And then she imagined her mom’s face frozen in horror, her hair falling around her. She remembered Boo lying limp in the Sleeper’s hand. Those images made her move.
“It’s anadventure?” she said, trying to rally herself.
Aru’s hand drifted to the pants pocket where she kept the Ping-Pong ball. It was warm and reassuring. “It’s fine. This is fine. Everything is fine,” she muttered to herself.
She placed her foot across the threshold.
A frigid wind picked up the hairs on the nape of her neck. On the breeze, she could hear the final words of people who had died:No, not yet!AndPlease make sure someone remembers to feed Snowball.AndI hope someone clears my Internet browser.
But mostly, Aru heard love.
Tell my family I love them.
Tell my wife I love her.
Tell my children I love them.
Tell Snowball I love her.
Aru felt a sharp twist in her heart. Had she told her mother she loved her before she left the museum with Boo?
There was no going back now. The moment she stepped into the Kingdom of Death, the door disappeared. She was left in a tunnel so black she couldn’t tell what she was walking on. Was it darkness itself? There were no walls, no sky or sea, no beginning or end. Just blackness.
“My mom used to tell me that death is like a parking lot,” whispered Mini. She sounded close, and like she was trying to reassure herself. “You stay there for just a bit and then go somewhere else.”
“Again with the parking lots?” Aru joked shakily.
She breathed a little easier when she remembered that, in Hinduism, death wasn’t a place where you were stuck forever. It was where you waited to be reincarnated. Your soul could live hundreds—maybe eventhousands—of lives before you got out of the loop of life and death by achieving enlightenment.
A dog woofed in the distance.
“Why so serious?” asked a deep voice.
“Serious, or Sirius?” said a different voice, this one high-pitched. “We know that dog, don’t we? Howls at the stars? Chases the sun?”
“You ruin everything! I practiced that opening for a whole year!” grumbled the first voice. Now it wasn’t so deep.
“Well, how was I supposed to know?” said the second.
“The Dark Knightis my favorite movie, remember? You should listen to me. I’m Ek, after all! You’re only Do.”
“Just because you were born first doesn’t make you more important,” said Do.
“Yes, it does,” said Ek.
“No, it doesn’t!”
Ek?Do? Aru knew those words. They were the names of numbers in Hindi, the most commonly spoken language in India.EkandDomeantoneandtwo. They sounded likeickanddough.
Aru’s mother had grown up speaking Gujarati, a language from the state of Gujarat. Aru didn’t speak either Gujarati or Hindi. All she knew were a few words, including some curses. (Which she hadn’t even known were bad words until the time she’d stubbed her toe in front of the priest at temple and just let loose. Her mother had not been amused.) When her hand tightened on the golden ball, it turned into a dim flashlight.
Four sets of eyes peered at Aru and Mini. In the glow of the ball, Aru could make out the shapes of two giant dogs.
Ek and Do each had two rows of eyes, and short brindled fur. When they walked forward to sniff the girls, their coats rippled and shimmered. Aru wondered whether they were soft.
Mini had pulled up the collar of her shirt and was pressing it over her nose.“Ermarregictodaws.”
“What?”
