Star Daughter(7)

The second the words were out of her mouth, she wanted to snatch them back.

When Dad spoke, it was clipped. He rolled up the bag of cheese puffs. “Bedtime. For both of us.”

Crap. Why had she said that? It wasn’t as if she meant it. Feeling like a jerk, she chased after him into the shadowed house.

Dad didn’t say anything else until they’d reached her room. “Don’t forget to brush your teeth.” He pressed a quick kiss to her forehead, then disappeared down the hall.

Alone, Sheetal crumbled. The stars blinked through her bedroom window, but their song had gone quiet. She wanted to know what she should do, why her roots were showing, why her own music swelled so urgently against her rib cage, a chorus of shining pewter notes chiming for release.

But Dad couldn’t answer those questions. Only the stars could.

Tossing under her sheets after four movies in a row had all failed to grab her, Sheetal knew the night was toast. Even after she’d put down her tablet, she left the light on. She couldn’t stop thinking of how the starsong had sucked her right in, how close she’d come to . . . something.

Worse, the hole in her heart she’d so carefully cemented over ten years ago was cracking open again.

She tore at the skin by her thumbnail until a drop of blood appeared. I’m not afraid, she told herself, trying hard to believe it. I’m not.

Her gaze wandered over the familiar things in her room: the baby dragon plushie; the desk weighed down with scented candles and clippings of gourmet recipes she’d never make; the turquoise shelves crammed with novels, biographies from Dad, comics from Dev, collages, Post-its scribbled with inspirational quotes, and framed pictures of her with Minal, with Dad, even with Radhikafoi, Deepakfua, and her bratty cousins; the glow-in-the-dark stars Minal had stuck on the ceiling as a joke.

Think about those things, she ordered herself. Count sheep. Whatever. She even tried replaying Dev’s song from the party in her mind like a lullaby. But the astral melody only chimed alongside it in her thoughts, its gossamer strains a perfect score to his lyrics. Her palms tingled, and the flame at her core shot up.

And there goes sleeping.

She reached over and dug her phone out from under a half-read biography about the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. A couple of taps, and Minal’s recording appeared, showing a grinning Dev onstage. As his voice floated from the phone’s speaker, Sheetal’s insides went all bubbly. He was seriously good—good enough to go pro if he wanted. And, okay, it didn’t hurt that he was seriously nice to look at, either.

She texted him, even though he had to be asleep. My dad’s onto us. Run for your life!

Us. They were an us. Sheetal still couldn’t really believe it. The memory of him singing to her from the stage would never get old, especially not that wink. Or that knowing smile.

He’d asked her to sing for him. Her mouth grew dry. He’d asked her to sing with him. She never could, of course, but what a delicious daydream. . . .

Her lips were already shaping words, and her fingers ached with the urge to touch the starry music, to conduct it through string and song. The need burned, demanding she feed it. As the pressure built, it felt like she might just go up in silver flames and take the whole house with her.

Sheetal padded back downstairs, past the wall where Charumati’s pictures still hung, and threw aside a floor-length hanging tapestry to reveal a bronze door pull in the shape of a serenely smiling naga. Her mother’s secret room.

Charumati had decorated it to feel like the vast library of the stars, which supposedly contained every story or piece of lore anyone could possibly want, all organized by color and song. It was her sanctuary on Earth, packed with all her old treasures, all her private dreams. The fragrance of wild roses and jasmine wafted out, as if she still waited inside.

But it was Sheetal’s room now. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door and stepped through.

She glanced past the rich fabrics and fairy lights lining the walls and the LED cherry blossom tree, past the gilt volumes of folktales and magical texts from around the world, until she spotted the two things she’d come for. The harp, she debated, or the dilruba? Both called to her from their corners, and both rang out brightly, their tones round and full, when Sheetal tested their strings.

Dad had bought the instruments after Sheetal woke night after night singing songs no human knew, when it became clear the music in her blood wasn’t going away just because Mom had.

Sheetal’s throat constricted. How many hours had she hidden here, strumming through her grief, her pain, her isolation—all as bulky and cold as sodden blankets? How many hours begging the night sky to give her mother back?

At least until the day her tears ran dry, the day she’d finally admitted Charumati was gone for good. She’d tried to put it all away. To turn her back on the secret room.

She couldn’t do it, though. Here and there—between homework and sleepovers, dish duty and trips to the aquarium—when that missing part of her got to be too much, she’d sneak in here and explode with all the things she couldn’t say. Couldn’t be.

More embers kindled in Sheetal, silver and hot. Why did she always have to hide?

She picked up her journal, a lined hardback book with an embossed peacock cover, whose pages she’d filled with all the stories her mother used to tell her. Where she’d written out her own pain when it got too big to swallow. But none of that would help tonight.