The Chaos Curse (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond #3) - Sayantani DasGupta Page 0,88
said Einstein-ji. “Ze only ones left after we collapse into ze singularity will be those who have most intergalactic power. Sadly, power has always determined whose stories are told and whose stories are allowed to be remembered.”
Then, just as abruptly as Einstein-ji had appeared, his Essence-Tyme signal cut out and he was gone.
“I guess we’re on our own,” Mati whispered.
I reached out and grabbed her hand. “We have each other.”
“So what can we do?” asked Lal.
Neel raised a surprised eyebrow in his direction. “We? You tired of being Raja already?”
Lal blushed a little. “Brother, I take our responsibilities seriously. But I also know that they are ours together. Not mine alone.”
“All for one and one for all!” said Buddhu, running up between Lal and Neel and embracing his two brothers. “Bhootoom and I humbly accept your generous offer to be co-Rajas!”
Neel and Lal exchanged an amused look and laughed, but they didn’t contradict the monkey prince.
“So what’s our next move?” I wondered out loud.
“If only we had some way to ascertain if the Rakkhoshi Rani received her son’s missive,” mused Bunty.
Of course! Neel’s letter to his mother that had been hidden in the tottho presents! Had she gotten it, and more importantly, had she answered?
“From what our spies were able to tell us, we think she got it,” Mati said. “But I’m sorry, we haven’t intercepted any notes from her.”
“She was my first storyteller,” Neel said in such a soft voice, I wasn’t sure anyone else heard him. “And she’s sworn to protect the diversity of the multiverse’s stories. I just don’t think she would help destroy them.”
“I think you’re right, Neel,” I said honestly. “There has to be something else going on.” That’s when something clicked in my head. “Wait a minute, last night, when Neel and I were away, was the big mehendi ceremony, right?”
“Don’t tell me you’re sad you missed getting henna on your hands while you were attending demon school?” squawked Tuni.
Instead of answering the bird, I scooched over to Naya’s hospital bed. “Naya, do you have your phone on you?”
“Pfft, what kind of a question is that?” my friend said, pulling her cell out of a pocket in her gown. “I had wing surgery, not a personality transplant!”
“Look up if Twinkle Chakraborty or Suman Rahaman, or anyone, really, made a video diary of the mehendi ceremony. Anything that would give me a closer look of Pinki’s hands and feet,” I demanded.
“Arré Pinki, is it?” Buddhu drawled, chuckling. “If you’re brave enough to call my stepmother that, hats off to you, yaar!” The monkey collapsed in giggles, and Bhootoom the owl hooted his laughter too.
Despite everyone else looking confused, Neel seemed to catch my drift. “You think she might have sent me a message in her mehendi design?”
“If she couldn’t send something more openly, it would make sense,” I said. “I mean, you saw how at her choosing ceremony all those stories got marked and soaked into her skin.”
“Mehendi isn’t actually traditional to the Kingdom Beyond Seven Oceans and Thirteen Rivers,” sniffed Bunty. “Here, alta, or the outline of the palms and feet in red, is far more common. Mehendi has been imported from other regions in the dimension. If you’d like, I can explain the history of this cultural transmigration …”
“No, I’m good right now!” I assured the tiger as I watched Naya scroll through her search results. “Maybe later!”
Bunty sniffed. “Fine, fine, don’t know your own history.”
But I did know my history. In fact, I’d just traveled through it. I also knew that it was okay—wonderful even—that stories and practices sometimes traveled from place to place, influencing each other and even creating new stories. That was okeydokey by me. The more stories the better, in fact. The dangerous thing was when we tried to shut some stories down, silence them, smush them into more dominant stories.
“Did you find anything?” I asked Naya.
“No video feed. I guess Ms. Twinkle and Sooms were really banned from reporting on any more wedding events,” said Naya. “But I did find this picture, taken by none other than your brother, Naga, apparently.”
It was a weird image. Seven separate lens exposures combined into one big image. But the seven separate pictures actually let me see the mehendi on Pinki’s arms and hands from multiple different angles. I could tell there were words there, but the more I magnified Naya’s phone, the blurrier the images got.
“Hey, Bhootoom, can I borrow this for a minute?” I asked. When the owl prince hooted