She grabbed a bowl and spoon and took the box down from the fridge. The box was new; she hoped Ranitamasi wouldn’t mind. Shaila opened the box and partially extracted the plastic bag. She seized either side and pulled hard, but it wouldn’t give. Finally, something unusual, and it was keeping her from eating. Shaila clenched her teeth and pulled again, and the bag opened like a crack tearing the earth asunder.
Being as careful as she was when pouring liquids in the lab, she tilted the box above her bowl and gently tapped it to nudge the cereal out. And then—as had happened last week with that graduated cylinder—her arm jerked suddenly, and the entire contents of the box came pouring out, covering the table in flakes and crumbs.
And one white flower.
“What the hell?” said Shaila.
Despite having been packed in a box of cereal, the flower gleamed, vibrant and fresh. Not a single crumb clung to its pristine petals. She recognized it as a lotus. A lotus that had been inside a sealed cereal box. Unless cereal companies had changed their stance on what constituted a prize, she didn’t think Kellogg’s was responsible.
It was time to call Divya.
* * *
Divya’s motel had been the fifth stop of the Seven Trials, and Manjumami had presented Shaila with yet another plate of snacks. She couldn’t eat any more, but every auntie and uncle insisted on feeding her, even when she told them she was full. When Shaila tried to refuse, her mom gave her The Look and smiled. They could communicate wordlessly quite well after all these years, and Shaila liked to think she was in tune with her mother’s thoughts. Like two nights ago, when they shared a look after her dad had gotten some kadhi in his mustache. Or the time Shaila brought home a paper with a big red A+ and knew from the way her mom’s mouth curled upward ever so slightly that it was what she’d been waiting for, even though she had never said anything about the previous As. Here, again, Shaila would please her mother and take a few courtesy bites.
“How is school going?” asked Manjumami.
“It’s good,” said Shaila. “I’m taking chemistry this year, and I really like it.”
“That’s good,” said Manjumami, who had probably never taken chemistry.
Shaila tried to think of something else to say. There was nothing. What could a houseplant add to the conversation?
She looked away from her and there against the wall was a girl who hadn’t been there a minute ago.
“Oh, Divya has arrived!” said her dad. “Shaila, you remember Divya, from Columbus.”
Columbus. Shaila didn’t remember this girl at all. Columbus. Then it came back to her. Manjumami had made them sundaes.
“I was six,” she told her dad, not meeting the girl’s eyes. An easy feat, since the girl was doing the same, ducking her head so all Shaila could see was her wild, unkempt hair. Shaila let her gaze drop to the girl’s body, which her mom would describe as fat—“Divya’s gotten fat,” she said on the way to the next motel—but Shaila thought was just a bit curvier than her own.
“You had so much fun then!” said her mom. “And now she lives here. Go play with Divya.”
Play? Shaila was about to turn sixteen. Her mom hadn’t gotten out of the habit of saying it, though. “Go play with So-and-So,” she’d say at each visit, and the kid would take Shaila into his or her room and try to entertain her. Watch some cartoons, play a video game, stare at the wall. She liked staring at the wall with Guru. There was no pretending that either one of them wanted to be there. Well, he lived there, so he maybe he did, just not with her.
Divya looked up, expectant. She, too, had a duty to perform, a mother to please. Manjumami gestured toward the back. “Go show her your posters.” Divya looked at her mother and shook her head. “Divya,” her mother said. Shaila knew that tone of voice.
Divya led her to the bedroom in the back. The walls were covered in prints of skulls and murder scenes and horrors. Shaila recognized some artists’ names, like Georgia O’Keeffe, but not others like Remedios Varo and Käthe Kollwitz. The images of death and madness were made even more disturbing by the contrast with the comforter’s drab pattern of interlocking shapes.
“So,” Shaila said.
Divya said nothing.
“You like art.”
Divya said nothing.
“Do you draw?”
Divya said nothing.
“Do you want to just stare at the wall? I’m cool with that. We can just stare at the wall.”
Divya said nothing, but a smile flickered, like a burnt-out streetlamp.
They sat on the bed and stared at the wall for several minutes. Shaila listened to the adults talking and laughing in the other room. Probably talking about them.
“I don’t draw. My mom does, though.” Shaila rummaged through her purse and pulled out a little comic book, handmade from wide-ruled notebook paper folded up and stapled. She showed Divya the cover, with the title Shaila the Conqueror in ballpoint pen. “In elementary school I ate lunch alone. Me and my sandwich and apple. It was kind of boring. But then my mom started sticking these in my lunch bag.”
Shaila flipped through the pages to show Divya what was inside: stick figures. “She’s a terrible artist. Even her stick figures are bad. But see here?” She pointed to a stick figure labeled Shaila. “That one’s me. I could tell because it says so, with an arrow and everything.” Divya’s smile flickered again, holding for longer this time.
On the last page, Stick Figure Shaila stood triumphant, sword raised high above her head as she looked down at the body of a fallen demon. “She had me fighting demons, I think. Some had a lot of heads, and sometimes she colored them with markers. It was basically the same story every day, but it gave me something to read at lunch.”
Divya took the comic from her and thumbed through the pages, intently looking at the crude figures. “How did she know?” she said to herself.
“Know what?” asked Shaila, pleased at getting her to speak.
Divya handed back the comic. She went to the nightstand and opened a drawer, then pulled out a stack of papers. Her medium was ink, like Shaila’s mother’s, but the figures were far more than mere stick figures. “I drew these,” she said as she offered them to Shaila.
Shaila didn’t know what to make of them. A speared boar, blood running down its stomach, life fading from its eyes. A young woman dismembered, her limbs strewn around her body. A fearsome lion-headed beast crunching down on a snake. So gory, and so detailed, despite resembling half-formed visions out of a nightmare, barely remembered upon waking up. “These are really good,” she said, knowing as much about art as Manjumami knew about chemistry.
She stopped at one drawing. A ten-headed demon, each head crowned, wielding dozens of swords in his many hands. “That’s Ravana.”
“I see him more than the others.”
“You see Ravana?”
“In my dreams.”
“All of this … you see it in your dreams? That’s horrible.”
“What’s horrible is that it’s real.” Divya turned her eyes toward a charcoal Kollwitz print, a naked woman embraced by the specter of death. “I wonder if she saw that in a dream,” she said softly.
A silence hung between them, finally broken by the sound of Shaila’s dad laughing in the living room. Shaila cringed, wanting to console Divya. “They’re only stories,” she said. “And besides, even if the Ramayana really happened, Rama killed Ravana, so he can’t be haunting you now.”
“Ranitamasi says the barriers are becoming weak. That he’s going to break through.” Divya’s voice quivered on the last two words.
“Divya, are you okay?” Shaila opened herself up to a hug.
But Divya ignored it. “I’m sorry,” she said, composing herself. “I don’t know if I’m supposed to talk about it with you yet. But your comic made me think of it.”
“Did you say Ravana was going to break through? The actual Ravana?”
“I don’t want to …” Divya pointed to Shaila the Conqueror. “Tell me
about your comic. Tell me about the girl who defeats the demons.”
“I call her ‘Stick Figure Shaila,’ you know? She’s like a cool warrior version of me. I don’t think my mom wanted me to go around waving a sword, but …” Shaila moved to face Divya. “I’m happy with who I am. I think she is too. But I can’t help but think there’s a potential me who is better. It’s like … if you could be a mango lassi, would you?”
Divya blinked. “I don’t want to be a drink.”
“But if you had to be a drink?”
“Then yes.”
“If you had the option, though, wouldn’t you rather be a ginger mango lassi?”
Now Divya smiled. “The same, but better. You’re looking for your ginger.”
Shaila laughed. “I’m looking for my ginger.”
* * *
This. This, right here, could be her ginger. A mysterious lotus flower in a cereal box? This was providence. She felt the thrill of discovery. Was this her Alexander Fleming moment, stumbling across the key to a new field? Maybe it was nothing more than a flower with absolutely no electrostatic forces to attract cereal crumbs, but even that was something. She’d never thought she would enjoy contradicting her textbooks so much. As she pulled out her phone to call Divya—her mom had put Divya’s number into Shaila’s phone in the hopes that they’d become best friends or something—she wondered if she was a different Alexander.
“Divya, come here, I want to see you,” Shaila said when Divya answered.
“Hi,” Divya said hesitantly. They hadn’t spoken since their previous meeting, and she didn’t catch Shaila’s reference. Shaila decided Divya could be the Watson to her Bell anyway.
“I’m at Ranitamasi’s. I was pouring out some cereal when a white lotus flower came out. And it’s completely clean. Nothing will stick to it. Strange, right?”
“Hi, Shaila, it’s nice to hear from you,” said Divya, as if Shaila had greeted her properly.
Shaila took a deep breath. “Sorry. Hi. It’s nice to hear from you too. I need your help. Do you know anything about a flower?” She held it in the palm of her hand. Before she could think about it too hard, she made a fist, crushing it. When she opened her hand, the flower unfolded into its original conformation, perfect once again. As she had suspected. It wouldn’t have been able to fit in the cereal box otherwise.
“I don’t remember any flower. Ranitamasi hasn’t mentioned one.”
Shaila had hoped Divya would have information for her, but she could still be a resource. “Could you come over? Maybe your mom could give you a ride.”
A ride. Of course. Divya had been talking about Ravana and demons, but if they were real, then the gods and goddesses were real too. And they all had their own rides. Ganesha rode a mouse. Durga rode a tiger.
And Saraswati rode a white lotus.
“Eureka,” Shaila said to herself.
“What?” asked Divya.
“This has to be related to Saraswati!” Shaila stood up and stuffed the flower in her pocket.
“That does make sense,” said Divya.
Still clutching the phone, Shaila dashed over to the bedroom where the mandir was. Sitting on the second shelf was a picture of Saraswati atop a white lotus. Shaila took the flower out of her pocket and placed it front of the picture.
Nothing happened.
“I don’t know what to do now,” she said. “I put the lotus in front of her.”
“Try asking her.”
After placing the phone on the bed, Shaila closed her eyes, folded her hands, and bowed to the picture. “Saraswati, please tell me what to do. You’re the goddess of wisdom and learning, so help me learn. What is this flower? How does it work?” She opened her eyes.
Nothing happened.
She picked up the phone. “Maybe I didn’t pray hard enough.”
“Maybe that’s not how it works.”
“Can you come over? Even if you don’t know what it is, I’m all alone here except for Uncle, and it would be fun. Plus it’s really hot. I’m alone and it’s hot.”
“I can be there in—” Divya stopped. Seconds passed. “I can be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Great!” said Shaila. “See you then.”
She took the flower back to the kitchen and began opening drawers, looking for matches. She needed to do some more experiments.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, the doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” Shaila called in Gujarati, not wanting Uncle to interfere. She opened the door and let Divya in. Unlike Shaila, who had been forced to wear “something nice”—a nondescript blouse, not her math/science team shirt covered in physics equations—Divya was dressed comfortably in jeans and a T-shirt with a painting Shaila didn’t recognize.
“It’s nice to see you again,” said Divya.
“Good to see you too,” Shaila replied.
“Show me the lotus,” said Divya with startling authority.
Shaila led her to the kitchen, where the white lotus sat on the table. “I tried burning it and cutting it with a knife while I waited, but it didn’t work.”
“Why are you trying to destroy it?”
“I’m not trying to destroy it!” said Shaila. “But the fact that I can’t is pretty weird, okay. And if it connects to what’s going on, I want to know what I can.”
Divya picked up the white lotus delicately and examined it. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered. “The curve of the petals, the smoothness… it’s perfect.” She set it back down. “But Ranitamasi never mentioned it to me. I don’t know what it does.”
“But she does. As soon as she gets back, I’m asking her.”
Divya looked up. “Why wait?” She strode confidently to the other end of the kitchen. “I’ve never tried this, but I watched Ranitamasi do it once.” Shaila heard her mutter something under her breath: “A day for trying new things, I guess.”
“Tried what? Where are you going? Should I bring the lotus?”
“Leave it there,” said Divya. Shaila followed her to the laundry room.
Stacks of washers and dryers lined the walls. Divya led her to a dryer in the corner. “This is the one. I saw her use it to talk to someone.” She opened the dryer door. “Is there a washer that’s done?”
Shaila opened up a washer that wasn’t running. It was full of towels. She reached inside and grabbed one.
Divya took it from her and threw it into the dryer. “We should probably fill up the dryer to be safe.” Together they filled the dryer with the other damp towels. “And don’t forget the dryer sheet.”
“Will it help with the magic phone?” asked Shaila.
Divya gave her a confused look. “No, it reduces static cling.”
Shaila looked around but couldn’t find any dryer sheets. She shrugged, and Divya shrugged back and closed the door. Through the glass all they could see was white fabric.
Divya waved her hand around the glass door in a clockwise direction three times. “I think it was three times,” she said. She closed her eyes tightly and pressed the button. The dryer came on with a start, and the towels began tumbling clockwise. “Or maybe it was the other way around … ?”
For a few seconds, Shaila and Divya didn’t speak, focusing on the mechanical sounds of laundry all around them. The repetitive rotation of the dryer reminded Shaila of the creaking swing, and she began keeping time with it as she stared into the window.
And then the monochrome white shifted into a blur of orange and purple and green. An image formed on the glass, and as it resolved, Shaila recognized rows and rows of saris. “Divya? Is that the sari store? Is the dryer showing us the sari store?”
“That must be where Ranitamasi is. I thought about her as hard as I could before turning it on.”
The focus of the image moved downward as if it were a camera, and Shaila saw her mom and Ranitamasi evaluating selections at the counter while her dad looked at something on his phone. Probably checking the news. She knew her mom was picky about her saris, but when
the right one struck her, the search was over. Her dad glanced up occasionally, clearly not wanting to become too engrossed in case that moment came.
“Kirti, how much longer?” he called, and Shaila jumped.
“Divya, I can hear him!”
Divya shushed her with a finger but looked at Shaila’s dad, who didn’t react. “Kavimama!” she called, waving. “Kavimama!” He still didn’t react. She sighed. “I did it wrong. We can’t talk to them.”
“Maybe they’ll talk about me,” said Shaila. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t approve of spying on her parents, but these were not normal circumstances. It was a magic dryer. The mystery of the lotus temporarily receded, replaced by these impossible images.
“Found it!” exclaimed Shaila’s mom, holding up a bolt of rich purple and deep yellow fabric.
“Oh, yes, very lush,” agreed Ranitamasi.
As her mom began haggling for a better deal, Ranitamasi walked over to her dad. “Any interesting news?”
“Gas prices are going up,” he said.
“That’s not news, nor interesting,” she said with a smile.
Her dad swiped the screen and put the phone in his pocket. “So we’re telling her today?”
Shaila clapped her hands together and mouthed, “See?” to Divya. Even though Divya said they couldn’t hear her, she didn’t want to take any chances.
Ranitamasi nodded. “She’s sixteen. It’s time.”
Shaila had turned sixteen three weeks ago. They had waited long enough to break the news that magic was real.
“And you’re sure she’ll be safe?”
“Do you doubt the power of my chaa, Kavi?” Ranitamasi wiggled her fingers in front of his face, and tiny green sparks came out.
“Whoa,” said Shaila, before covering her mouth with her hand. Then she realized what Ranitamasi had said. The chaa kept her safe?
Her dad frowned. “Don’t do that in here.”
“Do what?” said her mom, walking up with bag in hand. Ranitamasi wiggled her fingers in front of her face; this time the sparks were white and orange. Her mom pumped her fist in the air a couple times and hummed a tune Shaila recognized as her college fight song. Her mom hoped Shaila would have cause to hum it herself one day.
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