The Chaos Curse (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond #3) - Sayantani DasGupta Page 0,17

the sky. “It is almost time for me to rise,” she said, her body growing even fainter as she said this. I could see right through her now.

“Wait! How do I make a wormhole and get home to New Jersey? How do I figure out what Sesha’s up to and stop him? Please, Mother, can’t you help me? Please, stay, for once!” I grasped on to the end of her silky sari, as if I could keep her with me by force.

And then, to my surprise, my moon mother didn’t just fade but her face started to change too, like Neel’s had. A stream of blue butterflies shot out from the folds of her sari. Her skin grew lighter, her hair changing from black to red-blond, her sari into a big fairy-tale-type dress with a hoopskirt.

“Mother! Wait!” I watched in horror as she became swallowed by a big bubble. We were getting smooshed into the wrong story again! This time the one about that girl who goes to another world through a tornado. “Mother! How am I going to get home? And what’s with this Anti-Chaos thing? Is it why Sesha’s taken over the Kingdom Beyond?”

But my moon-slash-good-witch of a mother was already rising into the air, rising out of my story and into another. She held a long fairy-godmother wand in her hand, and a giant pink crown was perched on her now-light hair. The blue butterflies fluttered around her skirts. But her face was twisted, as if she was desperately trying to stay in this reality.

“No! I am myself! My tale stands on its own! I will not have my story forgotten!” she shouted.

Even though my moon mother’s skin and clothes turned back to what they had been, the bubble she was in continued to rise higher and higher into the air, and the butterflies seemed to multiply in number. “Here! Daughter! Take these!” she called.

I looked, startled, at what my mother had dropped at my feet. “What do I do with them?”

“Click them together three times!” she said, her voice faint as she rose higher and higher into the night. She was already up in her moon form in the sky when I heard her last instructions. “And, darling moonbeam girl, don’t forget the magic words!”

Ruby-red slippers, huh?” Tuni said, eyeing my moon mother’s parting gift. As soon as she had risen in the sky, my animal companions had unfrozen.

“Close enough. Ruby-red combat boots,” I said, lacing up the second one.

“You realize they were silver shoes in the original text, don’t you?” said Bunty. “I am a great aficionado of all tales 2-D. The change to ruby-red slippers was purely a cinematic embellishment.”

“Sure, okay, whatever.” I’d taken off the sparkly silver boots I’d been presented recently as the Kingdom Beyond’s champion on Who Wants to Be a Demon Slayer? But when I tried to tie the silver boots together and take them with me, something very strange happened. The boots melted—well, not melted exactly—but kind of slowly evaporated out of my sight! And in their place a swarm of blue butterflies seemed to explode, straight out of my hands and into the sky!

“What the what was that?” I shouted, but Tuni, Bunty, and Tiktiki One just looked at me in surprise.

“What are you expostulating about, Princess?” Bunty lifted their giant head toward me.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t see it!” I sputtered, waving my hands in the air, toward where the butterflies had just been.

“See what?” Tuni put a yellow wing to my forehead as if testing for a fever. “Are you feeling all right?”

“But my shoes …” I began, pointing to my new red boots.

“Are on your feet?” Tuni said, then added, “Hey, I’ve got a good one! Knock knock!”

“But …” How could the animals have forgotten that I’d been wearing different shoes only seconds ago?

“Who’s there?” answered Bunty.

“Listen, my shoes disappeared …” I tried again.

“Wooden shoe!” chirped Tuni.

“Wooden shoe who?” asked Bunty.

“Hey, come on!” I protested.

“Wooden shoe like to know?” Tuntuni giggled as he flew in a circle above our heads. Bunty rolled onto their back, paws in the air, roaring with laughter, and even Tiktiki One blinked its eyes as if giggling, before going back to eating gnats and mosquitos out of the air.

I sighed. Obviously, I’d have to let the disappearing boots go. No one but me even seemed to remember them.

“So how do I do this? Make the wormhole, I mean?” I asked Tuni.

“How am I supposed to know?” the bird squawked. “I