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a
i
t.
w
o
n
d
e
r.
t
h
i
n
k.
Nani drums her fingers
on the yellow tablecloth,
her foot tapping her chair’s leg
with every fourth beat.
Mummy keeps refilling
her full water glass,
taking small sips in between,
like it’s chai, steaming hot.
Papa has his book satchel on his lap.
He stares at the same page of a cookbook,
his eyes a glossy costume
meant to show
he’s here
while his mind drifts away.
Away to somewhere better.
Somewhere he’d rather be?
After an hour,
I’m sent to the kitchen
to taste.
to judge.
to decide.
Nani tells Surina
to go along as my chaperone.
She grudgingly follows behind
me like a
(Not a silent one.)
The moment we open the kitchen door
and swallow the scent of fish,
Surina smothers her complaints
with her palm,
taking off for the bathroom.
In the kitchen,
I find several cooking areas,
my third boy in the first.
His meal—
his future?—
a pile of charcoal
smoking in his hands.
“It used to be mackerel,” he says,
placing the plate on the counter.
“I suppose I’m done.
That first boy has eleven rocks
to my three.”
I expect him to finally show
his defeat, but
he smiles at the blackened lump
and says, “It’s all right.
My sister will buy me a future—
though perhaps as a coachman,
not a cook.”
I feel a weight in my heart
for this sweet, gentle boy,
but I’d like to set him free,
not call him my husband.
I add one rock to his collection.
As I step away, I tell him,
“You’ll be a great addition
to some girl’s home.”
And I hope, for his sake,
that some girl thinks so, too.
I continue to the second part of the kitchen—
the one with familiar smells
floating in the air.
My cousin stands at the counter,
a knife and fork in one hand,
a plate of oysters in coconut cream
in the other.
He chose this dish because it creates acid,
and acid creates girls,
and he wants me to know
he will also do this.
He pierces the rubbery flesh.
Holds it out on the fork.
Waits for me to let him
shove his proof
down my throat.
I snatch the fork from his hand.
Take a small bite
on my own.
There’s no question it’s good.
It should be.
I bet it’s the same recipe
Nani tells Surina’s husband
to make every week.
When my cousin opens his hand,
I place two rocks on the counter.
I say: “I’ll be back if you deserve the other three.”
I know: he doesn’t deserve even one.
He grabs my elbow,
hissing, “Sudasa,”
like my name’s a swear.
I scowl at his hand.
Say, “I could leave you
with one instead.”
He pulls me close against his chest.
His breath—a dragon’s.
His eyes—a snake’s.
“You’re just trying to make me sweat,” he says.
“Trying to show me who’s boss.
Don’t you worry.
You’ll be the one sweating
in our marriage bed.”
I push him away,
and without even thinking,
I slap him
across the face.
He laughs,
as if this is all a game.
as if my hating him
sprinkles sugar
on his victory.
Maybe it does.
I would not be his prey
if I didn’t want
to run
away.
26
I rush around the corner,
past the exit door.
I duck into the bathroom.
Grab the sides of the washbasin to
steady my heart.
steady my nerves.
steady my thoughts.
My stomach churns at the thought
of calling my cousin
Husband.
But it churns more at the thought
of forcing Five to take his place
instead.
Could I really be happy
living like a horse whisperer?
Using a palm full of oats
to entice my hostage
from the corner of his corral,
my fingers curled by the fear
of being bitten?
No.
I am not Nani.
I will not take prisoners
in my own home.
Staring into the mirror,
I
tell my tears to stop.
tell myself to stay
STRONG.
And I do until
I find Five in the kitchen—
a pillar
to my puddle.
He leans against a gleaming counter.
No smells.
No dishes.
No evidence he has touched a thing.
No.
How can he do this to me?
How can he leave me with only one choice?
One I don’t want.
My eyes become pools,
and before I can ask him
why he hasn’t started,
in his low voice
he says,
“You need not worry.
I finished long ago.”
I look around.
“Do you have an offering?” I ask,
my voice cracking.
With a nod, he replies,
“Like the darkness,
it will appear when you close your eyes.”
I bite through a smile.
Shut my eyes.
Wait for his magic.
He speaks again.
“You must open your mouth, too.”
I open my mouth and
his fingers
brush my lips
like a ghost.
His offering sits
in the middle of my tongue.
Cold.
Tasteless.
I bite it.
Prepare to hate it.
Because that’s what he wants.
Right?
That will
force me to give
three more rocks to my cousin.
That will
end these Tests.
give him a one-way ticket out of here.
The moment my teeth pierce
the soft flesh of the sphere,
a sour juice
tickles
my tongue.
It’s the taste of the forbidden;
forbidden
from my home
because it will neutralize
the same kind of acid
my cousin tried to create.
I had one once. Years ago.
Pap
a said he got it from Hun Market.
At the time, I thought he meant
the illegal part. The part
everyone knows about
but no one ever discusses.
Later, I learned that girls
ate them all the time.
Other girls. Girls
whose grandmothers
weren’t obsessed with
filling their homes
with more girls.
I open my eyes.
Say, “They’re my favorite.
But you didn’t cook it.
That was the Test.”
Five grins.
“The rules say we must make you
something to eat.
I dug a hole in my land
and grew that myself.”
With a smile bursting from my lips,
I reach into my pocket.
I want to give him all five rocks.
Want to tell him he
won.
won my favor.
won me?
He shakes his head,
reminding me
I am not the prize he seeks.
“That cherry was payment,” he says,
“for my freedom.”
The churn in my stomach swells
to a tidal wave.
“But I can’t marry my cousin.
I’d rather die than—
Please, let me pick you.
Then you can go live your life.
I’ll make excuses.
Pretend we’re together.
It’ll work.”
It has to.
He steps back to his corner,
shaking his head.
“I won’t be forced to be a husband,
just as you don’t want to be forced to be a wife.”
I pause to find another option.
“What if I pick you
but you leave before the wedding?”
Another step.
“Then the people of Koyanagar will think
you weren’t good enough for a farm boy.”
I keep my eyes lowered as I reply.
“But that is true. I am not good enough
to make you stay.”
His eyes grow wide and yet
no words
fill his open mouth.
“It’s true,” I say again.
“You’d rather die than be married to me.
And you will die if you lose.
You’ll be sent to the wall
and I’ll be forced to live
with the burns from your noose
on my palms.”
Five rips the mask
off his face,
flinging it
on the stainless counter.
“Do you call this living—
competing for life in a cage?
I don’t.
It’s death in slow motion.
It’s the same at the wall,
although death, for some, comes quicker.
“Well, I don’t want death.
I want life.
I want a job
I choose.
A home
I choose.
A wife
I choose.
And not in Koyanagar.”
His eyes are soft
under thick eyebrows,
but there’s no question
his words are steel.
He wants to leave
and nothing I say—
or do—
will stop him.
When I see the gleam
of hope in his eyes,
I realize—
honestly?—
I don’t want to.
I want to
cut off the lock.
open the gate.
remove his bridle.
set him free.
Like Asha, he knows what he wants,
and he has a chance
to grasp it.
I won’t take that away,
even if it means
I have no chance
for myself.
“I can help you,” I say.
“You’ll need money to cross the wall and—”
He holds up his hand.
“No.
The wall is lined
by a moat of piranhas.
I don’t want to be
their dinner.”
“But I know someone,” I say,
swallowing Asha’s name
and gender.
“Someone who said you can get through
with yira and—”
“A disguise?” he says,
pointing at his mask.
“That rumor is cheese used to catch the sneaky mouse.
It’s a lie.
No one gets through.
The men at the wall have no use for money.
They want revenge.
Blood. Anyone’s blood.
Boys.
Girls?
Even better.”
I step back,
my hands—my voice—shaking.
“Nai, it can’t be.
My friend was sure there’s a way out.”
His voice is calm when he says,
“There is, but not by land.”
“You mean by boat?”
He grins. “ ‘You can’t cross the sea
merely by standing and staring at the water.’
Tell your friend if she wants
to find the land of the free,
she’d better grow some fins.”
“But—”
“Trust me,” he says,
hovering his warm fingers
in front of my lips.
Piercing my eyes with a look
so convincing
he could tell me to jump
off Agnimar Cliff
and my only question would be
Should I go head- or feetfirst?
He drops his hand as he continues.
“Like yours, my future was decided
twelve years ago
and that’s a lot of time for research.
“The people who lose their sons
in these Tests—
many have tried to follow them:
to make sure they’re alive.
to try to steal them back.
But there are only two
kinds of boys at the wall:
those who kill and
those who are killed.
And neither returns home.”
I drop five rocks on the counter.
My hand
shaking.
My mind
sinking
in a quicksand made of a
million
tiny
particles,
each one an image of Asha
at the wall.
No.
She was supposed to be here.
Before I left her flat last night,
I made her promise that wasn’t
our goodbye.
Made her promise she’d come
to my Choosing Ceremony.
Five pushes the rocks toward me.
His eyes are desperate when he says,
“No. Please, please don’t.
I must leave before the Choosing Ceremony is done.
My amma—I need to find my amma.
“Her name was Veera Pillai,”
he adds as if he needs
to offer proof.
“She left the night they closed
the gates.
This is my last chance
to see her again.”
That’s when I see the longing
in his eyes.
He isn’t running from someone—
someone like me.
He’s running to someone.
To his mother.
I say, “I promise I will help you.
But if I don’t give those to you now,
these Tests are done
and I’m n
ot ready for that.
I need some more time
to fulfill your request.
Some more time to find
some other…
options.”
But what I need first
is to find Asha
fast,
or I won’t be
the only one
with a sealed fate.
27
On my way out of the kitchen,
I dip my fingers in some ginger chutney.
I smear it across my right sleeve.
Prepare a wound
for my battle.
When I return to the table,
Nani puts down her spoon,
letting it ping against the china
like a timer at its finish.
“You’re done?” she says,
and she doesn’t mean
with the fourth Test.
Pointing at my stained choli, I say,
“I need to go home to change.”
She glares at my dupatta
as if she can will it to move
from my left shoulder
to my right.
Even if she could,
the stain would still show.
The chiffon is as sheer
as her smiles.
I don’t have time to argue,
so I distract her
with a juicy bone.
“Do you want me to choose my husband
looking like this?
Mota Masi will think we’re
too poor
for clean clothes.”
My bone turns Nani
into a grinning hound.
“Go,” she says,
waving me away,
drips of victory glistening
on her jowls.
“Come back in something nice.”
Then, removing the key
from around her neck,
she adds, “You can wear
my ruby drops, since it’s a
special occasion.”
I snatch the key from her hand,
rushing to the exit
before she figures out
what I’ve done.
When I get into the carriage,
I instruct the coachman
to drive as if
his life depends on it.
Because someone’s does.
I become an athlete
when we arrive at the building.
Sprinting
across the sidewalk
in my stiff beaded shoes.
Racing
to the lift, heart
beat
beat
beating
as I wait for the next race.
A minute later,
I’m at Asha’s flat.
Don’t need to knock.