The Chaos Curse (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond #3) - Sayantani DasGupta Page 0,57
could say anything, Einstein beckoned us both over to him. “Come here, my young friends,” he said gently.
As we approached him, he handed me a little book—a hardback volume bound in fading silver with vague images of rakkhosh, khokkosh, pakkhiraj horses, and even a tiger on the outside. I read the title carved into the spine.
“Thakurmar Jhuli.” I sounded the Bengali lettering out slowly—then looked up at the scientist. “This is the book of Kingdom Beyond stories my baba always read to me.” I flipped through the familiar pages, the illustrations of various stories about ghosts and demons, clever owls and silly monkeys, brave princes and princesses, all from the Kingdom Beyond.
“My mom used to read it to me too,” said Neel in a low voice. I shot him a surprised look. I’d never figured Pinki did ordinary mom things like tell Neel stories. “She was a great storyteller,” added Neel defensively. “She’d do all the voices and everything.”
Einstein-ji tapped his finger on the side of his nose mysteriously. “You asked me how I can be alive and also not alive. Here and also not here. It is because I, like these stories, operate outside of time.” He emphasized the last word kind of unnecessarily.
“What do you mean, Smartie-ji?” Neel asked.
“My children,” said the old scientist, “keep zis volume close to you, and if ever you have need to go backward into a story, back in time, even, just open the pages and dive right in.”
Neel and I exchanged troubled glances. “Back in time?” I repeated.
“Just so! Just so!” Einstein burbled, flipping again through the air. “Wormhole travel is not bad, but story travel is the best kind of travel of all! Beyond the reaches of linear space and time! Stories are the most powerful way to journey in the multiverse!”
Neel raised his eyebrow at me, like he wasn’t sure the old scientist was all there in the head anymore. I mouthed, “Cut it out,” before finally turning my face up toward Einstein-ji again.
“Um, okay, we’ll do that,” I said, tucking the book into my backpack. “Thanks, Professor Einstein.”
“Perhaps you might even go back in time to settle your little quarrel about why your parents are getting married,” said the scientist mysteriously.
“You should all get ready! The wormhole will be operational momentarily!” It was Sadie, who was punching something into her keyboard. I realized that while Neel and I had been talking to Einstein-ji, the atom smasher at the end of the room had started spinning the opposite way, gears and locks whirring around it.
“No one has told us, though, how we’re going to stop this wedding?” Neel asked. “Whether my mom’s Sesha’s prisoner”—he raised an eyebrow in my direction—“or something else, we can’t let the wedding continue, can we?”
“Oh no, absolutely not!” burbled K. P. Das. “The wedding must be stopped! The big crunch must be avoided at all costs!”
“We have been discussing it, and we think the first thing to do is enlist an army to infiltrate the wedding party and slow down the wedding festivities!” Shady Sadie was shouting to be heard over the whirling wormhole maker.
“No offense, Your Smartnesses, but you put the greatest scientific minds of the multiverse together and that’s what you came up with?” Tuni twittered. “An army of wedding crashers?”
“Just so,” agreed K. P. Babu. He was holding tight on to his dhoti to stop it from lifting off in the wind being generated by the spinning wormhole. Or pre-wormhole. Or whatever that thing was at the end of the room. “Already your friend Mati and the PSS are gathering their forces. You must help everyone get primped and dressed appropriately to blend into the crowd!”
“And if that doesn’t work,” shouted Shady Sadie, “use the butterflies!”
“What?” The wind was battering against my face so hard it felt like there was a storm brewing inside the room.
“Butterfly effect!” Einstein-ji was talking, but I could barely make out his words, everything was so loud now.
“The butterfly effect?” Neel echoed. He helped his brother onto Raat’s back and climbed on after. Raat stepped this way and that, trying to stay upright in the face of all the wind.
As Tuni jumped on my shoulder, Bunty crouched down in front of me. “Your carriage, my princess!” the tiger purred. I got gratefully on, holding tight to Bunty’s thick neck fur.
Then Bunty roared to the scientists, “Isn’t the butterfly effect the idea that a butterfly flapping its wings in Maya Pahar can cause a tornado in the Kingdom