Star Daughter(86)
This cake, this music, this celebration was all for her. All for her! Sheetal wanted to preserve it in a snow globe, something she could shake and press to her face as the sprinkle of lights within drifted down.
She bit into one of the bonbons. Silky floral cream spilled onto her tongue, and for a moment she was borne away on the backs of enormous swans flying through the sky, each formed of shifting cumulus clouds. For a moment, she was the swan, bold and free.
Then she was back in the hall, among the blue lights and whirling guests. She’d somehow moved farther down the tables and now stood before a row of crystal carafes filled with glittering frostberry wine and a golden liquid that had to be amrit, the heavenly nectar. Everything she could want to try, everything she could want to help her forget her troubles.
“Permit me to pour you a drink,” a voice offered. Sheetal glanced up to see a dakini, her scarlet skin purpling in the lights. Even here, she was bare of breast, her neck garlanded with a string of skulls. The dakini bore a cup aloft, and her smile was a spear. “Consider it a gesture of goodwill from your fellow champion Sachin.”
Sheetal knew a little about dakinis; like apsaras, they were sky dancers, but unlike apsaras, they were also warriors who ferociously guarded the path of enlightenment. Though some were known for their compassion, this one’s scorching gaze only held a challenge. “I’m all right, thanks.”
“How is it a celebration if the guest of honor is not drinking to her induction?” the dakini asked.
Sheetal could smell the amrit, Lord Indra’s beverage of choice. It sang to her with the strength of the stellar music, waking hidden longings. Of course she wanted to try it, to taste it on her tongue, to lick the traces off her lips.
But not tonight, and definitely not if Sachin had sent it.
She searched the room until she found him with Jeet and Priyanka. Jeet said something, and Sachin shrugged and looked away.
A few feet from them, Minal and Padmini were both chatting animatedly with people Sheetal didn’t recognize, though even the most oblivious bystander couldn’t miss the fleeting glances they threw each other every five seconds. It hurt to watch.
“Excuse me,” Sheetal said, and headed in their direction. But before she reached them, Beena waylaid her, insisting she dance. When she looked back, the crowd had swallowed Minal. Sheetal let herself be led onto the dance floor, spinning and twirling, a pinpoint in a massive constellation of extraordinary creatures. It was like swimming inside a star sapphire.
On the stage, the gandharvas played long, mesmeric beats that grew faster and faster; and on the floor, two large circles formed, one facing the other. Sheetal took her place in the inner circle, linking hands on one side with a pari. The pari’s wings floated out behind her, patterned with the same stained-glass veining as a damselfly’s. In the wash of blues, Sheetal couldn’t tell what colors they might be, though they twinkled in the lights floating through the room.
She glanced up to see Leela and Kirti beaming at her from the outer circle, easily keeping pace with the dance. “Are you ready for the competition?” Leela called. “I can’t wait to hear you sing.”
“Thanks! I can’t wait to see your painting,” Sheetal called back, but the thrumming of the tabla absorbed her reply.
Besides, the dancers were carrying Leela away now, their circle moving to Sheetal’s left while the other circle moved to her right. She caught another glimpse of Priyanka and Jeet before a gaggle of apsaras moved into the center of the inner circle and began to spin, each movement of their hands and feet like a flower opening.
This is what it would have been like if I had been here all along, Sheetal marveled. Eating things straight out of a catalog of dreams. Living always in the sidereal song. Never knowing the pain of waking to a bloated belly and cramps that made you want to rip your own guts out. Never worrying about things like taxes and drunk drivers and pipes freezing in the middle of a subzero New Jersey winter.
Never learning Mom could leave, and Dad could almost die.
It was all too large to take in, too brilliant and strange. It made her want to cry at the same time it made her want to sing. She never wanted it to end. Tomorrow she would return to Dad, to find a way to live on Earth even as a star, but tonight, she danced.
She twirled, clapping to the beat and leaning backward and forward. The apsaras made beautiful things of their bodies, shaping their fingers into lotuses, each motion of their hips telling a story. Sheetal could never hope to compete with them, and she didn’t want to. She just wanted to look at them, her serpentine and starry and spellbinding kin, and drink in the feeling of family.
The pari’s wings fluttered open and closed, and no one seemed to mind how much space they took up, making people bump into one another. On Sheetal’s other side, Beena danced with a lissome energy, way more agile than Sheetal had ever been.
Charumati approached, her starry diadem set atop silver locks bound up into a loose pile of ringlets and her jewelry gleaming from her ears, neck, wrists, and fingers. She smiled, gorgeous as a crystal halo adorning the fullness of a late autumn moon, and reached out with one delicate hand.
The starry melody wandered from Sheetal’s heart up to her throat, from her core to her fingertips. She released the pari’s hand and took her mother’s.
In answer, the pari slipped away, leaving a gap for Charumati to fill. They rejoined the shimmering blue dance, which had become even faster, more feral.