Star Daughter

by Shveta Thakrar

  She stared at the familiar cloth painting of Krishna dancing with all his gopis. Her blood had come so close. Almost close enough. But almost wouldn’t heal anyone.

  “Ouch,” Minal said. “I’d say that definitely qualifies as the day from hell.” She paused, then added, “You know none of this is your fault, right?”

  Sheetal wouldn’t look at her. Of course it was.

  Her phone dinged. She glanced at the screen, then buried the phone under a cushion. “Why can’t he take a hint?”

  Minal held out her hand. “Give me that.” Sheetal did, and Minal scrolled back through the messages. “Listen, I really need to talk to you.”

  Sheetal tilted her head. “We are talking?”

  “That’s what Dev said, you dork: ‘Listen, I really need to talk to you.’”

  “Well, too bad for him.” Sheetal had meant that to be sarcastic, but it just sounded sad. “He had his chance.”

  When Minal didn’t immediately agree, Sheetal narrowed her eyes. “What?”

  “It was crap of him not to tell you what was going on sooner, for sure, but how do you bring up something like that? ‘Hey, so I hear you’re a star?’” Minal shrugged. “I’m just saying it might be worth hearing him out.”

  Sheetal didn’t want to be reasonable, not when she couldn’t forget the red smudge on Dad’s chest, couldn’t help fearing he was gone for good. She wanted to be mad. “I don’t care. He should have told me.”

  Radhikafoi charged back in then, armed with an envelope. “I knew this day would come,” she announced, cutting off whatever Minal might have said, “and I prayed every night it would be years from now. Decades. But your naseeb says otherwise, and I cannot hold you here. Take this.”

  “What is it?” Sheetal asked. She wasn’t sure what to make of that little speech.

  When Radhikafoi met Sheetal’s stare, there was pain in her face. She looked weary. “A letter from your mummy. About you.”

  Radhikafoi’s words seemed to echo through a long, winding tunnel, barely finding Sheetal before breaking apart. And when they did, they didn’t fit together. A letter from Charumati? About her?

  It took Sheetal three short steps to reach her auntie and claim the envelope. The paper’s velvety texture felt like the spell that held her in its sway when she played her music, when she gazed up at the stars. It felt like something immense and wondrous, like the night sky itself. “Where did you get this, Radhikafoi?”

  “Your mummy—who else? She never forgot you, beta. She left you here to keep you safe.”

  Just one day ago, Sheetal had been so sure she knew the people in her life. Now she had to wonder if they’d all turned into strangers.

  She grasped for the anger that had sustained her all evening, but all she found was emptiness. “You had my mother’s letter,” she whispered. “All this time.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “What do you think I’m doing now?” Radhikafoi asked with her usual impatience. “It’s in Gujarati. I’ll read it to you.”

  Sheetal shook her head. She couldn’t let her foi read her mother’s message to her. “Minal can do it.”

  Minal watched her with concern. “Are you sure?”

  Part of Sheetal—her raw, lonely heart—couldn’t wait to devour her mother’s words. The rest of her, the bones that had always acted as armor to shield that susceptible heart, wanted to shred the letter before it could possibly hurt her.

  She left you here to keep you safe.

  Sheetal sat back down next to Minal. “I’m sure.”

  The envelope and single slip of paper within were a light purple the color of lilacs, with a blue-green peacock feather motif in the corner of each. Charumati’s neat Gujarati script lined the page in silver ink bright enough to be starlight. As Minal read the words aloud, Sheetal imagined she could feel her mother’s pen pressing the syllables into the paper.

  Dear Radhikaben,

  You and I might have had our differences, but trust me when I say you can no more marvel at the stars than we do at mortal men and women. Indeed, you have always been a source of wonder and fascination to me, in your rigidness and love of order and your distrust of all things outside your control. Surely you will be the first to applaud my decision to return to Svargalok. This world of mortals is no place for me, where your kind would stone me merely for shining or hunt me for my blood. How merrily, how callously, you prey on one another like predators in the lanternless dark.

  So I take my leave but beseech you as one mother to another to turn your vigilance to your niece, my daughter. My heart grows heavy with regret at parting from her sweet smile, yet my court is no haven for her at present. Still, the time will come when she must ascend, when she will hear our call, and as I have told Gautam, you will know when to give her this missive and bring her to the harp sisters. They will show her the way. Until then, I trust you to teach my Sheetal all the ways of being human and, above all, to guard her well.

  And Radhikaben, do be gentle with Gautam, for despite your valiant efforts, he has yet some of the dreamer in him. As do you.

  Fondly,

  Charumati

  Sheetal’s eyes stung. Her mother hadn’t just abandoned her and never looked back.

  She used to dream about this moment, pray for it, and now that it was here, she didn’t know what to feel. Hollow, maybe. Like she wanted to go to bed for a million years.

  Just like Dev, Radhikafoi had kept the truth from her. All this time, she’d let Sheetal think Charumati didn’t care.

  And Dad had gone along with it.

  An abyss yawned behind her ribs, the exact shape of her blood as it silvered before returning to a worthless red. Her palms tingled furiously, and the sidereal song pulled hard at her skin, her core, almost like strong arms trying to carry her away.

  But something began to emerge from her despair. When she must ascend, when she will hear our call.

  The starry melody. No wonder it had ramped up like that. It was summoning her to the sky. Maybe this had to do with her birthday—she was about to turn seventeen.

  She took the letter back from Minal and stared at the graceful handwriting until the tingling dissipated. Then she addressed her auntie. “Harp sisters? What harp sisters?”

  “Your mummy told me about a Night Market where people . . . people like her sold things.” Distaste seeped from Radhikafoi’s words. “Magical things. I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen your mummy do . . . what she did. Not even these could have convinced me.”

  She deposited something in Sheetal’s lap.

  Miniature clouds. Two of them. Or to be more accurate, miniature clouds with barrettes attached to them. Sheetal prodded one, and it promptly turned dark gray, like its brethren in the sky. A minuscule lightning bolt forked through it, followed by a rumble of thunder the strength of a kitten’s purr.

  Stunned, Sheetal almost threw it down. The cloud calmed, now fluffy and white. Playing innocent.

  Sentient cloud barrettes. A letter from her long-absent mother. A call to ascend. Every time she thought she was getting her footing back, the ground shifted again.

  “Your mummy gave those to me not long before she left.” Radhikafoi sounded anything but pleased. “A waste of money. Where was I supposed to wear them? The bank? To get my oil changed?”

  Sheetal kept her eyes on the painting of Krishna, even as her fingers edged back toward the barrettes. Magic. In her lap. And her auntie had hidden that, too. “You really didn’t like her, did you?”

  “We didn’t have much in common, if that’s what you mean.” Radhikafoi paused. “But she made your papa happy, and I know she loved you.”

  Minal, who’d been studying the barrettes like a magpie, now snatched them up and clipped them into her hair. Indignant, they exploded with seed pearl–sized lightning.

  “When your mummy gave me those things,” Radhikafoi said, “she asked me to show you her letter and take you to the Night Mar
ket where she bought them. We were to look for a pair of sisters who played the harp.”

  “And you decided for me that I couldn’t go?” Sheetal’s voice climbed higher. “You didn’t think you should even tell me that kind of market existed?”

  “Sheetal,” Radhikafoi said, her own voice devoid of emotion, “my first husband abandoned me and stole my dowry.”

  Sheetal went still. Her auntie had mentioned her first husband exactly once before, and that was just to say how much better off she was without him.

  “I had to fight to get to this country,” Radhikafoi went on, “only to find the same ugly things happened to women here. You tell me—what good have fairy tales ever done any of us? As long as my family is safe, and I can be of some use in the world, I’m happy.”

  It made Sheetal itchy to think of her forceful auntie being discarded like garbage. “You never told me that, about being abandoned.”

  “There was no need to. The point is, dikri, we were doing all right. I was protecting you.”

  “Until I nearly killed Dad.”

  Silence. Even Minal’s barrettes stopped thundering.

  As Sheetal watched her auntie, waiting for the inevitable comeback, a thought popped into her head. Her mother’s letter had mentioned blood—being hunted for it.

  Being a half-star wasn’t enough. Her blood wasn’t enough. But Charumati’s would be.

  The rightness of the idea warmed Sheetal beat by beat, in time with the sidereal song. There was still a chance to fix things. “You have to take me to this Night Market right now.” Then she uttered the words she’d never dared even think. “I need to find my mom.”

  To her astonishment, Radhikafoi merely nodded. “Why else did I give you the letter?”

  The flame at Sheetal’s core leaped high as if she were already on her way to the skies, as if this had already been decided long ago. It was scary how relieved she felt. Her mother, her family, was calling her to them.

  But they’d also just thrown her away all this time, like it didn’t matter what she thought. What she needed. That was enough to make her at least try to resist. “Wait, it’s an enchanted market, right? Maybe we can find a healing potion, and I won’t even need to go.”

  “That may be, and I certainly hope so, but you still need to learn how to control your . . . gifts.” Radhikafoi’s pinched expression made clear she thought said gifts really should have come with a return receipt. “I can’t teach you that.”

  “So what are we waiting for?” Minal looked expectantly at Sheetal, the clouds in her hair now a dove gray.

  “Not we,” Sheetal corrected. “Just me. If it wasn’t safe for my mom down here, who says it’s any better for you up there?”

  “I can take care of myself.” Minal sounded insulted. “Besides, you promised not to take off without me, remember?”

  Sheetal hesitated. She really, really didn’t want to do this by herself. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t even go if it wasn’t for Dad.”

  Yikes, that scathing quirk of Minal’s eyebrow could shame whole armies into submission. “You wouldn’t, huh? You’d just keep pretending there wasn’t a magical Night Market in our town? Or that you’re not dying to see your mom’s court for yourself?”

  She definitely had Sheetal there. “Okay, what about your parents? You can’t just disappear, and I’m going to guess phones don’t work up in the heavens.”

  Minal smiled smugly and rested her head on Sheetal’s shoulder. “Radhika Auntie will tell them I’m at your house, comforting you.” She grew solemn. “I’m not going to let you do this alone, so deal with it. Plus, you know, magic.”

  The hole in Sheetal’s heart shrank a little. Even if everything and everyone else was falling to pieces, she still had her best friend.

  She laid her own head on top of Minal’s, careful to avoid the mercurial barrettes. “Fine, you can come. Twist my arm off, jeez.”

  Radhikafoi eyed them with open doubt. “And just how will Minal go with you?”

  “I fold up small,” Minal said, right as Sheetal said, “She’ll fit in my bag.”

  Radhikafoi clicked her tongue, but whether it was in exasperation or just plain defeat, Sheetal couldn’t say. “You’d better pack your things, then.”

  7

  Radhikafoi turned the car right onto Oak Tree Road, and Little India came into view. A golden mist had replaced the mortal stores and restaurants, a gauzy mantle behind which a carnival of stalls glittered, beguiling against the darkness.

  The Night Market. It had been here all along. How many times had they come to Little India as a family to go shopping for desi groceries and clothes or for a vegetarian thali or chaat at their favorite spots? And no one had ever thought to inform Sheetal that there was magic for sale, too?

  They’d been arguing the whole drive about exactly that. “There was no need for you to know,” Radhikafoi reiterated.

  From the back seat, Minal poked Sheetal hard in the shoulder, but she ignored the signal to shut up. “No need?”

  “You and your questions!” Radhikafoi sucked her teeth. “Let’s just do what we came here to do.” Her face was impassive, even disapproving, but her hands shook as she parked on the vacant street.

  As soon as the engine turned off, Sheetal stomped out of the car. She felt as limp and wrung-out as an old dish towel, and what she wanted more than anything was a hot bath and spiced drinking chocolate and, oh, to wake up from the nightmare that she’d put her own father in a hospital bed. Did the Market sell that?

  Radhikafoi quickly caught up, Minal beside her. “These people are not trustworthy. Stay close to me.”

  As they drew near, the Market shimmered into solidity. An arch in the shape of a peacock’s fan appeared before the entrance. Its feathers were composed of segments of glass in teal, green, cobalt, and violet, all of which glowed from within. Forgetting her exhaustion, Sheetal drank in the light, letting it slide down her throat and into her bloodstream, but froze when the peacock lowered its house-sized head to study her with living eyes. It let out a catlike cry.

  Radhikafoi tensed as if to run, her own eyes wide as a cartoon character’s. “Beta, get back! Both of you!”

  Sheetal didn’t. Meeting the peacock’s disturbing stare straight on, she said, “We’re here for the Night Market.”

  “It’s not going to eat us, right?” Minal whispered.

  “If it does, it was nice knowing you,” Sheetal whispered back. It felt nice to joke for a minute, when everything else was awful and unpredictable. To know she didn’t have to do this alone.

  She did hope it wouldn’t eat them, though.

  The peacock blinked once, twice, then opened its beak until the entire archway shone through it. Just beyond, figures moved, tinkling laughter merged with baritone chuckles, and out wafted scents so fine they could only have come from the heavenly realm.

  Dad, Sheetal told him, praying he could hear it somehow, this is for you.

  Then she linked arms with Minal, and they stepped into the peacock’s mouth. Behind them, Radhikafoi made a choking noise.

  Before Sheetal knew it, she stood inside the Market, its sinuous allure slinking into her bones and her blood. Music swirled invitingly through her as she gazed at the glimmering horizon. Her thoughts bloomed with wonder, all jewel tones and reinvigorating hope.

  If there was a way to save Dad, it would be here.

  All around them, intricately decorated stalls overflowed with impossible goods, and the patrons who browsed them were just as odd. A family of kinnaras, their equine heads fusing seamlessly with their human lower bodies, examined a carved copper lantern encrusted with gems in colors Sheetal had never seen before. Nearby, an apsara who might have been sculpted from marble, she was so enticing, haggled over a selection of black-and-silver bottles shaped like birds in flight. “But I want green,” she said, her perfect mouth set in a pout.

  “I’m sorry,” said the stall owner, a young man who could have himself been the hero in a Bollywood l
ove story, “but all I have in stock is what you see here.”

  Sheetal stood rooted to the mosaic-tiled floor, trying really hard not to ogle. By accident or ardent wish, she’d stumbled into a mythic wonderland. It was all so strange, so seductive, that if this had been any other day, she would have been raring to see it all, taste it all, to unearth rusty keys to hidden cabinets of curiosities and gulp down steaming purple potions that would send her on adventures in imaginary realms.

  “Sheetal!” snapped Radhikafoi. “Minal!” She gripped Sheetal’s arm hard enough to bruise. “I’ve been trying to get you to listen for ten minutes. Come now.”

  Ten minutes? It had felt like thirty seconds. Sheetal fought to loosen herself from the Night Market’s glamour. How could she have forgotten Dad?

  Minal, too, looked dazed. “This place . . . I could lose myself here. We need to be careful.”

  “Ah, yes,” said a sly voice far too close to Sheetal’s ear. “A young girl brimming over with want. Stewing in it like vegetables in dal. Want goes so well with rice, wouldn’t you say?” A wrinkled brown finger beckoned. Sheetal stared down its length to find an old woman in a maroon-and-gold sari. “Come to my stall, child, and see if we can’t find something to plug up that hole in your heart.”

  “My heart’s not the one that needs help,” Sheetal said.

  “Everyone’s heart seeks something.” The vendor scurried back behind the counter of her stall. “A cream, a charm, a confirmation.”

  Radhikafoi sniffed but waved Sheetal forward.

  She shared a cautious glance with Minal, then took in the tent before them. It might have been an illustration in a storybook: fireflies floated from the roof on delicate chains, illuminating the assortment of wares in lavender, powder blue, and hot pink light.

  They were pretty spectacular wares, to be sure: Diamond-eyed onyx spiders that perched in customers’ hair, weaving elaborate cobweb headdresses while whispering arcane secrets in the arachnid tongue. Bouquets of silver poppies, garlands of copper jasmine blossoms, long-stemmed rainbow roses. Bottles of serenity and stillness, bottles of chaos and creation. Gems containing freshly harvested dreams.