house.
That’s when I noticed that Ma’s normally spotless kitchen was a mess. The kitchen chairs were this way and that, with one upside down near the door, like someone had knocked it over as they ran.
My heart started beating so loud, my head felt like a drum. I’d seen way too many television crime dramas not to think that maybe someone had broken in.
“Hello?” I called, my voice cracking. I eased a knife out of the countertop butcher block.
But as I took a quick turn around our small house, there was nothing else out of place. Even Ma’s small jewelry box was where it should be on her bedside dresser. I returned to the front hall, confused.
Where were my parents? How had they forgotten about my special day?
What I saw by the front door made me feel a little better. On a rickety folding table rested a covered tray of homemade rasagollas and sandesh with a note that read:
For the dear trick-or-treaters
(gluten-free, nut-free, and made with lactose-free milk obtained humanely from free-range cows)
Classic! I laughed shakily, putting down the knife. I was letting my imagination get the best of me. Nothing could be wrong if my mother had remembered to make homemade Indian sweets for the neighborhood kids. It was one of her Halloween traditions. The problem was, cloth grocery bags and old pillowcases aren’t made to carry around the syrupy, round rasagollas or molasses-sweetened cakes of sandesh she handed out to unsuspecting trick-or-treaters. But it would never have occurred to my parents to just give out store-bought candy. Another example of their overall cluelessness.
I was about to grab a sticky rasagolla myself when I spotted something else lying on the floor. A birthday card, half in and half out of an envelope. It was Baba’s typical sense of humor—a bright neon pink and sparkly card meant for a baby. On the front was, what else, a crown-wearing princess under the words Daughter, you’re 2! Only, Baba had taken a Sharpie and written a number 1 before the 2 so that it read 12. Har-dee-har. Again, typical Baba. But why was it on the floor like this? Wiping my syrupy fingers on my jeans, I picked it up.
Inside the card, under the words Have a Spark-a-licious birthday!, was a scrawled message, so unlike Ma’s normally precise handwriting.
Take heart, dear daughter.
We were hoping for the last dozen years that it would not come to pass. But it has happened—the magical spell protecting us all has been broken on this, your twelfth birthday. Forgive us for trying to shield you from the truth. Now there is too little time to explain.
Whatever you do, do not let any rakkhosh into the house. Trust the princes to keep you safe, but more importantly, trust yourself. We leave here some extra rupees and a moving map in case you find them of use.
But I beg you, do not try to find us. It is far too dangerous. We go now to that dark and terrible origin place where all spells meet their end.
(Oh, and make sure to take your gummy vitamins every morning.)
Darling piece of the moon, the first thing you must do is to find—
The note broke off there with a big, ugly inkblot, as if she’d been startled by something into stopping mid-sentence.
I shook the envelope, and out fell a small wad of colorful, unfamiliar bills—the rupees Ma had mentioned. But the other thing in the envelope wasn’t a map at all—just a yellowed piece of blank paper.
That was it. They had always been odd, but now my parents had totally gone off the deep end. I called their cell phones and the phone at the store. When I got only voicemail, I started to really panic. If this was some kind of a bizarre Halloween trick, it wasn’t funny. All that stuff about princes and rakkhosh—what planet did Ma and Baba think we were living on?
I felt myself start to tear up, and bit the inside of my cheek to stop the waterworks from spilling out. Along with dressing and acting in ways that were unnoticeable, it was another of my self-imposed rules for making it through middle school. There was no crying. Not ever. Tears were like a door to a scary room inside myself I’d most definitely rather keep closed.
I took a big breath and tried to calm down. Weeping is for wimps.
I was about to call Zuzu at her parents’ restaurant when the doorbell began to ring nonstop. It