Star Daughter(78)

Dad, she said to him, inhaling the imaginary aroma of homemade waffles, listening to the whispers of the biographies he’d given her, dreaming of past museum dates. I don’t know what to do. This isn’t fair, and you’re not here, and even if I can save you, what if nothing’s ever the same again?

The hardest question hissed in the tingling of her hands, in the flame burning around her. What if I can’t go back to you?

She could hear his heart’s steady rhythm, and while it offered no answers, she clung to the sound, pressing her hand to the glass as if she could press right through to him.

The sidereal song shifted then, and Sheetal knew before she turned that her mother stood there, along with Kaushal. She pulled her hand back.

Well, she couldn’t be totally star yet—not if she still left smudged, oily fingerprints behind. Somehow that only made everything even worse.

“I’m changing, aren’t I.” She whirled on her mother. “You knew, and you didn’t say anything. That’s why you wanted me here for my birthday.”

Only then did she realize she was shivering, like the warning signal before a volcano erupted. “You knew, and you didn’t tell me!”

Charumati and Kaushal watched her, saying nothing. She felt their pity in the starsong, saw it in their unearthly eyes. The eyes she now shared.

“That’s why the competition is today, isn’t it? Before I turn full star, so you can still exploit me.” More tremors coursed through her, tremors the whole cosmos should be feeling.

How had the palace not fallen apart? How were the mirrors still whole instead of a billion jagged shards?

Charumati put her arms around Sheetal and began stroking the top of her head. “Dikri, would you have come if you had known?”

“No, of course not,” Sheetal blurted. The contact was so soothing she couldn’t help but soften. “I mean, I guess I would have had to at some point, right? Isn’t that why you said you had to leave?”

“Yes,” Charumati said simply. “We belong in the sky. Even our bodies know it.”

Kaushal spoke for the first time. “My father was a member of this house, and he strayed with a mortal woman. She soon wasted away of grief, and I wound up in an orphanage. I had no option to disguise my hair but to shave it off, and I set one too many things aflame.” He laughed, grim. “Before long I was on the streets, alone and starving.”

“Until my mother found you,” Charumati put in. She loosened her embrace, but Sheetal didn’t move away.

“I had no wish to go. I blamed my father for abandoning me. But the Esteemed Matriarch offered me a much better life, and a sister, so in time I agreed.” Kaushal touched his necklace. “Once I got here, I transformed within days. Sheetal, it is nothing to fear. It would have happened in any case.”

“They threw you out of the orphanage?” Sheetal imagined little Kaushal, all ribs and skin, fighting bigger kids for scraps and getting beaten up in the process, and she wanted to reach back through time and rescue him.

Charumati spoke fiercely, her flickering eyes like living jewels. “See? If we raised humanity to its highest potential, no one would behave like this. No one would be harming you or anyone else, my daughter.”

“Mortals do not understand,” Kaushal said. “They walk around blindfolded, thinking only of themselves. Some understand compassion, but they are few and far between.”

Sheetal begged to differ. Dad was a great example of compassion, always reminding her to think of the other person’s point of view. Minal had stood by Sheetal through everything. Even Radhikafoi cared in her way, or she wouldn’t have made it her life’s work to help domestic violence survivors.

But then there were Bijal and Vaibhav from school. Oncologist Auntie and her gang. Dev’s ancestor, the star hunter. All the people who’d made Charumati feel like she had to hide. Kaushal wasn’t wrong, not really.

Sheetal stepped out of her mother’s hug. “Why do you want to go back to Earth, then? Is it because you miss the stuff you left behind?”

Kaushal and Charumati traded puzzled glances. “I assume you spoke with my sister,” Kaushal said.

“It’s not that great,” Sheetal went on, pretending not to hear him. “I should know.” The words tasted weird in her mouth. Some of it wasn’t great, that was for sure, but other parts were awesome. Forests, amusement parks, Dad, to start with.

“Then why does the thought of the transformation trouble you so, my daughter?” Charumati asked archly.

“I admit to harboring a certain amount of fascination with mortal advancements.” Kaushal gazed into a mirror, and Marine Drive in Mumbai appeared, curving around a sparkly blue sea. Cars zipped along its breadth. “There were no sports cars in my time! But it is not that. Your mother has shared her plan with me, and I think she is right. There is no reason the mortal world must struggle like this.”

“When you take your circlet tonight, beti,” Charumati said, “you will join our house, and we will work together to enlighten humanity and show Nani and Nana there is no cause to close the gates.” She smiled. “But first, you must get through the competition.”

Back up a sec. This was too much for Sheetal to deal with right now. “So I’m going to become a full star no matter what?”

There it was, out in the open. Even if everything inside her was spinning around and around like a carousel. Even if it felt like the ultimate betrayal.