But when he pushes it toward me, I still don’t take it, so he rolls it up and puts it into my bag. I stay stubbornly silent but leave it there.
“I don’t know if you want it, but I brought you this.” He holds out the penknife his papa gave him for his last birthday. “It’ll come in handy, and you’ll need it more than me, and I sharpened some sticks for you, just in case you need weapons.”
I reluctantly take his offerings, but my furious disappointment glows like a burning coal at the back of my throat and all I can do is shrug like I don’t care anymore.
His face is rigid, as though he’s trying hard to keep his feelings from spilling out. “I put a blanket in the cart to make it softer … I’ll be back in an hour or so and I’ll make sure you get away once we’re in Sonahaar. You’ll do it, Asha; you’re strong. Remember it’s written in your lines.”
He leaves me alone, surrounded by the vast night sky. Part of me wants to follow him, run home as fast as I can, wake Ma up and tell her how much I love her. I only wish he’d turn back, call and tell me he’s changed his mind, but he’s gone and I only hear the chilly mountain wind whistling down the valley.
The village houses down in the hollow cling to each other in the ash-gray light, shadowy ghostlike figures shrouded in the heavy mist.
I’m not sure I believe any of Chitragupta’s predictions now … it’s just me, no one else.
My insides are jangling with nerves, but I’m doing what Ma told me to, working things out for myself, making my own decisions. I grasp my pendant and sense its energy and rhythm releasing an invisible force, as if I’m reaching back across time, touching ancient spirits.
I find my words again at last and they fly from the embers, like a phoenix rising, filled with renewed strength.
I shake my hair free and feel the icy breeze blowing it back. “I’m Asha, with the mountain-green eyes,” I howl. “I’ll ride like the fearless warrior goddess Durga on the back of an amber-striped tiger, shooting flame-hot arrows, unleashing my anger against injustice. I will bring my papa home.”
The cart tips forward, the reins flick, and we begin moving. My insides churn like milk turning to butter.
I lift the cover an inch and peer out at sleepy Moormanali one final time from between the layers of cotton plants. Everything is the same as always, except that I’m leaving now, just like Papa did all those months ago when I buried my face into his jacket that smelled of all the smoky fires we’d ever built on the mountainside and begged him to hurry home.
The moon and the stars shine above me, just like they did for him, hopeful beacons, sending their blessings for the first day of my journey. I can’t tear my eyes away from the fields of sugarcane cloaked in the secret light of earliest morning. I watch until my village gradually becomes a tiny distant hill, embroidered with everything I’ve ever known and loved.
The cart rattles on until I lose all sense of how long we’ve been on the road, but I’m sure Ma will have found my first note by now, telling her I’ve gone to pray for us all at the temple. This will please her, but later when she goes to light the deeva and finds the second note, she’ll know I’ve lied, and I push the image away.
The cart suddenly jolts forward and I have to stop myself from calling out as my head crashes against the side. The revving motors and beeping horns outside drill into my brain.
I hear feet hit the ground and then a burst of raucous voices. Twisting onto my front, I shuffle toward the corner, ease up a little section of the cloth, and look out.
We’re parked in front of a dhabba stall, like the one we all went to for Ma’s birthday a long time ago, and the stallholder is pouring rice batter onto a massive tava, getting ready to make crispy dhosay for breakfast. The spicy potato filling that he’s scooping up to stuff onto round, flat pancakes sends grumbles through my stomach, particularly as I spy Jeevan tucking into a huge one.
Just when I start to wish I’d given him another thump last night, I see a long paper straw being pushed beneath a corner of the cover. I grasp it with my fingers and yank it toward my mouth; fresh coconut milk! It slips down my parched throat.
For the first time since Jeevan let me down, I feel the ice around my heart thaw a little toward him, but in the next beat I remember his broken promises and the fury returns.
Once we’re in Sonahaar I’ll have to fend for myself, against anything that comes my way, and the thought makes my anger flare again.
I barely have time to squeeze back under the covers before we start to move again, the bullocks’ hooves clattering along the cobbles toward the market, the bitter smell of gas fumes leaking through the covers, catching the back of my throat. We’re getting closer.
We stop suddenly and I hear a thud as Jeevan and his papa jump onto the ground. There’s a rustling and the sacking opens, flooding light into the cart. I sink back as far into the cotton as I can, making myself small, fear winding itself around me, anchoring me to the spot.
“You take them a bit of cotton, Papa, then I’ll carry the rest over if they want it. I can manage.”
It’s only Jeevan … I let out my breath at last and settle back amid the itchy cotton, listening to
