Bring On the Next Demon! Wait, Maybe Not…

Mini held the sprig of youth at arm’s length.

“Mini, why are you holding it like that?”

“It’s clearly a biohazard! What if it’s contaminated?” asked Mini. “It’s been in a demon’s hair for who knows how long. How’d she even get it there if everything she touches turns to ash?”

Aru thought of the hair products and jars in the salon. “I think she could only burn living things with her touch.”

“You don’t think the sprig is a living thing?”

“It’s a key to the Kingdom of Death,” said Aru. “You can’t kill death.”

“Hmm.” Now Mini looked even more suspicious of the sprig. “What if holding it does something to me? Like make me young forever?”

“How’s that a bad thing?” Aru wouldn’t mind never getting wrinkles. As a forever-kid, she’d get to go to the front of the line all the time. And she could always get the kid discount at the ice cream place.

“Look at me!” said Mini. “I’d be stuck forever at four feet! That’s…that’s scary.”

Aru pulled a crumpled tissue from her pocket. “If you’re worried about that, then use this so you don’t have to touch the sprig of youth for too long.”

Mini eyed the tissue warily. “Is that used?”

Yep.

“Of course not.”

“Then why are you carrying it in your pocket?”

Aru lifted her chin. “British royalty always carry crumpled tissues with them. They call them handkerchiefs.”

“I’m pretty sure—”

“Four feet forever?” asked Aru, dangling the tissue.

Sighing, Mini took the tissue and wrapped it around the branch. They cast one more glance at the ashes of Brahmasura as they walked to the door.

“First demon slaying!” said Aru, holding up her hand for a high five.

Mini recoiled.

“You really don’t want to touch other people’s hands. That’s the fastest way to get a cold. Or the flu. And if you’re not vaccinated, you’ll die.”

“Yeah, but you might not stay dead. I thought Brahmasura was killed a long time ago.”

“Maybe the souls of demons get to be reincarnated? Like us.”

That was not a comforting thought. Aru lowered her hand. (Nothing is more awkward than an unreciprocated high five…especially when too much time has gone by and you can’t pretend that you were just stretching.)

Seeing Aru’s disappointment, Mini offered another suggestion. “How about an elbow bump instead? It’s hygienic and fun!”

Aru frowned. “You sound like one of those posters in the doctor’s office.”

“I like those posters….They’re informative. And colorful.”

Aru laughed. “All right, fine.”

The girls bumped elbows.

As soon as they stepped out the door, Aru was slammed with a sense of wrongness. Before they had entered Madame Bee’s salon, the weather outside had been a little breezy and chilly. Now there was no wind at all, and the temperature felt downright icy. It had been afternoon when they arrived, but now it was nearing nighttime. The sky was the color of a bruise. Aru glanced across the parking lot to where a stunted tree had lost almost all of its leaves. One leaf was slowly spiraling to the ground. A little too slowly.

From above, the flap of wings made Aru rear back and shout, “Stay back, Sleeper, I’m armed and dangerous!”

But then the winged thing turned out to be Boo. “Reckless!” he scolded. “Don’t go about shouting his name!”

He descended on them, muttering, pecking their hair, and peering into their ears. “What took you so long?” he demanded.

“Excuse you, but we are thinking warriors,” said Aru, smoothing her mangled pajamas with as much dignity as she could muster. “We had to plan. We had to analyze the situation. We had to—”

“Scream, almost die, beat back a demon with a blow-dryer,” finished Mini.

“Here is where you stop regaling me with tales of your ineptitude and surprise me?” asked Boo hopefully.

Mini waved the sprig of youth. “One key down, two to go!” she said. “Next up: bite of adulthood.”

Aru wanted to grin, but her eyes kept going back to the tree in the parking lot. Her thin pajamas weren’t doing much good keeping out the cold.

“I’m sure it was sheer luck that saved you,” huffed Boo, ruffling his feathers.

Aru would’ve argued back, but she realized something. Boo cared.

“You like us!” Aru teased. “You were concerned!”

“Hmpf,” snorted Boo. “If you’d died, that would’ve been a black mark on my reputation, so yes, at some base level, I was…worried.”

Aru’s flash of triumph disappeared with his next words.

“And I have even more reason to worry. Did the asura recognize you?”

Aru shuddered, remembering how Brahmasura had crooned Pandavalings….

Mini nodded.

“That’s not good. Not good at all,” said Boo, anxiously pecking at the ground. “The Sleeper is trying to find allies. Show me the map of the second key.”

Mini held up her hand so that the book with flapping pages showed on the side.

“It’s in the Night Bazaar,” said Boo thoughtfully. “We just might be able to convince those arrogant Seasons to give you some armor.”

“The Seasons?” repeated Mini.

Boo ignored her question and continued talking to himself. “This was far too close. It’s even worse than I thought if the Sleeper spoke to Brahmasura.”

“If he knew her, why didn’t the Sleeper just take the first key from Brahmasura?” asked Aru.

“He cannot see the keys, and Brahmasura never knew what the sprig really was. She probably just thought it was a magical bauble that kept her beautiful.”

“Let me get this straight,” said Mini. “The Sleeper can’t see the keys, but he knows that we can….Which means he could be after us right now….”

That icy feeling Aru had wasn’t just autumn turning sneakily into winter….It was him.

In the parking lot, she saw the same shopgirl who had been smoking before. Now she was hunched over her phone, staring, her mouth caught in a frown.

She was frozen.

“Um, Mini? Boo?”

“What?” snapped Boo. “We need to come up with a plan in case he finds you!”

“I—I think he already did.”

Aru watched in horror as a black line broke the sky, as if someone had unzipped twilight to show nighttime lurking just beneath its skin.

“We have to get out of here!” she screamed.

Mini shoved the sprig of youth into her backpack and grabbed Boo out of the air.

“Remember how to access the Otherworld!” hissed Boo. “Reach for the light, look but not look, and touch the second—”

But the rest of his words were drowned out as a gust of wind blew them backward. Aru would’ve slammed against the salon door if Mini hadn’t caught her arm.

Together, they touched the second key symbol on the side of their hands. The wind howled. Aru could feel that familiar strand of light just out of sight, but something else caught her attention.

A dark shape started emerging from the concrete of the parking lot, a massive form of twisted ink and ice. And with it came laughter. The hairs on the back of Aru’s neck rose. She knew that laugh. It was the same one she’d heard when she lit the lamp. A slick of ice spread from the places the Sleeper had stepped, crusting everything in his wake.

A powerful ache went through Aru. Every frozen thing—leaf, rock, and human—reminded her of one person: Mom. Hanuman had assured her that her mother wasn’t in any pain. But how much longer would it stay that way? On the center of Aru’s palm, the number eight was already beginning to change form….She was running out of time.

And now the Sleeper had found them.

“Aru!” shouted Mini. “Hurry!”

Mini was a couple feet away from her and standing half in, half out of a cut of light. She extended her hand, and Aru raced to grab it. Her fingers brushed Mini’s, and that familiar pull of the Otherworld tugged at Aru.

But then it snapped.

Something had caught her. She couldn’t step forward.

“Come on, Aru!” screeched Boo.

Aru heaved. Something was squeezing her. She gasped and choked. Darkness squiggled at the corners of her vision. A black snake tail encircled her waist. She was trapped.

“I—I can’t,” she spat out.

Mini tugged her arm, trying to pull her into the portal.

As Aru heaved and strained, she heard a voice at her ear:

“Just like your mother, aren’t you, Aru? Slippery and deceitful—”

Wings flapped against her face.

“Get off! Off! Off!” shouted Boo. He pecked violently at the Sleeper’s coils until they shuddered, loosening just enough to let Aru grab the golden ball from her pocket. It was now a dull gold, not blindingly shining like it had been against Brahmasura.

“DO SOMETHING!” she roared at the orb, all her panic focused like a laser. She imagined it lighting up, becoming a sword, turning into a snake made of light, anything that would get her out of here….

Light exploded, and the snake coils fell away from her.

Aru leaped for the portal. The Sleeper’s angry screams chased her as she fell through. Finally, she landed on her butt (which hurt way more than it should have, because she didn’t have a lot of built-in cushioning) in the middle of a forest.

Through the still-open seam, a man’s arm reached out, swiping left and right as his hand grabbed for them.

Mini started beating the hand with the sprig of youth and shouting, “I”—smack—“do”—smack—“not”—smack—“like”—smack—“you!”

This didn’t sound like very fierce smack talk to Aru, but considering that it was coming from Mini, it was about as violent as it would get.

With a final smack, the arm reared back. Boo flew through the gap of the portal, pecking at the line of light as if he were zipping it back up. After a final flash, the portal—and the hand—disappeared completely. When Aru opened her palm, the ball returned.

Boo fluttered to the ground, his wings drooping in exhaustion.

Aru scooped him up and hugged him. “Thank you,” she said.

“No touchie!” huffed Boo. But he didn’t move away from her.

“That was the Sleeper, right?” asked Aru.

There was no mistaking that voice, or that laugh. Guilt needled her. She had let him out into the world.

“He knew where we were,” said Mini, clutching her backpack. “And now he knows where the second key is!”

Boo fluttered away from Aru. “No. He doesn’t. I changed the portal location at the last minute to hide our whereabouts.”

They were surrounded by wilderness. Aru didn’t see a single other person. Wherever Boo had taken them was not in the same time zone as the salon, because it was still daytime. Not that there was much sunlight. Overhead, solemn oak trees drank up most of it, so that little was left to illuminate the cocoa-dark forest floor.

“You are safe, but not for long,” said Boo. “The Sleeper will be watching for any signs of magic. We need additional protection to get you to the Night Bazaar, where the second key lies.”

“Protection? Like travel insurance?” asked Mini.

“What is that?” asked Boo. “You know what? Forget I asked.”

“We could ask the gods for some help?” suggested Aru. “They weren’t just going to leave us with a ball and a mirror, right?”

Aru felt silly for hoping their soul dads would care more, but it didn’t stop her from looking at the sky, wondering if she might see a message spelled out in lightning. Just for her.

“I told you, they will not meddle in human affairs.”

“What about demigod affairs?” asked Aru.

“No meddling. It is their rule.”

“So who is going to help us?”

Boo seemed lost in thought for several moments. He circled the ground, then tottered over to a small anthill beside a log. He stared at it.

“I think I might know someone who would be very interested in meeting you…” he said slowly. “Now if I could only find him. Hmm. Ah, wait! There! See that?”

He was pointing at the dirt. Aru and Mini exchanged nervous looks. Mini made a little swirling sign of He’s lost it next to her head.

Boo glared at them. “No. Look.”

Aru moved closer and saw a slender line of ants leading away from the log and over a pile of leaves.

“We must follow the ants,” said Boo.

“Yup,” said Aru to Mini. “He’s lost it.”

“We follow the ants, because all ants go back to Valmiki.”

“Valmiki? He’s alive?” asked Mini, shocked. “But he was alive thousands of years ago!”

“So were you,” said Boo curtly.

“Who’s Valmiki?” asked Aru. The name sounded familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it.

“The sage of learning,” said Mini. “He’s the one who wrote the Ramayana!”

Aside from the Mahabharata, the Ramayana was the other ancient epic poem that lots of Indians knew. It told the story of Rama, one of the reincarnations of the god Vishnu, who fought a ten-headed demon to rescue his wife. Aru’s mother had collected some art depicting Rama’s adventures, and now Aru recalled an image of a sage sitting on an anthill. She also recalled something else about him:

“Wasn’t Valmiki a murderer?”

“Well, he started out as one,” said Mini.

“Even if you murder only once, you’re still a murderer….”

“He changed,” said Boo. “For many years, Valmiki sat and chanted the word mara, which means kill. But his chant changed over time and became Rama, another name of the god—”

“And then a bunch of ants swarmed around him, and that’s how he got his name!” chimed in Mini. “In Sanskrit, it means born of an anthill.”

Aru wasn’t sure that people could really change. On many occasions her mother had promised that things would be different. Sometimes she kept her word for as long as six days. For those days Aru would be walked to school, fed a non-bland dinner, and even spoken to about something other than her mother’s newest museum acquisition.

But things always went back to normal in the end.

Still, having that mom was better than having a frozen mom. Aru swallowed her urge to cry. What were they doing here? They needed to get those celestial weapons, and soon!

“People can change,” added Boo. His eyes looked very knowing in that moment, as if he’d read her mind. It didn’t escape Aru that Boo sounded a little defensive.

“Okay, if you say so. But why do we have to meet this guy?” asked Aru.

“Valmiki’s very wise,” said Boo. “He’s gathered all kinds of mantras, sacred words that will help you. But, be warned, he’s still awful….”

“Why?” asked Aru, shocked. “Because he was a murderer?”

“Worse,” said Boo. “He’s a…” His voice dropped. “A writer.” He shook his head in disgust.

Boo and Mini started marching forward (well, Mini marched while Boo rode on her shoulder), following the trail of ants. The ground was dark, and finding the insects was like trying to pick pepper off a black cloth.

“I can’t see the ants anymore,” Mini said.

“Use your phone light,” said Aru.

“Can’t,” said Mini. “It died before you guys even came to get me. Don’t you have one?”

Aru grumbled. “No. Mom won’t let me have one until next year.”

“I can see perfectly well,” said Boo, picking his way carefully through the grass. This was probably the one time a pigeon sidekick was useful.

Ahead were several skinny trees. Between them stood a tannish boulder that Aru was quite certain hadn’t been there when they were farther away. Boo walked up to the thing and pecked it twice.

“Valmiki! We are in need of your assistance!”

Was it Aru’s imagination, or did the boulder shift a bit?

“Oh, come out of there….”

Aru looked a little closer. What had seemed like a boulder was actually a giant anthill. She shook each of her feet, shivering a little. What if the ants were crawling on her right now?

The insects on the hill began to move quickly back and forth, forming lines that eventually spelled out words: