Before long, the cloud attendant stopped in front of a pair of golden doors. They were engraved with scenes, and when Aru looked closer, she saw that the pictures actuallymoved. Beautiful apsaras danced before a host of gods. In another image, an apsara flew down to earth toward a sage who was deep in meditation. In the stories Aru’s mom had told her, every time a man renounced the world and began to perform a lot of religious rites, he gained power. Sometimes toomuchpower. In that case, the gods would send a heavenly nymph to distract the sage.
When Aru was younger, that part had always confused her. “What do you mean ‘distract’?” Aru had once asked her mom. “Did she start blasting music? Throw water in the guy’s face?”
At that, Krithika Shah grew deeply uncomfortable. Like she’d stepped on an anthill and still had to continue with polite conversation. “Not exactly…”
The cloud attendant knocked lightly on the golden doors. They swung outward, revealing a dimly lit room.
“The Lady Menaka will see you now.”
As they stepped inside to meet Aiden’s grandmother, Aru felt a lump in her throat. She’d never met her own grandparents. Krithika Shah’s family had cut them off before Aru was born, and by the time they were willing to reconcile, Aru was six years old. She remembered getting all dressed up and waiting for her mom at the bottom of the staircase. They were supposed to go on a four-hour drive to meet them.
While she waited, Aru had imagined what her grandparents would be like—all crinkly smiles and pockets full of candy, and milk and cookies at night with a bedtime story, the way it looked in movies. It was almost two hours later before Aru learned she wasn’t going to meet them after all. Her grandfather had suffered a stroke and her grandmother didn’t want any visitors that day. When Krithika got the news, she’d been so upset that she forgot about Aru waiting for her downstairs. Krithika had felt awful about it and had apologized a thousand times. Aru had forgiven her, of course, but she’d never forgotten that awful plunge from hope to disappointment.
Hopehurt.
Aru felt each one of her hopes as if it were a fresh bruise. She hoped she could earn back her lightning bolt. She hoped she would make the right choices. She hoped there would be a light at the end of the darkness.
Maybe it would start with Menaka, she thought. Maybe Aiden’s grandmother would be like the crinkle-eyed, smiley ones in all the stories….Maybe it would be okay.
“Why have you come here?” snarled a voice in the dimness.
Aru, who had been lost in thought and staring at her own feet, looked up suddenly. At first, she couldn’t see the speaker. The room was vast enough to hold a dozen elephants, and its walls seemed to expand and contract, as if it were breathing.
Unlike the rest of the apsara wellness center, this place had an ancient look and feel to it. The floor was dark wood, scratched and dimpled by furniture and footpaths. The back wall, more than a hundred feet away, was shrouded with fog. In the gloom Aru could make out what she thought were large chairs with sheets thrown over them. The wall on the right moved closer, until it was a dozen feet from Aru, and on it she saw a faded tapestry where twelve apsaras performed an intricate dance to the accompaniment of the celestial musicians, including one at the forefront who had the head of a horse.
“I said,why have you come here?”
There was awhooshabove their heads. Aru looked up just in time to see a woman descend from the ceiling. Her outfit was simple enough—a white linen shift with matching pants and a flowingdupattathat hung from her elbows—but on the apsara, it looked worthy of royalty.
The wordbeautifulwasn’t adequate to describe Menaka. Her shiny black hair cascaded to her ankles. She had a long, regal nose and full red lips, proud cheekbones, and dark brown skin. The color of her eyes, Aru noticed, was identical to Aiden’s—like the surface of the ocean beneath moonlight. Although Menaka had to bewayolder than his mom, not a single wrinkle marred her skin.
“That’syourgrandmother?” asked Brynne, her jaw dropping a bit.
“Not by choice,” said Aiden.
Menaka huffed. She flicked her wrist and a throne from the back of the room shot forward, catching her as she sank into it.
“That you dislike me comes as no surprise,” said Menaka, looking not at Aiden but somewhere beyond him. “Which begs the question, why are you here? Why did you use the note of music? It was intended for your mother alone.”
Her voice was deep, as if weighed down by something. It didn’t match her youthful appearance. But it was lovely nevertheless.
Aiden stiffened, and his fingers nervously tapped his camera strap. “Maybe she thought you wouldn’t answer,” said Aiden coldly. “You never did before.”
“She knows why I did not,” said Menaka. “When I heard the note, I thought…” She shook her head. “Never mind. It was clever of her to give you that.”
“You asked why I came,” said Aiden, stepping forward. “My friends and I are in need of your blessing.”
“For what? Beauty? Fame?” asked Menaka, tilting her head. “As the child of Malini, you already have the potential for both. Not even your human father’s mediocrity can change that. Or are you to be the exception among apsara descendants?”
Aiden’s grip on his camera strap turned white-knuckled. His mouth pinched to a thin line as if he was holding himself back.
Jeez. Grandma is really going in for the kill, said Aru through the mind link.
Makes sense, said Brynne.Aiden said she was the worst.
“What we need is a blessing of musical talent,” said Aiden.
“Why?” asked Menaka quietly. “From what I gather, you already possess quite the voice. Just like her.”
