It felt like a pinch.
Beside her, Mini winced.
The snow, or whatever it was, was beginning to fall harder. Now the flakes were hitting the ground. They didn’t melt.
As Aru watched the snow, she spotted a tall tree with hundreds of tiny mirrors for bark. Something slipped behind the trunk. A figure—pale and slim, with a cloud of frosted hair. But when she blinked, she couldn’t remember what she had seen.
“Aru!” called Mini.
She didn’t respond. Not because she hadn’t heard, but because she hadn’t realized Mini was talking to her.
For a second, she had forgotten that Aru was her name.
Panicking, Aru tried to rub the snowflakes off her arm and shake them out of her hair. Something about it was making her lose track of things she should remember. It wasn’t like snow at all. It was like salt thrown on a slug. Slowly dissolving what you were.
“Is it such a bad thing, children, to forget?” asked a voice from somewhere in front of them. “If you never remember, you never grow old. Innocence keeps you ageless and blameless. People are rarely punished for deeds they cannot recall.”
Aru looked up. The snowflakes now hung suspended in the air, a thousand white droplets. A man parted the droplets as if they were a giant beaded curtain. He was beautiful.
Not movie-star handsome, which was something else; this was a distant, unearthly beauty. The way you could watch a thunderstorm brewing across the ocean and find it lovely.
The man was tall and dark-skinned, his hair a shock of silver. His eyes were like blue chips of ice. His jacket and pants were an unnaturally bright shade of white.
“I’m sorry, did you say something?” Mini asked him. “If you did, I…I can’t remember….”
“Ah, forgive me,” said the man. He laughed.
He waved his hand, and the snowy particles lifted off the girls’ skin and hair. Bits of knowledge thudded back into Aru’s head.
Only now did she remember her favorite color (green), her favorite dessert (tiramisu), and her name. How could she have forgotten those things? Aru found that very scary, because it meant she wouldn’t know when something had been stolen from her.
“My name is Shukra. I am the guardian of the Bridge of Forgetting. It is rare that I talk to living beings. You see, I do not venture often beyond my bridge.”
Aru couldn’t remember a single story about him, but that made sense, given who he was. And no wonder he never left. Imagine how rough that would be at parties. “Who are you, again?” “I’m Shukra! Don’t you remember?” “Right, right…So, who are you?”
As Shukra walked toward them, Aru noticed that there were five mirrors floating around him. One over his head, one below his feet, one on his right, and one on his left. Another floated at chest level, high enough that he would only need to tilt his chin down to see his reflection.
Was this normal for beautiful people? In Madame Bee’s salon, the whole place had been covered in reflective surfaces. Aru wondered whether mirrors just conveniently flocked to pretty people like sheep.
Behind Shukra, the land dropped off into a cliff. The snow—or whatever it was—clung to the outline of an invisible bridge. If Aru and Mini could cross that, they’d be well on their way to the place where the celestial weapons were kept.
“I’ve already forgotten my manners once,” said Shukra silkily. “I would be remiss to do so twice. Pray, what are your names, children? Your full names, please.”
Aru felt a tickle at the back of her throat. As if her name was trying to escape. She didn’t want to say it, but it was like she couldn’t help herself.
“Yamini,” said Mini.
“Arundhati,” said Aru.
It was weird to utter it aloud. She only heard her full name once a year, when teachers called roll on the first day and stumbled over the pronunciation. Aroon-dottie? Arun-dutty? Arah-hattie? Aru, she would say. Just Aru. Usually, one of her classmates would howl in the background, pretending to be a wolf calling to the night: Aroooooooo! (In first grade, Aru had tried to go along with it by leaping out of her chair and barking. She’d been sent home.)
“Lovely names. They will be beautiful ornaments for my bridge,” said Shukra, examining his fingernails.
“So can we go across?” asked Aru.
“Of course.” He smiled. He may have been handsome, but his teeth were terrifying. They were black, crooked, and filed to points. “But to those who wish to cross the Bridge of Forgetting, I always offer a choice. And I will offer the same to you. First, will you hear my tale, daughters of the gods?”
“How did you know we were the daughters of gods?” Mini asked.
“You reek of it,” said Shukra, not unkindly.
Aru discreetly sniffed her armpits. Still good. She mentally high-fived herself.
“The scent of godhood does not lurk in the pits of humans,” hissed Shukra.
“Oh.”
“The scent of godhood lies in the burdens that hover above you. Pungent and powerful stenches they are,” he said. “Each of you has a past, present, and future that was robbed from you. I, too, was robbed. Hear my tale. Then you can decide if you still wish to cross the Bridge of Forgetting.”
Two chairs made of ice swiveled out of the ground and Shukra gestured for them to sit down. Aru didn’t really want to, but the chair didn’t care. Every time she stepped away, it slid a little closer, finally tripping her so she fell into the seat. The chair was so cold it burned her skin. Beside her, Mini’s teeth chattered.
Shukra eyed himself in one of his five mirrors. “Do you know why I’m cursed to be forgotten?” he asked.
“Run-in with a bad demon?” guessed Aru.
Mini glared at her.
“If only it were that simple,” said Shukra.
Aru really wanted to kick the chair and get out of here. Shukra seemed even more dangerous than the dogs that had guarded the entrance to the Kingdom of Death. There was something too…quiet about him. As if he knew he’d already won and was just taking his time.
“I killed the one person who could stand to look at me.”
Stand to look at him? Uh, it wasn’t like he was hard on the eyes.
“My wife,” said Shukra. “She loved me, and so I killed her.”
The Tale of Shukra
It was said that, when I was born, the sun was so revolted it went into hiding for a full month. Scars riddled my skin. My smile was gruesome. But though I was ugly, I was a good king. Beloved, even. What I could not perfect in my body, I tried to perfect in my mind.
For many years, I was ashamed to show myself to my subjects. I chose to rule from the shadows. But I could not wed in darkness. When my bride first looked upon me, her smile never wavered. She held her palm to my cheek and said, “Our love is what will make us beautiful.”
And so it did.
The changes in my appearance were small. So small that at first I did not recognize them, for I was not used to gazing at myself in the mirror.
Four years passed, and by then her love had made me more handsome. And my wife? She was resplendent. The moon stayed out longer just to gaze upon her. The sun lingered to witness her grace. I no longer had the kind of ugly face that incited horror or pity, but now I was made unremarkable by my passing good looks.
I wanted more. I started noting the changes in my appearance each day. My wife assured me that, as our love grew, so would our beauty. For her, beauty went hand in hand with joy.
I grew impatient.
I installed mirrors everywhere, even in the floors. I made checklists by which I might daily appraise my altering visage. I was continually discarding my clothes and trying new outfits. I neglected my people.
I began to shun my wife. Every time I saw her, I was filled with fury. Why should she grow more beautiful than I? She, who had so much beauty to begin with.
One day I confronted her. “Do you still love me?” I asked.
She did not meet my gaze. “How can I love someone I no lon
ger know? You have changed, my king. I would have loved you until Time itself had ended. Perhaps I still could, if you would only—”
But I did not hear beyond her first words.
I do not remember doing what I did.
It was only when the red had cleared from my eyes that I saw her corpse. I tried to tear at my skin. To burn every trace of her love—my ill-gotten beauty—from my body. But it was too late. I could not escape her love, so freely given, even in her final moments.
I smashed every mirror. Broke every window. Drained every pond.
And yet I could not escape the truth of what I had been given, and what I had lost.
* * *
When Shukra finished speaking, tears ran down his cheeks.
“Now I live surrounded by the memory of my mistakes,” he said, gesturing at the mirrors that accompanied him. “Without these, the snow would steal my memories, as it does for all who visit here.”
“I’m sorry,” said Mini softly.
Aru said nothing. Part of her did pity him, but the other part was disgusted. He’d killed someone who loved him, someone who had given him a special gift. He was selfish.
Shukra brought his hands closer together. “It is time for you to make your choice. Should you not succeed in crossing the bridge, you will fall into one of the fires of hell and be forced into the next life.”
“You mean…we’ll die?” asked Mini.
“Oh yes,” said Shukra, waving his hand as if Mini had asked something as casual as Do you have chocolate ice cream?
“How do we succeed?” asked Aru.
“To cross the Bridge of Forgetting, you must pay the toll.”
“And that is…?” asked Aru.
“You must sacrifice a part of yourself: your memories. Give them to me and leave lighter. As you can see, only the outline of the bridge is visible. Your memories are needed to form the rest of the bridge.”
“Our memories?” repeated Mini. “Why would you want that?”
“So I will not be alone.”
“All of them?” asked Mini. “Can I just give you all the bad ones? Last week, my backpack strap got caught in an escalator and—”
“All of them,” interrupted Shukra.
“Why do you even bother staying here?” asked Aru. “Why not just go on to the next life? You could be free of all—”
“Free?” Shukra laughed. “Where is the freedom, little ones, in moving on to the next life?” he asked. “Do you not know that these things chase you past the doors of death? The ills of one life will affect you in the next.”
There it was. Karma. That idea Aru just couldn’t wrap her head around. What goes around comes around and all that maybe-nonsense. Aru thought it seemed like a scaredy-cat thing to do: decide not to move on just because it was bound to be hard. To her it didn’t make much sense for him to stay here. All alone forever.
She stood up. Mini had a more difficult time. Her chair seemed to have grown fond of her and kept trying to twine around her legs.
“Do we get our memories back once we cross the bridge?” asked Aru.
“No.”
Aru’s hands formed twin fists at her side. “Then you’re not getting any memories from me.”
“Or—Ouch, get off!” said Mini, finally freeing herself from the chair. It made a soft whining sound. “Me neither!”
“That is a pity,” said Shukra. “For you could have always made new ones.”
He glanced at each of the mirrors that pressed close to him. They weren’t supposed to remind him of beauty at all, realized Aru. They were supposed to remind him of pain. Loss. And he had no choice but to see it every single day.
“If you insist, I will let you die. Go ahead and try to cross,” he said. “You will fail.”
They scooted past Shukra and were soon standing at the edge of the cliff. They could still see the outline of the bridge ahead, but a foot away from their feet there was nothing but a steep drop. No platform, no step, no anything. Was the bridge invisible? Was it even solid?
“The bridge will build itself,” said Shukra. He hadn’t moved from his spot. “The question is, can you cross it quickly enough? Judging by your ages, I doubt you’ll make it farther than a few steps. You have had fewer memories than most.”
The memory-stealing snow—which had been suspended in the air—began to fall again. This time, when the snow landed on Aru, it stung. Because it was taking. With every flake, another memory was ripped from her.
There! Gone in a flash, the memory of her eighth birthday, when her mother…her mother did something.
Something she could no longer recall.
“I offered you help,” said Shukra. “A life of weightlessness, free of pain. But you rejected my proposition.”
The bridge was slowly cobbled together with the girls’ stolen memories. Aru lost the taste of chocolate. It was one of her most favorite things in the world, and yet she couldn’t for the life of her remember how it tasted, or even how you spelled…spelled what? What had she been thinking about?
Beside her, Mini was tugging at her hair. “Stop this!” she cried.
Aru reached for the golden ball. But why she did, she wasn’t sure. It’s not as if it had ever done much more than glow. It wasn’t like Mini’s compact that could see through illusions or make some of its own. And now she couldn’t even remember where she’d gotten the ball in the first place.
“You cannot escape pain in life,” said Shukra. “For that I am sorry. I wanted to grant you a different ending, to let you leave without pain.”
The snowfall grew faster and heavier. Aru could barely see through it. She turned to look at Shukra and she noticed something. The snow was landing everywhere except on him.
Her eyes narrowed. Something about Shukra’s mirrors must be protecting him.
At that moment, a snowflake stamped her arm. Once, Atlanta had gotten two inches of snow, so, naturally, the city had gone into a panic and shut down. Her mother’s flight out had been cancelled, and they’d spent the whole day inside, snuggled together on the couch. They’d eaten ramen while watching a Bollywood film where everyone got fake-slapped at least once, and—
The beloved memory vanished.
Aru could feel the hole it left behind in her heart. And even though she couldn’t remember it now, she wanted to weep. Those memories were everything. They were what she held close when she had to spend a night without her mother at home. They were what she returned to whenever she was scared.
She couldn’t lose them.
She needed to loosen Shukra’s control of the memory-stealing snow….
“The snow is hungry,” said Shukra. “It will feed.”
He turned his back to them, walking farther and farther away, as if he couldn’t bear to see what would happen next.
But Aru had a plan—
Mini grabbed her around the wrist. “No, Aru.” Her eyes were wide, and Aru knew that Mini had guessed what she was going to do. “There has to be some other way.”
“If we don’t break his mirrors, we won’t remember anything, Mini.”
“It’s not right! He has those mirrors because he feels bad—”
“He killed his wife. Why should I feel sorry for him?”
“Aru, he’s…he’s in pain. If we take from him, then we’re no better—”
“Fine. I’ll take from him, so that we can survive.”
Aru didn’t wait for Mini to answer. She had to act now.
Around her neck, the gray pendant from Monsoon was cold and wet. Even as she reached for it, she remembered Monsoon’s words.
But be warned: regret will always follow. It is the price of aiming true. For sometimes, when we take the deadliest aim, we are nothing if not reckless.
Aru didn’t hesitate. She threw. Mini turned away as if she couldn’t witness this.
The stone struck the mirror in front of Shukra’s chest. He shuddered, clutching his heart. “Irsa?” he called. He stumbled forward, clawing at the air as if
he’d suddenly gone blind.
The pendant bounced, shattering the mirror above him. Then it broke the third and the fourth.
Shukra fell to his knees. The snow seemed to notice him then. It stopped falling on Aru and Mini, perhaps drawn by how much more potent his memories were.
“No!” he screamed. “Please! They are all I have left of her!”
But the snow showed no mercy. Aru couldn’t watch.
“The bridge…” said Mini softly.
When Aru turned around, she saw that the bridge was being built, more quickly now. Each moment stolen from Shukra’s life was fashioning a sturdy step over the ravine.
Aru and Mini leaped across it, Shukra’s screams and cries chasing them all the way. No snow followed them. When they reached the other side, Aru turned to see Shukra looking lost. Snow frosted his skin.
“You are merely a child, and children are sometimes the cruelest of all. You have taken everything from me. For that, I curse you, daughter of Indra,” said Shukra. He held out his hand. “My curse is that, in the moment when it matters most, you, too, shall forget.”
With that, Shukra disappeared. Where he had once stood, now there were just two footprints gradually filling with snow.
This Place Smells Funky
Aru was no stranger to curses.
It’s just that she was usually the giver and not the receiver.
In the sixth grade, Aru had cursed Carol Yang. It was during a week when Aru had been suffering from a cold. Jordan Smith had used up all the tissues giving himself pretend boobs, which was not nearly as funny as he’d thought it would be, and it was the worst for Aru, who’d really needed to blow her nose. The teacher wouldn’t excuse her to go to the bathroom. So Aru had been left with that horrible, tickly feeling of a drippy nose, and she’d had no other choice….
Carol Yang had shouted, “Gross! Aru Shah just used her sleeve to wipe her nose!”
Everyone had started laughing. For the rest of the day, Carol had thrown balled-up toilet paper at the back of her head.
After school, Aru had gone home and cut out a picture of old-looking text from one of the museum’s pamphlets. She’d burned the edges of the photo with the stove flame to make it look even more antique.
Aru Shah and the End of Time Page 20