Star Daughter

by Shveta Thakrar

  Then she was holding the moonlight lotus, pressing it to her cheek. It was smooth, sleek as sugar glaze, and the rest of the Night Market dissolved before its rich radiance. The sheen on her skin was cool water on a parched tongue, soothing the ache of not being enough. Of failing.

  The lotus shone softly, its lambent petals pledging she would soon fly.

  Sheetal peeked at the harp sisters, with their keen, cutting smiles. What had Charumati given them for helping her?

  But it didn’t matter. Sheetal had the lotus now, her way up, and with its silver glow pooling over her, nothing else mattered.

  Amrita and Vanita spoke as one. “This is our counsel: if you would rise, if you would take to the skies, you must hold this near and have no fear.”

  “That’s it?” Sheetal asked, not hiding her skepticism. “It’s that easy?”

  In response, the sisters reached for their harps and launched into an eerie tune that made her think of the story of the Pied Piper. The moonlight lotus clutched to her heart, she turned away. Time to get out of here.

  “Go and soar now, little sister,” Amrita and Vanita called after her. “And do take care not to blister.”

  8

  Just outside the Night Market, as the giant peacock watched over them, Minal showed Sheetal her purchase. She’d found a stall wreathed in all manner of wings from dragonfly to condor, and had successfully haggled with the owner, a garudi with the body of a muscular human woman, metallic golden skin, a white face, an eagle’s beak, and feathery red wings looped back over themselves so they fit in the stall. In exchange for the two cloud barrettes, Minal had received a thumbnail-sized corked glass bottle filled with a fragrance that would allow her to walk on actual clouds.

  “Don’t worry; Auntie specified that I had to get inside Svargalok and back to Edison in one piece, unhindered, safe, and at a consistent speed I determined, and that I’d always be the one in control from start to finish.” Minal grinned. “Old bird wasn’t too happy about that, but Auntie wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

  “Of course I didn’t. And what did you find out, dikri?” Radhikafoi prompted. “Those sisters must have had something useful for you, no?”

  Sheetal produced the moonlight lotus from her messenger bag, shocking her auntie into silence, and started toward the nearby church parking lot. She still couldn’t believe Radhikafoi had kept the letter from her. “Too much to get into right now.”

  Soon Minal and she stood in the shadows, ready to depart. Radhikafoi had pressed vermilion and a grain of raw rice to each of their foreheads in blessing, presented them both with Tupperware packages of carefully wrapped homemade food, and now waited by the lamppost to see them off.

  Above, the moon had taken up lodging in the lunar mansion of his newest astral lover, where he shone down with extra ardor, a silvery lamp lighting the way for Sheetal. The world was hers, just as it had been when she was small and dancing with her mother.

  With nothing to keep it at bay, the astral song tugged unrelentingly at her. Silver in your bones, it whispered. Silver in your blood. Come to us.

  Sheetal rolled her shoulders, stretching out the kinks. It felt so good to stop fighting, to finally accept the invitation. Now she could just be.

  She sensed the nakshatras in the sky above, their song a knell in her ears. Her blood rushed through her in reply, hot and hungry, setting her spinning.

  Even knowing Minal and Radhikafoi were watching, she couldn’t stop. She was like smoke, like flame, like dreams that whirled eternally through the deep jet-black expanse of space. The world around her had been cast in silver and shadow and gone so still. Not a single car drove past.

  Come, urged the stars. Come home.

  Sheetal danced, her hands reaching up to the heavens. If only Dev could see her like this.

  In that moment of distraction, her body went awkward, flesh instead of light, the thrall broken.

  He’d betrayed her. Why did she keep thinking about him?

  Everything had happened so fast, she realized, she hadn’t really been able to think. Not two days ago, she’d been hiding, playing at being ordinary, and now, after breaking up with her boyfriend and almost killing her dad, she was on her way to the starry court via an intoxicating, mind-muddling Market.

  It was too much.

  She had no clue what was waiting for her in Svargalok, no sense of what her starry family might be like, and the whole day had left her drained. What if while she was getting a drop of her mother’s blood, Dad . . . died?

  Sheetal cradled the lotus against her chest. Tell me what to do.

  The flower radiated soothing silver-white light, reminding her to breathe. Dad needed her. This choice, this plan, would have to be the right one.

  Under the balm of the blossom, she relaxed, the slow pulse of her blood turning to a soft drumming that became words. First a mantra to Ganesh Bhagavan for the removal of obstacles, then an invocation to Durga Mata for courage. She wanted to be strong like a tigress and brave like a hawk, ready to swoop down and take out her enemies. She wanted to face her mother and save her father.

  The stars’ song stoked the fires at Sheetal’s core, making her hands tingle and her hair blaze beneath its prison of black dye. Up, her blood cried, as the dye dissolved like sugar in water. Up.

  She shoved her earthly concerns from her mind: Dev, Dad, Radhikafoi, school, the kids at the mandir. All that existed was the sky.

  The lotus expanded, becoming a halo around her before dispersing in a cascade of glittering sparks, a miniature meteor shower that sank beneath her skin to merge with the flame inside.

  With a single breath, she began to soar.

  This feeling—This, yes, this—she knew it. She’d always known it.

  Sheetal glanced down and saw the concrete swiftly receding beneath her feet and Radhikafoi calling out to them to be careful. Her fire, her own fire, was bearing her aloft, erasing every problem that had ever bothered her on the ground. Ecstasy spread through her, a murmured spell that sang in her like the silver notes of the stars themselves.

  Meanwhile, Minal had uncorked her bottle of cloud perfume and dabbed it on her wrists. She hung suspended in the air, as graceful as if she had bought the pair of dragonfly wings she’d mentioned. Leaping forward, she landed on the nearest cloud, then the next, and the next, as though they were no more than rungs on a ladder.

  “This is awesome!” She held out her arms to either side. “We’re flying, can you believe it? And your hair, it’s silver again!”

  So many things swirled inside Sheetal as she ascended into the sky, dreams and wonder and delight. She was going to the heavenly realm, where her mother lived. Where their family lived.

  The flame at her center a celestial compass, she rose higher and higher into the night. Kohl-dark and limitless, a sheath of black velvet studded with sparkling diamonds, it was familiar in a way she felt in her bones, in her skin. Her flame flickered, then flared in recognition.

  Before her, the infinite dark beckoned. She answered.

  Next to her, step by step, Minal climbed the cloud staircase.

  Together they would find the starry court—and Charumati.

  Part Two

  Stars got tangled in her hair whenever she played in the sky.

  —LAINI TAYLOR

  “Once, a very long time ago, a naga maiden from the subterranean world journeyed to the heavenly realm. She had decided she would dance among the deities,” my mother told me, her tone deep and rich with metaphor. It was a storyteller’s voice. She didn’t need to be quiet; everyone was sleeping at this late hour. The two of us stood there in the shadowed field, reigning queen and princess of the whole hushed world. It belonged to us, only to us.

  I twirled through the slumbering daisies and dandelions, pretending they were characters in the story. The stars laughed overhead, blazing bright against the velvet cape of the night. I could hear their whispers, and the full moon winked at me.

  “She dined with the gods
,” my mother continued, weaving herself a crown of daisies, “and they showered her with divine blossoms in a rainbow of colors. The apsaras found her so fetching that they danced with her as one of their own. The gandharvas played their finest music so she might always be in motion. The kinnaras requested her every story of earthly existence. Even the stars prevailed on her never to leave, for it pleased them greatly to shine down upon her face. It seemed as though the nagini had found her true place, her home.

  “Countless years passed in this way, marked only by festivities and feasts. But time is the trickster that changes all things, and the novelty of the dancing nagini grew as thin and worn as an old sari.” My mother curved her hands like a cup, and a length of luminous fabric formed there, fraying as I watched. Her face glowed in its radiance. She tore the fabric in two and tossed the pieces into the night, where they floated like fireflies before dissipating.

  “The gods did not ask for our maiden as they once had, instead seeking out new pastimes. The apsaras left her out of their performances, and the kinnaras no longer requested tale after tale. Soon the maiden danced alone. Even the myriad stars, constant though she had thought them, had turned their lantern light elsewhere. Only a smattering remained by her side, but their presence failed to soothe the maiden’s lonely heart, which ached for her jeweled cavern by the blue-green sea, for the family she had not seen in many cycles.”

  “But why was she sad?” I interrupted. I hated this part of the story. “She should have lots of adventures! That’s what I would do.”

  My mother looked at me for a long time. “It is a hardship to be away from those you love, Sheetal.”

  I thought about this. “Oh.”

  My mother bent to stroke a dandelion bud. At her touch, it bloomed like an evening primrose. “Abandoned and isolated, the maiden took her leave of the skies. Upon her departure, those few stars who loved her still dropped one by one into her hair and became entangled there. Ever after, deep beneath the earth where she roamed with her family and friends, the maiden wore the cosmos like a glowing crown.

  “Only when she finally passed into the next life did the stars come loose. In their grief, they strewed themselves throughout the caverns to illuminate the deceased maiden’s footsteps, so she would always be remembered. But a new generation came, and then another, and yet another, until the maiden and the stars, too, were forgotten in the subterranean darkness. Their light scattered, their hearts stilled, and they slowly transformed to stone.” My mother adjusted her daisy crown. “And that, my daughter, is how diamonds came to be.”

  “Again, Mommy!” I cried, bouncing up and down. “Again! Tell me again.”

  She swept me up into her arms, her eyes burning from within. I nestled into the mass of silver waves that hung to her knees—the thick, silky mane that rebuffed all dye, gleaming against the smooth brown of her skin. “Tomorrow,” she said, carrying me into the house. “Tonight, little ones should sleep soundly, knowing their aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins are watching over them.”

  Though I wriggled hard in protest, she put me to bed and turned out the light. I could still see the moon peeking through the curtains until she drew them closed. Without his round face to encourage me, I started to yawn.

  Then she left my room. I heard the front door open. My eyes were falling shut, but I knew where she was going. Back outside to talk to the sky, the way she did every night.

  The next morning, I begged for the story again, but my father only held up the serving bowl of egg salad he’d just made. “We’re late for the cookout. The neighbors wanted us to help set up, remember?”

  The conspiratorial smile on my mother’s face clouded over. “Must we? You know I have nothing to say to them. Nor they to me.”

  “Oh, please, Mommy, please!” I said, hopping from foot to foot. “Mr. Sanchez always makes the best ice cream!”

  She looked from my father to me, and I sensed her resolution wavering. She was like a peacock among pigeons at these events—in our world—and we all knew it, but she could never tell us no.

  “I know they’re not the most exciting crowd,” my father said, “but we did say we’d go. What if we just put in an appearance? An hour, tops. What do you say, Charu jaan? For the best ice cream?”

  “Only an hour,” my mother agreed, “during which I will pretend to understand school administration and home equity.” She knelt before me with a smile. “And then I will tell you the story of diamonds, and we will make moon mandalas and pick flowers and sing.” She stood and took the bowl from my father’s grasp. “And later you and I will cook a proper meal. What is this ‘egg salad’ business?”

  “Deal,” my father said. “Sheetal, go put on your shoes.”

  I hurried to the hall closet and found my sandals. When I looked back, my parents were embracing, her face tilted up to meet his.

  She didn’t love mortals, I knew, but she loved us. She stayed for us, in a place where she had no friends, no allies. No one she could confide in.

  And she always would.

  —FROM SHEETAL’S JOURNAL

  9

  Sheetal floated among the stars, one of them. Her nakshatra, her constellation Pushya, beckoned, its song vibrant in her blood, in the beat of her heart. She was so close, she could fall into it as easily as a puzzle piece sliding into place. All she had to do was get there. She beamed, her whole body glowing. It felt so natural, so right. It was as though she had never been anywhere else.

  How beautiful the sky was, out here where it was always night, beautiful enough to make her ache. Shades from midnight blue to squid-ink black, an entire continuum of darkness. She’d expected to be frightened, or at the very least flustered. The universe was a gargantuan, humbling place, and she’d never even been away from Earth. Yet now, as she rose and rose, Sheetal felt herself enlarging, transforming, illuminating.

  Her arms lifted and spread, mirroring her legs until she made a pentagram. Music like silver chimes and veena strings swept through her, turning to light that scattered out from the five points of her body.

  The darkness was beautiful because of her presence within it.

  It was funny, the way things changed. How people could be shocked by something, a bit of information that didn’t fit what they knew of the world, and then expand and grow around it, into it, until it became part of them, just another piece in an overarching narrative.

  She’d known she was half star, of course. She’d always known that. But she hadn’t known what it meant.

  Sheetal was expanding, widening, as the magic sparked through her. She could feel it molding her internal landscape, rearranging it into something new. Silver in her bones, silver in her blood—she was truly becoming a star.

  But it wasn’t time yet. There was something—no, someone—she had to remember. Someone who was calling her name. Someone who needed her.

  Dad? Radhikafoi? Minal?

  Minal. Minal was calling her name.

  The starshine ebbed below Sheetal’s skin as she glanced over to where Minal waited on a fleecy white cloud, tiny against the enormity of night. “Look!”

  There, just out of shouting distance, hovered a golden palace. It was mammoth in scope, so large and surrounded by ample tracts of grassy loam that it was really more of an island. Ornate crenellations topped the seemingly never-ending walls, probably designed so the demigods could retaliate when the demons assaulted them.

  Svargalok. Sheetal stared, awestruck.

  “Come on,” she called back. Raising her arms once more, she soared toward the palace.

  At last they reached the entrance, a far grander and more elegant thing than Sheetal could have envisioned, all curves and marble inlays. Minal hopped from her cloud onto the loam. “Okay,” she said, all business. “What’s the plan? How’re we getting in?”

  “I don’t know,” Sheetal admitted. She stared at the palace gates, a few minutes’ walk from where they stood. “I hadn’t really thought that far. Find my mom and get he
r to help us, I guess.”

  Minal looked doubtful. “We can’t just waltz on in. My grandma told me humans aren’t allowed here unless we die a heroic death out on the battlefield. Then an apsara brings us, and we get to be spoiled before our next life.” Her smile was all mischief. “I could rock a sword no problem, but it’d be harder to pull off the dead part.”

  “Well, you were a pretty convincing zombie that one Halloween.” Sheetal squared her shoulders. “Maybe I’ll go full-on Radhikafoi. ‘Don’t you know who I am?’”

  Minal snickered. “They don’t stand a chance.”

  They approached the gates arm in arm, where two mustached guards in golden turbans and red uniforms waited, hands resting on the long swords in decorative scabbards at their waists.

  “What is your business here, mortals?” the guard on the left asked, shooting their clothes dubious looks. “You do not appear to be dead.”

  Sheetal kept from commenting on his razor-sharp powers of observation. Even though she really wanted to. Instead, she put her palms together in greeting. “I am Sheetal, daughter to Charumati of the Pushya nakshatra.”

  “Daughter of Charumati!” said the guard on the right, returning Sheetal’s greeting. His voice turned chiding. “You are late. The welcome ceremony has already begun.”

  Welcome ceremony? Her mother had a lot of explaining to do.

  “A half-mortal star?” The guard on the left gripped the hilt of his sword. “I was unaware Princess Charumati had a daughter, let alone one with mortal blood.”

  Sheetal let haughtiness bleed into her voice and through her skin as silver fire. “You deign to question a daughter of the sidereal houses?”

  The guard on the right hushed his partner. “He means no offense, Lady Sheetal.”

  Still channeling her auntie, Sheetal gave the guards her best poker face. “I should hope not.”

  “Pray indulge me, daughter of the House of Pushya,” said the guard on the right, “but as you come unescorted, I must ask you three questions to verify your identity. Pardon the impertinence, but protocol must be observed. You understand.”