ailments. His amah letting Sanjeet use his hands to heal … until his father forced them to kill again.
One night, Sanjeet had asked me a different question. “Can you give someone memories?”
I had crossed my arms, unnerved. “You mean make things up? Create memories that never happened? I wouldn’t do that.”
“No.” He rubbed the back of his neck, looking uncharacteristically shy. “It’s just … you see my story all the time. And I’ve never seen yours.”
I stared, taken aback. “No one’s ever asked me for mine before.” I fidgeted. “Demons aren’t supposed to have nice stories.”
Sanjeet’s thick eyebrows crinkled with laughter. “Trust me, sunshine girl. You’re no demon. I’ve seen too many real monsters to be mistaken.”
I swallowed hard, suppressing The Lady’s voice in my head. I command you to kill … kill—No. That story isn’t mine anymore, I thought fiercely. It’s unwritten.
I took Sanjeet’s broad, russet hand and held it to my cheek. Carefully, I showed him the orchard at Bhekina House, boughs red with sun-kissed mangoes. I showed him my overbearing tutors, hovering as I solved puzzles. I showed him the elephants outside my Bhekina House window, bush sprites teasing their large, silly ears. I showed him Woo In and Kathleen, bickering over my head as we crossed the deserts and mountains into Oluwan.
I did not show him ehrus, or mothers, or wishes.
The more I shared my story, the longer Sanjeet’s unhappy memories stayed away. Some days, he didn’t ask me to erase his stories. He just asked for more of mine.
“I’ll run out of memories to show you,” I warned him, and he shrugged.
“Then I guess we’ll have to make more, sunshine girl.”
After weapons training was over, a palace courier sprinted into the courtyard and bowed curtly, handing a message to one of the drill masters. The master glanced over it, then gestured, stone-faced, at Sanjeet. “It’s for you.” The master hesitated. “Maybe read it in private, son.”
When we returned to the Children’s Palace for our next barrage of lessons and testing, Sanjeet was nowhere to be found. His face remained on my mind as I solved the day’s allotted riddles and logic puzzles. Thanks to Bhekina House, the tasks had never been difficult, and rarely required my full attention.
“What do you think happened to Sanjeet?” I whispered to Kirah as drums pounded through the Children’s Palace. We were returning to the Hall of Dreams, lining up for the afternoon catechism.
She shook her head, looking worried. “He wasn’t at lunch. Jeet would never leave Dayo unattended this long—not unless something bad happened.”
Before we could speculate more, a pair of griot priests with oiled beards entered the Hall. They took their usual place on the dais, and we candidates stood on our mats, Kirah leaving me to take her place by Dayo’s side. Drums beat out the introduction for the day’s catechism: T-dak-a, t-dak-a. Gun, bow-bow-bow. Hear the sacred story of creation. I struggled to keep my thoughts off Sanjeet as the griots performed, pausing for the traditional call-and-response.
“Queen Earth and King Water are lovers,” sang one priest as the other kept time on an hourglass-shaped talking drum. “Their children are many. Trees. Rivers. Creatures that creep, ke-du, ke-du, and swim, shwe, shwe. They are weak and dumb of speech. But are Earth and Water lonely? Tell me.” No, we chorused around the room, they have a friend. “Aheh!” the priest continued. “The Pelican glides from star to star, shaking stories from its wings—whoom, whoom, to fill a thousand worlds. The Pelican is older than Earth and Water, older even than the sun. It does not always have wings and a bill. Sometimes it has hooves and a tail, or paws and a mane, or no body at all. Who is the Pelican?” Am the Storyteller. “Yes, Am, called Was, called Will Be. Watch, now: The Pelican moves through time like wind, with as many names as it has feathers. What name shall you call it? Choose wisely, for names have power.
“High above Earth and Water floats Empress Sky. She gazes below and teems—gnatche, gnatche, with jealousy. Before Earth gave her heart to Water, she was Sky’s beloved sister. Now Sky is lonely in her airy realm, and bitter. What does she do? Tell me.” She challenges King Water. “Yes, to a duel. The heavens howl—hawawa, hawawa, and oceans churn, bushe, bushe. The war of Empress Sky and King Water rages for seven thousand years. Earth feels neglected by both husband and sister. See her take on a