I limp to the fence. The river creeps by below, black water rippled with light from the streetlamps and neighboring buildings. On the far side, the city glows, turning the sky to a swath of chalky lavender, and the earth to a dense, starry field of electric lights.
An orange flicker bobs into view. I look down. A small stub of candle in a paper boat sails into view on the river below. I forget to breathe as I watch it riding lonely and sure along the slow-moving current. And then another small flame rounds the river’s gentle bend, and another, and another, until the river is aglow with a fleet of delicate boats ferrying their flames over the water.
“It’s to remember the dead.” Rushil’s voice comes from the darkness behind me.
I close my hand over the hilt of Perpétue’s knife and loosen it in my belt. I won’t let him put his hands on me again.
He steps to my side and looks down at the lights. “People go upriver and light them. One for everyone someone’s lost.”
The lines around his mouth cut deeper in the candlelight. He shows no sign of moving closer. What does he want from me? He says he doesn’t want anything, but then he kisses me, and that can only mean he expects more. Right? I wish Perpétue was here so I could ask her what he meant, what all of this means. I finger the knife’s worn hilt. I didn’t want him to kiss me, did I?
“I’m sorry, Ava. I never . . .” He rakes a hand through his hair. “Chaila.”
Miyole’s bandaged hands flicker in my memory. Rushil listening to my stories about the tea drinkers at work. Sitting with me outside Pankaj’s house. Squeezing my hand in the cockpit. I loosen my grip on the knife and look at him.
“Really, Ava. When you touched me, I . . . I thought maybe you wanted to, or I would never . . .”
I want to believe him, but something hard sticks in my chest. I need the truth. I will be tough, like Perpétue showed me, not some soft girl. “What do you want from me, Rushil? Let’s be true about it.”
His mouth hangs open. “Nothing, I—”
“Come on.” I step toward him. I feel heavy, thick and toxic with all that’s happened to me, happened to Miyole. “I’m not some innocent. If you want what Shruti says, at least say it to my face.”
“No, I don’t, I—”
“Then why are you acting so kind all the time? Making food? Fixing our ship?” I move close. My head only comes up to his chin, but he steps back. “What’s a Marathi Wailer doing acting the good heart?”
“I told you, I’m not a part of them anymore.”
I fold my arms across my chest. “And that’s supposed to make it all better?”
He looks to the river. “No, it doesn’t. Only it means I’d never hurt you, Ava.” He drops his hands to his side. “I want you to believe me. I haven’t run with them in five years. Not since I was a stupid kid. Not since I’ve had this place instead. But it’s always coming back on me.”
“Why’d you kiss me, then?”
“I . . .” He closes his eyes. “I like you, Ava.”
I lean against the fence. The lights on the river are almost gone. “Oh.”
“I thought you maybe liked me, too,” he says. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to make you . . .”
“Oh.” I look at my dirty, cracked fingernails under the perimeter lights. Something wet rolls down my cheek, and I reach up to swipe it away.
I clear my throat and concentrate on scraping away the dirt beneath my nails. “When I was growing up, my modries told me you only ever kiss the man you’re given to marry.”
And now I’ve kissed two men, and married neither.
Rushil’s eyes go wide. “I never meant . . . Here it’s only something you do to say you like someone.”
I close my hand so my nails dig into my palm. “I believe you.”
Rushil sits beside me in dirt. “Do you think you could like me back, Ava?” The wanting on his face is so plain it hurts.
“I don’t know.” I reach out and hook my finger around a broken link at the bottom of the fence. Luck, Luck, my heart twinges with every beat. How can I ever love someone who isn’t Luck? It feels like betrayal, even if I know I might not find him in Khajjiar after all, even if he might well be dead.
“M-maybe, but . . .” But it’s too much. I can’t finish. I can’t even think about it. I turn away and bury my face in my hands. I can’t let Rushil see me dissolve into tears, can’t let him see me weak. I bite my tongue so I won’t make any noise.
“Ava.” He scuffs closer to me. His hand brushes the hair above my ear, and it’s all I can do not to lean into his touch. “I’m sorry. Whatever happened, whatever people’ve done to you before, it’s not what I mean to do. I swear. Can you let me prove it to you?”
I sit with my face in my palms.
“Let me make you dinner tonight. You don’t even have to eat with me. You don’t have to give me anything or do anything you don’t want to. Just please, let me be your friend again. I want things back the way they were, that’s all.”
I sit up and rub hard at my eyes with my wrists. “Right so,” I say.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
CHAPTER .27
I come back from a twelve-hour shift at Powell-Gupta to find the sloop empty. Panic hits me. I hurry to Rushil’s trailer and bang on the door.
“Miyole?” I bang again. “Rushil?”
Pala barks from somewhere behind the trailer.
“Ava?” Rushil calls back, his voice muffled. “We’re over here.”
I walk around the back of the trailer and find Miyole and Rushil in the midst of a small wedge of garden I’ve noticed before, huddled around an old wooden baling spool turned on its side like a table. Cucumber vines wind up a makeshift lattice behind the table. A pile of scrap metal sit between them, and Miyole holds the burner I fixed for her.
“You have to do it slowly.” She holds up a metal shard for Rushil to see, and drags the burner’s white-hot point over its surface. “Like this.”
“Huh. I see.” Rushil catches sight of me and sits up straight. “Hey, Ava.” He smiles. “Miyole’s been showing me how to use a metal burner.”
Pala limps over and smacks her tail against my leg. I pat her side absentmindedly.
“I’m making a dragonfly.” Miyole bites the inside of her lip, thinking, and for a slip, she’s the picture of her mother. She looks at me. “Do you want to learn, too?”
Relief floods me. She’s out of the sloop. She’s making her creatures again. Mercies, thank you.
“I’ll watch.” I lean against the side of the trailer so I can look over her shoulder. She’s already outlined the basic shape of the creature and is beginning to slice out a delicate cutwork inside its wings. The metal itself shimmers with undertones of turquoise and rose.
“Oh,” I breathe. “Miyole, that’s some lovely.”
She cranes her neck up at me and narrows her eyes, as if she isn’t sure she believes me.
“I mean it.” I squeeze her shoulder and blink back a tear. I don’t want to spook her by crying.
Rushil clears his throat and stands. “Anybody want tea? Miyole?”
“Yes, tea,” she agrees.
He pushes his chair in. “Ava?”
“Please so.”
He opens a small door in the back of the trailer I’ve never noticed before and steps up into the kitchen. Miyole picks up her burner again.
I lean in the doorway as Rushil balances the kettle on the stovetop. “You got her talking.”
“Yeah.” Rushil spoons dry tea leaves into an old brass teapot.
“Thank you.”
Rushil darts a look at me and shrugs. “It was nothing.”
“I couldn’t do it.” I look over my shoulder. Miyole frowns in concentration as she rounds out the creature’s eyes. Pala has settled beneath her chair, and Miyole rubs the dog’s back with her feet as she works.
“Well, I have to know how to talk to kids if I’m going to be a counselor.”
I raise my eyebrows. “A counselor?”
Rushil’s face darkens. He speaks down at the cups he’s holding. “Yeah. For kids who are . . . like me. Like I was. Who want out of the Wailers and gangs like that.”
I step up into the kitchen. “Right so?” I’m not sure exactly what a counselor does, and I don’t know what else to add.
He touches the tiger. “I was thirteen when I got this. A few months later, I got caught running white tar to a dealer near the hotels, and they sent me down south to a juvenile detention camp.” He shrugs. “I spent three years there before they sent me back to my uncle.”
I look away. “I’m sorry.”
The kettle puffs and builds to a low keen. “Don’t be.” Rushil pulls it from the burner. “I met a counselor there who was with Kere Haavu before he went straight. He got me to study, finish school while I was locked up. I want to try and do the same.”
We lapse into silence. I think on how tense and sick he looked when we went to visit Pankaj, and how it all lifted the moment we were away. He didn’t want to be there, but he took me anyway. He didn’t want to be there, but it was the only way to find me work on the books, work that would keep me away from men like Pankaj and boys like he used to be.
I watch him pour tea and carry the tray out to Miyole. He pretends he’s going to dump the whole contents of the sugar bowl into her cup, only to pull back at the last minute. She giggles and reaches as he holds the bowl over his head. I watch them, watch Miyole smiling true for the first time since we broke the cloud caps over the Gyre.
Rushil looks up at me. In that moment, I realize I’m smiling, too, and cover my mouth with my hand.
Rushil knocks softly on the sloop’s hull. I put down one of the old paper books I’ve been practicing my reading on and climb out of the berth as quiet as I can.
“She’s sleeping,” I whisper.
“Sorry,” Rushil says. He pauses as if he’s not sure what to say next.
I lead him away from the ship so we don’t have to go on in whispers. “What is it?”
“I was going down to the TaTa Talkies tonight,” he says, looking more at his feet than me. “I thought maybe. . . do you want to come with me?”
“What’s the talkies?”
“It’s this old theater down by the levees. From back when Mumbai was the movie capital of the world. They keep this room on the second floor set up like an antique cinema, with a light projector and everything. The midnight show is always packed. Hold on.” He pulls his crow from his pocket. “It’s Musical Marathon night. You want to go?”
“I, uh . . .” I hesitate. I don’t want to admit to Rushil I have no idea what a marathon is, or a musical, exactly. “I don’t have the money.” That’s true enough. Why would I spend what precious little I have on music?
“My friend Ankur works there,” Rushil says. “He can get us in for free.”
“But Miyole . . .” I look back at the sloop.
“She’ll be safe,” Rushil says. “You can lock up the ship and I’ll set the gate alarms.”
I press my lips together, thinking. I’ve seen smallgirls and boys some younger than Miyole out running the streets alone all day, and here she’ll be locked up safe. Even if ship strippers did break in, ours is the last they’d go for, with its burned-out engine and missing tiles. I wish I could be as light as Rushil looks now, even for one evening.
“Come on.” Rushil smiles and punches me playfully on the arm. “You deserve it. She’ll be fine. Besides, musicals are no fun alone.”
I bite my lip and look back at the sloop again. “How long will we be gone?”
“Two hours,” he says. “Maybe three.”
I’m off some longer for work each day, and besides, Miyole’s asleep. She won’t even know I’m gone. “Right so.” I smile tentatively. “I s’pose I’ll go.”
I scrawl out a note saying I’ll be back soon, in case Miyole wakes up, and then grab Perpétue’s jacket. It’s too hot to wear it, but I feel better having it with me, even if it’s only draped over my arm.
We walk down to Sion station and take the train past the center city. As we glide closer to the massive levees on the west side, a sprawling white building with a dome and spire roof shines out among its neighbors. A sign glittering with millions of tiny lights projects above its top floor—TATA TALKIES—backed by the immense blankness of the levee wall. I stare past it, up at the round houses perched atop the walls like glittering lanterns floating in the night sky.
“Come on, this is our stop.” Rushil pulls at my sleeve.
We walk to the front steps of the building. I pause before the wash of light streaming from the theater and watch the people filing in. Their sleek, armless shirts, loose-cut pants, and gossamer scarves reflect the foyer lights. They take the steps gracefully, their thin-soled slippers and sandals bending with the curve of their feet. They leave me feeling shabby and heavy in my boots, my faded cotton button-down and patched trousers from the Gyre. Except for my work uniform, I only have one set of clothes, and I haven’t washed them in three days.
I turn back. “Maybe this was a mistake.”
“What’s wrong?” Rushil asks.
“I don’t . . . I don’t know. It’s . . . I don’t think I belong here.” I wave my hands at myself, my clothes, my snarled, uneven hair.
“No one cares. Besides, we’re not going in that way.” Rushil nods at the brightly lit grand entrance.
“No?” I frown.
“Nope.” Rushil grins. “Ankur’s giving us his employee discount.”
We skirt the crowd and head down an alley to the left of the building. A metal fire stair zigzags up its side.
I hang back. “Up there?”
But Rushil is already banging up the steps. The whole staircase sways slightly under his feet, as if it isn’t entirely anchored to the building anymore.
“Rushil!” I call as quietly as I can. I climb the first few steps, and feel them bob under my weight. “Rushil!”
“Come on,” Rushil calls down from the top tier. “Don’t worry. I’ve climbed this thing a million times.”
I swallow and step lightly up the staircase. It wobbles and sways, but I make it to the top.
“See?” Rushil says. “It’s nothing.”
I peek through the cracked door into a hallway lit with dozens of glass-beaded chandeliers. A crowd shuffles in from a grand staircase, filling the close space with mumbling and excited whispers.
“Maybe we should go back,” I say.
“It’s dark in there.” Rushil leans over my shoulder to check on the crowd. “No one’s going to notice us.”
I put my eye to the slit in the door and look on the crowd again. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I won’t seem so out of place in the dim light, with everyone’s minds on the musical.
“Right so,” I say, then catch myself. “I mean, okay.”
I move to pull the door open, but Rushil stops me with a tug on my hand. “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Make yourself say things our way. There’s nothing wrong with the way you say it. It’s atranji.”
“What?”
He frowns and stares up at the levee, searching for words. The glare from the glittering sign and all the lights of Mumbai mute the sky to gunmetal gray. “It’s like . . . well, strange, but that’s not how I mean it.”
“Thanks?”
“No, I mean . . .” He sighs in frustration. “Extraordinary, that’s it.”
I smile a little. Extraordinary. “Right so?”
“Right so,” he says, and I have to laugh at how funny my crewe’s words sound coming from his mouth.
We slip through the door and join the line inching down a hallway. Chai wallahs and vendors selling dark beer and juice edge through the crowd, handing over glasses from the trays around their necks and scanning in payments from people’s crows.
At l
ast, we break through into narrow room built on a slope, with a vaulted ceiling and rows on rows of cushioned chairs climbing up to the back wall.
“Up there.” Rushil points to a black door behind the last row of seats.
I barely watch my feet as we climb. An immense chandelier, the mother of all the little ones from the hallway, dangles above us. At the top, I turn to find myself facing a white square taking up the whole of the room’s front wall. A smartscreen? But no, those go a kind of gray when they’re off, and this is bright, bright white without any kind of glow, somehow. All the seats face it. The crowd filters in, murmuring in a way that sends pleasant shivers through me.
The door swings open. “Hey, man.”
I start and look up. A handsome, dark-skinned boy with perfect teeth and hair in tight ringlets stands in the doorway.
“Come in, come in.” The boy waves us up.
We follow. A low-ceilinged room jammed with machines and racks of small metal cylinders stretches away into the gloom.
Rushil grins, slap-shakes with the boy, then fakes a jab at his ribs. “Hey, Ankur. Thanks for letting us in.”
“No problem. Bai’s here too.” He waves down into the crowd. “We’re going over to Zarine’s later, if you want to catch up.”
Rushil glances back at me. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
Ankur notices me. “Oh, hey. You’re Rushil’s girl?”
“I’m not—” I start to say.
Rushil speaks up at the same time. “No. Just friends.”
“Okay,” Ankur holds up his hands in mock surrender. “Chaila.”
Rushil shoots a worried look at me and winces. Sorry. “Ava’s new to the city. I’m showing her around.”
“Ankur,” Ankur says, holding his hand out to me. When I take it, he raises my knuckles to his lips. “Tell Rushil not to keep you hidden, huh? He always tries to keep the good ones to himself.”
My skin goes roasting hot. I duck my head so I can hide behind my hair.
“Quit your bhankas, man.” Rushil rolls his eyes at me. “Don’t mind him. He’s contractually obligated to flirt.”
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