Star Daughter

by Shveta Thakrar

  “You may be a fine singer, but you will never best our Leela,” the youngest bragged before following his friends to another table.

  “Uh, thanks?” Sheetal said.

  “Never mind them,” Kaushal said. “Ask your questions.”

  “Yes, do!” a girl about Sheetal’s age urged, bouncing on her toes. “I am called Beena. Let me aid you, dear champion!”

  Sheetal couldn’t resist her enthusiasm. “Sure. How does inspiration work?”

  “You have seen the jars of stardust?” Beena asked. Sheetal nodded. “It is the distillation of our light. It renders mortal hearts fertile, so the ideas that grace them might take root to sprout and blossom.”

  “That’s all inspiration is?” Sheetal recalled Dev’s dream. “But—”

  “Only from a distance,” Kaushal said. “In person, our work is strongest. We open to our inner flame and guide it into a mortal.” He mimed pushing something toward Beena, who lit up on the spot.

  Sheetal glanced at her own palms, remembering how they’d tingled, remembering that she’d somehow inspired Dev—and how she’d burned Dad. “Does it, I don’t know, feel weird when you do it?”

  Kaushal seemed at a loss. Finally he said, “It feels like inspiring. How else should it feel?”

  “Enough boring talk,” Beena declared. “Tell us about your world. Is it as we see from up here? Mortals change so swiftly, in an instant.”

  Sheetal supposed they did. How quickly she’d let Dev get close to her. How quickly he’d destroyed it. “Don’t you?”

  “No, of course not. Stars are timeless.” Beena grinned. “What do they teach mortals down there?”

  “As much as they teach stars up here, I’d guess.” Sheetal’s neck grew warm as flame danced inside her again. Why were they acting like she was on the tourism board for Earth? She needed to get back to the books and sing one free.

  Beena moved to touch her face. “You look so very mortal, yet your hair is as silver as ours.”

  “It is because she is a half-thing!” one of the other stars muttered. Everyone’s eyes widened.

  Kaushal blazed so harshly their entire table turned red with radiant heat. “Do not ever use that word. Have you forgotten what I—?”

  At the same time, Sheetal twisted up and out of her seat. “You want to know about Earth? Well, here’s your crash course: Not everyone eats meat. It rains sometimes, and it snows, too, when it’s not all drought. We have oceans full of seashells and jellyfish and sometimes even hypodermic needles if you live in the right part of New Jersey. When we’re not busy trying to blow each other up with nuclear weapons, we’re destroying our environment with pollution and chemicals. Some people believe in things other people are afraid to. We can’t stand being alone, but we still look for ways to separate ourselves. Kind of like crowing about who’s pure star and who’s not. Oh, we get sick and old and die.”

  Her hands smoldered as silver as Kaushal had, and mouth dry, she couldn’t help thinking yet again how she really, really needed to learn to hide what she was feeling better. The whole court had probably heard that.

  Now the stars gawked outright. “No wonder mortals need our inspiration,” Beena said.

  The star who’d thought he was being so clever hung his head now. His eyes had glazed over with tears, and he refused to look at anyone.

  Sheetal’s anger cooled as fast as it had come. He was just a kid spouting what he’d been told. “I’ll let you get back to your class.”

  Kaushal waggled his head. “Come. I will help you find what you need.”

  “Don’t you have to study?”

  “We do not study,” Beena said. “We train. We learn by soaking up the stories of those who have gone before us.”

  “Yes, just as everyone dabbles in dance and singing and painting.” Kaushal guided Sheetal back to the archivist. “Once we understand the soul of mortal arts, we can then inspire them. But we each have our specialty, and yours, we hear, is music. If you are our champion, I am certain you play like the gandharvas themselves.”

  As soon as they were out of earshot, he faced her. “Do not take Urjit’s foolishness to heart. He has always been too clever for his own good. There are many among us who could not be happier to see you here.”

  He sounded worried. But the slur hadn’t scared Sheetal off. She wasn’t ashamed of what she was. That would mean being ashamed of Dad. “Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.”

  Kaushal’s smile returned, warm with relief. “I am pleased to hear that.”

  Sheetal told the archivist what she wanted next—books on the history of the competition—but her mind was chewing on something else. That slur had really upset Kaushal. “What did you mean, had they forgotten?” Her eyes narrowed. “Forgotten what you were?”

  He examined the archivist, then glanced up. “Yes.”

  “Are you—no, were you like me?”

  Kaushal just looked at her. He wasn’t bothering to hide his feelings, she realized, and more than anything, she sensed loneliness. An old desire to be understood.

  It was like he’d held up a mirror to her own heart, this star from her nakshatra. Her own loneliness brightened into acknowledgment. She felt absurdly grateful, enough that she wanted to hug him.

  Except . . .

  Except if she hadn’t blown off her schedule and come here, she might never have known. No one—not Nani and Nana, not Padmini, not even Charumati—had thought she could use a friend who got what she was going through?

  “But you’re a full star now?” Sheetal asked finally, calming herself. She might not get another chance to talk to him once Nani found out she’d skipped her lesson.

  A thread of fear wove through Kaushal’s emotions, and then they were gone, back behind the impenetrable wall of his neutral expression. “If you have found what you needed, I should return to my class.”

  “Yeah, probably.” She grabbed the chevdo from her bag and tossed it to him. He’d taken a risk letting her know she wasn’t alone, and the least she could do was offer him a taste of the life he’d left behind. “Some mortal food to say thanks for your help.”

  Now Kaushal shone openly. “My favorite.”

  On a whim, Sheetal added, “Share it with Urjit.” It was always easier to open kids’ minds, after all.

  “I will,” Kaushal promised.

  17

  Sheetal used the archivist to look up another subject, half-stars, and located a single title. Then, her arms heaped high with reference books, she staked out a quiet table in a remote corner of the library. By the enormous clock on the wall, she had an hour left before her next lesson, enough to at least start skimming.

  Some authors wrote more favorably of her grandparents’ reign than others, but all agreed that in their day, Nani and Nana had ruled the court with iron fists. Not only had they closed the gates between the worlds after a violent incident on Earth, but they’d cultivated the attitude that only children took an interest in mortals beyond the duty of inspiring them. At one point, they’d even convinced the court to seal off the Hall of Mirrors. But so many stars had protested the loss of their mortal soap operas, they’d had to backtrack. Eventually Nani’s and Nana’s popularity had waned enough that they’d basically had to abdicate their offices, and House Dhanishta had won the ensuing competition.

  Wow, her grandparents really, really didn’t like humans. It made Sheetal sad and angry—what did they think of her? Especially since, unlike Kaushal, she wasn’t about to give up her human heritage.

  It was a gross thing to think, but maybe they would try to separate the realms again if she won.

  With a shudder, she scoured the texts for any details about the incident that had set them off. Had it involved Dev’s ancestor? But except for that vague mention, the books were silent, as if the woman in the dream-memory had never existed. So who was she?

  Still pondering that, Sheetal dove into the book about half-stars. Like she’d witnessed in the dream, up until about a thousand years
ago, stars had walked among mortals, inspiring them. All the time, even. Occasionally the already-close muse-artist relationship grew intimate in more ways than one, so it was no shocker that babies often followed. They always took after their celestial parent—the starlight hair, the inner flame, the ability to inspire—but their human heritage meant their blood couldn’t heal.

  All stuff Sheetal had known, but seeing it written out like this, reading that there had been other half-stars, made her feel like she was part of something. It meant she wasn’t an anomaly, an accidental one-off, and that for the first time she fit somewhere. It almost didn’t matter that Dad was lying in a hospital bed or that Dev was here to support her rival. She felt like she could breathe again.

  Thirsty for more, she read on.

  The mortal world was a hard place for half-star children. They were lost, full of longing; and without guidance, their powers often blew up, harming themselves or others. Sheetal hurt just reading that.

  Worse, in the age of the star hunters, word spread of the healing nature of stellar blood, making stars targets for eager buyers and the curious alike. A pair of hunters seeking to hone the process discovered that ingesting the blood even heightened mortals’ receptivity to inspiration, creating yet more demand for it. Those stars who survived had all eventually ascended to the starry court for good. And then of course the gates had been closed, so there were no more half-stars.

  Until her.

  Sheetal scrunched up her nose at the book. She paged through to the end, hunting in vain for stories of half-stars who’d gotten their powers under control and stayed on Earth.

  Well, fine. She’d be the first.

  There weren’t any mentions of Charumati leaving Svargalok, either. Only a footnote that, under House Dhanishta’s rule, the gates had been reopened.

  No wonder Nani was determined to regain control of the court.

  Sheetal gathered up her books and was about to go search for Minal in the stacks when Rati appeared at her elbow.

  Glorious, with glossy hair that cascaded down her back and a sultry smile, Rati might have been an actress on Earth. Her lively, kajal-lined eyes sparkled, hinting at a cosmos of tantalizing beauty and clandestine pleasures. “It seems we have gotten off to an unnecessarily rocky start. May I sit?”

  “What do you want?” Sheetal asked, wary.

  “A moment of your time, mortal girl.” Though Sheetal hadn’t said she could, Rati sat down across from her. “I have a proposition for you.”

  Sheetal made a show of opening the top book in the pile and running her eyes over the text. “Not interested.”

  Rati only laughed. “As I said, I would like us to begin afresh. Am I correct in assuming your mother has told you nothing of me?”

  “Just say what you’re here to say. I’m busy.”

  Rati nodded. “You wish me to speak plainly? Gladly; it will save us both time.” She leaned forward, her ring-laden hands folded on the table. “I know you have come for a drop of blood for your ailing father. I also know your house has forbidden anyone from giving it to you.”

  So much for Nani’s command to keep quiet about Sheetal’s request for help. “Even if it’s true,” Sheetal asked, turning the page, “why do you care?”

  “Did I not say I had a proposition for you?” Rati waited until Sheetal looked up from the book they both knew she wasn’t actually reading. “You know you do not belong here. That is hardly a secret.”

  “My family thinks I do,” Sheetal pointed out.

  “Do they?” But Rati brushed aside her own question. “That is not important. Understand that I am trying to spare you pain. Come, girl, you do not truly wish to step on that stage and degrade yourself before the entire court. You have no training, no drive to be here. And why would you? Your life, your true life, beckons below.”

  “Why do you care?”

  Rati leaned even closer, until her mysterious eyes dominated Sheetal’s field of vision. “No one need ever know you cannot do this.”

  Hack. Priyanka’s sneer echoed in Sheetal’s head, and she had to fight the impulse to pick at her thumb again. She stuffed her hands in her lap. “I’m not a hack.”

  “And I am not the one you would need to persuade of that.” Rati reached over and shut the book. “Sheetal, no one in your nakshatra may aid you in this, but I can. I will give you the blood you seek.”

  Sheetal’s ears had to have tricked her. No way had Rati actually said that. “Excuse me?”

  “I will give you the blood. You see, I am not forbidden from aiding you.” Rati surveyed her lacquered fingernails, a triumphant smile playing over her lips. “All I ask as recompense is that you withdraw from the competition.”

  Sheetal gripped the sides of her chair. Whatever she’d expected Rati to say, it wasn’t this.

  Rati didn’t give her a chance to recover. “Take it and return home to heal your father. You need not spearhead your family’s attempted comeback.”

  “I . . . I can’t.” Sheetal’s tongue tangled in her mouth as her entire body lightened with hope.

  She could go home now. She didn’t have to wait for Nani to help save Dad. She didn’t have to worry Nani might shut the door between the two halves of her life.

  She didn’t have to win.

  All she had to do was say yes.

  “Of course you can. Call it my natal day gift to you,” Rati murmured.

  “Why would I believe you, though? What’s to keep you from just disappearing once you get what you want?”

  Rati gestured to the stack of books. “I have been observing you. You wish to know if you can trust your nakshatra. I am here to tell you you cannot. If for only that reason, you may believe I honor my promises.”

  Observing her? Like, through the Hall of Mirrors? Revulsion snaked down Sheetal’s spine, and she wondered again at Rati’s lack of a starry circlet. “I don’t even know who you are.”

  “I will say this.” Rati’s smile melted into icy resentment. “I know well what it means to be left behind. To have your choices taken forcibly from you. I would not see that happen to another.”

  She sat back and spread her arms wide, blatantly courting the curious gazes around them. “Are you truly so keen to be a pawn?”

  “Why aren’t you worried about anyone seeing you talking to me?” Sheetal countered. “What’s to stop me from going to my mom right now and telling her about this?”

  She waited for Rati to backpedal. To beg her not to.

  Instead, Rati’s eyes gleamed. “With all haste,” she said. “Indeed, nothing would please me more.”

  She pushed away from the table and tossed her length of hair over one shoulder, making its jeweled clips dance like grains of black sand in a silver sea. “Do not dally with your answer. I may well think better of it and retract my offer.”

  Sheetal and Padmini stood inside Nani’s and Nana’s apartments, silent as Nani fumed. Nani had called to Padmini through the sidereal song, and Padmini had immediately arrived to fetch Sheetal from the library, where she’d been searching in vain for Minal.

  “How could you treat your lessons so cavalierly, beti?” Nani paced before them, a booklet like the one she’d given Sheetal clasped behind her back. “We have so little time to prepare you, and every part of the schedule I arranged has its purpose. Such irresponsible behavior will not be tolerated.”

  She whirled on Padmini. “And you! I entrusted you with the care and preparation of my granddaughter.”

  Padmini’s lip trembled. “I allowed myself to become distracted, Esteemed Matriarch, and for that you have my sincerest apologies. I will not do so again.” She joined her palms before her distraught face.

  Sheetal’s thoughts were bubbling over with Rati’s proposal and Kaushal’s status as a former half-star. How much angrier would Nani get if she mentioned either of those things?

  But she’d already put her training too far behind schedule to risk another argument.

  “No,” Nani asserted. “You will n
ot.” She inclined her head, dismissing Padmini.

  “Come,” Nana said gently. “What is done is done. Let us not squander what time we yet have.”

  He led Sheetal and Nani onto the balcony. Even though it was only early evening, the night sky spread out before them, an eternity peppered with sparkling silver diamonds.

  “You have noticed the song that flows through us, yes, Sheetal?” Nani didn’t wait for her to answer. “It both stems from and binds us. We are a constellation, a galaxy, a cosmos, all connected. As a star, you are made to illuminate the darkness, to inspire, but as a mortal, you are made to be inspired.”

  “During the competition,” Nana added, “each champion will be inspired by a member of their nakshatra, and they will then have an hour in which to produce or perform a work of art as they feel so moved.”

  Sheetal was pretty sure she might burst with impatience. There were questions she should be asking her grandparents, like how an hour could be long enough to make a sculpture from scratch, and how it actually felt to be inspired. Like if they really did plan to close the gates again and trap her in one place.

  But all she could think was that a drop of blood was waiting—if she could trust its source.

  Nani watched her intently. “I can feel your misgiving from here. What troubles you, beti?”

  “I’m just nervous,” Sheetal lied. “So I’m going to be inspired?”

  Nani arched an eyebrow but accepted it. “Indeed.”

  “Then why do I need to bother rehearsing?”

  “To prepare you for the stage.” Nana’s wrinkled face shone. “To keep your voice and muscles limber for your moment of victory.”

  Sheetal couldn’t meet his eyes. He had way more faith in her than she did. They all did; their whole house was betting everything on her. What if Priyanka and Rati were right, and she would only make a fool of herself up there?

  A tender smile illuminated Nani’s face and sent starlight streaming over her body. “This puts me in mind of teaching your mother when she was a child. She was an apt pupil, yet so restive and so swift to lose interest.”