“Can I come?” asked Hira.
Her grandmother snorted. “No.”
“But why not? Mother and Father are busy, and Meghana… Meghana hates me. She doesn’t want to see me ever again.”
Her grandmother was silent. “Is that so?”
Hira nodded. And then, when faced with her grandmother’s regal silence, she told her everything that had happened. Down to the broken glass story bird.
When she was finished, she waited for her grandmother to agree that Meghana had been cruel. But instead, her grandmother said:
“Have you ever considered that perhaps Meghana is scared?”
“Scared?” asked Hira, snorting. “Never.”
The women of Bharata-Ujijain did not getscared.Besides, Meghana was—used to be,corrected Hira silently—daring. It was a well-known fact amongst the women of their family that they were immune to poison. No one was quite sure how. It was rumored that it had something to do with the small, blue star that each Bharata-Ujijain girl was born with. Her grandmother said that it was a gift from a friend who had long since left this world.
Meghana used to make a show of it by kissing serpents and laughing when they snapped at her.
Her sister was wild.
Invincible.
She would never be leveled by something as foolish as fear.
Her grandmother eased back against her cushions. She called for her water pipe, a nasty-smelling thing that Hira didn’t quite care for because it turned people’s teeth black.
“I rather like how it makes my teeth look like blunted fangs, don’t you?” her grandmother had once said when they were little, baring her grin and snapping her teeth as if she were some forgotten monster. Then she would pretend to snap at them one by one because they were so delectable that she could not help but gobble them whole.
“I remember being very scared before my wedding,” she said. “And it puts me in mind of another queen’s wedding. She was very scared. Just like me. Just like, perhaps, Meghana. Though we all have different reasons for our fears.”
There it was.
That faraway cast to her voice, as if it took all of her strength to pull it away from whatever memory she was living in. When her parents heard that cast, they would frown and call for the court physicians. But when Hira or Meghana heard it, it was a sign:
Dadi-Ma was about to tell a story.
“Why?” asked Hira, curling closer.
“Because the queen’s bridegroom was about to die.”
THE EXTRAVAGANCE OF NORMAL
Gauri stared at her hands. One glass, one flesh.
Her hands were usually a cause for curiosity, but last night they had been the center of celebration. In preparation for tomorrow’s wedding ceremony, Gauri had been sequestered in her apartments. Musicians and dancers had been brought in to entertain her and her female guests. And as the encroaching night pared the sun to a thin band of gold, an artist had been brought in to adorn her hands with henna. Well, at least one of them. No matter how hard the man tried, the paste refused to stick to the glass hand. It slipped off without drying. Her right hand would always be a cold and Otherworldly thing, not that Gauri minded.
Standing in the army training grounds, Gauri examined her left hand. The henna had darkened overnight to the color of charred wood. She brought it to her nose, inhaling that curious scent of spiced licorice. She traced the design delicately, as if she mightdisturb the intricate lattices and checkerboards, the maroon blossoms fashioned into the shapes of mango leaves and trellises of jasmine.
The artist had left something special in the design.
“Your future husband’s name is concealed in the patterns,” her friend Nalini had said with a sly grin. “He is a handsome one, my dear. I do hope he finds his name.”
Gauri laughed. Among Bharata’s wedding traditions was the test of the sharp-eyed groom. If the intended husband could not find his name hidden in the intricate pattern of his bride’s henna, then he was not allowed to spend the night in her bed. Gauri suspected the tradition had been devised so that the groom would not be tempted to drink during the festivities and thus squander his chances.
“Reading is Vikram’s favorite pastime,” Gauri had said. “He’ll probably find it instantly.”
“I would not be so sure of that, my friend.” Nalini leaned close and whispered: “Trust me, Gauri. When he sees you, he will forget all about reading. He might even forget the power of speech.”
