The Chaos Curse (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond #3) - Sayantani DasGupta Page 0,15

for a minute, her eyes now clear and shrewd. “Why?”

“It’s a bit of an emergency,” I said, noting how low the sun was now in the sky. “I have to get to New Jersey, rescue my friend Lal, and then make it back here to help stop Sesha from taking over the Kingdom Beyond.”

“Fine, fine.” The singer nodded. “All very noble and worthy of you. There will be a price, though.”

“Oh, all right, take the tiger!” Tuni indicated Bunty with his two wings. “You drive a hard bargain, Ms. Khepi, but if you must have your price, there it is!”

“Not remotely amusing,” said Bunty, snapping their teeth in Tuni’s direction.

“Well, you can’t blame a bird for trying,” Tuntuni sniffed.

“I don’t need a tiger! I just want you to gather up my lost story threads, you fools!” the woman roared. The salad spinner was, I noticed, still spitting out strings of sticky white thread even without the khepi operating it. “Or I will smite you such a smiting as you have never been smote before!”

“Very well, then, as I’m apparently superfluous in this situation, I will skedaddle. Most delightful to meet you all. Best of luck with the story strings and all that,” said Bunty, backing slowly away.

“All of you must help!” shrieked the minstrel. She pointed her ektara at the animal, making streaks of fire leap from the instrument’s strings.

“I say, really, that seems hardly necessary …” began Bunty.

“You dare defy me?” the Baul woman shrieked. In response, her ektara sent out sparks at Bunty’s feet, and the tiger had to jump to get out of their way. Then she clashed her small finger cymbals together, and the waves of sound reached out to slap at the poor animal’s ears. Bunty yelped and jumped, rubbing at their singed fur and sore ears.

“I’d be delighted to help!” Bunty yelled. “I was just saying to Princess Kiranmala—I mean, this young person I’ve never met before, how much I enjoy gathering up slippery threads of whatever that is scattered stickily all over the sylvan forest scene.”

Now that I knew we’d be gathering them, I cautiously eyed the endless threads wound all over the forest. “What did you say these were? Story threads? Why are they tangled like that?”

“Do you want to waste time asking me questions, or find your mother?” the Baul woman responded, and so I busied myself, along with Tuni, Tiktiki, and Bunty, in gathering the glowing white threads from the thorny trees.

It wasn’t easy, let me tell you. The strings were sticky and slippery, and near impossible to get a hold of. It grew dark—though with no illuminating moon yet in the sky—as we gathered the woman’s lost story threads, and my hands were raw and bleeding from getting cut on the thorn trees.

Finally, we were done. It wasn’t pretty, but the glowing, sticky threads were disentangled from the trees and in a big pile in front of the patchwork-wearing khepi. She sighed when she saw them and played a little tune on her ektara:

The story threads are twisted, torn

And no new stories can be born

Smooshed together stories same

Uniqueness gone, in chaos’s name

Before I could ask the Baul woman what the song meant, or more importantly, how she was going to get my mother’s attention, her face began to shimmer and transform yet again.

The Baul woman swirled around and around, dancing like a spinning top herself. The colors on her multicolor coat melted into one, growing brighter and brighter until they were just a pure silver light that lit up the night. I watched, mesmerized, as the body of the Baul woman disappeared into the growing brightness. Bunty, Tuni, and even Tiktiki One dived for the ground, bowing low. Only I stayed standing.

“Hello, daughter.” My moon mother’s voice was like bells on the wind. Her light illuminated the dark forest so that it looked like day. Her presence had made the animals freeze in place and time. Even the trees seemed to hold their breath before her.

My mother was dressed a bit like the Baul minstrel had been—but in a white sari shot through with beautiful silver threads, her dark hair on the side of her head in a bun bound with jasmine flowers. The minstrel’s ektara was in her hand too—and I couldn’t be sure if the Baul had always been my mother or if this was one of those story-smushing situations again.

“Mother!” I reached out my hand, but my flesh touched only her transparent energy. Where we made