Star Daughter

by Shveta Thakrar

  “You taught my mom, too?” Suddenly the obligatory lesson took on a completely different tone, one of tradition being handed down. A flower added to a lengthy garland.

  One of family.

  No. Even thinking the word hurt, like she was parched and still refusing to drink the glass of clean, sweet water that sat within reach. But she couldn’t let herself forget that Nani had forbidden their nakshatra from helping Dad. I already have my family.

  It would be so easy to take Rati’s offer and run. To heal Dad right now. What would he want her to do?

  “Naturally,” Nana replied. “Who better to teach her the ways of inspiration than her own mother?”

  “She was a willful slip of a girl, always stealing mangoes from the orchard and eating them on the balcony with her friends.” Nani giggled, a light, girlish sound Sheetal would never have expected from her. “Always sneaking into the Hall of Mirrors. Do you recall, Jagdeesh, how proud she was of her craftiness? As if we failed to notice!”

  Sheetal couldn’t help her grin. She’d never thought of Charumati as a little girl before.

  “I would find her in the library, reading stories, and bring her back to her lessons,” Nana said. “Oh, how she would plant her feet and protest that she had learned more than enough and deserved to get her circlet early!”

  Nani laughed again. “She always longed for more, precisely as my sister did.”

  Sheetal sat up straighter. She had a great-aunt? That would explain the vacant suite of rooms by Nani’s. “Your sister? Where’s she now?”

  Nani’s laughter broke off, and her next words were clipped. “She left the court.”

  “Oh.” Sheetal looked away, out into the unfathomable expanse of black. It drew her, tugging on the part of her that, like her mother, had always longed for more.

  And she’d finally started to find it. Not only was this her house, her nakshatra, but she had a great-aunt she’d never known about, one who didn’t even live here. Maybe Sheetal could go look for her after all this was done.

  “Perhaps,” Nana suggested, “as we have spoken of inspiration, we should now demonstrate.”

  All I ask is that you withdraw. Just yesterday, it would have been an easy choice. Take the blood and run. Save Dad.

  But now, Sheetal wasn’t so sure.

  “Yes,” she blurted. “Show me. I need to know what it feels like.” What was this thing people were willing to kill for? The thing she had unknowingly done to Dev?

  She needed to understand her inspiration. She especially needed to be able to control it.

  “A fine idea,” Nani said. Her light was still dimmed, her profile in shadow. She stepped back into the living room and beckoned for Sheetal to take a seat on one of the divans. “Let us begin.”

  Sheetal had just gotten comfortable when starlight shot through her. It wasn’t a thing she saw so much as sensed: a river of silvery radiance sweeping in, opening channels in her spirit she had never known were there. Opening portals to wonder, to creation.

  It was like a canvas had been installed inside her heart, only she was also the artist who would paint it. All possibility, all potential, existed in her, and now she had to create.

  Music unfolded like a flower at her core, a moonlight lotus made of melody, and her lips parted in preparation. The stars in the firmament sparkled and grew larger, merging into a glowing canopy until they were all she could see. She could already hear, could already feel, the tendrils of song that yearned to spill forth, a series of pure, perfect notes.

  But then the inspiration was gone, leaving her blank. Dark.

  She stared at Nani, then Nana, desperate to anchor herself. She had done that to Dev? No wonder he’d stayed up all night drafting songs. If she didn’t sing now, she would explode.

  Nana had put his hand on Nani’s arm. “You see the power of the stars. Your power,” he began.

  Nani cut in to say this had only been a taste, because they wanted to save the full effect for the competition itself, and Sheetal nodded. But the nitty-gritty of her grandmother’s explanation zoomed right over her head.

  Her palms tingled as her star half flared awake, obscuring the dazed human half. Pouring out jars of stardust had nothing on this. Here was true inspiration, true purpose.

  Flame licked her fingertips. She couldn’t stop thinking of how close Dev’s ancestor and that star had gotten. How close she and Dev had gotten. The starry part of her wanted to inspire him like that again and again and again, while the human part, smothered as it was, said nothing.

  “Do not let that pesky mortal boy continue to distract you,” Nani chastened her. “Your destiny is far greater than the blink of his entire mortal existence.”

  A sick sensation brewed in Sheetal’s chest. Had Nani just read everything she’d been feeling? Gods, had Nani seen them making out? Had Nana? Her most private moments, out on display for the world?

  She wanted to scream.

  “Don’t worry,” she snapped. “There’s no chance of that.”

  “Good.” A satisfied smile crossed Nani’s proud face.

  Good? Sheetal glanced up sharply. What was that supposed to mean?

  “Perhaps,” Nana hastened to say, catching her expression, “we should break for dinner. The poor child needs nourishment and a chance to rest.”

  “Certainly,” Nani agreed, turning away. “We will resume instruction early tomorrow morning.”

  18

  One step into the champions’ dining hall, and Sheetal was regretting her decision to have dinner here. It had seemed so smart when she’d persuaded Nani not to risk alienating the other houses too much. The more Sheetal came off like any other champion, she’d said, the better. It was true, even if she’d really just wanted to get away from her grandparents and be around other humans, who couldn’t read her feelings. And remember she still counted as one of them.

  Sort of.

  She flinched. What exactly had happened back there in Nani’s and Nana’s apartments?

  Savory aromas enveloped her, their promise of tasty things a reminder that, no matter what else might be happening, she still needed to eat. She rubbed her forehead and hurried to find their source.

  The way Nani had derided it, Sheetal had pictured the cafeteria at school, all white cinder blocks and buzzing fluorescent lights that burned out half the time or, when they worked, turned everyone a delicate shade of about-to-vomit green.

  Yeah, not quite.

  The dining hall was decorated in the palatial style, with all twenty-seven nakshatras emblazoned on the walls, shimmering peacock feathers in iridescent vases, a heaping snack bar made of crystal, and a large fountain that flowed liberally with skyberry cordial. Servers in uniform zipped back and forth, taking orders and delivering entrées to the champions and their companions, who were seated on the mirror-worked cushions dotting the gleaming onyx floor.

  According to Nana, the space was big enough to comfortably fit up to twenty-four people. But they’d all still pushed their cushions into a rough circle in the center.

  A circle with no place for Sheetal.

  Her eyes were searching for the exit before she realized it. Where was Minal, anyway? It was stupid, but Sheetal couldn’t help feeling abandoned.

  Dev, though, was right here, so hot in that black-and-silver sherwani, laughing with Jeet. In fact, everyone was deep in conversation but her. Just one big, happy family.

  She remembered how her heart, her lips, had sought his. She heard him ask shyly if she wanted to go upstairs and listen to his song.

  The song she had inspired. The silver flame at her core flickered.

  Fine, she thought, irritated at him, annoyed at herself, and plunked down on one of the cushions nearest to the exit. Her whole body was hyperaware of Dev’s presence a few feet away, pulling at her like a magnet, but she made herself ignore it.

  As she tried to catch a server’s eye, a familiar voice called, “Look who deigned to eat with us mere mortals!” Then, unmistakably, Pri
yanka quacked.

  Sheetal wanted to die. Someone must have traded her heart for a hummingbird’s, the way its beats blurred together in her chest. Could stars turn invisible? Better yet, could she morph into a black hole and swallow Priyanka in one bite?

  “Hey, give it a rest,” Jeet said, sounding annoyed. “Why were you listening in on her practice session, anyway?”

  That was decent of him, Sheetal conceded. Dev had been right. You couldn’t help your ancestry.

  She should know.

  As if he’d heard her thoughts, Dev’s gaze found hers, softening with that hopeful glint, and the corners of her mouth started to lift. But then his face closed off again, and he turned away. She actually felt cold, like the embers at her center had died out.

  Sheetal couldn’t deny the pang in her chest or how her hands—her lips—longed for the warmth of Dev’s, how much she missed his dorky jokes and the way his playful expression went distant when he was thinking. Oh, Dev.

  Sachin glanced at her. “Jeet’s right. Surely we’re above mocking our rivals?”

  Leela waved. “Sheetal! Come sit with us. You can’t eat alone.”

  Sheetal hesitated.

  “Yes,” Sachin said, “pull that pillow over here.” The pale blond man next to him scooched over to make space. That had to be his manager, the one who apparently liked to babble as much as Sachin did.

  Priyanka scoffed. “Brilliant. Sleepover in my room! Let’s build a bonfire and make s’mores! That’s why we’re all here, right, to be besties?”

  Until then, Sheetal hadn’t noticed Priyanka was the only other champion without a companion. Probably too self-centered to bother with one. Or maybe no one in her life wanted to come. With her attitude, who could blame them?

  Sheetal forced a grin, like there was no place she’d rather be, and wedged her cushion in between Leela’s and Sachin’s. “Hi.”

  It felt so weird, like they were all friends hanging out, instead of rivals. Like some of them didn’t deeply begrudge her claiming a spot among them. She made sure to meet every single pair of eyes, even Priyanka’s scorn-filled ones.

  Well, almost every pair. Dev stubbornly stared at his plate.

  Sheetal felt the brush-off like a blow, and her grin turned brittle. How could the entire dining hall not feel the tension between them? It hung dense and stifling as smog.

  Look at me, she thought, mentally retracing the curve of his cheek beneath her fingers. I’m sorry.

  Jeet sipped his drink, watching them both. He hadn’t missed the tension, in any case.

  “So what brings you all here?” she tried, and immediately wanted to wire her jaw shut. The prize, obviously. Why couldn’t she be more like her mom or Minal and not keep embarrassing herself?

  Priyanka made zero effort to curb her snort, and Dev’s mouth twitched. The others pretended not to hear.

  “Sheetal,” Leela said kindly, gesturing to the woman next to her, “this is my niece Kirti. She runs an organization in India that helps promote female artists. It’s because of her that I picked up my paintbrush again after my husband died.”

  “Guilty as charged!” Kirti smiled. “One look at her old paintings and I knew I couldn’t let her throw away all that passion, not when she has so much to say about women and power and patriarchy.”

  “I may be eighty-one,” Leela said, returning the smile, “but I’m just getting started. Why shouldn’t people know who I am?”

  Before she’d even finished speaking, Sachin was introducing his companion. “My darling Jürgen was actually the one who pushed me to do this. He said it would be a waste for my talent to go uncelebrated.”

  Sheetal bit down hard on the inside of her lip to keep from replying.

  “The art world needs to be shaken up,” Jürgen announced. “It’s time it really examines its obsession with postmodern overtones and self-congratulation in the transgression of boundaries by majority voices. It is imperative we find innovative new ways to incorporate the current cross-cultural bleeding together of underrepresented voices and its impact on our narrative vision for the future.”

  Words, Sheetal thought. So many words. She was pretty sure those were actual sentences, even, which blew her mind, seeing as how they didn’t mean anything.

  “Plus you’re dying for that vacation house on the Amalfi Coast,” Sachin teased. “Don’t forget that part.” With Jürgen at his side, he seemed calmer, less moody than he’d been in the library. He darted a glance at Jeet, then back at Jürgen, who tapped him on the nose.

  Sheetal relaxed back onto her cushion. Maybe she could actually survive this.

  “My turn,” said Jeet, resting his arm on his knee just as a server approached Sheetal with a thali full of food.

  “But I didn’t even order yet,” she protested.

  The server set the plate before her. “No need—your house left instructions as to your diet. You are to have particularly caloric meals to provide you with extra fuel for your training as a star.”

  Suddenly the food didn’t look so great. Nani had done what? And she’d let Sheetal find out in front of the other champions?

  Priyanka was smirking, like she’d been proven right yet again. “Just one of us, huh?” she mocked. “What would you know about struggle, with your perfect little star family?”

  “That’s not how it—” Jeet cut himself off. “Never mind.”

  Sheetal stared at him. What did he think he knew about her family? What did any of them?

  “You were going to tell us something,” Dev prompted. He kept avoiding Sheetal’s gaze. She felt herself getting mad, the flame at her core kindling. Why was he being like this?

  “That’s right.” Jeet’s voice deepened. “I’m a writer. I want people to read my stories and carry them around in their heads. I want to change how they see the world. There’s literally nothing I wouldn’t do to have what I want. Nothing.”

  The intensity with which he said that made everyone grow quiet. Even Dev seemed caught off guard.

  Jeet must have noticed the shift in mood, because he laughed and elbowed Dev. “Unlike my cousin here and his music, I take my writing seriously.”

  Dev shot him a dirty look. “Dude, calm down. This isn’t reality TV. You don’t have to throw me under the bus to prove yourself.” They stared at each other, and Sheetal held her breath, nervous.

  Finally Jeet nodded. “You’re right. I got carried away. Sorry, bhai.” He held out his fist for Dev to bump.

  Dev did. “It happens.”

  “What about you, Sheetal?” Kirti asked.

  “Yeah,” Priyanka goaded, “what about you?”

  Sheetal realized she’d finished half her thali without really tasting it. “Uh—”

  Priyanka’s lip curled. “‘Vacation house.’ You know why I’m here? My family in India has made Kathputli puppets for generations. They were known for it. But no one has time for old things anymore, and my grandfather had to sell his land and the studio where he made the puppets to keep us afloat. But I promised him I was going to bring back his legacy, and I am.” Scowling at Sheetal, she jumped to her feet. “No cheating star is going to stop me.”

  She pivoted on her heel and flounced out.

  No one said much of anything after that.

  19

  Sheetal knew she should’ve been asleep an hour ago, but she couldn’t relax, not with Priyanka banging away in the next suite. What was she doing in there?

  It was a riddle for the ages how Minal, who’d gone to bed while Sheetal was still at dinner, could sleep through that. Who needs company? she thought, hurt. She hadn’t even gotten to tell Minal about being inspired. Or—her breath caught—to ask if she’d ever inspired any of Minal’s art projects. It was possible, wasn’t it?

  Priyanka’s parting words jabbed at her again, digging in like fishhooks. But Sheetal couldn’t worry about other people trying to help their families. Even if she knew exactly what that felt like.

  Her pulse ticked relentlessly. Two
days left. Two days until her birthday. Two days until she had to win this competition for her own family.

  In the other neighboring suite, Sachin and Jürgen started flirting. Loudly. Sheetal’s eyes widened to what had to be shojo manga proportions. She didn’t know any German beyond ich liebe dich and Rotweinkuchen, but like with the Sanskrit in the library, she understood every suggestive syllable just fine, and besides, talking wasn’t the only thing they were doing.

  Someone really needed to tell the stars about soundproofing. What was the German word for awkward?

  “Some of us need to sleep!” she called, knocking hard on both walls, but the noises didn’t stop.

  Sighing in defeat, Sheetal mashed her face against the pillow. The anger that had been driving her yielded to something softer, sadder. With her guard down, Dev’s indifference at dinner, the way he wouldn’t even look at her, came right back, and Sheetal’s stomach soured, as sick as if it had just happened.

  Gods, she missed him so much it hurt. It wasn’t fair. She was burning, literally burning, to ask what he thought about all this. To hear him laugh at how seriously everyone else was taking the competition and sneak her a chocolate-covered cherry like he sometimes did at school. To ask him exactly what he’d felt when she’d inspired him.

  Pain crushed her heart with a claw-tipped fist. Was he even thinking about her?

  She didn’t want to be mad at him anymore. She didn’t even want to be mad at Nani. She just wanted everyone to quit deciding things for her. Why was that so much to ask?

  The dam holding everything back since she’d run out of Dev’s house, since she’d hurt Dad, burst, and she cried a reservoir’s worth of tears into the cool, soft pillow. Be this. Don’t be that. Do this. Don’t do that. She’d tried. She’d tried so hard. And she’d still put Dad in the hospital.

  Was there no place for her the way she was, star and mortal? Just Sheetal?

  If so, no one was telling.

  It wasn’t fair. None of it was. She cried, shoulders shaking, until the pillow was waterlogged, until her eyes stung and her nose leaked, until she couldn’t cry anymore.