“Hilarious, I get it,” I agreed. “The early bird catches the worm, the whole thing.”
Tuntuni screeched in glee. “Early bird catches the worm! Good one! Going to have to remember that!”
Trying not to roll my eyes, I rushed on to solve the rest of Tuni’s riddle.
“So the mosquito would threaten to bite the elephant, and then the elephant would threaten to drink the sea, the sea would threaten to douse the fire, the fire threaten to burn the stick, the stick threaten to beat the cat …” I stopped to take a breath.
“The cat threaten to catch the mouse, the mouse threaten to bite the belly,” Neel supplied.
“And the king would then agree, after all, to arrest the barber,” we concluded together.
“Which proves what, boys and girls?” Tuni twirled the stick of bamboo in his mouth like a baton.
“That cooperation is a good thing?” I guessed.
“That kings should invest in mousetraps?” said Neel wildly.
Tuntuni collapsed with a wing over his eyes. “Oh, the tragedy of stupidity. And I had such high hopes for you two.”
I looked at the tiny bird, who had our fates in the palm of his yellow feathery hand. Er, wing. That’s when it struck me.
“That the smallest creature can be the mightiest?”
Tuni sat bolt upright. “Is that your final answer?”
“Uh …” I glanced at Neel, who nodded. “Yes, yes, it’s my final answer.”
“You’re sure you don’t want to dial a prince?”
“No, she doesn’t want to dial a prince,” snapped Neel.
“I’m sorry, I’ll need to hear it directly from the contestant,” Tuni said in a fake game-show-announcer voice.
“No, I don’t want to dial a prince.”
“You’re absolutely sure you want to lock it in?” the bird boomed into the bamboo stick/microphone. “This is for the whole kit and caboodle, you know.”
“Yes, yes, I want to lock it in!”
“Oh, just get on with it!” Neel sniped.
“Well then …” The bird paused to flap around in a wobbly circle. “You are right!”
Absurdly, even though we hadn’t actually won anything, Neel high-fived me and I jumped up and down, whooping.
“Okay, we’ve solved your riddle,” Neel said. “Now will you tell us how to find Kiran’s parents?”
The bird considered us, cocking his head this way and that. His bright eyes twinkled.
“If you can tell me why hummingbirds hum!”
“Oh, come on, Tuni …” Neel began, but I waved him quiet.
“Because they don’t know the words!”
Neel gave me an impressed, raised-eyebrow look and I shrugged. “What can I say, I’m a girl of many talents.”
Next time I saw him, I’d have to thank Niko for having such an endless collection of idiotic jokes.
“Enough of this. Just tell us where her parents are!” the prince demanded.
The bird looked offended, and so I quickly said, “Okay, how about I tell you a good one?”
“Egg-cellent!” the minister twittered. “Eggs-hilarating! Eggs-traordinary!”
I barely refrained from groaning and asked, “What kind of math do snowy owls like?”
“The prince has a brother that’s an owl, you know,” the bird chirped.
Neel rolled his eyes. “We don’t have all day. If you don’t know the answer, just say so!”
After a few minutes of twirling his stick-slash-cigar and mumbling “what kind of math,” “snowy owls like,” the bird gave up, and I supplied, “Owlgebra!”
Tuntuni and Neel looked at each other, perplexed. “I don’t get it,” Neel said flatly.
“Like algebra? Snowy owls like owl-gebra?”
“Must be a 2-D thing.” Tuntuni shook his head sympathetically.
Neel gave a patronizing thumbs-up. “Good try, though.”
I practically growled. “How can you guys not know what algebra is?”
“That’s okay, Princess. Not everyone can have a good sense of humor like me.” The bird tilted his little head. “But maybe you should stop wasting so much time. Your parents are missing, you know.”
“You don’t say?” My hands itched to strangle the bird. “You think you could tell us where they are?”
“Remember, I’m just the oracle for truth. I can’t help you interpret it,” the bird said rather mysteriously before he cleared his throat, puffed out his yellow chest, and began:
“Neelkamal and Kiranmala, heed my warning well
Your families will crumble, your life an empty shell
Unless you find the jewel in evil’s hidden room
Cross ruby seas full of love beneath the dark red moon
In a monster’s arms be cradled and cross the desert wide
In the Mountains of Illusions find a wise man by your side
On a diamond branch, a golden bird must sing a blessed song
Follow brother red and sister white, but not a moment too long
In your heart’s fountain, set the pearly waters free
Let golden branch grow from the silver tree
Only then will you ever find beauty that is true
The magic bird’s every song will shower bliss on you.”
“But …” Neel asked. “What does all that mean—the family crumbling? The ruby sea?”
“I already told you. I’m just the vessel. Any interpretation is far beyond my pay grade.”
“But you must be able to tell us something? Where to start looking for my family?” I begged.
Tuntuni relented, puffing out his chest again. “In the East of North of East, the Maya Pahar climbs. Stars are born in its clouds beyond the reach of time. Outside our understanding, the Maya Mountains hide. Bravery and wisdom can be your only guide.”
Then, as abruptly as he had spoken, the bird rudely belched, flapped his wings, and started to fly off the branch.
“Wait a minute!” I called. “The East of North of East—where’s that? How can I find these Maya Mountains?”
“What, d’ya want me to draw you a map?” the bird snapped, spitting a few more seeds before it flew away. “This ain’t Joisey, Princess, fuggedaboutit.”
Just what I needed, a bird with a bad attitude!
“Now what?” I asked Neel.
“Well, first things first, we write down the poem.” He pulled a half-ripped piece of paper out of his pocket. “After you’ve been around the Kingdom Beyond Seven Oceans and Thirteen Rivers awhile, you realize almost everything around here—even silly poems—have hidden meanings.”
“Why can’t he tell us what all that stuff means?” I complained. “That seems totally unfair. I mean, we solved his riddle. And the dumb joke.”
“I don’t get it either, but those poems just come to him—he doesn’t know what they mean any more than we do,” Neel said as he scribbled on the paper with a stubby pencil. “People used to get so mad at him about it. That’s why he developed that nasty personality to fend them off.”
“Is that why you do it too? Have a nasty personality, I mean.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. I realized how mean they must sound, so to backpedal, I laughed in a super-awkward, high-pitched way, then immediately wanted to bash myself in the head. Real smooth, Kiran. Real smooth.
“Yeah, sure. Whatever,” Neel said as he folded and put the paper away. “Come on, let’s go and see what my father has to say about Tuntuni’s poem.”
Still embarassed by my own words, I glanced down at myself and wondered what he saw. “Um, shouldn’t I wash up and change before I present myself to a … king?”
“You’re fine,” Neel said without even looking at me. But he was wearing silks and jewels, and I was in dirty jeans, a smudged T-shirt, and muddy combat boots. I realized I hadn’t even bathed since being covered in rakkhosh snot on my front lawn. For the first time in my life, I wished I wasn’t always so worried about fading into the background.
“Seriously, Neel?” I put my hands on my hips and stopped walking. “Seriously?” There was a chunk of hair loose from my braid and it drifted right in front of my eyes. I blew it away with a gust of breath, but it settled back on my face.
He studied me, considering. “My father won’t care what you look like. Now, my stepmothers, that’s another story.”
“Your stepmothers?”
“Yeah. Lal’s mom, and the other queens, they’re kind of sticklers for how people dress and junk like that.”
“Wait a minute.” TMI—this was definitely a case of too much information all at once. I remembered that in a lot of Baba’s stories, the kings had more than one queen. (“Once, long ago, there was a king with three queens—Big Rani, Middle Rani, and Little Rani.”) But it was one thing to think about stuff like that happening a long, long time ago, and something else entirely to think about a boy you knew having a family so totally different from your own.
“Your father has a lot of wives? And you guys are half brothers?”
“Is that a problem for you?” Neel crossed his arms over his chest.
I bit the inside of my cheek. “No, not at all.” I definitely wasn’t in New Jersey anymore.
“Good.”
We walked in silence for a bit longer. I kept sneaking looks up to Neel’s face to see if he was angry, but he was staring straight ahead. Although his expression was more thoughtful and sad than anything else.
“Um, Neel?” I said after a few minutes.
“Yeah?”
“So do you think I could, like, clean up a little before I meet your dad and stepmoms?”
“Oh, right.” Neel raised that eyebrow. “You do look kind of a mess.”
“Nice. Thanks a lot.”
We entered a courtyard of the palace, with lots of doorways leading off of it. A few people—who must have been palace servants—scurried here and there with brooms and dust cloths and piles of clean and dirty laundry. Neel called over a young woman who was carrying bed linens over an arm.
“Hello, Danavi!”
The woman smiled and nodded. “Welcome home, Your Highness.”
“This is the Princess Kiranmala.” Neel gestured to me. “Will you please help her get cleaned up and changed?”
The woman bowed in my direction. I gave her a goofy half curtsy in return. She looked at me like I was as kooky as Tuntuni.
“Is my father in the audience chamber?” Neel asked.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Please bring the princess there when she is ready.” Neel was scowling again. “I have a lot I want to discuss with the Raja.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
I watched his departing back, wondering at my own hurt. He hadn’t even said good-bye. Then, just as quickly, my feelings turned to annoyance. Neel was so predictably irritating.
Danavi gave me a curious glance. She didn’t even try to hide the fact that she was studying the scar on my arm. Clearly, people here were a lot less worried about being caught staring.
My reaction, though, kind of startled even me. Rather than trying to hide the scar, I just stared back at her. It felt good not to hide.
Finally Danavi spoke. “So you are the princess who has been living in exile?”
“I guess so. I didn’t even believe I really was a princess until yesterday.”
The woman nodded. “Yes, this is the way it is, I have heard, for those living in the two-dimensional realm. It is safer that way.”
With all the excitement, I hadn’t had time to ask about the details of my “exile.” Everyone kept talking about it.
“What do you know about why I was sent away?” I asked as the woman led me to a beautifully decorated bedroom off the courtyard. The walls of the room were covered with creeping vines, and blossoms drooped fragrantly from the ceiling. It was like a magical indoor garden. I got a little dizzy from the heavy smell of the flowers, like I had in the marketplace.
“I don’t know very much, only what people say.” Danavi filled up a claw-foot tub in the middle of the room. She tossed in some rose petals and something that made pink foam in the water.
“Tell me what you know,” I begged. I didn’t even care that the water was pink, my least favorite color. As long as it was warm.
“Are you sure, my lady?” She put a folding screen around the tub, and waited on the other side as I took off my clothes and hopped into the sudsy water.
“Please.”
I sank into the tub and blew some pink bubbles from my hands. It was heavenly.
“Well.” The woman’s disembodied voice came floating from the other side of the screen. “Long ago, when the moon maiden was once wandering the earth in human form, she fell in love with the handsome king of the underworld, and he with her. He convinced her to follow him below the surface of the water to his serpent kingdom, and marry him. And his love was so powerful, that she did this. But first, she made him swear to one condition. And her condition was that she be made to visit her husband’s dark land only one night of every month. And on this night there is no moon in the sky.”
“The night of the new moon,” I murmured, stretching my aching limbs in the water. I wasn’t bothered that the woman wasn’t getting right to my life story. I was used to Baba’s tales, which always started off in a meandering way too.
“Now, the moon maiden was wise to strike such a bargain, but none of us can be as wise as we think we are.”
“Mmm,” I answered, barely listening. I worked at scrubbing the nasty out of my hair. Some leaves, twigs, and … was that a rakkhosh tooth? *shudder*
On the other side of the screen, the story continued. “Unfortunately, the maiden forgot to include a clause in her agreement about her children.”
I poured water over my head with a silver cup. The moon was casting a shimmery glow across the floor in front of the tub. Then there was a muffled bumping on the other side of the screen. I prompted, “Danavi?”
For a minute, the shadows in the room shifted.
Then the woman coughed, cleared her throat, and continued in a raspier voice. “The moon maiden grieved as her first seven children were turned into snakes by the underworld king—doomed to live forever in his dark kingdom under the earth.”
“That’s horrible!”
“Yes, my princess,” she agreed. “And so, when the moon maiden’s eighth child, a girl, took her first breath, she decided that she would save her daughter from the fate of her seven brothers. She put the baby in a clay pot and floated her down the River of Dreams.”
I sputtered, wiping wet strands of hair off my face. Wait a minute, this part of the story sounded familiar.
“Who found the baby?” My skin broke out in goose bumps. The water felt suddenly cold.
“A kind farmer and his wife.”
With trembling hands, I touched the crescent-shaped mark on my neck. A curved moon. “And then?”
“And then, my princess,” the woman went on, “what you might imagine happened. The Serpent King decided to claim his daughter—to add another powerful snake to his court.”
I jumped out of the bath, grabbed a towel Danavi had left for me, and started drying off. My head was spinning. “And then?”
“Well, there was a terrible struggle. The baby was marked on the arm as the Serpent King tried to capture her.”
I stopped drying. Marked on the arm? Oh no, could it be?
The woman continued, “The moon maiden did all that was in her power—she exiled the farmers and the child out of the Kingdom Beyond Seven Oceans and Thirteen Rivers to a smoggy place at the end of a dark tunnel, a place where wide tarred roads stretch on and on, and no one can ever take a left turn …”
“A place called New Jersey?” The pieces were all fitting together.
“Why yes,” the woman agreed. “But the moon magic was only so powerful. The exile would last a mere dozen years, and on the child’s twelfth birthday, the spell would begin to implode, forcing the two farmers back to this land
of enchantment.”
Water dripped off me onto the floor. I couldn’t seem to stop my teeth from chattering. How could I have not known? Neel had said something about the people I thought were my parents, and back then I hadn’t believed him. But some deep instinct told me the woman’s tale was true. That my parents weren’t my parents. That my biological father was a serpent king, and my mother a moon maiden. It felt like a nightmare—like I’d just stepped into one of Baba’s stories. Yet, unlike those, I’d never heard this story before and had no idea how it was supposed to end.
“Are you ready, my princess? May I come in?” the woman asked.
I wrapped the towel around myself. My eyes were hot. I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry.
“One sec,” I mumbled.
Ma and Baba—they probably hated me. I was some kind of royal burden to them, a baby they’d saved and then been saddled with because of a dumb enchantment. I thought about Baba’s fear of snakes, his efforts to make sure one never got into our house. He was trying to protect me. And Ma’s thing about having no curtains—she was trying to make sure the moon could shine on me.
No wonder they’d insisted I be a princess every Halloween. They were trying to tell me. I just wasn’t willing to listen. My whole face stung. I will not cry. I will not cry.
“Your Highness?”
All I could think about was what kind of brat I’d been. And how much Ma and Baba had given up for me. Their whole world. Their yard. Curtains. They probably were glad to be rid of me. My throat felt woolly. I could barely breathe. I will not cry.
“May I come in?”
I was all alone. With no idea of who I really was. Who was I? Who was Princess Kiranmala? I couldn’t begin to imagine.
“Do you invite me to enter?”
“Yeah,” I managed to get out. “I invite you to enter.”
In a flash, Danavi was around the screen. Maybe I hadn’t paid so much attention before, but there was something different about her. I was so distracted thinking about my parents, though, that I couldn’t put my finger on it. Instead I stayed lost in thought as the woman helped me into a delicate silk tunic and loose pants embroidered with a lotus pattern. I didn’t even notice it wasn’t black. Or that the scar on my arm was totally visible from under its tiny sleeves. I sat numbly in front of the mirror, my head full of moonbeams and serpents’ tails.
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