me to join, it couldn’t be a good idea. The rakkhoshi was the villain in this scenario, and no heroic deed was going to result from following her advice.
“Oh, save me from mopey moon chits who live in horrible climates!” The Rakkhoshi Rani shook her fist to the gray sky. Then, with a screech that practically burst my eardrums, she shouted, “Bangoma! Bangomee!” Her voice was so loud I was sure we were going to be caught, and Principal Chen would make it rain detention slips all over me.
“Can you keep it down? I don’t know what’s going to happen if one of the teachers sees you …”
“Shh—ach—uh bup bup! Zip it!” the Queen yelled, making a “shut your face” sort of hand motion in front of my nose. Argh, she was so rude! Even in this half-transparent form.
“Oh, where are those dratted birds? They’re always running on avian time. Clearly, they have never heard the expression about the early bird and the worm.” She looked up at the skies and shouted, even louder this time, “Bangoma! Bangomee!”
“Shh!” I wanted to clasp my hands over her mouth but (a) her mouth was kind of see-through and (b) see-through or not, she was still a demoness, and I really didn’t want to get my hands that close to her fangs. “What is wrong with you?”
The Rani whipped around to give me a red-eyed death stare, but she was interrupted from saying anything by the giant, human-faced birds Bangoma and Bangomee flapping down on the frosty field in front of us. Neel’s mother tapped her not-really-there foot and pointed to what looked like a sundial strapped to her wrist. “You birdbrains never have any sense of time, do you? What kind of application ambassador operation are you running, anyway? Your union is going to hear about this, believe you me! Be this late again, and I’m going to give you a one-star review on Cracken’s List, and then where will you be?”
Your words are mean, but we will serve you, Queen.
“Show this moon chickie why she needs to join Who Wants to Be a Demon Slayer?” The bees around the queen swooped and buzzed.
“I’m not going anywhere with you!” I protested, backing up a little.
“Well then, you’re in luck. I’ve got a workout session scheduled with my new trainer. Got to get in my crunches,” the Queen snapped. “Anyway, I can’t go. My essence has a block on it from going where they’ll be taking you. It’s also the reason I haven’t been able to tell you the whole story.”
“You have a block on your, er, essence?” I wasn’t even sure what the words meant.
“Oh, come on!” The Rakkhoshi belched loud and long, sending a bunch of bees streaming out of her nostrils. “You mean to tell me in this dimension, no one monitors your harmonigram conversations and demony-mail? Don’t be naive, do you actually believe no one is watching?”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I just doubled down on my original point. “I don’t care what you have to say. I’m not going to be a contestant on Who Wants to Be a Demon Slayer?”
“Oh, you’ll change your mind soon enough.” The Rakkhoshi pointed a long talon at the birds. “Show her! Now!”
Bangoma and Bangomee shook their rain-darkened feathers and stretched out their wings. I flinched, more than a little cautious since our last dizzying encounter. They opened their eyes wide, and again, I felt like I was falling into their swirling rainbow irises. Those swirly, whirly birdie eyes somehow pulled me out of myself so much that I actually felt separate from my body and my spirit.
Now, Princess, see what you must save.
“No!” I resisted the pull, squeezing my eyes shut at the last minute. “I won’t! I don’t want to!”
“Oh, yes, by my chin hairs and cracked feet and slowly developing six-pack, you will!” screeched the Queen, shoving my spirit into the birds’ irises.
Falling into the giant birds’ eyes was the wackiest, weirdest, coolest thing. I felt like I was flying through a movie on super-duper fast-forward. I saw so much—the green fields and rich forests of my parents’ homeland, the cawing monkeys and dappled deer. And it wasn’t just my sense of sight either. I could smell dizzyingly scented flowers, piled high in the marketplace, hear the mystical possibilities of an early morning raga played on a stringed sitar. I zipped by vivid colors, and people with faces like mine, and the chaotic wonderfulness of