We Shall Be Monsters, page 5
“Dead girls don’t come back to life every day,” the boy answered.
“I wasn’t dead. Siphar’s medicine woman was wrong.”
“Uh-huh. But your sister is dead. The bhuta is her, isn’t it?”
Kajal pressed her lips together.
“We overheard the town watch,” the girl said. “They’re going to give you an ordeal in the morning.”
That didn’t sound so bad. She had survived ordeals before. She could do it again.
“An ordeal of poison,” the boy added.
Never mind. No one survived an ordeal of poison; even walking weaponless into a battlefield seemed less of a risk.
Seeing the panic on her face, the girl sighed. “We might be able to help, but you have to be honest. Is the bhuta your sister? Did you manipulate her into killing those two?”
“Why should I be honest with you? I have no idea who you are or what you want.”
Both of them smiled then, eerie in the torchlight.
“Because if we like your answer, we’ll get you out of here,” the girl said.
Kajal took another look at the two standing before her, attempting to suss out the lie.
“I’m Sezal,” the girl said. She nudged the boy’s side until he muttered, “Vivaan.”
“I don’t care about your names. I care about your motivation.”
“Answer our questions, and we’ll tell you more.”
Kajal breathed out sharply. “Yes, the bhuta is my sister.” Her fingertips twitched at the admission, unable to take it back. “But I didn’t make her kill them. Not intentionally. She…” Another icy draft blew on the nape of her neck. “The bhuta formed sooner than it was supposed to.”
“And somehow followed you here,” Vivaan finished. “Were the six miners also because of your sister?”
Kajal curled her hands into fists. “No. That was just a cave-in. That was how Lasya…How she…”
Vivaan gave a short hum, as if he found the subject of her sister’s demise trivial. He and Sezal shared a silent conversation until Sezal dipped her chin.
“We’ll get you out of Kinara,” Vivaan said at last. “But in return, you’ll have to do something for us.”
Kajal had learned from an early age that nothing was free—unless it was stolen. She leaned against the bars and crossed her arms, pretending at nonchalance. “Go on.”
“Sezal and I have been hired by group of concerned citizens who want to do something about the current state of Dharati.”
This, she was not expecting. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means,” Vivaan said darkly. “The Usurper.”
When the warlord Anu Bakshi had made a campaign across Dharati, he’d amassed jaded and incensed citizens into his army before storming the capital—notably those from the wealthier districts who had opposed the then-king’s mandates to cease the hunting and killing of rakshasas. Bakshi had killed the king, and when the royal battalion marched against his army, the crown prince had also been slaughtered.
Or at least, that’s what Kajal had been told when she was young. She had been born and raised under Anu Bakshi’s rule and didn’t have a proper comparison to what their country had been like before. All she had to go on were the mutterings of the farmhands, or news broadsheets in the more affluent towns she passed through, which painted Bakshi as some sort of savior. Ironic, considering there were more rakshasas now than ever.
“So you’re rebels,” she guessed. “You want to depose Bakshi?”
Vivaan quickly looked to the door while Sezal grinned. “That’s the heart of it,” she agreed.
“Why?”
“Why?” Vivaan whirled back to her, thick eyebrows lowered. “Have you not been paying attention? The yaksha deities have run out of patience. They’re furious at all the blood Bakshi’s spilled on their soil. It’s poisoned our land.”
“You think he’s responsible for the blight?”
“Bakshi is the blight. This imbalance started with him and will end when he’s no longer on the throne.”
Kajal stared at the twisting shadows on the wall as she thought it over. It was not exactly a secret that Bakshi was corrupt, but it felt so far away from her, inconsequential.
“What do you want me to do about it?” she asked at last.
Another silent conversation passed between Vivaan and Sezal. Vivaan then reached inside his shirt. What he pulled out made Kajal’s eye twitch.
Sometimes I hate being right.
“Judging from the dog the town watch is trying to catch and what we’ve read here,” he said, waving her battered notebook around, “you’ve had some success with your experiments.”
She ran her tongue over her teeth; her mouth was so dry. “I’ve never seen that before in my life.”
“Oh?” Vivaan flipped through the notebook, turning stained pages crowded with her uneven handwriting. “There’s plenty of notes about bhutas. And…” He pointed at one of her doodles. “What’s this supposed to be? Excrement?”
“That’s Raja Hiss,” she muttered in affront.
Vivaan smirked. “What we found most interesting are your theories about resurrection.”
“You’ve done it, haven’t you?” Sezal whispered. “You brought that dog back to life.”
Kajal should have been horrified, unnerved, panicked. If the Vadhia were to find her with that notebook, she’d be executed on the spot. But brighter than her panic was a flash of unfamiliar flattery; Kajal was pleased that someone had finally acknowledged her work.
“We have a contact at the Ayurvedic University in Suraj,” Sezal went on. “If you agree to help us, we’ll take you there. You’ll have access to whatever resources you need to continue your experiments.”
Ayurveda was an ancient practice, the knowledge passed down from mothers and fathers to their children and then their grandchildren, from one town’s physician to the next. There were also the Ayurvedic universities—one in Suraj, one in Malhir—where scholars learned to apply that knowledge for modern use. But much like with the Usurper King, the idea of them had always been distant, impossible for someone like her.
“Why would I agree to help your mission if I don’t know what it is?” Kajal countered. The rebels obviously wanted her to resurrect someone, but she needed to hear it in their own words.
This time it was Sezal’s eyes that darted to the door. “We shouldn’t explain it here. Don’t know who might be listening.”
Kajal could smell the lie. “Then no deal.”
Vivaan scoffed. “Fine.” He dangled the notebook from his fingers. “Then I guess we’ll give this over to the Vadhia who’ve been trailing you.”
The entire cell seemed to contain Kajal’s heartbeat, frantic and wild, pressing in on all sides. “What?”
“We’re not the only ones who heard about the mishap in Siphar,” Vivaan said. “You’re lucky we tracked you down before they did. They’d be more than interested in what you’ve been up to.”
In her mind echoed the memory of a woman’s screams as the Vadhia rubbed chilis into her eyes, binding them with cloth to protect against the evil eye. Stirring up suspicion around the woman’s singing and suggesting she was casting spells with her voice.
Whispering in villagers’ ears that Dharati was being devoured by blight for a reason. That cutting off that beguiling voice with a noose would fix it.
Whatever Sezal saw in Kajal’s expression made her put a placating hand on Vivaan’s arm. “We’ll make the deal sweeter. You’re planning to revive your sister, aren’t you? After you make good on your part of the bargain, we’ll bring your sister’s body to the university.”
One of the reasons Kajal had stayed this long in Kinara was her unwillingness to travel alone. Following the belief that dakinis lured travelers off roads to eat their flesh, the Vadhia had shown no restraint in interrogating women who journeyed on their own. On the trek from Siphar to Kinara, more than one tree she’d passed had been decorated with swaying upside-down bodies, their eyes bound and their throats slit, blood nourishing the ground below like an offering.
Kajal touched her throat. If she agreed to this, not only would she have resources supplied to her for free, but she could avoid wandering through blighted Vadhia-infested lands to retrieve Lasya.
It was a gamble. A dog was one thing; humans, another. Considering that Kutaa—as beautiful and perfect as he was—didn’t have the ability to eat, it would be beneficial to practice on a person before attempting to bring back Lasya. And if she fulfilled the rebels’ wish, the only condition on which her freedom depended, then she could finish what she had started.
The bhuta would be gone. She would be reunited with her sister.
Everything could return to how it used to be.
Kutaa howled outside the jail. Kajal rolled her shoulders back, settling into the idea, glimpsing the first move of a new game where she would inevitably end up the winner.
Meeting the rebels’ gazes, she grinned.
“On one condition,” she said. “The dog comes with me.”
Chapter Six
Early the next morning, she was given her last meal.
It was the same thing she’d made for herself at the boardinghouse: a simple cracked wheat porridge. Scooping it up with her fingers and shoving the mush into her mouth, she tried not to focus on the blandness or the texture, tried to appreciate that they had given her anything at all.
She would need all her energy if she was going to get out of this alive.
Kajal shut her eyes and thought wistfully of her sister’s rice porridge, the kind she would make on chilly mornings. Lasya would add as much jaggery as she was willing to part with from her traveling spice box, made from palm sap and coveted like gold.
Her sister had always been so protective of her spices and herbs. One time, Kajal had taken a dash too much asafoetida to use in an experiment, and Lasya had been drawn to tears.
“These herbs are important!” Lasya had admonished. “They have to be in the right quantity to work with our specific constitutions. What if I run out? I don’t want you getting sick, behan.” While Lasya keenly followed the practice of Ayurveda when it came to preparing food, Kajal followed the practice as it applied to the human physique, learning about the tissues and channels of the body.
Kajal had rolled her eyes. “I’m not so weak that I’d keel over from an asafoetida deficiency.”
Lasya pinched her hard in reply, spurring Kajal to take even more asafoetida in retribution, despite already having enough for her experiment.
For two miserable days, Lasya had given her the silent treatment. But, like they always did, they’d apologized and moved on. Forgiving each other had been easy, and a necessity; after all, they had no one else in this world save each other. Even death couldn’t stop her sister from finding ways to stay by her side.
Kajal swallowed the sticky memory with difficulty. Lasya had believed in her, had indulged her boastfulness, and in the end, that very boastfulness had ruined everything.
“Lasya?” she whispered, ignoring the way her voice trembled. “Are you…there?”
Will you be able to forgive me this time?
There was no answer. She was still listening futilely when the town watch returned to collect her.
Her eyes watered when she stepped into the hazy sunshine, but after a minute of walking, they cleared enough that she could make out the shrine ahead. It was nearly the size of a building, carved from stone upon a plinth and washed red in the light of dawn. Three tall, pitted figures were distinguishable despite the years and the elements wearing them down: the Serpent, with its wings; the Elephant, with its crown of briar and bone; the Tortoise, with a banyan tree sprouting from its shell. The three yaksha deities, who’d made their home in the heavenly realm of Svarga after blessing the bedrock of Dharati.
The townsfolk had already gathered to witness her ordeal. Fear was as bright as a flesh-eating fire as they wept and pleaded and prostrated themselves before the shrine, begging for the yakshas to free them of blight and curses. Women had brought offerings of flowers, bowls of milk, and waxy red pomegranates heaped like a pile of misshapen hearts.
Kajal was forced to stand under the statues’ blank stares, the town watch on either side. A couple hunters held bows with loosely nocked arrows, ready to release at her slightest misbehavior. A bit overkill, in her opinion.
Then again, they suspected her of witchery. She supposed she should consider herself lucky that this was the extent of it so far.
The townspeople backed away at her appearance. Gurveer Bibi’s remaining sons glared at her with a loathing so intense it could have shunted her straight into the ground.
Vivaan and Sezal hadn’t told her the details of their plan, only that they would come for her once she’d been taken from the jail, since the town watch had been posted to guard it all night. She searched the crowd, but there was no sign of them. She could hear Kutaa’s muffled whines, though; someone must have finally captured him.
There was a thought nagging at her, but she wasn’t sure what it was until she took a deep breath and realized: There was no smoke coming from the cremation grounds. They hadn’t burned Gurveer Bibi’s or Gurdeep’s bodies.
Strange. What were they waiting for?
“No priests have wandered through here in a while,” a farmhand was muttering. “No offerings have been given.”
“We should have tended the land better.”
“There’s no fixing this,” a woman proclaimed. “Everywhere the blight touches is ruined beyond repair. Just look at the Harama Plain.”
At the name, many in the crowd shuddered and touched the centers of their foreheads before flicking their fingers, a warding sign to open their third eye against evil. The Harama Plain was the no-man’s-land in the center of Dharati, where bhutas of soldiers felled by Bakshi prowled. Some thought it might be where the blight originated. But, unable to investigate the area without being torn to shreds, no one could definitively prove it.
A middle-aged woman with silver in her hair stepped forward.
“There is a way to fix this,” she said, her voice commanding attention. “When we travel to the city, we hear tales of the blight. Of patches of land that are sick and withering because the yakshas have withdrawn their blessing.”
She gestured up at the shrine. Several people fell to their knees and prostrated themselves again, as if that would do anything other than dirty their trousers.
“It’s because we’ve allowed the rakshasas and their minions to have their way,” the silver-haired woman went on. “The blight lets them breed, then spread their influence into our own communities!”
“I already told you that’s nonsense,” Kajal muttered as the crowd gasped, and the guard next to her shoved her to be quiet. Again, she cast her gaze around for Vivaan and Sezal. Had they been hit with second thoughts and left without her? Had they decided the bhuta was too much of a threat?
“We have no yaksha deities to fall back on, no divinely appointed asura and deva to aid us,” the woman said. “The only way to remove this demonic energy is to cull those who strengthen it.” She gave Kajal a pointed look. “Only then can balance be restored to our land.”
Kajal swayed on her feet at the words, so similar to what the Vadhia had said before they’d hanged the singing woman. The same words they’d been spreading throughout Dharati for months.
These people wanted an easy solution to the challenges they faced that were beyond their control. They were terrified, and Kajal was their scapegoat.
You could show them true terror.
The eyes of the yaksha deity statues were heavy upon her, like a hand laid on the crown of her head. But this watchfulness wasn’t coming from pitted stone—it was coming from the bhuta, a prickly sensation at the edge of her awareness. White fluttered in the corner of her eye, and she flinched before realizing it was just someone’s dupatta stirred by the wind.
The silver-haired woman approached Kajal with a small jar in her hand, its glass a cheap, cloudy green.
“Irya, you’ve been found suspect in the deaths of two of our people, as well as in the presence of blight in our fields,” the woman intoned. “You’re believed to be a witch who placed curses on this town. Are you innocent, or guilty?”
These speeches varied from town to town, but Kajal knew the gist of what they wanted to hear. “I’m innocent, because I didn’t kill them,” she said. It wasn’t not the truth. “And I have nothing to do with the blight. Or curses. Which, if you recall I mentioned before, aren’t real—”
“She lies,” hissed the man on her right. “There was a blighted animal in the woodland. She brought it here the same day that mongrel showed up!”
A murmur ran through the crowd. Gurveer Bibi’s sons scowled harder, if possible.
“Amma’s and Gurdeep’s bodies are missing,” the larger of the two growled. “She must have ordered that beast of hers to feast on them!”
Missing? Kajal frowned, and the crowd grew even rowdier, jeering at her and warding off the evil eye.
“The ordeal of poison will reveal if you truly are innocent,” the silver-haired woman continued. “If you live, you will leave Kinara with your life. If you die, it’ll be a punishment fitting for your crimes.”
“I had to piss on straw last night,” Kajal said. “Surely that’s punishment enough.”
A startled laugh from the crowd was immediately hushed.
Without another word, the woman passed her the jar. The glass was cool against her skin, her fingertips finding small imperfections in its bubbles and folds. Kajal loosened her grip in the hopes it would fall and shatter. But the woman cupped her hands around Kajal’s, digging between tendons as she pushed the jar toward Kajal’s mouth.
She should have conditioned herself to resist poisons. She should have ingested small amounts of madar and datura every morning, sprinkled an arandi seed or two on her tasteless porridge.
