The Wild Ones

by Nafiza Azad

  “The Dar is supposed to hold the pendant in his hands, right?” Tabassum Naaz raises an eyebrow.

  “Yeah,” Valentina replies. “But make sure you don’t touch it.”

  Tabassum Naaz pats Valentina’s cheek and gives her a smile. “I won’t.”

  She leaves us to cling to the shadows and walks back to the chamber. The middle-worlder goons mutter loudly about the disappearance of their companion. Someone wants to report to Baarish, but Tabassum Naaz persuades them not to, saying that it will cause him to be embarrassed in front of his friends. The men agree to postpone their report.

  Ten minutes later, Baarish arrives with four middle-worlder men who all, to some degree, look like him: hungry for power and entirely without hearts. They don’t travel with the entourage we expect. Perhaps they left their attendants in the Imambara below. Baarish’s goons set up chairs on one side of the chamber and offer them refreshment in the form of chilled soda.

  Baarish, especially, is in a jovial mood. He circles around the chair Taraana is shackled to, looking him up and down like he is livestock. Perhaps, to them he is.

  “It was originally my turn to harvest a keeper,” one of Baarish’s friends says, with a hint of grievance in his voice. “You harvested the last one.”

  “I was the one who found him, Haaruv,” Baarish replies. “So, I get to keep him.”

  “Well, I don’t care who finds the next one. Whoever it is, the keeper will be mine,” Haaruv says with a pout. He needs to die too.

  Baarish doesn’t respond. Instead, he grabs Taraana’s chin and forces him to look up. We all shudder. In the next moment, he slaps him so hard, Taraana’s face hits the side of the chair. I stuff my hand into my mouth for fear I will make a noise. Taraana jerks forward and the pendant falls out.

  He opens his eyes and looks at Baarish. The Dar smiles, triumph in his eyes, on his face, and in his voice. “Did you think you could escape me? Fool. I have caught you, and soon I will catch those girls who prance around the Between. I will reclaim the stars they wear. And you? You can watch as my men pleasure themselves on those girls. Perhaps I won’t have to torture you directly, then—”

  “Dada-ji,” Tabassum Naaz says, interrupting him. “Please don’t touch the pendant. It might be dangerous,” she cautions. “One of the girls told me it is a talisman that protects the keeper.”

  Baarish turns and glares at Tabassum Naaz. “Dangerous? For me?” He returns his gaze to Taraana and gives the pendant a piercing look. Finding nothing dangerous about it, he picks it up and pulls it free.

  I almost forget to breathe. This is the moment, Taraana.

  As if hearing my unspoken words, Taraana’s lips move, hopefully speaking the word to awaken the magic in the pendant.

  “How is this trinket supposed to be dangerous?” Baarish bellows. “Boy, you should know that nothing is going to keep you safe from me. By the time I am done with you, you will be lucky to still be ali—”

  Baarish comes to a discordant silence in the middle of the word. He looks down at the pendant he is holding in his hands. It is now glowing purple. He tries to speak again, but his voice fractures and his face becomes tangled up in a frown. He looks at the men he calls his friends, and they jump to their feet and back away from him. Baarish flings away the pendant and it falls to the floor with a thud.

  But it is far too late. The damage has been done.

  Baarish’s skin cracks like the earth in a drought. His mouth opens, but no sound comes out. He turns in silent appeal to his minions, but they are frozen. Then he turns to Tabassum Naaz, his hand stretched out, an entreaty in his eyes.

  She crosses her arms and steps back. She is not as unaffected as she pretends, however. Her eyes speak volumes.

  The next few minutes are an instruction in pain. One that we didn’t need but are forced to endure. At the end, all that is left of Baarish is a pile of dust and the echoes of his screams.

  A New Era, a New Dar; the River Sings

  We are not monsters, so we aren’t indifferent to the violence enacted in front of us. Though we didn’t wield the knife, we still killed Baarish. We retain enough of selves to feel the pinch of our consciences. Baarish’s friends, however, are another story.

  Barely a minute has passed after Baarish’s death before the four middle worlders are trying to grab Taraana. Baarish’s minions seem shell-shocked and are unmoving. Tabassum Naaz is heaving in a corner. We walk into the chamber and Paheli pulls one middle worlder away from Taraana. He retaliates immediately, throwing a magical force at her. It rebounds, stunning him. Baarish’s minions, a monster with its head cut off, decide that we’re the enemy they need to fight and come charging at us.

  “Protect your ears,” Valentina calls to Tabassum Naaz, five seconds before we scream. They wanted magic so we’ll give them magic, more magic than they’ll know what to do with. The air sparks with our screams; the middle worlders hold their heads and fall to their knees. We scream until our throats are hoarse and no one, apart from us and Tabassum Naaz, is left standing.

  Paheli is beside Taraana, freeing his hands and feet from the shackles. She wraps her arms around him, holding him so tight that we worry he won’t be able to breathe. But Taraana doesn’t seem to mind. He’s holding her just as tightly.

  We turn away to give them the illusion of privacy and look at Tabassum Naaz who, despite the earplugs in her ears, is still pale and jittery from the force of our screams.

  “What will you do now?” Valentina asks her. Baarish’s death is hardly the end of our story.

  “I need to bond to a river here.” Tabassum Naaz leans on a pillar. Valentina grabs her hand and she holds on tightly. “Once I bond to the river, I become the new Dar. Then I will have power.”

  “Which river?” Valentina asks.

  “Any river,” Tabassum Naaz replies.

  “Gomti River,” Paheli says, walking over to us, her arm around Taraana’s waist, supporting his weight on one side while Daraja holds on to him from the other side. “We can go there.”

  “Will you come with me?” Tabassum Naaz asks Taraana.

  It would be prudent for us to retreat at this point, but Taraana, looking as though he has just returned from a war he lost, nods. “It would be my honor to accompany you.”

  “What about them?” Kamboja looks at the bodies on the floor. Apart from Baarish, none of them are dead. They’re not exactly alive, either. The magic in our screams has cooked their brains.

  “Leave them here,” Tabassum Naaz says. “Someone will discover them eventually.”

  “Your grandfather?” Areum asks.

  Tabassum Naaz shrugs. “As far as everyone is concerned, I wasn’t here today. He didn’t tell the family that he’d kidnapped the keeper, otherwise they’d have been here too, and things would have been much more complicated.”

  “And the conjury?” Etsuko asks. We turn to look at the pendant glowing purple on the floor.

  “Leave it there,” Paheli replies. “Let it serve as a warning.”

  We exit the Bhool Bhulaiyaa and go down the stairs to the Imambara. Fortunately, Baarish’s friends came alone, otherwise we would have had to scream once again. We pile into two vans, previously used by the middle worlders. One of the vans is driven by Tabassum Naaz and the other, Paheli. Whether either of them have driving licenses is not a question anyone wants to risk asking.

  Half an hour later we are at the banks of the river.

  “It’s not a complicated process,” Tabassum Naaz says. “I just need to immerse all of myself into the river and submit to its magic.” She turns to us. “Just be my witnesses.”

  We watch as she pulls off her shoes and walks into the river. She continues walking, each step taking her a little deeper, the water covering a little more of her body. She walks until her entire body is submerged in the water. We wait for a long moment, not knowing what to expect. Then, inexplicably, the river gets choppy. Even though it’s a hot day with no breeze, little wavelets appear on the surfac
e of the river as if it’s in the middle of a storm. Before Tabassum Naaz reappears, the river sings.

  Or, more accurately, the magic within the river sings. When Tabassum Naaz walks out of the river, as dry as the moment she walked in, we flock over to her. Her eyes have changed. They look exactly like Baarish’s did except less creepy.

  “Do you feel any different?” Paheli asks.

  As a reply, Tabassum Naaz reaches out and hugs Valentina, squeezing her tightly. Valentina gives her an affronted look, but the smile on her lips is wide. We could get used to a smiling Valentina.

  “I feel like I drank an entire liter of coffee,” Tabassum Naaz replies. “I know that what waits for me in the very near future is likely to be painful, but I am ready for it. Mostly. I can call on you if it gets too much for me, can’t I?”

  “We’ll send you Valentina,” Areum says generously. She grins, unrepentant, at Valentina’s quelling look.

  We abandon the vans at the riverbank and find an uninterrupted wall nearby. When we enter the Between, Taraana suddenly sinks to the ground.

  “What is it? Does it hurt too much?” Paheli kneels by him.

  “No, I just thought that I would never travel the Between again. I thought my time was up,” Taraana says after a long pause. He shudders.

  “I’m sorry. It’s my fault that you’re hurt,” Paheli replies. She yields her spot to Areum and takes a step away from Taraana.

  “That is not true,” he protests. Paheli shakes her head.

  “I will accompany Tabassum Naaz to Agra. The rest of you, take Taraana to New Orleans. Have Eulalie patch him up.”

  “I can go by myself,” Tabassum Naaz says.

  “I will take you,” Paheli says firmly.

  She doesn’t give us any chance to protest and leaves immediately, walking so fast that Tabassum Naaz has to run after her.

  Valentina sighs loudly. “Let’s get Taraana to New Orleans.”

  “She needs to do something about her habit of running away,” Taraana grumbles, getting to his feet with some difficulty. He looks in the direction she has gone. “Their actions weren’t her fault.”

  “When she comes back, you can tell her that. We’ll sit on her so she has to stay and listen.” Etsuko beams at him.

  The Burning Door, the Fallen City, and Taraana 2.0

  It takes Paheli five hours to return to us. Taraana, sporting a slew of new bandages on the cuts on his face and arms, sits in the spot nearest to the front door, waiting for her. When she finally enters the house, she looks at Taraana first.

  “Does it hurt a lot?” she asks him.

  “It hurt more since you walked away,” Taraana replies.

  “Wow, this is exciting,” Ligaya says, taking a seat right beside Taraana before she gets back up. “Wait, wait. Let me get popcorn. Don’t continue.”

  She runs to the kitchen while we try very hard to maintain our serious faces. Honestly, we all want to see this show, but only Ligaya would say so outright.

  Paheli scrunches up her face and drops into the chair opposite Taraana’s. “You’re going to say you being hurt wasn’t my fault. And you are right. It wasn’t.”

  “So?” Taraana leans forward. “If it wasn’t your fault, why are you sitting so far away from me?”

  “Because we don’t need to be stuck together at all moments. That’s just gross.” Ooh, Paheli, a fatal hit.

  “You’re lying,” Taraana says, leaning back and fixing Paheli in place with a gimlet look.

  “I am not. Tina, I told Tabassum Naaz you’d be visiting her next week,” Paheli says airily.

  Valentina, who was watching the show as avidly as we were, is caught by surprise. “Why?”

  “Because I felt like it.” Paheli beams briefly.

  “Paheli,” Taraana says.

  “Yes, it wasn’t my fault, and yes, I blame myself anyway because I should have known better than to use such a foolish plan. It wasn’t my finest moment, and I’m still dealing with how close I came to losing you. Can we not talk about this, please?” She speaks quickly.

  “Why not?” Taraana asks.

  “Because I saw them hurt you and I keep thinking about how there have been so many times in the past when they hurt you as badly, if not worse, and there is nothing I can do about it. It hurts me.” She looks at him and sighs.

  “All right. Fine.” It is clear the conversation is not over, but Taraana is giving in right now. We nod at him approvingly. “I need to go back to the Between and look for a burning door,” he says.

  “You’re too hurt to go look for a door now, aren’t you?” Talei asks.

  “Better now than waiting for someone like Baarish to pursue us again,” Etsuko replies. “We don’t know how many middle worlders are aware of Taraana’s existence. Baarish was very blatant. The next middle worlder may not necessarily be as obvious.”

  “Let’s go tomorrow morning,” Valentina says. “We need the rest of the day today to breathe and recover from everything that we did. Everything that we saw.” We remember Baarish’s end again and shudder.

  “All right?” Paheli asks Taraana, and he nods before getting to his feet.

  “Come with me,” he tells her.

  “Why?” she demands.

  “We need to have a talk about how you continue running away.” He folds his arms.

  “I thought we already talked about it!” Paheli says.

  “No, that was you making excuses and me letting you. Come on,” Taraana says very patiently.

  “I’d much rather not,” Paheli says, and jumps to her feet. “I’m going to go see if Eulalie bought me mangoes.”

  She runs away and Valentina smirks at him. “Did you think it would be easy?”

  He sighs.

  * * *

  The next morning, we return to the Between, determined to search for a door that is on fire. We spend hours looking, sustained by the magic flowing in there. Once in a while, middle worlders pass us by. None of them bother us, though all of them give us narrow-eyed looks. We asked Eulalie to spread the word; we’re taking responsibility for Baarish’s demise.

  “Are you wearing your pendant?” Paheli suddenly asks Taraana, and he makes a face.

  “You’ve only asked that question a hundred times today.” He grouses.

  She narrows her eyes at him. “Are you?”

  “Yes!”

  We left the awakened pendant on the floor of the Bhool Bhulaiyaa in Lucknow. Fortunately, we have a whole stack of unawakened ones. Until we find a better way to keep Taraana safe, the pendants will have to do.

  “I smell something burning,” Ghufran says suddenly, and we come to attention. It’s true. There’s a scent of smoke in the air. We have seen other doors burning in the Between, but we have never felt enough curiosity to investigate them. We should have.

  We follow our noses and, thirty minutes later, arrive at a door that is on fire. We stop in front of it, unsure how to react.

  The door leads to Aleppo, Syria. We are not entirely oblivious to the happenings in the human world, you know. We have heard the news and listened to the survivors. We have witnessed the death of other cities, but never from the Between.

  “It is a city of screams,” Taraana mutters. “A city full of the ghosts of dead children.”

  We share a moment of silence for the people who call the city home.

  “Should I bleed on it?” Taraana turns to us.

  “Try it,” Paheli says.

  The flames aren’t too large and the heat isn’t overpowering. Taraana pricks his finger, steps forward, and squeezes a few drops of his blood onto the flames. We hold our breaths. The lights in the Between flicker, the flames rise up, but a few moments later, the lights return to normal and the flames retreat.

  “Why did it fail again? What am I doing wrong?” Taraana stares at the door with not a small amount of frustration. He combs a hand through his hair.

  “Wait,” Daraja says. She pulls Taraana back. “What if it’s us?”

&nbs
p; “What do you mean?” Areum asks.

  Daraja bites her lip. “Tabassum Naaz immersed her entire self in the water. What if Taraana needs to do the same? The stars we wear on our palms are also parts of him, right?”

  “Do we take off the stars and return them to him?” Kamboja asks, staring at her palm.

  “What if we add our blood to the fire as well?” Talei suggests. “Give him the box of remaining stars, Paheli, and we’ll add our blood to the fire. It’s worth a try.”

  So, we do that. We add drops of our blood before Taraana adds his and step back from the fire. This time, as soon as Taraana’s blood hits the fire, the flames leap, but then, like before, they recede.

  “It’s not us,” Kamboja announces very unnecessarily.

  “What am I doing wrong?” Taraana looks like he’s going to start crying. “Paheli, what did Wa’ad say?” he suddenly asks. “What were her exact words?”

  Paheli thinks for a second. “She said, and I quote, ‘All I know is that during the process, a keeper is remade. It is a physical transformation that makes it possible for the keeper to then use magic.’ ”

  Taraana bites his lip and glares at the burning door as if it will give him some answers. The next second, without giving us any warning at all, he walks into the burning door. Our screams desert us at that moment as the Between shudders and the lights flicker before turning off. We stand in the darkness, watching as the burning door stops burning. The fire jumps to Taraana, and we realize that the fire is not fire but tangible magic. We watch as Taraana is infused with this magic; he burns with it. It reshapes him from the inside out. The stars we wear on our palms tingle as though they, too, are affected by this change.

  The fire burns out after a minute, and Taraana steps back into the corridor. The door is solid again. The lights come back on brighter. The Between trills, and all of us jump at the unexpected sound. A sudden breeze chases away the usual mustiness in the Between, replacing it with the scent of freshly cut grass, the smell we associate with magic.