Aru Shah and the City of Gold - Roshani Chokshi Page 0,101

her hand.

“We’ll figure something out,” said Mini fiercely. “We promise.”

Together, Aru and her sisters made a nest of soft sweaters for the Boo egg and carefully placed it in a little alcove by the door that led to the stairs. Afterward, Brynne and Mini said it was time to send an update to the Otherworld.

“They’ve been dying to hear from us,” said Brynne, patting the Boo egg good-bye.

“Do they know anything more about where the Sleeper went?” asked Aru.

Beside her, Kara stiffened.

“I don’t know yet,” said Brynne. “But he was looking for something while the battle was going on…and now that he can’t get the astra, there’s only one thing the Sleeper wants.”

“The nectar of immortality,” said Kara softly.

“It’s not in the Ocean of Milk anymore, though,” said Mini. “It’s supposed to be hidden so well that no one can find it, not even the devas.”

Kara looked nervous. “You don’t know what he’s capable of.”

“True, but we have the astra and a giant golden army, so…I dunno. I’d say we’re still winning,” said Brynne.

“Definitely,” said Mini. Then her smile faded and she looked sorrowfully between Aru and Kara. “You guys shouldn’t stay here alone. We can go between houses now that the portals are open?”

“I call first sleepover at my house, because I need to try out some new recipes, and I don’t believe in small serving sizes,” announced Brynne.

“Done!” said Mini. “We’ll come pick you up when we finish with Hanuman and Urvashi.”

Aru nodded in agreement, but the whole time she felt like she was somewhere else. Of course she was worried about what the Sleeper was looking for, and what he might do next…but her mind kept drifting to her mom. Where was she? Why hadn’t she come back yet? Aru was so lost in her musing that she didn’t even notice Brynne and Mini had left until Kara touched her shoulder and jolted her out of her thoughts.

“You okay?” asked Kara.

“Yeah,” mumbled Aru.

“I know how you feel,” said Kara quietly. “I know what it’s like to wait for someone to show up, to worry all the time about what’s happened to them. It’s like someone’s eating you alive from the inside out.”

Aru nodded. “So what do you do?”

Kara took a deep breath. “I remember that ‘hope’ is the thing with feathers.”

Aru laughed. “What?”

“You know that book of poems I’m always carrying around?” asked Kara.

Aru remembered seeing it in Kara’s lap and again in her backpack when she was unconscious: a thin blue volume of Emily Dickinson poems.

“In one of her poems, she calls hope the ‘thing with feathers,’ and I always think about that…. Maybe when we hope for something, the hope flies off to find whatever it is we’re thinking about…and then it brings it back to us,” said Kara. “And when there’s nothing else we can do, at least we can hope. You know what I mean?”

Aru was silent for a moment.

“I think I do,” she said after a while.

“Whatever happens, you’re not alone,” said Kara, bumping her shoulder.

Aru smiled. That was true. She had the Potatoes. And for now, she had to continue her training, and get stronger for her next encounter with the Sleeper. She had to keep going.

She had to keep hoping.

Over the next eight months, Aru found a new balance. Sheela and Nikita’s family moved into the house beside Aiden’s, and for the first time, all five Pandavas started training together. Brynne’s uncles, Gunky and Funky, and Mini’s parents, took turns housing Aru and Kara. The Boo egg—which still hadn’t hatched but seemed to grow bigger little by little—traveled between the girls’ houses every month. At first they’d thought it would hatch in three weeks, like most eggs…but Boo was taking his time.

“Definitely not going to be a normal bird,” Mini had said, tapping the egg a little.

Each Pandava—except for Sheela and Nikita, whose parents had refused on the grounds that the twins hadn’t even managed to keep a goldfish alive—had her own Boo egg house. Mini had spent hours researching birds’ nesting patterns before building the egg an incubator, and Brynne had added an attachment to her constantly working oven so the egg would always be warm. Aru kept the nest of soft sweaters. Boo had always loved snuggling in them in the winter, and she wondered if whatever lay inside his egg now would feel the same way.

On Sundays, Aiden’s mom threw dinner parties, and the house was full of joyful noise and delicious smells. On those nights, the