? Is there a specific one, like only having number two pencils for standardized tests, or—”
“SILENCE!” shouted Boo. “It is fine that you are unarmed. As for where you shall be retrieving these powerful weapons, I shall leave those instructions to the Council of Guardians. They will be waiting for us in the Otherworld.”
He flew down in front of them. Then he pecked at the ground while walking in a small circle. “The key to getting to the Otherworld is reaching. You must grab hold of something invisible. Imagine it’s a string of hope. All you have to do is find it and tug. Simple.”
“A strin
g of hope?” said Aru. “That’s impossible….”
“If it wasn’t, then everyone would go!” retorted Boo.
Mini pushed her glasses a little higher up her nose, and then reached in front of her. Gingerly, like the air might bite her. Nothing happened.
“It helps to look sideways,” said Boo. “That’s usually where you find most entrances to the Otherworld. You have to look and not look. You have to believe and not believe. It’s an in-between thing.”
Aru tried. She glanced sideways, feeling utterly ridiculous. But then, incredibly, she saw something that looked like a thread of light hanging down in the middle of the empty street. The world was still. All the beautiful houses were at once close and also a millennium away. Aru thought that if she were to reach out, her fingers would meet a thin sheet of glass.
“Once you’ve got ahold of the in-between, close your eyes.”
Mini obeyed, and Aru followed her example. She reached out, not expecting anything, but wanting desperately.
Her fingers found nothing at first, and then…she felt it. Like a current of warmth.
It reminded her of summer. Those all-too-rare days when her mother took her to the lake. Sometimes there would be cold spots in the water. And sometimes there were swirling eddies of warmth, a bit of sun-drenched water ribboning around her.
Or sometimes it was just because someone had peed next to her. That was the worst.
This felt like that (the warmth, not the pee).
She grabbed the current, and something firm nosed into her hand—
A doorknob.
Not quite a doorknob. More like a bit of magic trying its best approximation of a doorknob. It was cold and metallic feeling, but it squirmed and tried to wrest itself from her hand. An indignant squeak followed when Aru gripped the knob a little tighter. All of her thoughts poured into a single command: Let me in.
The doorknob made a harrumph sound.
She pulled.
And where there had once been a bit of road, a shriveled crape myrtle tree, and a slightly wonky-shaped mailbox…now there was a panel of light. Boo’s wings rustled behind her.
The three of them walked through that entrance of light. (Well, Boo didn’t walk, because he had decided to perch on Aru’s head.) Her eyes adjusted slowly. All she could see at first was a cavernous ceiling arching above her. They were in a gigantic cave studded with stars. Tiny lights flew past them.
“Bees!” shrieked Mini.
Aru blinked. They weren’t lights, or bees, but moths. Moths with wings of flame. Every time one darted past her, she heard a whisper of a laugh. The walls were cloaked in shadow. There were no doors leading in or out. They were in a bubble.
Aru examined the strange floor beneath her: off-white and bumpy. Each tile was a different length. In fact, the more she looked at it, the more it looked like…
“Bones!” said a voice in front of them. “Do you like them? Took me ages to collect. They’re really quite comfy to walk on, but mind the teeth. Some of those are incisors.”
Aru stiffened. Mini clawed into her backpack and drew out an inhaler.
The little moths of light began to gather around a shape in the dark. One by one, they fluttered their wings and stayed still, as if they were buttoning up whoever stood in the shadows. The shape grew more distinct.
Now it resembled a crocodile that had rolled around in Christmas-tree lights. Only this crocodile was bright blue and the size of a three-story house. The crocodile was also grinning, either happily or—as Aru’s growing panic was beginning to point out—hungrily.
The Council of Guardians
“Pleasedonteatuspleasedonteatuspleasedonteatus,” said Mini rapidly.
“Eat you?” repeated the creature, shocked. Its eyes widened. They reminded Aru of an insect’s eyes—strangely prismed, like a cluster of television screens. “You don’t look very edible. Sorry. I don’t mean to be rude.”
Aru was not in the least bit offended but thought it wise not to point this out.
Boo flew down from her shoulder. “Makara! Guardian of the thresholds between worlds!”
Aru gawked. A real makara. She’d seen photos of them, but only as crocodile-like statues that guarded temples and doors. It was said that the goddess of the Ganges River rode one through the water. Aru wasn’t sure whether that made them mythical boats or guard dogs. Judging from the way the makara was excitedly wagging its tail, she was going with the latter.
“Make way for this generation’s Pandava brothers—” started Boo.
The makara frowned. “They look more like sisters—”
“That’s what I meant!” snapped Boo.
“Wait…I recognize you,” said the makara slowly, tilting its head as it considered Boo. “You don’t look the same.”
“Yes. Well, that happens when one has been…” Boo’s words ended in incoherent muttering. “The heroes are here to meet the Council and receive the details of their quest.”
“Ah! Another chance for the world to end! How delightful. I hope I get more visitors. I never get many visitors. Ooh! I don’t think I’ve opened up an entrance to a Claiming in…well, quite a while. I don’t know how many years it’s been. I was never very good with numbers,” said the makara sheepishly. “Every time I try to count, I get distracted. Even when I’m talking, sometimes it’s like…it’s like…” The makara blinked. “I’m rather hungry. Can I go now?”
“Makara,” growled Boo. The makara cringed and hunkered closer to the floor. “Open the door to the Court of the Sky.”
“Oh! Of course. Yes, I can do that!” said the makara. “First, I just have to see that they are who you say they are. Who are they again? Or what? You know, I’ve never actually seen a vole, and I read about them the other day in a book about animals. Are they voles?”
“Humans,” volunteered Aru.
“Rather tiny for humans. You’re certain you’re not a vole?”
“We’re not done growing yet,” said Mini. “But my pediatrician said I probably won’t get any taller than five foot two.”
“Five feet, you say?” asked the makara. He rolled onto his back and raised his stubby legs. “I really think four feet are much more useful. Five might throw you off-balance. But that’s just my opinion.”
The makara lifted his head, as if he could see beyond them. Something flashed in his prism eyes. Aru saw an image of herself opening the museum entrance to Poppy, Arielle, and Burton. She saw the lighter flame being lowered to the lip of the lamp.
Something else shimmered in the depths of the makara’s gaze….Aru watched Mini discovering her parents frozen on the couch. A movie was playing on the television screen. An older boy who might have been Mini’s brother was in the middle of tossing a basketball into the air.
At first Mini curled into a ball on the living room floor and cried and cried. After a few minutes she went upstairs and took out a backpack. She stared at herself in the mirror, reached for her mother’s eyeliner, and made violent swipes on her cheeks. Then Mini kissed her stiff parents, hugged her immobile brother, and went outside, prepared to face down whatever evil she was destined to defeat.
Mini, for all her worries about allergies and magical bees, was brave.
Aru’s face heated. Compared to Mini, she wasn’t brave at all.
“Well, they are who you say they are!” said the makara. “I hope the Council trusts me.”
“Me too,” Boo harrumphed. “I never lie.”
Aru could not say the same for herself.
Mini was staring at Aru. “You lit the lamp?”
Here comes the blame.
“I know it had to happen,” said Mini hurriedly, as if she’d offended Aru. “My mom told me that the Sleeper was always destined to try to fight us. Don’t worry, I’m not mad. There was no way you could’ve known what that lamp would do.”
That was true, but still…Aru had known that she wasn’t supposed to light it. The problem was, her mom had never told her why. So Aru had thought it
was just one of those generic warnings parents gave to kids, like Don’t go outside without sunscreen or you’ll burn! Or, as the woman who ran the local Hindu temple’s summer day camp liked to remind Aru: Don’t go outside without sunscreen or you’ll get darker and won’t find a husband! Until it happened, who cared? Aru had never gotten sunburned, and she really didn’t need to find a husband at age twelve.
But there wasn’t any protective lotion when it came to demons. It all boiled down to one thing: she wasn’t supposed to light the lamp, and yet she had. The fact that it had been “destined” to happen didn’t really absolve her of blame. Aru’s guilt was beginning to roil in her stomach. To the point where she thought she might throw up.
A bright moth hovered in front of Aru and Mini and Boo. Its wings grew, and light curled through the air, like calligraphy made of starlight. The wings stretched and unfurled until the girls and bird were completely enfolded.
“Good-bye, inedible tiny humans and Subala!” called the makara, no longer visible to them. “May all the doors you face in life swing open and never smack you in the butt as they close!”
The moth faded away, and they found themselves in an open-air room. No wonder it was called the Court of the Sky. Above them, the sky was marbled with clouds. The walls were ribbons of shimmering light. Delicate music laced the air. The space had that deliciously ripe aroma of the earth right after a summer thunderstorm. Aru wished the world smelled like this all the time. Like honey and mint and bright green growing things.
Beside her, Mini groaned, clutching her stomach. “Did I ever tell you I have acrophobia?”
“You’re scared of spiders?”
“No! That’s arachnophobia. I’m scared of heights!”
“Heights?”
Aru looked down. And then she wished she hadn’t. There was a reason it seemed like they were hovering above the earth: they were.
Beneath her feet were two cloudy wisps. And beneath those…a very long fall through a lot of empty sky.
“Don’t take off those cloud slippers,” said Boo, flapping beside them. “That’d be quite unfortunate.”
Aru Shah and the End of Time Page 4
