Star Daughter(20)

Years ago, Sheetal had crashed her bike and scraped her knees. She’d sobbed as Charumati later dabbed the skin with rubbing alcohol but had forgotten to cry when her normally garnet blood then turned the color of stardust. Her mother had offered a shaky smile. “Stay calm, and it will go back to the way it was,” she’d murmured, blowing on the abrasions, and it had. “Let us keep this our little secret, shall we?”

No matter how many times Sheetal had gotten injured after that, she’d never seen the silver again.

Beep. Beep. Beep. The annoying machine shocked her back to the present. Radhikafoi now stood on the opposite side of the bed, clutching Dad’s other hand. What an awful room this was, with its sand-pale walls and sick, antiseptic smell. A room to die in.

“It doesn’t look good, dikra,” her auntie murmured. Her purplish lipstick had worn away, leaving only a ring around the edges of her mouth. It made her look old. “Internal hemorrhaging. They’ve stopped the bleeding, but they can’t repair the tissue that’s already dead.”

Something hot and consuming engulfed Sheetal. “Who said that? Who said it doesn’t ‘look good’?”

Radhikafoi fished a paper napkin out of her purse. “The doctor. She didn’t want to say it in front of you, but she doesn’t think he’ll wake up.”

“What does she know?”

Radhikafoi didn’t respond, only dabbed at her eyes, and that made Sheetal even angrier.

Her dad was in that bed. Her dad, who called her his little sparrow and played Scrabble with her and had surprised her with her very first book on astronomy. That still, silent body lying there now, the body she couldn’t look at—how could that be him?

Her auntie always had something to say. Why wasn’t she offering solutions now?

Sheetal held her breath, hoping. Hating herself for needing Radhikafoi to take charge.

More than anything, for needing Radhikafoi to say it was nobody’s fault.

When her auntie stayed quiet, Sheetal paced around the room, skirting the bed. She couldn’t look down. She couldn’t quit being mad. Without her ire, she’d be small and squishy, a snail without a shell.

Snails without shells got stepped on and smashed into the pavement.

“I don’t want this, either,” Radhikafoi said, but that was it.

Sheetal clawed through her memories, hunting for something, anything her mother might have said or done. A clue.

One of the monitors tracing Dad’s vital signs lit up, and she automatically glanced toward it. She found herself gazing right at Dad, at the sallowness of his skin, and felt like someone had body-slammed her.

There had to be something. There just had to.

Her frenzied thoughts chased one another by the tail, circling around a particular vision. Silver . . . the drop of blood . . . that star . . .

Sheetal fast-forwarded to the end of Dev’s dream, even though it made her gag. That man, that monster, had lit up with avarice when he’d—what? She froze that frame and zoomed in. There it was—his smirk, his fully mended hand. The moment when he’d realized the star’s blood had done it, and that she could still be useful to him, after all.

Sheetal’s own palms prickled in sympathy. Then—she jammed her fist against her mouth—then he’d cut the star. He’d meant to bleed her. Again and again. So he could sell it. Again and again.

Because, like a magic potion, the star’s blood could heal.

Sheetal gulped down huge lungfuls of chemical-tasting hospital air. She was half a star. A star’s blood flowed in her veins. What if?

She had to try.

Pushing Dev and his horrible ancestor out of her head, pushing aside Radhikafoi and her judgment, Sheetal ripped away the scab on her thumb.

A single red droplet welled up.

Still watching Dad’s face, she shoved down the collar of his hospital gown. Then, pretending to hug him, she pressed her torn cuticle to the skin over his heart. His pulse beat weakly beneath his ribs, but at least it was there.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered against his chest.

Please, she begged the blood, the gods, that long-ago star. Be enough. Help him.

The smear of blood flashed pewter like mercury, becoming light, a beautiful, soothing, starry light. She stared at it, waiting for Dad’s pulse to gain strength, praying he would open his eyes. Please. Please, please, please.

It fizzled out, fading back to scarlet.

A nurse rapped on the doorframe. “Time’s up,” she said firmly.

Now Sheetal did cry—ugly, snotty, racking sobs. She’d failed. At the sight of the red smudge, the guilt she’d kept at bay stormed over her, leaden, devastating. She barely felt Radhikafoi’s hand on her back, guiding her out.

She was going to lose Dad, and it was all her fault.

Sheetal had barely gotten out of the car before Minal hopped up from Radhikafoi’s front stoop and pounced, nearly knocking her over and setting off the motion light in the process. “Sheetal texted me,” she explained. “I’m so sorry, Auntie.”

A solitary point of warmth glimmered amidst the cold and sorrow in Sheetal’s chest. She hugged Minal back as tight as she could.

“Thank you, beti. Come in. Just be quiet; the boys are sleeping.” Radhikafoi unlocked the door and hurried them inside to the great room, where she turned on a standing lamp before heading upstairs.