Hira tilted her head. “So they fought and then she made him a really pretty present?” She felt like she was missing something. “That’s it?”
Her grandmother coughed abruptly. “Yes.”
“They just… talked?”
That sounded very boring.
Her grandmother rubbed her temples. “May I finish the story?”
THE GATE OF GRIEF
It seemed fitting that at the threshold to the Gate of Grief, Gauri should weep.
The irony that what should slow her down was happiness instead of fear was not lost on her. Now, she feared her heart had become too heavy. If the first vision she had seen with Vikram’s name had held bitterness with a core of sweet, this was sweetness with a bitter shadow. The name taunted her. The vision showed her not what she had to look forward to, bitterness and all, but how much she had to lose. Gauri saw her loss written out in a bitter calligraphy—all those paper marvels catching fire and crisping underfoot, the long dining hall where he might have laid down her down and covered her body with his, lips swallowing up laughter and false stars so drenched with human hope that they put forth their own light.Love.Love like secret choreography, a dance oflimbs and laughter, a steady pattern made more beautiful by each passing day.
The name showed her what she could have, but only if she reached him in time.
Her fear grabbed her by the throat then.
Fear that she should not reach him in time, but be forced to return empty-handed to a world that would be ripped of all that might have been so sweet.
Her tears had not even begun to cool when the skeletal horse greeted her at the entrance. True to its promise, Kamala manifested the moment Gauri stepped over the boundary from one gate and through the hall that would connect her to the second.
“Ah, there it is,” said the horse.
Gauri looked behind her, but saw nothing.
“What are you talking about?” she asked roughly, wiping at her face. “Let’s go. We can’t waste any more time, and I—”
“—yes yes yes, I know. You shall start dragging ghosts, but I would have a care,” rasped the horse. “It is showing, you know.”
Gauri rolled her eyes, and then pressed her fists against her face, as if she were terribly annoyed when what she was really doing was wiping away her tears.
“I thought you were sent to help me, and instead you’re bothering me with this nonsense about invisible undergarments showing or what have you.”
The horse tossed back its head and let out a sharp laugh.
“Invisible undergarments?”it repeated, delighted with itself. “Is that what humans call souls?”
“Souls?” asked Gauri. “Are you trying to tell me that my soul is showing?”
“But of course your soul is showing, my inedible bone!” said the horse. “It leans out! Can’t you see it? Wilting and unbound! Did you see something that made your rib cage split with sorrow? Bad bad bad. That’s how souls fall out, you know. And this is not a good place to start losing your soul.”
The horse trotted forward. Its hollow hooves made a sound like dragging skulls on the stone floor.
“It is not always so bad to spend a moment just standing,” said the horse. Its ears twitched. “I will not move until you donot.Ha! How clever I am.”
Realizing that she would get nowhere with this bizarre creature, Gauri relented. She stood there. And as she did, she found that it was easier to breathe. She found that the vision of bliss did not expand painfully inside her chest, but instead felt like a hope held tight against one’s skin. And though Gauri was almost certain that the horse was insane, the moment she merely stood there… and let her thoughts be gathered, she felt… better.
The horse stamped its foot. “I am rather disappointed.”
“Why?” asked Gauri.
“There is nothing at all I want from you,” it said, huffing. “I cannot have your blood on orders…”
Gauri wanted to askwhohad ordered such a thing, but thought it best not to bait her own mortality.
“… and I do not even wish to nibble a bit on your soul. Itsmacksof heroism. Bleh. Nasty residue. Full of pomp. Empty of originality. I detest it.”
