“You’re alive!”
“So are you!” shouted Aru, running toward her.
But no sooner were they next to each other than the palace roared to life. Torches flamed on. Even the roof pulled itself up, like someone adjusting his suspenders.
The two of them braced themselves. Aru wrapped her hand around the glowing ball in her pocket. Mini gripped her compact.
The palace shuddered.
“Only Yudhistira would’ve been able to out-reason himself through wisdom,” it said.
Aru dropped her voice to a whisper. “Seriously?Your task was to annoy yourself?”
Mini scowled.
“And only Arjuna,” continued the palace, “would’ve had the vision and perception to escape the mind’s own fear. Which means it’s you! It reallyisyou….”
“Duh!” said Aru. “We told you that when we got—”
But the moment Aru started speaking, the ceiling split above their heads. Rain gushed in from the cracks in the roof. The whole palace rolled.
“I—”
The beams creaked.
“—thought—”
The foundation whined.
“—you—”
The roof caved in.
“—forgot—”
The floor tiles beneath them split.
“—about—”
The walls peeled back.
“—me.”
The rain was a waterfall now. There was nothing for Aru and Mini to do except clutch each other as the palace broke apart around them. When the crying (and rain) finally stopped, the walls pulled themselves back together. The roof dried its shingles and stitched itself whole again. The foundation rolled one last time, as if heaving a sigh.
The palace had a right to be upset. They had forgotten all about it. But was that really their fault?
“I missed you,” said the palace. “For three hundred years after you left, I kept the floors polished and the ceilings free of dust. I kept the larders full, and I watered the plants. But you never returned. Did I do something wrong?”
“No, of course not!” said Mini. She looked as though she wanted to drop to her knees and embrace the entire palace as if it were a sad giant dog.
“We’re not really the people we once were,” tried Aru. “We don’t even remember anything about that life. Otherwise…otherwise we would have visited.”
Moments later, the floors started to gleam. The fire in the torches turned from harsh to warm. Paintings that had been hidden behind layers of skeleton dust glowed with color.
“And yet you must leave again?” asked the palace.
There was a plaintive note to its voice. Like a pet who really didn’t want you to go and was convinced that if she were on her best behavior you might change your mind.
