Dare, Disturb, Deign

Chitrigupta refused to send them off without any food.

“I think I might be your uncle,” he said, whizzing about the office. “Or, at the very least, we all share some divine something or other. I do hope you make it back! I never even had a chance to regale you with my stories or essays. Did I tell you about that time I interviewed a snail? You wouldn’t believe how fast he could talk. Downright speedy.”

From a file drawer, he brought out a box of cookies. He opened it and offered one to Mini, who sniffed it.

“Why does this smell like…books?”

“Ah, they’re wisdom cookies! I’ve made these from scratch before. The secret is to allow the books to hit room temperature before mixing them. Cold writing doesn’t sit well in the mind.”

“Uh, sure?”

“Save it for later,” said Chitrigupta, plucking the cookie from Mini’s hand and returning it to the box. His outfit had changed again. Now he was wearing an apron that said DO NOT KISS THE COOK. YOU HAVE GERMS. “And don’t eat them all at once. That might leave you feeling a little queasy. Or empty.”

“Thanks, Uncle!” said Mini.

“And you don’t want to get dehydrated or—”

“You could die!” said Mini and Chitrigupta at the same time.

They looked at each other with an expression that so clearly said We must be related! that Aru wanted to knock her forehead against the door. Repeatedly.

“Yeah, thanks, Uncle,” said Aru.

Chitrigupta patted both of them on the head, and handed them two small thimblefuls of a bright orange liquid. It looked like a captured flame.

So much for not being dehydrated. This couldn’t even be called a full sip. But Aru swallowed it dutifully.

A warm glow spread through her bones. Her throat no longer felt dusty. Between the sip of whatever this was, and one of the fancy Spring petit fours from the Court of the Seasons, Aru felt clearheaded and sharp-eyed.

“The dead have a tendency to leave us parched and tired. Watered-down soma always does the trick.”

“Soma?” repeated Mini. “As in the drink of the gods?”

“Yes, which is why it needs to be watered down. Undiluted, it can be deadly. Even to demigods.”

“Too bad it can’t make us immortal,” said Aru. “Then we’d definitely get through the Halls of Death alive.”

Chitrigupta eyed her shrewdly. “You must be the daughter of Indra.”

Aru raised her eyebrows. “What makes you say that?”

“Did you know that Indra’s Pandava son, Arjuna, was one of the greatest warriors who ever lived?”

Defensiveness prickled through Aru. “Just because Arjuna was an amazing warrior and we have the same soul doesn’t actually mean that I’m a great warrior, too, you know.”

“Aru!” hissed Mini.

“Sorry,” she bit out.

But she wasn’t, and she was sure Chitrigupta knew. He didn’t get mad, though. Instead, he smiled.

“What made Arjuna great wasn’t his strength or his valor, but the way he chose to see the world around him. He looked around, questioned, and doubted. You, too, are perceptive, Aru Shah. What you do with those perceptions is up to you.”

The hairs on Aru’s arm lifted. For a moment, she thought of the giant library in the Night Bazaar, and the book with her name on it. Maybe her imagination wasn’t just something that would keep landing her in trouble. Maybe it could actually help her save people.

Chitrigupta looked away from her and clapped twice. “All right, then, off you go!”

Mini and Aru reached for the door at the same time that Chitrigupta called out, “Wait!”

“Whaaaaat?” asked Aru.

It wasn’t that she was particularly anxious to embark on a journey of near-certain doom, but there was always “just one more thing!” when it came to Indian aunties and uncles. She experienced this whenever her mother dragged her to parties. The relatives would start saying good-bye in the living room, then spend another hour saying good-bye at the door. It was inevitably how they spent half the visit.

If they didn’t leave now, they were probably never going to leave.

“Just this,” said Chitrigupta. He held out his hand. A slim ballpoint pen lay in his palm.

“What does it do?” asked Mini.

“What do you think it does?” asked Chitrigupta. “It’s a pen! It writes!”

“Oh. Thanks?” said Mini.

“Don’t mention it. I cannot help you in defeating the Sleeper, but perhaps this will come in handy at some point. Wherever you are and whatever you write on, I will get the message. And if it is within my means…I will answer.”

With a final farewell, they were off.

The moment the door closed behind them, all of Aru’s old fears raced back to her.

“I like him,” said Mini.

“Of course you do! You guys are practically the same person.”

The Halls of Death unfurled like a maze before them and actually grew. Colors gathered and stretched into passageways. The signs cropped up shortly after that:

An arrow was attached to each sign.

DARE pointed right and down a blue corridor.

DISTURB pointed left and down a red corridor.

DEIGN pointed up and into nothing.

Beneath them, the floor was polished marble, and the ceiling was a strange twisting river of names that, Aru imagined, belonged to the dead.

“Red pill or blue pill?” said Aru, in her best imitation of Morpheus.

“What pill? It’s a red road or blue road, Aru.”

“I know that! I’m quoting The Matrix!”

Mini blinked. “But a matrix has nothing to do with color. In mathematics, a matrix is a rectangular array of—”

Aru groaned. “Mini, you’re killing me. Don’t you ever watch old movies?” She shook her head and pointed ahead. “Which way should we go? Why don’t they have signs that say Weapons of Mass Celestial Destruction, and then Everything Else Is Actually a Trap? That would be helpful.”

Mini laughed. “What if we went with dare?”

“Why?”

“Because it’s like…we’re daring to save Time?”

“Are we, though? Or are we just panicking around and trying to save what we like?”

And the people we love, thought Aru with a pang.

“That doesn’t sound very heroic…” said Mini.

“What about disturb?” asked Aru. “Like, we’re disturbing the natural order of things?”

“I don’t think that’s right,” said Mini. “That makes it seem like we’re doing something wrong, and we’re not.”

“Fine. What does deign mean?”

“I’ll look it up,” said Mini, and she dug in her backpack.

Aru thought she was going to use her compact, but instead she brought out a Merriam-Webster Pocket Dictionary.

“Seriously?” asked Aru. “Of all the things you thought to pack on a quest, you brought a pocket dictionary?”

“So what? I like being prepared,” said Mini. “What did you pack?”

“I didn’t pack anything,” said Aru. “Who has time to pack when you’re told the world is going to end—”

Mini shushed her. “‘Deign,’” she said. “It means ‘to do something that one considers beneath one’s dignity.’”

“None of those options makes sense,” said Aru. “What if we just try walking in a different direction? Like in between the signs?”

So they tried. But their feet met a wall of air. Something prevented them from taking a single step that was not in a specific direction. The only place they couldn’t access was DEIGN, because the sign pointed up, and there weren’t stairs or anything.

“Chitrigupta could have told us which way to go,” grumbled Aru. “We’re practically family. He said so himself.”

“But then we wouldn’t—”

“Yes, I know. Character-building blah-blah, and the world wouldn’t be saved. That’s way too much pressure. Are our brains even fully developed? We shouldn’t be allowed to make these decisions—”

“Aru! That’s it!” said Mini.

“Okay, now I’m worried. None of what I said was good.”

“We’re not smart enough,” said Mini.

“Yay?”

“But we can change that,” she said.

Out of her backpack, she pulled out the box of wisdom cookies.

“Book cookies?” asked Aru, grimacing. “All right, fine. Gimme.”

Mini looked inside the box, then checked her backpack again. “There’s only one in here.”

The girls stared at each other for a moment. Mini’s fingers reflexively curled over the cookie. Aru could tell how much it meant to her friend.

“It’s yours,” said Aru. “You’ve got the same soul as Yudhistira, and he was always known for being the wisest of all the brothers. That cookie has your name all over it. Plus, I don’t need more wisdom. I’d explode.”

Mini flushed. “Thanks, Aru.”

“How long does the wisdom last?”

“I think only for the duration of the decision making,” said Mini.

“How do you know that?”

“Because it says so on the back of the box.”

Sure enough, the duration of the wisdom cookies was listed alongside the nutritional facts.

“Ooh!” said Mini. “It has my entire daily serving of potassium and zinc!”

“Hooray.”

Mini took a bite of the cookie.

“What’s it taste like?” asked Aru.

“Kinda smoky? And cold. Like snow. I think it’s supposed to taste like my favorite book.”

“What’s your favorite book?”

Mini bit into the second half of the cookie. “The Golden Compass.”

“Never read it.”

“Really?” asked Mini, shocked. “I’ll loan you my copy when we get home.”

Home. A home that was full of books Aru had never cracked open because her mother always read to her. Aru had trouble remembering things she read herself, but if she heard something, she’d never forget it. Maybe that’s why her mom had told her so many stories. Her mom might have left her in the dark about being a Pandava, but at least hearing the stories about them had prepared Aru somewhat. Mom, thought Aru, I promise I’ll thank you as soon as I get home.

“Oh no,” said Mini.

“What? What is it?”

Mini held up her palm to show the symbol there:

“Another doomsday squiggle?” asked Aru. “Okay, well, it looks like a two, which would be really bad news, but maybe it means four?”

“It means two.”

“Noooooooo! Betrayal!”

Only two days left? And the entirety of the Kingdom of Death left unexplored?

Mini ate the rest of the wisdom cookie.

“Feel any wiser?” asked Aru anxiously.

“No?”

“What about warmer? Or bloated? Like you’re full of hot air?”

But Mini wasn’t paying attention. She was staring at the three signs.

“Deign,” she whispered. “That’s the answer.”

“Why?”

“It’s kinda like a riddle,” said Mini. “The word deign means to look down on. The arrow pointing up is a trap, because the whole point is that we have to look at what’s beneath us. It’s like when you have to make a choice you don’t want to make and you feel like you’re reluctant to do it.”

“Whoa,” said Aru. “You got all that from a cookie? Sure there isn’t any left?”

She grabbed the box from Mini and shook it. Nope. Not even a crumb. Mini stuck out her tongue.

At the edge of the DEIGN sign, a hole formed in the marble floor.

“Why is it only opening now?” asked Aru.

“Probably because we’re looking down and not up?”

Both girls peered down the hole. Something glittered far below. A strange fragrance wafted up. It smelled uncannily like Aru’s apartment in the museum: musty fabric, chai, lavender candles, and old books.

Mini frowned. “Let’s go in alphabetically,” she said.

“No way! My name starts with A. It’s your kingdom, sorta; you go first—”

“I’m the one who made sure we could get even this far.”

“Only because I let you eat the cookie!”

“Chitrigupta gave it to me—”

Aru took a deep breath and settled this the only fair and logical way she could imagine.

“NOSE GOES!” she screamed, smacking her face.

Mini, who must have anticipated Aru being sneaky, immediately smacked her face, too. Except she moved so fast that her glasses flew off her head and fell. Down the hole.

“Ughhhhh,” said Mini. “You’re the worst, Aru.”

And with that, she jumped in after them.