The Serpent's Secret (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond #1)(27)

For a minute, the shadows in the room shifted.

Then the woman coughed, cleared her throat, and continued in a raspier voice. “The moon maiden grieved as her first seven children were turned into snakes by the underworld king—doomed to live forever in his dark kingdom under the earth.”

“That’s horrible!”

“Yes, my princess,” she agreed. “And so, when the moon maiden’s eighth child, a girl, took her first breath, she decided that she would save her daughter from the fate of her seven brothers. She put the baby in a clay pot and floated her down the River of Dreams.”

I sputtered, wiping wet strands of hair off my face. Wait a minute, this part of the story sounded familiar.

“Who found the baby?” My skin broke out in goose bumps. The water felt suddenly cold.

“A kind farmer and his wife.”

With trembling hands, I touched the crescent-shaped mark on my neck. A curved moon. “And then?”

“And then, my princess,” the woman went on, “what you might imagine happened. The Serpent King decided to claim his daughter—to add another powerful snake to his court.”

I jumped out of the bath, grabbed a towel Danavi had left for me, and started drying off. My head was spinning. “And then?”

“Well, there was a terrible struggle. The baby was marked on the arm as the Serpent King tried to capture her.”

I stopped drying. Marked on the arm? Oh no, could it be?

The woman continued, “The moon maiden did all that was in her power—she exiled the farmers and the child out of the Kingdom Beyond Seven Oceans and Thirteen Rivers to a smoggy place at the end of a dark tunnel, a place where wide tarred roads stretch on and on, and no one can ever take a left turn …”

“A place called New Jersey?” The pieces were all fitting together.

“Why yes,” the woman agreed. “But the moon magic was only so powerful. The exile would last a mere dozen years, and on the child’s twelfth birthday, the spell would begin to implode, forcing the two farmers back to this land of enchantment.”

Water dripped off me onto the floor. I couldn’t seem to stop my teeth from chattering. How could I have not known? Neel had said something about the people I thought were my parents, and back then I hadn’t believed him. But some deep instinct told me the woman’s tale was true. That my parents weren’t my parents. That my biological father was a serpent king, and my mother a moon maiden. It felt like a nightmare—like I’d just stepped into one of Baba’s stories. Yet, unlike those, I’d never heard this story before and had no idea how it was supposed to end.

“Are you ready, my princess? May I come in?” the woman asked.

I wrapped the towel around myself. My eyes were hot. I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry.

“One sec,” I mumbled.

Ma and Baba—they probably hated me. I was some kind of royal burden to them, a baby they’d saved and then been saddled with because of a dumb enchantment. I thought about Baba’s fear of snakes, his efforts to make sure one never got into our house. He was trying to protect me. And Ma’s thing about having no curtains—she was trying to make sure the moon could shine on me.

No wonder they’d insisted I be a princess every Halloween. They were trying to tell me. I just wasn’t willing to listen. My whole face stung. I will not cry. I will not cry.

“Your Highness?”

All I could think about was what kind of brat I’d been. And how much Ma and Baba had given up for me. Their whole world. Their yard. Curtains. They probably were glad to be rid of me. My throat felt woolly. I could barely breathe. I will not cry.

“May I come in?”

I was all alone. With no idea of who I really was. Who was I? Who was Princess Kiranmala? I couldn’t begin to imagine.

“Do you invite me to enter?”

“Yeah,” I managed to get out. “I invite you to enter.”

In a flash, Danavi was around the screen. Maybe I hadn’t paid so much attention before, but there was something different about her. I was so distracted thinking about my parents, though, that I couldn’t put my finger on it. Instead I stayed lost in thought as the woman helped me into a delicate silk tunic and loose pants embroidered with a lotus pattern. I didn’t even notice it wasn’t black. Or that the scar on my arm was totally visible from under its tiny sleeves. I sat numbly in front of the mirror, my head full of moonbeams and serpents’ tails.

“You are like a lotus, my princess.” The woman combed my hair, braiding it and twisting it into an elaborate style. “You are a flower that has thrived even in the most dark and polluted waters.”

“What?” I jerked away as Danavi yanked a little too hard.

“Well,” she explained in a wheedling voice, “you are a beautiful blossom, despite being raised by simpletons who toil in the dirt.” She pinned my hair up, away from my neck. I felt her fingers graze my hairline.

“Those are my parents you’re talking about,” I snapped, even as I felt a familiar embarrassment creep up on me. It was the same feeling I got when Jovi sneered at me for having parents who owned a Quickie Mart.

“They are farmers, my princess, no kind of parents for one of royal blood. No kind of parents for one with both the moon-mark”—she touched my neck again—“and snake sign.” She touched my arm now, smiling toothily in the mirror.