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by Iona Datt Sharma

  “Don’t you dare." Her mother looked up and laughed. “Just be patient and bear it, okay, beta? I’ll send them for Lupita too if she wants it. Will she want it?"

  “Maybe," Archana said, honestly unsure. “Let’s keep them on hand and get Chandni to ask her."

  “Sure," her mother said, said as much to the minions, and went off to speak to Chandni’s local terminal; Archana shifted slightly in her chair and tried to convey, through gesture and movements of her eyebrows, that she could do with a break. The mehndi-minions looked at each other blankly and Archana sighed and let it go.

  “Lily?" she called. “Come offer the bride a libation, why don’t you."

  Lily grinned, bowing with the glass before holding it up to Archana’s mouth, which made her snort with laughter into the bubbles. One of the mehndi-wallas turned to his friend and said in Hindi, she’s simple, like a little girl, and Archana was patient and bore it.

  ___

  Chandni gave a dance performance the night before the marriage ceremony. “For our friends in the audience who may be unfamiliar," she explained, standing on the little stage at the front of the ship’s main function room, “we call this bharatnatyam. It’s a classical Indian dance form that is thought to be thousands of years old."

  When she began, the room became quieter, if not silent. “Oh, wow," Lily said, her eyes wide, “that’s beautiful. How come you never did anything like that?"

  Archana tensed up, then forced herself to relax. The room was full of people clearly entranced; a minute ago they’d been intent on the buffet table or showing off their mehndi. Archana didn’t know if Lupita had had it done, but her sisters and cousins certainly had: they were here tonight in beautiful borrowed saris and shouting in joyful Spanish at monolingual aunties. They were all getting along fine.

  “I don’t know," she said, at last. “I guess—I wasn’t interested. I knew what I was like pretty early on, you know? Staying home from family parties and driving Mum mad with the state of my clothes. And Chandni—well, she knows every human language now, pretty much, but she went to Saturday Hindi class to please Dad. Took dance lessons from when she was twelve. She was"—Archana smiled, suddenly, looking up at Chandni in mid-execution of a smooth and graceful form—“perfect. She is perfect, isn’t she?"

  “You’re pretty great too, Archana," Lily said, and Archana grinned.

  “Thanks," she said, and would have said something more, asked about Lily’s kids or her thesis, but was drawn away by an arm around her shoulders.

  “Arré, beta, five minutes only," said Sanjita Auntie, and Archana sighed and went along with her to the buffet table.

  “Hi, Auntie," she said, looking down at the vat of dal makhani with some resignation. “What can I do for you?"

  “Ah, I can’t come and say congratulations?" Sanjita Auntie said. “You should be very happy, beta, the family are very good." She meant Lupita’s family, now applauding wildly at the close of Chandni’s performance and looking thoughtfully determined as the first of the proper dance music came on. “And when the babies come it will be different, na? We will all help."

  “With what?" Archana said absently, skipping over the whole babies thing and wondering if there might be dessert soon. Indian after all, murmured a voice in her head; she told it to get stuffed.

  “Ah, beta, don’t worry, you will learn Hindi before they come, and Chandni will teach them dancing, and your ma will—"

  “Oh," Archana said, cutting her off, still half-thinking about fruit and ice cream and wishing very devoutly that those were the only things on her mind. “It’s like that, is it?"

  “Beta, don’t get upset! I only say these things because--"

  “Because you love me," Archana said, louder than she’d meant, “because you bloody love me"—and she was going to cry any minute, she thought. Thirty years old and she was going to start crying into a bowl of dal, like at every family party since the beginning of things. “You’re going to fix me for the sake of my children. That’s it, isn’t it, Sanjita Auntie?"

  “Archana, beta, why you say such things!" Sanjita Auntie said. “We all want to help you only."

  “Thanks," Archana said, “but no thanks. Keep your goddamn help."

  “Kya bath hain ye," Sanjita Auntie said, sniffing, and Archana looked over her shoulder at her mother bustling across the dance floor, deftly avoiding Lupita’s whirligigging sisters; her father was coming in through the far door, with the quick eye for trouble you developed when running a six-day multiple-shindig event, and Archana thought it was still possible that she might make it through this without crying herself, but a good full-throated scream was coming up as an option—and then a quiet voice said:

  “Step back."

  “Chandni beta," Sanjita Auntie said, dabbing at her eyes with her dupatta, “this is grown-up talk, you just sit down and--"

  “Auntie," Chandni said sweetly, “I am the deep-space exploratory mining vessel Chandragrahan. I have a top cruising speed of fourteen times the speed of light in a vacuum and enough standard armament to blow up an asteroid nine hundred and fifty kilometres in diameter. Step back from my sister before I make you."

  From behind her, a woman’s voice said, “Archana? Chandni sent a shuttle across. She said you needed me urgently."

  Archana looked up and burst into tears.

  ___

  “There, there," Lupita said, a while later. They were in one of the little anterooms off the function hall, where Chandni had provided soft lighting and Lily another bottle of bubbly. “Don’t cry any more, it freaks me out."

  “Sorry," Archana said, sniffling, and then took another chug of the wine and felt better. “Sorry, sorry, I’m ridiculous."

  “Maybe you are," Lupita said, comfortably, “but your sister is soothing all your aunts and your mom and mine are comparing outfit notes and your friends from grad school are teaching my tía Marta how to do shots and we haven’t even gotten married yet, so, you know."

  Archana laughed a little and hiccupped. “We are married," she said. “We are in every way that matters. This is just to"—she gestured—“keep my damned family happy."

  “Is that so bad?" Lupita asked; Archana sighed.

  “They want to change me," she said. “They want me to be a good, perfect, beautiful Indian girl. Like---"

  “Me?" Chandni asked. She came in and sat cross-legged on the floor, pouring herself some champagne. There hadn’t been a third glass a moment before, but that made no difference to her. “Archana-didi, I’m a ship."

  “Well, yeah"—Archana gestured—“but. . . ."

  “But nothing. I won’t get married. I won’t give Mum grandchildren." She waved the drink around, a little unsteadily. “What, you think I’ll meet a planetoid with prospects? Yes, I’m perfect. I’m a perfect AI."

  “Well," Lupita said, “what an interesting and complementary inferiority complex."

  “You shut up, you’re taking my didi away." Chandni folded her arms and glowered. Lupita grinned.

  “Chandni," Archana said, meaning every word, “you’re perfect and I love you"—and that time Lupita rolled her eyes.

  “Good thing you brought me over," she said. “Clearly y’all need someone smart around."

  Archana laughed a little at that, and Chandni smiled shyly, and Archana was thinking they might talk about it again, but not now, not yet. Lupita shook her head with amused resignation, then stopped short, looking at her feet. “Chandni," she said, after another moment, “where the shit are my shoes?"

  Chandni looked expressionlessly at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about."

  “You’ve put them on a fucking asteroid, haven’t you."

  “Technically," Chandni was saying, as Archana stood up and walked back into the function hall, “Phobos is more of a moon"—and Archana kept on going, across the floor, to where her mother was standing back from the riotous dancing.

  “Better, beta?" her mother asked, and Archana considered, then nodded. Her
mother smiled wryly at her. “They do love you, you know," she added after a moment, and Archana didn’t need to ask who she meant, following her mother’s gaze to Dabbu Auntie and Manju Auntie flailing wildly and trying to persuade Lupita’s abuela to join in.

  “Yeah," Archana said, “I know."

  “Why don’t you and Lupita get ready together in the morning?" her mother said. “We can’t send the poor girl back so late and Chandni can find another room to sleep in, I’m sure." She grinned. “She’ll complain, but it’s brides’ prerogative."

  Archana grinned back: she knew what her mother, in her own way, was trying to say. She thought that she might ask Lupita to dance with her, in a little while, and then maybe Chandni, or her dad; and after that, when Lupita’s sisters got back from carrying Tía Marta to bed, it would be time for dessert.

  Nine Thousand Hours

  (NB: like some of my other stories, this one is set among the people who call themselves Salt. But because this was the first, it has a different magic from the others. Think of it as a Salt alternate universe, or just an old tale retold.)

  While I was waiting to find out if I would be prosecuted, I went to see Cally by the sea. In those first few days you could only call people whose numbers you had by heart; she answered on the first ring, listened to me cry for a while and said, "I think you remember the way down"—which I did, of course, and then I thought that Commander Norwood would have said something very like that. He would have been just fine after the disaster: he spent his whole life using words as though each one were taxed. And then I was thinking of how they buried Commander Norwood on the hill, under a now-unmarked stone, and made an incoherent noise. Everyone was doing that a lot, back then: crying and laughing, shrieking and sighing, all sounds without words.

  "About the disaster . . ."—Cally said that carefully; some people even then were already giving it the initial capital, the Disaster, but not her—"well." She was quiet for a while. "Here, things go on. Come home, Salt."

  I went. There were no trains of course, and not many people on the roads, but I could drive—it was about the only thing I could do—so I got in the car and left London on one of those intense, luminous, bright blue days you only get in England at the turn of spring. At Weymouth I got the truth of what she'd been saying—although it wasn't any improvement in some ways, with road signs blank and shopfronts bare, everything was clear and dazzling so the puddles of seawater on the docks flashed sunlight, flashed sky. There were people hanging their nets, unloading their boats, with the fish sparkling in the water beneath them and the Salt flags flying above for luck. I'm of the people of the Salt. I took a deep, steadying breath when I saw the ensigns, and drove on up the hill to the lighthouse.

  Cally came down to meet me, opened the car door and said, without preamble: "Where's your bar?"

  I put a hand to my ear and mumbled something about it not feeling right, any more. Cally snarled—maybe literally, I don't know; I'd never seen her angry like she was in that single minute, ground down like a lens to a focus of fury—and said, "You have it with you, don't you?"

  I had it with me, of course—it's never left my possession since I earned it, five years before that drive down to Weymouth in the sun—and Cally made me get down on my knees right there on the smooth cobblestones under the lighthouse, my hair still being whipped around my face by the wind, and pushed the bar through the tip of my ear without much concern for whether it hurt. It did hurt—my practitioner's bar is iron and rust, as befits a daughter of Salt—but once she was done I put my hand up and felt the flesh on both sides was warm, and healing around it. And that helped, too, like the bright light and the sea, which as my father and Commander Norwood both have said, at different times, need no words.

  ___

  Cally made tea and put biscuits on a plate; I didn't do too much of anything. Without even looking at me she got her phone out of her pocket, dialled a number and said, "Yes, this is Calliope Norwood. At the light, yes. Can you send up—mmm, cheese and pepperoni. Thanks."

  I thought about that for a minute, and then said, "You know the pizza delivery phone number by heart?"

  She ignored that. "Drink your tea."

  I drank the tea and ate a couple of biscuits, and slowly the world came into a little better focus. When I was a child the kitchen in that house, with its cast-iron range and big white-painted rafters, seemed enormous: as enormous as the possibility of one day being grown up, of my being a practitioner of the Salt and Cally's being the lighthouse keeper. We knew, I think, that that's what Cally would be, some far-off day—but then Commander Norwood died suddenly, of a heart attack in the middle of the night, and that was that. My father still lived in the cottage in Weymouth where I was born, but he understood, more than anyone, why home was the house under the light: it was my father's people who built the tower.

  On the table, stark against the stripped oak, were a handful of bare sheets of paper and a pen. I motioned towards them a little ruefully, and asked, "What did they used to be?"

  "Tide tables," Cally said. "It's all right for me, I can remember them, mostly. But I tried to write them down for the others, and . . ."

  "Yeah." I'd tried to write down lists of magical logarithms, and phone numbers, and then just my name, over and over. We all had. I picked up a pen and attempted to write "Amal" and then "Salt" on the page. My pen formed the letters, but a millimetre above the surface; when Cally took it from me and tried, she couldn't force it into the sweep of the C without it leaping from her hand. Above us, I noticed for the first time the neatly arrayed spice jars, now with blank labels, and the cookbooks on the shelf by the door with bare spines. "I really am sorry, Cally. I'm so sorry."

  Cally glanced at me. "I guess you're apologising to a lot of people, right now."

  I nodded. Having been right in the focus of the blast, I had been stumbling aphasic for a while, dimly fumbling through the confusion; after that cleared, sorry was the first word.

  "Okay." Cally seemed to consider. "It's time to check on the light. Do you want to come up with me?"

  I nodded and followed her up the spiral steps. "I thought it was lucky," I said, as we went round and round, round and around, "that the light magic can still be done."

  "Yes," Cally said, "but luck has nothing to do with it."

  I wasn't sure what she meant by that until we emerged into the lamp-room, greenish with daylight. And it was strange that I'd never seen it before, but then, perhaps I'd never really looked.

  "Two power sources," Cally said, tapping the glass. "Magic, for when the power goes out, and electricity, for—well, for things like this."

  I bowed my head. "I can still do it," I said. Because my magic comes from seawater and salt, it tends to the deep, wordless workings—heat and cold and calm and light. Not all the people of the Salt want to take time for the learning, the way I did—Cally was taught all she needed in primary school and then by Commander Norwood, for the upkeep of the light—but the power is in all of us, brought with us when life crawled out of the sea, or so I'm told.

  Cally nodded. "I'll get you to help, then, when the time comes"—and then there came the ring of the bell from downstairs, so we finished up and went back down. Cally fetched in the pizza and paid for it over my protests—it's a good thing that sterling banknotes are different colours, because there wasn't a word on any of them—and set it down in front of me and watched while I ate it, and then I did help her with the light at dusk, and after that, went to bed before nine o'clock.

  You must understand: there wasn't anything to do, at that time. You couldn't go online, or read a book. You couldn't check your email or read the news. You could sing if you knew the words; you couldn't do it for the first time unless you were doing it by ear. Offices and schools and universities were closed, waiting. So many people took up running that there were two London Marathons that year. And magic had become a primal thing—you could do it if you knew the working so well it was part of your body; you couldn't loo
k it up. And I remember people didn't even do that: they were frightened, because of me, because of what I had done.

  ___

  I woke up in the middle of the night and went down to see my father. Like me, he's an insomniac; there was a light burning in the kitchen window as I came up the garden path and let myself in with my old key. The hallway was shadowy and dim, comfortingly familiar; I threw off my boots and went inside in socks. "Amal, is that you?" my father called, and when I pushed open the door, added, lovingly, "Salt."

  "I'm not sure I deserve that right now," I said, honestly, touching my practitioner's bar. "Hi, Dad."

  He pushed a chair out for me obligingly and waved at the steaming teapot. I poured cups for myself and him—there was a warming magic on the pot, I realised; it could have been sitting out for hours—and peered across the table with interest. "What is that?"

  "Your grandfather was a dab hand with an abacus," my father said, pushing across some beads on the tiny rails. "I thought, now I can't catch up on my reading"—he glanced at me without reproach—"I'd give it a go. Of course, not being able to write down the answers is a bit of a bummer. Is Cally looking after you?"

  I laughed a little at that. "Yes, of course."

  "Commander Norwood would be proud of that girl." He pushed across another tiny bead and stared at it intensely, as though expecting it to yield some great truth. I got up, suddenly feeling restless, and looked out the picture window, down at the sea. Every few seconds, the great sweeping beam of the lighthouse crossed my vision, steady as a heartbeat. There were boats out there, still.

  "People are managing," my father said, as though reading my mind. "Have you left Crayfish for good?"

  "No," I said, a little surprised. Crayfish—which is a communications company, despite the name—at that time was based in south London, near where the river turns tidal (for the Salt practitioners, like me) with easy access to the estuary (for the Birds) and with a basement (for the Stone, not that London, built on its layer upon layer of clay soils, suits them particularly well anywhere in the boroughs). "I mean—we've done . . . whatever we've done. We're going to have to—well, you know. Fix it. If we can."