The Library of Fates

by Aditi Khorana

  “I’m sorry that I’m the one to deliver the news to you. We’re altering the course of nature,” I explained to her. “And I don’t know all the consequences. I don’t think anyone ever does. And I know that in your heart, it doesn’t feel right. It probably won’t for a long time.”

  “What about you?” she asked. “What happens to you?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Do you just . . . disappear?” she asked carefully.

  “I don’t know. But most likely, it all just . . . ends.”

  As I said this, I realized that I felt broken too. I was close to exiting this world that I had been a part of, and it was difficult to let go. It was as though the pain that Sikander must have felt in that other version of this story had somehow been divided among us.

  That was the moment that Thea began to cry, her shoulders trembling. It was actually hitting her now—she wasn’t just letting go of a moment or a person or an outcome that she wanted. She was closing the door on an entirely other life, and I could tell that she felt the loss of that future as though she had actually lived it.

  And she had, in some other version of time. I understood this now.

  “Thea?” I quietly asked, getting up and sitting down next to her. “Are you . . . all right?”

  She turned to me, and her skin was blotched red, her eyes crimson. She was crying the kind of tears where the sadness threatens to choke and engulf you. I knew this kind of sadness well.

  “One day, I’ll make peace with it, I suppose. But it’s a lie. And the saddest thing is . . . he doesn’t know.”

  “Who, Sikander?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Chandradev. He’ll never know how I feel about him. It’s as though there’s a hollow in my life now that can never be filled. And I just know I’ll spend my years searching the world, looking for pieces of him in everyone I meet. Does that make sense to you?”

  I realized then that she was looking to me for strength. My mother wanted me to comfort her. I swallowed hard as I thought about Arjun. I sat down beside her. “I loved someone like that once.”

  “Arjun?”

  I nodded. “There’s another version of this story where he and I run away together,” I said. “Where we actually succeed at running away.”

  “And probably another where you marry.”

  “And another where he loves someone else, and so do I.”

  “How do you make peace with that?” she asked. “With all the possibilities? With everything that could have been?”

  But for once, I couldn’t will myself to consider all the fates that were out of my control, all the lives I had lost or couldn’t have. I simply wanted to spend the last precious moments of my existence with my mother.

  She was right: Sooner, rather than later, it would all end. It would end for all of us. I just didn’t know what that would look like for me. But perhaps that’s always the case anyway.

  “Amrita?” she asked before she left my room that night. I turned to her, and she pulled me into her arms, holding me tightly.

  “I love you,” she said. “And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you the way I should have,” she said.

  I couldn’t fight back the tears that flowed easily from my eyes. We both cried, together, for all that had been lost, in this life and in that other life. And we cried because I think we both understood that there was no life without loss.

  But mostly, we cried because through some great mystery of the universe, through forces beyond our understanding, we had been returned to each other, and for that, I was grateful.

  The sun was rising over campus now, and it was a new day: an opportunity for another future.

  But I was thankful just for this moment.

  “I love you too, Mama,” I said before I reluctantly let her go.

  Thirty-Six

  I MUST HAVE SLEPT the entire day, because it was dark by the time Thala woke me up. I had no energy; I felt as though I was made of air, like my bones were glass.

  “How did it go?” she asked, slowly sitting down beside me.

  “We spoke for a long time,” I said, “About . . . everything I could think of.” I turned on my side to look at Thala.

  She closed her eyes before she opened them again. They were gray, and I watched her as she spoke.

  “I can see again. It’s like the future is forming, becoming more solid. Thea and Sikander won’t have children of their own,” she said, as though this was some sort of consolation. “They’ll be together for some time . . . many years. Sikander will inherit the throne organically, after his father dies a natural death. He’ll have been so influenced by Thea that he’ll be a benevolent, kind ruler, beloved by his people. Thea knows what she wants for this nation. She and Sikander will build schools and hospitals. They’ll tax the rich, make sure the poor are taken care of. She’ll start a movement to empower women. This is her chance to make Macedon the kind of place it should be. And Sikander will carry out her will. This is all wonderful for the people of Macedon. And the people of the world.”

  I nodded, but I didn’t feel happy. I came here to do what I needed to, but it had left an indelible scar on me. Perhaps there wasn’t a version of life that one could sail through unscarred, but I felt as though I knew too much, understood too much, had seen too much of the complexities of the world.

  “And my father?”

  “He’ll marry eventually. But many, many years from now. He’ll go back to Shalingar and rule the way he was always meant to. When he dies, he’ll leave the throne to Arjun, whom he’ll treat like his own son.”

  “Arjun.” I smiled. Arjun felt so far away now, as though I had known him a lifetime ago. I didn’t even feel as though he was mine anymore. And he wasn’t. We had forged entirely separate paths. The probability that he would eventually meet someone else, love someone else, smarted only slightly. I knew he was the very last thing I had to let go of, and once I did, perhaps another world waited for me beyond my own attachments.

  “It’s all because of you, Amrita,” Thala went on. “You’ve saved your kingdom. You’ve saved so many people. You’ve . . . undone years of war, of slavery, of injustice.”

  Still, I felt unconvinced and depleted. “Imagine if I had actually killed Sikander . . . none of this would have been possible.” The nearness of that version of events was chilling.

  Thala shrugged. “But you didn’t. You did the right thing.”

  I thought about the last couple of days. I had traveled to the place of my birth. I had gotten to know my mother. I had spent time with my father again. I had done more than just the right thing. My heart was full, even though I was a different person now.

  “Now there’s the matter of my own fate,” Thala added.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “Sikander won’t come find you in the woods now, he won’t kidnap you or break apart your family—”

  “We’re not . . . real, Amrita.”

  I looked at her quizzically.

  “We came here to do what we have to do, but if we keep hanging around here, then we become vetalas ourselves.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “When my mother has a child, a few years from now, it won’t be me. It’ll be another child. Because I’m here, in this odd, in-between space. And so are you. We don’t . . . belong here.”

  The reality of her words hit me hard. Varun, I realized, sitting up. That was why he had followed us into the past. Perhaps he had even led us here. Either way, we still weren’t done, not quite yet, but only Varun could show us our fates now.

  ¤

  The moon was low in the sky when we arrived at the base of Mount Spinakis, and we hiked all the way to the top in the silver light, taking in the blanket of stars above us. The bright lights of Macedon sparkled beneath us, and chariots whizzed this way and that on the Avenue of the
Gods. I looked at the river that we had raced across, the campus where I had met Thea and Chandradev and Sikander. I took in the sight one last time, and smiled.

  I didn’t know where I was going, but just being up here was somehow freeing. I realized that I didn’t really belong anywhere or to anyone anymore. Not Sikander or my father or my mother. Not Arjun either. I had somehow become my own person.

  “Ready?” Thala asked.

  “Ready,” I told her, and I fished the dagger out of my satchel and placed it under the moonlight.

  “Varun,” I asked. “Please come help us.”

  We waited.

  I watched the moon, until I saw a small speck growing and growing against the light.

  It was flying toward us. A bird. Not just any bird. Saaras.

  He landed before us, flapped his wings, and transformed into Varun.

  This time I ran to him, embracing him, a mixture of relief and desire coursing through me as I felt the warmth of his body against mine. But there was something else: I ached to be comforted. Only Varun could understand how world-weary this journey had made me. He wrapped his arms around me and held me closely for several minutes.

  Finally, I looked up at him. “We’ve done it—what we came here to do,” I told him.

  He smiled, tracing my jaw with his thumb. “So you’re ready?” There was excitement in his voice. But something more, a release, as though it was finally here—the moment he had waited for over the span of so many lifetimes.

  I looked from Varun to Thala, and a small laugh escaped my lips. “I’m not entirely sure what I’m ready for. I don’t know where I belong. All I know is that I don’t belong here anymore.”

  Varun nodded, still holding me, so close that I could feel his breath on my hair. Goose bumps prickled my neck. “I can take you to the Library. There, you’ll collect your book. You’ve finished one leg of your journey, but there are many places we can go to next.”

  “But I thought that humans can’t enter the Library,” I said.

  “Humans can’t. Only the vetalas. And those who are no longer of the Earth.”

  My heart felt as though it stopped as he said that. “What do you mean, I’m no longer of this Earth?”

  “You’re no longer Amrita. No longer human. You’ve sacrificed your life for the greater good. How do you think gods and goddesses are created?” he asked. “They’re anomalies. People who have sacrificed themselves for something bigger than themselves. And that’s what you did. It’s time that you become Maya. But you can’t do that without going to the Library and taking back your book—if you’re ready,” he said, pulling away from me for a moment. He watched me carefully, taking in my reaction.

  I still wasn’t entirely sure what he meant, but something was propelling me forward into the very Unknown that had once frightened me. Now it had somehow become my friend.

  “What about Thala?”

  He turned to her, his eyes full of apology. He fished in his pockets and drew out a piece of silver bark, handing it to her.

  “If you take this, you’ll fall asleep. You won’t wake up till you’re born again.”

  Thala accepted the bark in her hand, hesitating for a moment. I felt a swell of affection for her when I saw the uncertainty in her eyes, but Varun caught her apprehension too.

  “Don’t be afraid. It’s the only way you can depart this plane and end up where you belong once again. A life awaits you, a body waiting for you to slip into it. But you can’t be in two places at once. It’s what you must do.”

  But something within me ached at the idea of saying goodbye to Thala. She had helped me escape the palace. She had come with me through the desert and to the caves and all the way to Macedon.

  But I also knew in my bones that I had to take the last leg of the journey on my own, that Thala and I had different destinies now.

  I wanted to comfort her, but instead, it was she who comforted me.

  “Don’t be scared, Amrita.” Thala squeezed my shoulder. There was tenderness in her eyes. “You brought me to Macedon. You changed my fate. I owe you everything.”

  “I couldn’t have done any of it without you,” I said, reaching for her hand.

  She choked back her tears before she looked at me and said, “You’re the only friend I ever had. This isn’t how I expected it to turn out, but—” She shook her head as though she had already said too much. “Just know that I’ll miss you. I don’t know if I’ll see you again, but I’m glad our paths crossed.”

  It wasn’t till that moment that I realized how much Thala had needed me too. We had both needed each other through this time, and now I wouldn’t join her for the last leg of her journey either. She would have to go it alone.

  I threw my arms around her and held her tight as she wiped away her tears. I thought for a moment. “You’ll come visit me one day,” I said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’ll make sure of it,” I told her.

  Thala stepped back and smiled. She was still holding my hand. She looked to Varun.

  He nodded, and we watched Thala as she placed the bark under her tongue and lay down in the grass. I placed my scarf over her. She fell asleep quickly, and soon, I could see that she wasn’t breathing anymore.

  I wiped tears from my eyes. “I’m going to miss her,” I told Varun.

  “I know,” he said to me, pulling me close to him. “But I promise you: Nothing is ever lost.”

  My eyes were still on Thala. “What do I do now?”

  “Simply ask. Ask the Library to reveal itself to you.”

  “That’s it?”

  Varun nodded his head, a small smile crossing his lips.

  I closed my eyes and asked, and when I opened them, we were there.

  ¤

  The shelves reached all the way to the sky, and they were filled with more books than I had ever seen in my life. The books appeared to be speaking, whispering, no different than the sound of birds chirping in the morning at Shalingar Palace.

  “Where do we go?” I asked him before he took my hand and led me to a shelf that held a series of leatherbound books. My father’s. My mother’s. Sikander’s. Arjun’s. Thala’s. Bandaka’s. Shree’s. Tippu the gardener’s. Mala’s. Everyone I had ever known. I found my own book, bound in green.

  When I opened it to the first page, there was a stamp across it.

  OUT OF CIRCULATION, it said. I smiled and tucked it into my satchel before I reached for my father’s book.

  I spent that day reading their stories, one after another. Maybe it was a day. Maybe it was days. I couldn’t say. All I knew was that time didn’t exist here. I was never tired or hungry or wanting. There was no day or night.

  I read and read and marveled at all the lives of everyone I had ever loved: the richness of their experiences, the tastes they relished and remembered, the smells that were imprinted on their senses, the pleasures and pains of their bodies, the wisdom they acquired, the people they loved and lost, the fears that they hid, the identities they carried like masks.

  Varun watched me read those words. He looked content just to be sitting beside me for all those hours or days, or whatever it was. Some space that existed between day and night, between dream and waking.

  At the end of it, I took out a pen and added only one line in Thala’s book.

  “That’s it?” Varun asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t need to change anything else,” I said. “This world”—I gestured to the books—“it’s as perfect as anything can be. I was lucky just to be a part of it.”

  Varun smiled before he took my hand. Now it was his turn to share his story.

  He told me about all those years without me. He told me about the world and how it had changed, what he had seen and heard on all those pilgrimages to Mount Moutza. He told me the entire universe as he knew
it.

  And when he kissed me, it was with longing and desire, the kind that can only come of hundreds of years of waiting.

  I understood then why he had seemed so familiar that day on the road to Mount Moutza. There had always been a deep and magnetic power between us. Only, I didn’t know it.

  The world was full of mysteries, abundant with magic. Now I knew.

  Epilogue

  I COME HERE TWICE A YEAR, when the veil between the living and the dead, the gods and the mortals, is lifted. I sit, with Varun by my side, offering up my blessings. People say that I am an irreverent goddess. I don’t necessarily believe in the power of my own blessings, but others sometimes do. I don’t fault them.

  I don’t believe that anyone is more powerful than anyone else. I believe that anyone can change. I believe there are mysteries built over even more powerful mysteries, and it takes lifetimes to unearth them.

  When I am not here, I travel to other places, other worlds that I never imagined existed.

  But this is still one of my favorite places. It’s my old home, the kingdom that I once lived in.

  Chandradev is older now, in his forty-fifth year. He comes twice a year to greet me, but this year, he brings along a woman whose face I instantly recognize. She is older too, but she still has those green eyes, that gait that is so familiar. When I reach for her hand, I feel as though I am holding my own hand.

  Chandradev introduces her as Thea. He tells me that his old friend Sikander the Great has died. His throne was handed to a distant relative, a nephew. “Thea and I knew one another a long time ago, in Macedon,” he tells me, and I listen to their story, even though I already know it.

  I know that Chandradev will marry her. That they’ll live many more years together. That they’ve earned their love for each other after all these years apart.

  Perhaps I look familiar to them, but they don’t recognize me. That’s the thing I’ve learned about humans: Their minds are too fixed. They see me only as Maya, or as the Goddess. They have no idea that in another life, I was their child. That in another life still, in this life, a long time ago, I was their friend, their classmate.