“Silly. That’s what friends are for, isn’t it? To save each other?” Naya said. “You taught me that.”
Naya was saved, but unfortunately, everyone else in the multiverse was not. Right after we visited the hospital wing, tragedy struck our little group. The formerly tough rakkhoshi Priya suddenly dubbed herself Princess Petunia Pants and started screaming at the sight of the other rakkhoshis.
“Who are they? What is this? Where am I?” she screamed, pulling at her nonexistent hair. We knew then that she was a goner. Another victim of story smushing. Another sign that Sesha was winning and the big crunch was on its way.
Abandoning her camo pants and sari cape for a tutu, crown, and wand she got from who knows where, Priya was even starting to look like a bald version of the cutie-pie Princess Pretty Pants™ doll. Which was, as you can imagine, way disturbing. We left Priya-slash-Princess-Petunia with tiny Jack and the giant Miss Muffet, as well as Sir Gobbet, who was now convinced he was the short, moustachioed sultan from a popular 2-D cartoon about a boy and a flying carpet.
“A whole new world!” he warbled really loud in a super off-key way.
We were so few in numbers that we needed all of our brainpower now, so we even got the doctor’s permission to hold our planning meeting in Naya’s hospital room. Mati opened our meeting with a summary of all that had happened, and then called on Neel and me to report on our experiences in the past, at Ghatatkach Academy.
“We got a glimpse as to why Sesha wants to marry my mom—he obviously wants to use her power to kill the diversity of the multiverse, what he calls chaos, and make all our stories collapse into one,” said Neel. “And we know now that my mom, as the Rakkhoshi Queen, holds the multiple stories of the universe somehow inside of her, that she’s at least partially responsible for keeping the stories of the universe expanding. But we haven’t a clue as to why my mom’s agreed to the marriage.”
I shot Neel a curious look, and he shrugged. “What?” he said. “We don’t. I mean, there are multiple theories, but we don’t have enough, um, data, to know which of them is right.”
“I don’t know about that, Neel,” I said. I saw him look warily at me, so I rushed to continue. “Going into the past, Neel and I learned that even if Sesha was using her, Pinki really loved him, at least back when they were young.” I turned to Neel. “I’m sorry I was so quick to judge your mom. I was wrong.”
He smiled gratefully at me, and again, I felt my heart do that expanding trick.
“What we need is some help,” Mati said. “Oh, look, he’s here.”
“Ask and you shall receive!” a voice called. It was Einstein-ji!
Naya smiled up from her hospital bed. “I’m so glad you received our gecko-gram, Your Smartness!”
I realized Tiktiki One was once again sitting on Naya’s shoulder, swiveling his eyeballs and rolling and unrolling his tongue.
“Two correctly delivered messages in one day! Good job!” I congratulated the little lizard.
“I told you the technology worked,” Naya said with a proud, if tired, smile.
Neel looked wonderingly up at the scientist. I realized his presence was fainter than it usually was, kind of see-through and transparent. Also, all around him, there were little chirping star babies. “Are you using Essence-Tyme, and calling in from Maya Pahar, Smartie-ji?” he asked the scientist.
“We are starting to feel ze beginnings of ze big crunch even here!” said Albert Einstein. “Star babies are refusing to sing! Ze nebula is starting to look more and more like a multilevel parking lot, and ze wells of dark energy are drying up. No more rakkhosh babies being born!”
“No more wells, no more babies!” Naya gasped. “My people—are we to die off, then?”
“If Sesha and ze Anti-Chaos Committee of intercultural villains have their way, we will all die off, even ze serpents of the Kingdom Beyond,” said Einstein-ji. “Ze only ones left after we collapse into ze singularity will be those who have most intergalactic power. Sadly, power has always determined whose stories are told and whose stories are allowed to be remembered.”
Then, just as abruptly as Einstein-ji had appeared, his Essence-Tyme signal cut out and he was gone.
“I guess we’re on our own,” Mati whispered.
I reached out and grabbed her hand. “We have each other.”
“So what can we do?” asked Lal.
Neel raised a surprised eyebrow in his direction. “We? You tired of being Raja already?”
Lal blushed a little. “Brother, I take our responsibilities seriously. But I also know that they are ours together. Not mine alone.”
“All for one and one for all!” said Buddhu, running up between Lal and Neel and embracing his two brothers. “Bhootoom and I humbly accept your generous offer to be co-Rajas!”
Neel and Lal exchanged an amused look and laughed, but they didn’t contradict the monkey prince.
“So what’s our next move?” I wondered out loud.
“If only we had some way to ascertain if the Rakkhoshi Rani received her son’s missive,” mused Bunty.
Of course! Neel’s letter to his mother that had been hidden in the tottho presents! Had she gotten it, and more importantly, had she answered?
“From what our spies were able to tell us, we think she got it,” Mati said. “But I’m sorry, we haven’t intercepted any notes from her.”
“She was my first storyteller,” Neel said in such a soft voice, I wasn’t sure anyone else heard him. “And she’s sworn to protect the diversity of the multiverse’s stories. I just don’t think she would help destroy them.”
“I think you’re right, Neel,” I said honestly. “There has to be something else going on.” That’s when something clicked in my head. “Wait a minute, last night, when Neel and I were away, was the big mehendi ceremony, right?”
“Don’t tell me you’re sad you missed getting henna on your hands while you were attending demon school?” squawked Tuni.
Instead of answering the bird, I scooched over to Naya’s hospital bed. “Naya, do you have your phone on you?”
“Pfft, what kind of a question is that?” my friend said, pulling her cell out of a pocket in her gown. “I had wing surgery, not a personality transplant!”
“Look up if Twinkle Chakraborty or Suman Rahaman, or anyone, really, made a video diary of the mehendi ceremony. Anything that would give me a closer look of Pinki’s hands and feet,” I demanded.
“Arré Pinki, is it?” Buddhu drawled, chuckling. “If you’re brave enough to call my stepmother that, hats off to you, yaar!” The monkey collapsed in giggles, and Bhootoom the owl hooted his laughter too.
Despite everyone else looking confused, Neel seemed to catch my drift. “You think she might have sent me a message in her mehendi design?”
“If she couldn’t send something more openly, it would make sense,” I said. “I mean, you saw how at her choosing ceremony all those stories got marked and soaked into her skin.”
“Mehendi isn’t actually traditional to the Kingdom Beyond Seven Oceans and Thirteen Rivers,” sniffed Bunty. “Here, alta, or the outline of the palms and feet in red, is far more common. Mehendi has been imported from other regions in the dimension. If you’d like, I can explain the history of this cultural transmigration …”
“No, I’m good right now!” I assured the tiger as I watched Naya scroll through her search results. “Maybe later!”
Bunty sniffed. “Fine, fine, don’t know your own history.”
But I did know my history. In fact, I’d just traveled through it. I also knew that it was okay—wonderful even—that stories and practices sometimes traveled from place to place, influencing each other and even creating new stories. That was okeydokey by me. The more stories the better, in fact. The dangerous thing was when we tried to shut some stories down, silence them, smush them into more dominant stories.
“Did you find anything?” I asked Naya.
“No video feed. I guess Ms. Twinkle and Sooms wer
e really banned from reporting on any more wedding events,” said Naya. “But I did find this picture, taken by none other than your brother, Naga, apparently.”
It was a weird image. Seven separate lens exposures combined into one big image. But the seven separate pictures actually let me see the mehendi on Pinki’s arms and hands from multiple different angles. I could tell there were words there, but the more I magnified Naya’s phone, the blurrier the images got.
“Hey, Bhootoom, can I borrow this for a minute?” I asked. When the owl prince hooted his approval, I carefully took his monocle and looked at the phone through the magnifying lens of it.
What I saw took my breath away. A very clear message was written into the decorations on the Demon Queen’s right arm:
Stories keep the multiverse growing.
And on her left arm, over and over, in the shape of flowers, birds, dancing peacocks, the words: Save the Stories. Save the Stories. Save the Stories.
“I knew it,” whispered Neel.
“No, you thought she was a prisoner,” I said slowly. “But Pinki’s no prisoner. She’s marrying Sesha because she thinks she can stop him! She must think it’s her responsibility as the Demon Queen to stop the Anti-Chaos Committee from destroying the multiverse’s stories!”
“She’s on our side?” said Lal wonderingly.
“Stranger things have happened,” said Naya pertly.
We all watched as Lal sheepishly walked over to Naya’s bedside. “I’m truly sorry I said those, erm, unkind things about you earlier.”
Gentle Naya’s eyes got a little shiny, and I noticed Mati’s did too. “That’s okay, Your Princeliness,” Naya said in a muffled voice. “But I appreciate the apology.”
Neel seemed too occupied with his mom to even register Lal and Naya’s interaction. “My mom is marrying Sesha so that she can stop him!” he exclaimed. “She wants to save the multiverse!”
“But she’s obviously not doing a very good job of it,” said Mati. “I mean, look at what’s going on!”
She pointed at Buddhu and Bhootoom, who were gathered at Bunty’s feet, singing some kind of a song about a lion king.
“If she’s going to keep the multiverse’s stories expanding, Pinki can’t do it alone.” I thought back to Mati scolding Neel and me because we were trying to go off and do things on our own, instead of relying on the connections and strength of our family and friends. “She may not realize it, but Pinki needs our help!”
The sangeet is tonight,” Mati said, her eyes dancing with a suspiciously merry expression. “And we do have a musical number planned for it.”
“No. No. No. No!” Neel said, his hands out. “I’ve already told Kiran, no step-ball-change or jazz hands for me.”
“You have to do it, Neel!” I insisted. “It’s a part of the plan!”
And that’s how Neel and I found ourselves being measured for last-minute costumes by Miss Muffet and Jack, who had most surprisingly taken over the role of fashion designer Gyan Mukherjee. All of tiny Jack’s candle jumping made him both nimble and quick with a needle and thread. And as Miss Muffet explained, designing over-the-top sparkly and shiny sangeet costumes was a lot more interesting than designing tuffets. “My creathivity was being blocketh,” she explained while chomping on some spicy curds and curried whey.
And that’s also how Neel and I found ourselves maniacally rehearsing the end of the grand song-and-dance number that the demon dance troupe had already been practicing for days.
A lot of the rakkhosh dancers were jealous of us being allowed to jump in at the last minute—and the fact that we were getting prime center stage placement.
“We’ve been rehearsing for a long time!” a fire rakkhosh complained to Mati. “It’s not fair.”
Mati explained about the whole end of the multiverse being prevented but the dancers weren’t happy until she promised they could have an extra curtain call and extra time to bow and wave to the audience at the end.
When it came time for the sangeet, Neel and I were exhausted but ready. He was wearing horribly showy sherwani-pajamas and a turban encrusted with multicolor pom-poms. I was in a bright red sari embedded with holiday lights that went on and off at random intervals. It was so hideous but at least it was red, so I could wear my ruby-red combat boots underneath. Both of us had a ridiculous amount of makeup and fake noses to disguise our features. Plus, I had on a giant bouffant wig, and Neel was wearing fake glasses with no lenses.
“Ready?” I asked him, my heart racing from nervousness even as my limbs were aching from all the last-minute practice.
Instead of answering, Neel just flashed his jazz hands.
I was sure we were going to get caught in the extensive security for sangeet performers. But because of Mati’s coaching, we actually made it through. “Don’t look suspicious, and look them straight in the eye,” she had told us. “Also, blather about silly things like the weather, and the latest cricket scores, and how much you like their clothes.”
“Beautiful weather you’re wearing!” I’d nervously said to the first guards. “Also, have you heard? Cricket is a thing people play with a bat!”
They had given me strange looks but let us go through.
The sangeet performances were all taking place at an outdoor stage in a huge amphitheater that had been set up next to the palace complex. I paced nervously backstage, sure we were going to get caught, sure something was going to go wrong. This was a risky thing we were doing, and since my fight with Neel and of course Naya’s near death, I was pretty sensitive about jumping to conclusions, or putting my friends in danger. I was learning by experience about humility—to believe in myself but also not let my overconfidence swell my head.
“Take a breath, and look up,” Neel whispered. He took my hand in his and pointed at the bright moon, high and dazzling in the sky. “She’s watching over us.”
I looked up and let out a sigh. “I’m glad she’s here,” I said, squeezing Neel’s hand in gratitude.
In the dark backstage, standing so very close to him, I felt something skip in my chest. Neel’s hand reached out and touched my cheek super softly. “Thank you for doing this with me. Thank you for saving me—so many times. Thank you, Kiran, for everything.”
I thought about how badly I had wanted his thanks just a few days ago. Now it felt so totally unnecessary. “You’re welcome,” I whispered. “But as my baba always says, no thank-yous among family.”
Neel chuckled, low and soft. “My mom always said that too.”
“But thanks all the same,” I said. “To you too. For all the stuff.”
I felt rather than saw Neel nod, and I don’t know why, but I felt so cracked and open all of a sudden, I almost cried. I could feel everything—the light, the dark, the stories, the stardust that made up each of us.
But then I was stopped from crying by the awful, fateful words of the sangeet announcer, a dude in a headset and horrible purple velvet suit who waved maniacally in our faces: “You’re on!”
Our mostly rakkhosh secret-resistance-group song-and-dance number started out okay. Everyone step-ball-changed and hip-swiveled in the right order and in the right directions. There was silly eyelash-batting followed by arms-in-the-air-dancing followed by a lot of really literal acting out the words. Like “my heart” (touch my heart) “beats” (flutter my hand on my chest) “for” (hold up four fingers) “you” (make like a sheep and baah on the ground). Get it? Because a female sheep is a “ewe”—which sounds the same as “you.” Anyway, you get the idea.
It was at the second set of step-ball-changes and jazz hands that everything that could go wrong did go wrong. One rakkhosh tripped, knocking off a nearby rakkhoshi’s wig, and then the two dancers were pushing and punching and biting each other as the lyrics of the song were dripping on about how much love was like a shyly blooming flower. Even as they fought, the two dancers kept trying to smile at the audience. “You’re in my spotlight!” “No, you’re in my spotlight!” “You’re blocking me
!” they shrieked. And soon other dancers who also felt their spotlights were being blocked got into the fight too, and there were claws scratching and fists flying and all mayhem breaking out even as most of the dancers kept on going, fake smiles on their faces, pretending like nothing was wrong.
The audience started booing long before we were meant to be done—there were still two more sappy verses left about souls and eyes and hearts and lips and ladybugs and who knows what else. “Neel, I think the performance is going downhill fast!” I whispered.
When a fire rakkhosh set his partner’s costume ablaze, it was clear the time had come. “We’d better get going with our plan now!” Neel shouted, waving for the spotlight to move away from the fighting rakkhosh dancers and onto us.
As soon as the giant spotlight hit me, I froze in place, terrified. It hadn’t occurred to me when I was just one of many dancers, but now I could feel Sesha’s presence out there in the audience. His eyes were on me, and I could practically feel them burning my skin. I hoped my disguise was holding—I had a lot of makeup on, not to mention the giant bouffant of a wig. I got so nervous, I couldn’t remember the choreography from this part of the song, so I started doing all the stupid dances I could think of: the running man, the moonwalk, the dad party dance of a side-to-side foot shuffle and butt wiggle. In short, I looked like a total fool. “Neel, come on!” I hissed out of the side of my mouth.
There was a rise in the music, a heartfelt warbling of notes, and with that Neel kind of kangaroo-hopped to center stage and gave a big, silly ballerina twirl. As he twirled, he tossed me a copy of Thakurmar Jhuli, not Einstein-ji’s magical time-traveling copy, but a regular old copy of the folktale book that a grandma or dad or aunty might read to their kids.
As the music changed, Neel kept dancing to the middle of the stage. Here it came, my part. It was now or never. Copying a move from a 2-D movie I’d seen a long time ago with Zuzu, I shouted, “Nobody puts our stories in a corner!” and ran at Neel, the book still in my hands.
The Chaos Curse Page 22