New title 1, p.6
New Title 1, page 6
She approached the sweets seller’s stall. Again he beckoned to her, his string of lanterns flickering in the same order, and again he greeted her with the same observation on the day’s earnings and a box of laddoos, kaju katli topped with silver leaf, and chumchums. Again she felt no urge to haggle.
Again the group of friends strolled by, and again the woman tossed back her head before breaking out in enthusiastic laughter.
Rupali ran, leaving the seller holding the box. She passed Daya, who now stood on the ground, watching her with concern.
“It’s going to keep happening, isn’t it?” Rupali jabbed a finger at the sweets stall. “Whatever that was.”
“It already did,” Daya said.
“Take me to meet them,” Rupali ordered, the words surprising even her. “The Singers. Right now.”
Though Daya raised her eyebrows, she took Rupali’s hand. “Come, then.”
No one gave them a second glance as they rushed through the throng. Tonight, they were just more merrymakers honoring the goddess.
But how many times had Rupali played out this scenario without knowing it? How many times had the people around her? Would they eventually become like her great–grandmother if the spell candles continued to burn?
Rupali and Daya were silent as they climbed the grassy hill, leaving behind the jubilant crowds and festive lights. Rupali traced the moon–silvered river with her eyes. Had her cup sailed away on new adventures, perhaps even located a tiny captain and crew to aid it on its journey?
“Daya,” she said, paying no heed to the pounding of her heart. This would be one bit of her imagination no one could take away, not with Daya safekeeping it. “I put a paper cup in the river, and it sailed away, and now I believe it has a crew of miniature sailors. Maybe even pirates.”
“All women, of course,” Daya said, grinning. She didn’t—she couldn’t—know the terrible thing Rupali had just done. Her grandmother and her mother would be so disappointed if they knew.
But maybe, she thought, they were the ones who should feel guilty.
Daya abruptly halted. “There,” she whispered, pointing. “There’s my mother. Mrinalini.”
People with elegant hairstyles and glittering, ornate jewelry clustered outside the palace. They wore black silk dotted with silver, a tribute to the constellations above. Tables set with gem–cut jars of blue and green fireflies provided the only other illumination, so it took a moment for Rupali to locate the woman in question. Once she did, however, her heart dropped. The woman was not beautiful, but authority radiated from her like pollen, rich and intoxicating, and the sari pallu covering her head glinted with miniature mirrors that caged the light of the immutable stars.
Not to mention she clutched a spell candle bound up with slivers of Rupali’s imagination.
Daya squeezed Rupali’s hand hard, too hard, her palm sweaty. Rupali squeezed back.
Mrinalini opened her mouth, and the other Singers followed suit. Eddies of notes tumbled forth, crisp as silver, soft as gold. Rupali could almost see the music in the night air. Some notes flew up into the sky, one by one, and others spiraled around Rupali in an ardent caress of sound. She shivered.
Next to her, Daya sighed.
The candle burst into flame, and stories from the star field began narrating themselves, cascading over Rupali’s body, soaking into her bones.
The other Singers held up spell candles, and they, too, were burning, their seven hues shimmering and dancing. As one, the Singers came to a crescendo, and overhead, the stars quaked and tried but failed to shift position before finally resettling themselves. Rupali watched, unable to speak. The story star field!
She could feel how it connected everyone, and how desperately it needed to move. Unable to flow unhindered, it was drowning them.
Then Mrinalini spoke.
“Order must be preserved. Let those who forget the importance of tradition and preservation of the old ways now remember what they mean. We are made of stories, and we must protect them.” Her gaze, which had been trained on the stars, now found her daughter.
“No!” cried Daya. “It’s not meant to be like this. I know the truth is scary, Mother, but you can’t keep denying it. Can you just listen for once?”
“She’s right,” said Rupali tentatively. When no one spoke, she continued. “I can feel it; the stories belong to everyone. They need to be released.”
“You’re wrong,” Mrinalini said, her voice cold. “We are their guardians. We must protect them from corruption and outside influences.”
Though Rupali quailed beneath the force of the Singer’s words, she made herself go on. “But it’s my imagination burning in that candle right now. I give it all to the candles, and I must never use it myself. Surely I have some say in what’s done with it?”
Mrinalini glared at Rupali, her candle flame wagging like a finger. “Enough. I will silence you myself.”
Before the spell could be completed, Rupali clasped Daya’s hand, then released it. “Run!”
They set down the hill, legs pumping and sides stinging. When they neared the papaya tree, the window of winding colors appeared in the air, and they vaulted through it, landing in Rupali’s bedroom.
The last of the wick burned out then, leaving nothing but a couple drops of singed wax. The window, too, dissolved into darkness. Rupali counted out slow, deliberate breaths. Had the entire evening been just a fantasy brought on by the spell?
Muffled weeping nearby quickly dispelled her doubts. The rainbow flame might have gone out, but the girl it had brought was still there. “Daya? Are you all right?”
“My—my mother tried to cast a spell on us!” Daya sobbed. “I was just trying to save her. To save all of us. How can she not know that?”
Rupali knew her own mother would never attack her like that. How sad Daya must feel, how alone. “Listen,” Rupali said, taking her hand, “we’re safe. You’re here with me. Now explain what exactly is happening.”
Daya rubbed her reddened eyes. “My mother knows, but she can’t admit it,” she said. “It’s the candles. The Singers cast spells to keep us wrapped in the old stories. To keep them from changing, so our world never changes, either. That’s why I wanted one, to see if perhaps I could break the spells.”
Rupali let that information seep in. “Let’s set the candles free,” she suggested. “If the stories are meant for everyone, then we will give them to everyone.”
“If you light them,” Daya whispered, “I believe I can sing them free.”
In reply, Rupali opened the door and signaled for Daya to follow.
In the shadows of the shop’s workroom, Rupali thought of all the spells yet to be cast, all the visions still to be sacrificed in the rainbow flame, and all the stagnation that would cause.
“Tradition is a good thing,” she said, “but sometimes we need to make our own.” She pressed a vial of honey into Daya’s hand and a kiss onto her cheek. “Our first new tradition—demanding recognition for the people!”
Smiling, Daya studied the honey. Rupali had given her the smallest vial she had, one tiny enough to wear on a golden chain about her neck. “What is this for?”
“For binding the imagination to the candle. Honey is sticky, you know.”
Daya looked thoughtful. “It is, at that. Shall we gather the candles?”
“Yes, but we have to be silent.” Rupali pointed to the doorway. “Wait here.”
It was more than risky, it was dangerous. If her grandmother caught them, she would lock Rupali away for years. Worse, they didn’t know what the rainbow flames would actually do. But there was only one way to find out. She stuffed the fresh candles into a burlap sack along with a fistful of matches, then grabbed a torch.
Daya, who had been shifting her weight from foot to foot, snatched the bag from Rupali. “Let’s go!” she whispered.
With the star field of stories their only witness, they hurried down to the river. Most of the revelers had gone home to sleep, and those who lingered paid the girls no attention. The moon hung low in the sky, ready for its own well–earned slumber. No candle was burning, yet the night felt even more like the work of a magical charm.
“We must hurry,” Daya repeated again and again, “or my mother will find us!”
Kneeling on the sand, Rupali lit the spell candles, then placed each glowing pillar in the water. As if weightless, they floated on the river’s surface, their multihued flames flickering. She gently nudged them into motion. Go, she thought. Go to those who need you most.
The individual flames spread, eating through the wax pillars and merging into one conflagration that plunged down in search of more fuel. The water hissed, but rather than dousing the massive pyre, it, too, ignited. Seconds later, the entire Ganga blazed, one enormous, raging sheet of seven–hued fire.
Her thumbnail between her teeth, Rupali backed away as fast as she could. She gaped at the incredible sight of burning water. What had they done?
The shore began to liquefy in the heat. “It’s going to burn the whole city down!” Daya shouted over the roar. “We have to put it out!”
“How?” Rupali managed to ask between unsteady giggles. “We can’t exactly throw water on it!”
The old world is burning, a story murmured in her brain. The old world must die, that the new one be born!
“No,” Rupali told it, ignoring her wobbling limbs. That wasn’t true. No one should blindly obey the dictates of elders and follow traditions without question, but there was no reason to discard everything all at once. People needed to be able to look up to those who came before. They needed well–worn rituals that linked the past to the present. Power resided in those rituals.
Daya’s mother knew that. Her own mother certainly did.
Yes. The heroine. The tempering. The sacrifice, the stories murmured as the fire advanced. That is how the new world will be born—not in spite of the old but from it.
That Rupali understood. She knelt on the smoldering riverbank. Before she could think through it, she dipped her hand into the firewater.
Her skin shrieked with pain as it sizzled and melted.
Screaming, Daya tried to pull her out, but the rainbow fire had already left the water to leach into Rupali’s pores and penetrate her veins. Soon it would reach her heart, devouring, cleansing.
“It’s all right,” she whispered, just loud enough for Daya to hear. “Just sing.”
“Enough!” another voice called, a musical voice. A distant corner of Rupali’s mind recognized it as belonging to Daya’s mother. The other Singers stood behind her, agape. Mrinalini frantically tore a spell candle from her sari and raced toward Rupali. “This is unacceptable. The order of things must be observed!”
“It’s too late, Mother,” Daya said softly, stepping back. “There’s nothing you can do now.” She began to sing, the lyrics about a boat made of a paper cup.
“Stop!” Mrinalini cried. “You have no idea what you’re doing!”
Daya kept singing.
The fire, Rupali realized, it’s me. It’s my imagination. It’s everyone’s imagination. It’s the stuff of stories. She glanced up, and the constellations shone with the same seven–toned flame. They always had. She just hadn’t been able to see it before. But the flame was fixed in place, unable to burn freely. It needed to flow, to incinerate old stories and create new stories from the ashes. We’re the real spell candles.
As Daya sang, the rainbow flame gushed forth, filling the dark spaces between the now–twinkling stars. The constellations themselves began to spin. How they glowed with starlight and story and song!
All the memories, all the ideas Rupali had ever had and lost flooded back into her, a lava stream of inspiration. She was so hot, she would combust any second now.
The crowd at the water’s edge grew as more and more of the city’s inhabitants woke, summoned by the fire’s call. Rupali spotted her grandmother and mother among them, their eyes wide with fright.
Her song finished, Daya held out her arms to Mrinalini. “Stories change, Mother. Sometimes they die, and new stories are born. They need to, just like us.”
“We have new ways now,” Rupali added, just before her throat seared shut and her breathing stilled. The fire crackled hungrily in her ears as it claimed every part of her.
Mrinalini waved her unlit candle. “Daya, what foolishness have you wrought? Don’t you understand? We can’t make new stories.”
“We have to—”
“You’re not my daughter,” said Mrinalini, shaking. “My daughter would never shame me like this.”
The hope in Daya’s face dimmed, a wick spent at long last. Rupali’s heart twisted with an ache that had nothing to do with the rainbow fire. Unable to watch, she closed her eyes.
Then, just as abruptly as it had begun, the flames within Rupali ceased to burn her. Now they were hers to command. Just like the Singers.
No, she corrected herself. Not to command. That was where the Singers had failed their people. To guide.
She opened her eyes. Her skin was whole, untouched, as was the riverbank. But everywhere she looked, from the shadows to the worried faces staring back, she saw the sparks of rainbow fireworks, blossoming, booming. Story was in the people’s blood. It was their birthright. It was the signature of the goddess.
The star field arced over them, sparkling, woven through with all the tales that had ever been and would be. Every person in Kashi and beyond was threaded into that magnificent tapestry, and every person could tap into it at will.
They didn’t need spell candles or even Singers anymore.
Before her, curious citizens trickled toward the palace, whose diamond doors now stood open to them. Others laid hands on the Singers’ shoulders and murmured words of comfort while eyeing Rupali with suspicion. Still others just looked on with bewilderment, her grandmother among them. Her mother, though, beamed with pride.
Mrinalini snapped her candle in half. “Sarasvati Devi only knows what you hope to accomplish here, but I have no need of your imagination any longer.”
Drawing strength from her own mother’s smile, Rupali stood. “I’m glad to hear that,” she told Mrinalini and her Singers. “Today, on Sarasvati’s day, the magic goes back to the people entrusted to your care. The stories flow free, to die and change and be reborn. You may have forgotten, but your privilege is to serve them—and us.”
Then she walked over to Daya and took her hand. “Would you like to keep me company while I draw the story of what will happen tomorrow?”
With tears still streaking her cheeks, Daya kissed Rupali, and there was only fire.
© 2015 by Shveta Thakrar
Shveta Thakrar is a writer of South Asian–flavored fantasy, social justice activist, and part–time nagini. She draws on her heritage, her experience growing up with two cultures, and her love of myth to spin stories about spider silk and shadows, magic and marauders, and courageous girls illuminated by the starlight at their cores. Most recently, she’s been published in Kaleidoscope: Diverse YA Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories, Mythic Delirium, Faerie Magazine, and The Toast. When not hard at work weaving words together, Shveta makes things out of glitter and paper and felt, devours books, daydreams, draws, bakes sweet treats, travels, and occasionally even practices her harp. Find out more at http://shvetathakrar.com, or follow her on Twitter: @ShvetaThakrar.
Ghost Champagne
by Charlie Jane Anders
1. Comedy
You know what I wish? I wish I could just reach into someone’s chest and pull out their beating heart and show it to them, like a movie villain. (And then I would put it back and their chest would seal up and they would be fine. I’m not a monster!) But imagine how great that would be, whenever the endless string of entitled assclowns start screwing with you—just reach in, and ZOOOOOOOP! Oh, what’s this? It’s your heart. In my hand! You wanna say something now, huh? I didn’t think so. I mean, I would only use this power in extreme circumstances, like when one of the developers in my day job starts mansplaining to me, or when I’m super bored in a meeting. Speaking of which, why is it OK to text in a meeting but not to play Candy Crush? That’s discrimination.
My comedy set is off to a pretty good start, and then I notice my ghost at a third row table, right between the canoodling pierced hipsters and the drunken yuppies.
Some days I hardly notice my ghost, but lately she’s in my face a whole lot more. Today she’s wearing a lacy loligoth dress that I wish I owned in real life, and a little hat over her wavy dark hair, which is a little shorter than mine. She’s drinking a Sidecar or an Old Fashioned, because yeah, even ghosts must obey the two–drink–minimum rule at Sal’s Comedy Cellar, and she watches me go through my set with the usual disaffected look on her face, like been–there–done–that–and–died.
I do what I always do: ignore her. Even when she knocks the candle off her table and turns the floor into a minefield of broken glass and hot wax. Fuck her. Remember the toolkit. Keep going, look past her—I try to gaze instead at my boyfriend Raj, sitting on a stool in the back. The ghost doesn’t matter. She had her chance to be alive, she obviously blew it.
We’ve reached the butt–jokes section of my set. (Dick jokes are for lesser intellects, but butt jokes are sophisticated and brilliant.) And then, Raj gets up and walks upstairs with the rest of the comics, right when I’m getting to the part about how my man has a big butt, and why is there no female equivalent of an ass man? (Nobody ever says ass woman, which just sounds like the worst superheroine ever.) Raj just up and walks out on me. I see my ghost out of the corner of my eye, giving me a look like, What can you do?
I stumble through my set, but the energy is all gone. And I don’t even get any love for my spiel about how Japanese toilets are so great, with the heated seats and the jets of warm water, it’s like being rimmed by pixies—I sat on one and my butt finally forgave me for the horseback–riding lessons I took when I was twelve. My ghost gets so bored, she knocks over someone’s beer glass with the back of her hand, CRASH. The crowd is a goddamn humor sponge. Fuck all of these stupid people, why do they pay $15 just to zonk out in public, when they could stay home and watch the Homophobia Channel for free?
