Welp, She Did It

If Aru had been politely indifferent to science before, now she straight up hated it. She watched as the pebble soared from Mini’s hand. It was a valiant throw. Nice arc. Very dramatic.

But the pebble fell short and dropped about a hairbreadth away from the cauldron. Aru breathed a sigh of relief. They were safe.

But then the infernal pebble did what pebbles can’t help but do:

It rolled.

Then tapped the cauldron.

“Maybe that wasn’t too strong of a—” Aru stopped as the cauldron began to quiver more violently. Its vapor sides began to swirl. “Nope. I take it back. We’re dead.”

“We’re not dead,” said Mini. “I just wanted to stir up the liquid a little. We’ve got to hit the fire next.”

“Spewing poison isn’t enough for you?” demanded Aru. “You have to add fire to it?”

“The way this room has been designed, the heat from the fire above has turned some of the poison liquid into a gas,” reasoned Mini. “If we bring down all of the fire, it should vaporize all of the poison and leave behind only the third key!”

The vapor shell of the cauldron began to split. The cave ceiling trembled, and bits of black rock flaked down. The chandelier of fire swung back and forth.

“Gather as many rocks as you can and start throwing them at the fire,” said Mini.

“What if they hit the cauldron by mistake? We’ll—”

“You said you believed in me!” shouted Mini. “So believe me!”

Aru clenched her jaw. “All right,” she said.

She gathered up rocks, and together the two of them started pelting the fire. A cracking sound rolled through the cave. Aru looked up—her guess had been right! The fire had been encased in something. And whatever it was that had been protecting them from the flames was beginning to break.

Fire tumbled down in long, flaming ribbons. In a moment, it would meet the poisonous vapor and liquid of the cauldron.

“Run!” shouted Mini. “To the entrance!”

Aru ran just as blue plumes of poison spiraled into the air. She gagged. The smell was awful. Her toe had barely crossed the threshold when she heard a boom behind her. The cauldron exploded. Out of the corner of her eye, Aru saw a giant wave of rising poison liquid.

A burst of heat and light threw her and Mini onto their backs. Aru blinked and looked up to see a wall of flames towering above them, blocking the cave entrance. The wave hit the threshold of the entrance…and stopped. Aru heard sizzling and steaming. But the poison had disappeared! The magical flames had formed some kind of fence, and must’ve cooked up all the liquid.

Mini walked to her side, out of breath, but her face shining. “See? Enough heat, and time, will turn a liquid into a gas.”

“That was incredible,” said Aru. “How’d you think of that?”

Mini just beamed.

Aru couldn’t help recalling what Lord Hanuman had said before they’d left the Court of the Sky. About how sometimes you needed someone to remind you of how powerful you were—then you would surprise even yourself.

All the flames in the room had burned out. Mini tiptoed carefully toward the center of the cave. Where the cauldron had been, there was a scorch mark on the ground. A tiny bit of the poison had found shelter from the fire in a new place: the statue of Shiva who had once crouched openmouthed behind it. Now his throat glowed bright blue.

Also on the ground stood a small turquoise goblet. Aru wondered whether that was the shoelike thing that had been floating in the cauldron. A silver liquid filled the cup. Mini picked it up gingerly.

“The third key,” she said. “A sip of old age.”

Aru reached for it, grimacing. She tried to dump out the liquid, but it didn’t budge. Magic was often a stickler for rules. Rude.

“It should be your turn,” Aru said. “But let me guess: I have to sip this because you saved our butts back there?”

“Yup,” said Mini.

Aru gagged just looking at it. “What if it’s poison? It came from a poisonous cauldron, after all….”

Mini shrugged. “Then maybe I could save you with one of Spring’s petit fours.”

Aru was still doubtful. “What if I swallow the key?”

“I wouldn’t recommend doing that. When I was three, I ate my mom’s engagement ring, and they gave me a bunch of bananas, and they had to—”

“NEVER MIND! I DON’T WANT TO KNOW.”

“Drink up or I’ll finish the story!”

“You are evil.”

Mini crossed her arms over her chest. “I believe in fairness.”

Aru took the tiniest of sips, the kind she occasionally took from her mom’s Sunday glass of wine just to see why people fussed over the stuff. She always ending up spitting out the foul-tasting liquid. But old age didn’t taste…bad. It reminded Aru of her birthday last year. Her mom had taken them to a fancy Italian restaurant. Aru had eaten so much that she’d fallen asleep in the car. Her mom had picked her up (Aru remembered because she kept pretending to be asleep) and carried her to bed. The sip of old age was like that—a happy kind of fullness.

A weight pressed down on her tongue. Startled, she spat it out and found a small white key. It was made of bone. NOPE.

“AHHHH!” screamed Aru. She started to scrape her tongue. Then she realized she hadn’t washed her hands since Brahmasura became a pile of ashes. Aru spat on the ground.

“The third key!” said Mini excitedly. “Cool! It’s a bone! I wonder if it was like a phalanx, or maybe a—”

Aru glared at her, and Mini quickly changed the subject.

“We did it!” said Mini. “We’ve got all three keys to get inside the Kingdom of Death.”

Despite being thoroughly grossed out, Aru smiled. They’d really done it. And what made it even better was that Mini wasn’t standing quite so timidly anymore. With the glow of the poison in Shiva’s mouth behind her, it almost looked like she had a halo.

“Ready?” asked Aru.

Mini nodded.

Aru’s palms had started to sweat. Her hair felt pulled too tight. Part of her was wondering whether she should make a last-minute bathroom run, because there was no telling whether the Underworld had public restrooms. But maybe that was just nerves.

The girls laid down the three keys in a row: the sprig of youth, the coin from the bite of Adulthood (now shiny again), and the bone key.

Aru wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen next. But that didn’t matter, because the keys knew what to do. At once, they melted and ran together, forming a puddle of light. Aru held her breath as the puddle rose, growing higher and higher until it was about the height of the seven-headed horse that had carried her across the Ocean of Milk.

In the darkness of the cave, a door took shape.

The door to the Kingdom of Death.