Star Daughter(22)

And Radhikaben, do be gentle with Gautam, for despite your valiant efforts, he has yet some of the dreamer in him. As do you.

Fondly,

Charumati

Sheetal’s eyes stung. Her mother hadn’t just abandoned her and never looked back.

She used to dream about this moment, pray for it, and now that it was here, she didn’t know what to feel. Hollow, maybe. Like she wanted to go to bed for a million years.

Just like Dev, Radhikafoi had kept the truth from her. All this time, she’d let Sheetal think Charumati didn’t care.

And Dad had gone along with it.

An abyss yawned behind her ribs, the exact shape of her blood as it silvered before returning to a worthless red. Her palms tingled furiously, and the sidereal song pulled hard at her skin, her core, almost like strong arms trying to carry her away.

But something began to emerge from her despair. When she must ascend, when she will hear our call.

The starry melody. No wonder it had ramped up like that. It was summoning her to the sky. Maybe this had to do with her birthday—she was about to turn seventeen.

She took the letter back from Minal and stared at the graceful handwriting until the tingling dissipated. Then she addressed her auntie. “Harp sisters? What harp sisters?”

“Your mummy told me about a Night Market where people . . . people like her sold things.” Distaste seeped from Radhikafoi’s words. “Magical things. I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen your mummy do . . . what she did. Not even these could have convinced me.”

She deposited something in Sheetal’s lap.

Miniature clouds. Two of them. Or to be more accurate, miniature clouds with barrettes attached to them. Sheetal prodded one, and it promptly turned dark gray, like its brethren in the sky. A minuscule lightning bolt forked through it, followed by a rumble of thunder the strength of a kitten’s purr.

Stunned, Sheetal almost threw it down. The cloud calmed, now fluffy and white. Playing innocent.

Sentient cloud barrettes. A letter from her long-absent mother. A call to ascend. Every time she thought she was getting her footing back, the ground shifted again.

“Your mummy gave those to me not long before she left.” Radhikafoi sounded anything but pleased. “A waste of money. Where was I supposed to wear them? The bank? To get my oil changed?”

Sheetal kept her eyes on the painting of Krishna, even as her fingers edged back toward the barrettes. Magic. In her lap. And her auntie had hidden that, too. “You really didn’t like her, did you?”

“We didn’t have much in common, if that’s what you mean.” Radhikafoi paused. “But she made your papa happy, and I know she loved you.”

Minal, who’d been studying the barrettes like a magpie, now snatched them up and clipped them into her hair. Indignant, they exploded with seed pearl–sized lightning.

“When your mummy gave me those things,” Radhikafoi said, “she asked me to show you her letter and take you to the Night Market where she bought them. We were to look for a pair of sisters who played the harp.”

“And you decided for me that I couldn’t go?” Sheetal’s voice climbed higher. “You didn’t think you should even tell me that kind of market existed?”

“Sheetal,” Radhikafoi said, her own voice devoid of emotion, “my first husband abandoned me and stole my dowry.”

Sheetal went still. Her auntie had mentioned her first husband exactly once before, and that was just to say how much better off she was without him.

“I had to fight to get to this country,” Radhikafoi went on, “only to find the same ugly things happened to women here. You tell me—what good have fairy tales ever done any of us? As long as my family is safe, and I can be of some use in the world, I’m happy.”

It made Sheetal itchy to think of her forceful auntie being discarded like garbage. “You never told me that, about being abandoned.”

“There was no need to. The point is, dikri, we were doing all right. I was protecting you.”

“Until I nearly killed Dad.”

Silence. Even Minal’s barrettes stopped thundering.

As Sheetal watched her auntie, waiting for the inevitable comeback, a thought popped into her head. Her mother’s letter had mentioned blood—being hunted for it.

Being a half-star wasn’t enough. Her blood wasn’t enough. But Charumati’s would be.

The rightness of the idea warmed Sheetal beat by beat, in time with the sidereal song. There was still a chance to fix things. “You have to take me to this Night Market right now.” Then she uttered the words she’d never dared even think. “I need to find my mom.”

To her astonishment, Radhikafoi merely nodded. “Why else did I give you the letter?”

The flame at Sheetal’s core leaped high as if she were already on her way to the skies, as if this had already been decided long ago. It was scary how relieved she felt. Her mother, her family, was calling her to them.

But they’d also just thrown her away all this time, like it didn’t matter what she thought. What she needed. That was enough to make her at least try to resist. “Wait, it’s an enchanted market, right? Maybe we can find a healing potion, and I won’t even need to go.”

“That may be, and I certainly hope so, but you still need to learn how to control your . . . gifts.” Radhikafoi’s pinched expression made clear she thought said gifts really should have come with a return receipt. “I can’t teach you that.”