The Tale of Shukra

It was said that, when I was born, the sun was so revolted it went into hiding for a full month. Scars riddled my skin. My smile was gruesome. But though I was ugly, I was a good king. Beloved, even. What I could not perfect in my body, I tried to perfect in my mind.

For many years, I was ashamed to show myself to my subjects. I chose to rule from the shadows. But I could not wed in darkness. When my bride first looked upon me, her smile never wavered. She held her palm to my cheek and said, “Our love is what will make us beautiful.”

And so it did.

The changes in my appearance were small. So small that at first I did not recognize them, for I was not used to gazing at myself in the mirror.

Four years passed, and by then her love had made me more handsome. And my wife? She was resplendent. The moon stayed out longer just to gaze upon her. The sun lingered to witness her grace. I no longer had the kind of ugly face that incited horror or pity, but now I was made unremarkable by my passing good looks.

I wanted more. I started noting the changes in my appearance each day. My wife assured me that, as our love grew, so would our beauty. For her, beauty went hand in hand with joy.

I grew impatient.

I installed mirrors everywhere, even in the floors. I made checklists by which I might daily appraise my altering visage. I was continually discarding my clothes and trying new outfits. I neglected my people.

I began to shun my wife. Every time I saw her, I was filled with fury. Why should she grow more beautiful than I? She, who had so much beauty to begin with.

One day I confronted her. “Do you still love me?” I asked.

She did not meet my gaze. “How can I love someone I no longer know? You have changed, my king. I would have loved you until Time itself had ended. Perhaps I still could, if you would only—”

But I did not hear beyond her first words.

I do not remember doing what I did.

It was only when the red had cleared from my eyes that I saw her corpse. I tried to tear at my skin. To burn every trace of her love—my ill-gotten beauty—from my body. But it was too late. I could not escape her love, so freely given, even in her final moments.

I smashed every mirror. Broke every window. Drained every pond.

And yet I could not escape the truth of what I had been given, and what I had lost.

*  *  *

When Shukra finished speaking, tears ran down his cheeks.

“Now I live surrounded by the memory of my mistakes,” he said, gesturing at the mirrors that accompanied him. “Without these, the snow would steal my memories, as it does for all who visit here.”

“I’m sorry,” said Mini softly.

Aru said nothing. Part of her did pity him, but the other part was disgusted. He’d killed someone who loved him, someone who had given him a special gift. He was selfish.

Shukra brought his hands closer together. “It is time for you to make your choice. Should you not succeed in crossing the bridge, you will fall into one of the fires of hell and be forced into the next life.”

“You mean…we’ll die?” asked Mini.

“Oh yes,” said Shukra, waving his hand as if Mini had asked something as casual as Do you have chocolate ice cream?

“How do we succeed?” asked Aru.

“To cross the Bridge of Forgetting, you must pay the toll.”

“And that is…?” asked Aru.

“You must sacrifice a part of yourself: your memories. Give them to me and leave lighter. As you can see, only the outline of the bridge is visible. Your memories are needed to form the rest of the bridge.”

“Our memories?” repeated Mini. “Why would you want that?”

“So I will not be alone.”

“All of them?” asked Mini. “Can I just give you all the bad ones? Last week, my backpack strap got caught in an escalator and—”

“All of them,” interrupted Shukra.

“Why do you even bother staying here?” asked Aru. “Why not just go on to the next life? You could be free of all—”

“Free?” Shukra laughed. “Where is the freedom, little ones, in moving on to the next life?” he asked. “Do you not know that these things chase you past the doors of death? The ills of one life will affect you in the next.”

There it was. Karma. That idea Aru just couldn’t wrap her head around. What goes around comes around and all that maybe-nonsense. Aru thought it seemed like a scaredy-cat thing to do: decide not to move on just because it was bound to be hard. To her it didn’t make much sense for him to stay here. All alone forever.

She stood up. Mini had a more difficult time. Her chair seemed to have grown fond of her and kept trying to twine around her legs.

“Do we get our memories back once we cross the bridge?” asked Aru.

“No.”

Aru’s hands formed twin fists at her side. “Then you’re not getting any memories from me.”

“Or—Ouch, get off!” said Mini, finally freeing herself from the chair. It made a soft whining sound. “Me neither!”

“That is a pity,” said Shukra. “For you could have always made new ones.”

He glanced at each of the mirrors that pressed close to him. They weren’t supposed to remind him of beauty at all, realized Aru. They were supposed to remind him of pain. Loss. And he had no choice but to see it every single day.

“If you insist, I will let you die. Go ahead and try to cross,” he said. “You will fail.”

They scooted past Shukra and were soon standing at the edge of the cliff. They could still see the outline of the bridge ahead, but a foot away from their feet there was nothing but a steep drop. No platform, no step, no anything. Was the bridge invisible? Was it even solid?

“The bridge will build itself,” said Shukra. He hadn’t moved from his spot. “The question is, can you cross it quickly enough? Judging by your ages, I doubt you’ll make it farther than a few steps. You have had fewer memories than most.”

The memory-stealing snow—which had been suspended in the air—began to fall again. This time, when the snow landed on Aru, it stung. Because it was taking. With every flake, another memory was ripped from her.

There! Gone in a flash, the memory of her eighth birthday, when her mother…her mother did something.

Something she could no longer recall.

“I offered you help,” said Shukra. “A life of weightlessness, free of pain. But you rejected my proposition.”

The bridge was slowly cobbled together with the girls’ stolen memories. Aru lost the taste of chocolate. It was one of her most favorite things in the world, and yet she couldn’t for the life of her remember how it tasted, or even how you spelled…spelled what? What had she been thinking about?

Beside her, Mini was tugging at her hair. “Stop this!” she cried.

Aru reached for the golden ball. But why she did, she wasn’t sure. It’s not as if it had ever done much more than glow. It wasn’t like Mini’s compact that could see through illusions or make some of its own. And now she couldn’t even remember where she’d gotten the ball in the first place.

“You cannot escape pain in life,” said Shukra. “For that I am sorry. I wanted to grant you a different ending, to let you leave without pain.”

The snowfall grew faster and heavier. Aru could barely see through it. She turned to look at Shukra and she noticed something. The snow was landing everywhere except on him.

Her eyes narrowed. Something about Shukra’s mirrors must be protecting him.

At that moment, a snowflake stamped her arm. Once, Atlanta had gotten two inches of snow, so, naturally, the city had gone into a panic and shut down. Her mother’s flight out had been cancelled, and they’d spent the whole day inside, snuggled together on the couch. They’d eaten ramen while watching a Bollywood film where everyone got fake-slapped at least once, and—

The beloved memory vanished.

Aru could feel the hole it left behind in her heart. And even though she couldn’t remember it now, she wanted to weep. Those memories were everything. They were what she held close when she had to spend a night without her mother at home. They were what she returned to whenever she was scared.

She couldn’t lose them.

She needed to loosen Shukra’s control of the memory-stealing snow….

“The snow is hungry,” said Shukra. “It will feed.”

He turned his back to them, walking farther and farther away, as if he couldn’t bear to see what would happen next.

But Aru had a plan—

Mini grabbed her around the wrist. “No, Aru.” Her eyes were wide, and Aru knew that Mini had guessed what she was going to do. “There has to be some other way.”

“If we don’t break his mirrors, we won’t remember anything, Mini.”

“It’s not right! He has those mirrors because he feels bad—”

“He killed his wife. Why should I feel sorry for him?”

“Aru, he’s…he’s in pain. If we take from him, then we’re no better—”

“Fine. I’ll take from him, so that we can survive.”

Aru didn’t wait for Mini to answer. She had to act now.

Around her neck, the gray pendant from Monsoon was cold and wet. Even as she reached for it, she remembered Monsoon’s words.

But be warned: regret will always follow. It is the price of aiming true. For sometimes, when we take the deadliest aim, we are nothing if not reckless.

Aru didn’t hesitate. She threw. Mini turned away as if she couldn’t witness this.

The stone struck the mirror in front of Shukra’s chest. He shuddered, clutching his heart. “Irsa?” he called. He stumbled forward, clawing at the air as if he’d suddenly gone blind.

The pendant bounced, shattering the mirror above him. Then it broke the third and the fourth.

Shukra fell to his knees. The snow seemed to notice him then. It stopped falling on Aru and Mini, perhaps drawn by how much more potent his memories were.

“No!” he screamed. “Please! They are all I have left of her!”

But the snow showed no mercy. Aru couldn’t watch.

“The bridge…” said Mini softly.

When Aru turned around, she saw that the bridge was being built, more quickly now. Each moment stolen from Shukra’s life was fashioning a sturdy step over the ravine.

Aru and Mini leaped across it, Shukra’s screams and cries chasing them all the way. No snow followed them. When they reached the other side, Aru turned to see Shukra looking lost. Snow frosted his skin.

“You are merely a child, and children are sometimes the cruelest of all. You have taken everything from me. For that, I curse you, daughter of Indra,” said Shukra. He held out his hand. “My curse is that, in the moment when it matters most, you, too, shall forget.”

With that, Shukra disappeared. Where he had once stood, now there were just two footprints gradually filling with snow.