Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes, page 11
“Aren’t you going to agree we look awesome?” she blurted out, lifting her chin.
On one level, Aiden’s opinion didn’t matter. Aru thought she looked awesome and her sisters thought the same, and that was enough. But another part of her wanted him to notice that she wasn’t just some kid scuttling around with a lightning bolt and making Sméagol sounds. That she was a demigod and looked the part.
“You look…” he started to say, before suddenly glancing away.
Aru leaned forward, her skin prickling, but she knew it wasn’t Vajra this time.
“Yeah?”
“Fine,” said Aiden flatly.
Fine. Something behind Aru’s chest sagged a little with hurt, but she shrugged it off. Well, okay, then, she thought, and marshaled everyone to the door.
“Time to make like a tree and—”
“Oh, Aru, please don’t,” groaned Mini.
“I can’t take it,” said Brynne with a sigh.
“LEAVE!” Aru cackled.
Using her ability to conjure exact coordinates, Brynne led them to a busy crosswalk. Around them, bright-yellow taxis honked and scooted their way down the streets. Tall trees swayed beside glossy, luxurious storefronts showing mannequins draped in jewels and silks and lots of other stuff Aru couldn’t imagine actually wearing because it looked super itchy. Across the street lay the alley they were looking for, only it was blocked by a hot dog stand whose owner was fast asleep.
Brynne rubbed her stomach and sniffed the air hungrily. “I could really go for a hot dog.”
“How can you be hungry when we just ate breakfast?” asked Mini.
“I’m a growing girl,” said Brynne daintily.
Aiden rummaged through his camera bag and tossed Brynne a protein bar.
“Woot!” She grinned. “Thanks, Ammamma.”
Rudy looked deeply horrified. “Hot dogs?” asked Rudy. “That’s messed up.”
“They’re not actual dogs,” said Brynne.
“Oh, so they’re like mutant chimera creatures that you just call dogs,” said Rudy, nodding as if this were completely sensible.
“No,” said Brynne.
“Now I’m confused,” said Rudy, shaking his head.
They ventured into the alley, which was crammed with trash and (at least) two dead rats. Aru wasn’t usually squeamish, but hello? Her new yellow pants had not been made for this.
“This is the entrance to the super-fabulous House of Months?” asked Aru.
“Trust me,” said Rudy.
Mini turned to face the opening of the alley. The hot dog owner was still asleep. A couple of people walked by toting their small dogs in huge purses or staring down at their phones.
“Adrishya,” said Mini.
She swiped Dee Dee through the air as if she were drawing a curtain, and a veil of violet light shimmered down between them and the street. When Aru looked through the force field, it was like glimpsing the city beneath water. The images wavered and seemed far away—even the sound had dulled.
Rudy slowly rolled up his sleeves. Aru noticed, for the first time, a pattern of scales around his left wrist. He waved his hand in a complicated gesture.
“I, Prince Rudra of Naga-Loka and frequent visitor to the House of Months”—he mumbled something under his breath that sounded a lot like with my mom—“hereby request passage to see the guardian of a day.”
Guardian of a day sounded pretty epic. Yesterday, Rudy had told them that the being who allowed or denied visits to the House of Months was the embodiment of a particular day, though not necessarily the current date. This struck Aru as rather strange. What would a day guardian even look like? Would Friday the thirteenth of October be really creepy? And what about National Cat Day?
Suddenly, the air right in front of Rudy shimmered and rippled.
A large silver door materialized before him. It was engraved with the words FEBRUARY 3 and the notation: THE DAY UPON WHICH RESENTMENT OF THE NEW YEAR SETS IN, AND ALL THOUGHTS OF PERSONAL IMPROVEMENT SLOWLY LEACH FROM ONE’S BRAIN.
Well, thought Aru, that’s cheerful.
In the center of the door appeared a gigantic knocker in the shape of a lion, his mouth pulled back in a gruesome snarl. From his teeth hung a slender iron ring that Rudy lifted and dropped with a bang. At his knock, the lion blinked awake. He worked his jaw back and forth and then spat out the iron circle with a decisive Plah! The circle clattered to the ground, and the lion smacked his lips and glared at them with bleary silver eyes.
“Infants summoned me?” huffed the door lion, before shutting his eyes. “You’re not our clientele. Please go.”
“Excuse me, but I’m a prince,” said Rudy.
The door lion cracked open one eye. “What a novelty.”
“I demand that you let me and my entourage in.”
“I demand meh, meh, meh,” mocked the lion. “No! Now go away!”
“All righty, let’s have some words,” said Brynne, and she pushed up the sleeves of her jacket.
“Ooh, a threat!” said the lion. “What are you going to do, jamb me? Attempt to make me board out of my mind so I let you through? Let me remind you that your entry hinges on my decision.”
Brynne shouldered past Rudy, her hand going to the blue choker at her neck that could immediately turn into her wind mace. Aru grabbed her arm and sent a mind message: If our cover is blown, so is this mission.
Brynne grumbled, but she held still.
The door lion gloated. “See? You can’t get a handle on me.”
Aru was about to steamroll into the door when something happened….
Mini giggled, a smile breaking over her face.
The lion paused, his silver eyes going wide. If he could have tilted its head curiously to the side, he probably would have.
“I made you laugh,” said the knocker, astonished.
Mini looked at her companions somewhat guiltily. “What? It was funny.”
“I’m funny?” echoed the lion. He looked off to the side, as if scanning through all his past interactions. “Nobody’s ever said that to me before. It’s always Open up! Or Shut up! Do you know someone once used my snout as a coat hanger? A coat hanger!”
Aiden crossed his arms, his hand on his camera. “Was it a nice coat, at least?”
The lion considered this. “It was fine, I suppose.”
If this door didn’t like them, Aru realized, they’d never get to the Crypt of Eclipses. An idea came together in her head.
“Wait a minute,” she said loudly. “You’re the door lion of February third?” She took a step back, as if rereading the engraved sign.
The lion’s whiskers twitched. “You’ve heard of me?”
“Of course we’ve heard of you!” said Aru, turning to her friends. “Right? Weren’t we all just talking about how we wished we had a door like you?”
Aiden blinked, then said, “Yeah! We…uh, we totally said that.”
Mini nodded eagerly. Brynne continued to glare.
“I’ve always been sad that my front door doesn’t have a face,” said Aru.
The lion gasped. “No! The indignity! Poor door. How does it bite intruders?”
“It, um, closes really hard on their fingers?”
The lion nodded. “Very sensible.”
“You know, you’re kinda famous, door,” said Aru, shooting a pointed look at Rudy.
Rudy cleared his throat. “It’s true, O benevolent…door.”
The cheeks of the silver lion darkened, as if he was blushing. “Well, I—”
“In fact,” said Aiden, lifting his camera, “could I take your picture?”
“Mine?” asked the door. “I…I…Why, yes! Yes, you may!”
Aiden counted down from three, and a bright flash went off. “Thanks!” he said. “It’s too bad we can’t do some shopping at the House of Months. Maybe we could’ve found at least something that reminds us of you.”
The door lion’s whiskers drooped. “Well, I mean, I suppose I could grant you one peek….”
“That would be very generous of you,” said Mini sincerely.
The lion preened a bit and then the door swung open. As they filed inside, Aru paused to bow at the knocker, who faked a huge yawn.
“It’s really nothing,” he said loftily, but he could not help but grin back at Aru.
The passageway beyond the door was lit with constellation chandeliers. The walls on either side appeared like sheets of pristine ocean dotted with moon jellyfish, their delicate frost-colored tendrils trailing behind them. The floor felt like a lush carpet but was actually packed moss striped with bright wildflowers.
“Where the sky, sea, and stars meet,” explained Rudy, gesturing around him. “Oh, and by the way, you’re welcome for me getting us in here.”
Aru rolled her eyes, trying to ignore him as she gazed up at the world they’d entered. Magic still sometimes caught Aru by surprise. She loved how it made her feel small. Not like she was insignificant, but like the world was so much vaster and more colorful than she could ever imagine. Like she belonged to something greater than herself.
And yet, all that beauty could be so easily destroyed.
In five days, the treasure will bloom and fade,
And all that was won could soon be unmade.
They only had four days left. If the Sleeper won, it wasn’t just the Otherworld that would be destroyed. It was families, too.
Aru stuffed her hands in her pants pockets, thinking of the twins and their mother’s face when she had said I would do anything not to leave you. She felt a sharp wrench behind her ribs, as if the key from Mr. V were back in her hands. Aru’s mother loved her, but she’d never said anything like that to her. And as for her dad…Well, he’d had no problem leaving her behind and didn’t care that she was his kid. The Sleeper was a monster, she knew that—so then why did she want so badly to know if there had ever been a moment where he would’ve fought to keep her safe the way the twins’ mother had?
Aru pushed the thought away as she walked on the path of wildflowers. A few paces down, the floor transformed into glass and the hall divided into two forks. On the left was a tunnel with a sign over it that read STAFF AND MAINTENANCE ONLY. Through the floor on that side, Aru could make out the dark, rushing waters of the Yamuna River. The passage looked too narrow for more than one person to fit through at a time.
On the right side was an ornate, gaping archway, and beyond it…the House of Months.
Aru had never seen anything like it.
It looked more like a mall-meets-a-skyscraper than a house. It was clearly divided into twelve layers, with one floor dedicated to each month. The bottom level was December, and through the windows, Aru could see racks of gowns crafted from gleaming ice and delicate silver. Stacked atop it was November, with drapes made of autumn leaves the color of old gold. Then October, piled with pumpkins, and September, sporting trees heavy with apples. Beyond that, Aru couldn’t see. The building was too high, and she’d have to go through the archway get a better view. Rudy seemed to guess her thoughts. He stepped in front of her, shaking his head.
“That archway documents every person and creature that walks through,” he said.
“And we’ve got to stay undercover,” added Brynne grimly.
Aiden kept staring at the House of Months, his camera already in hand. “But where’s the Crypt of Eclipses?”
“In an eclipse?” answered Rudy in a tone that clearly meant duh.
“How do you…hide a place…in an eclipse?” asked Aru.
“It travels around,” explained Rudy. “Each of those floors includes all the days in a month. Whichever day held the last total lunar eclipse, that’s where the Crypt is. Simple.”
Sure, thought Aru, simple.
“When was the last lunar eclipse?” asked Aiden.
“January twentieth and twenty-first,” said Mini. “It was a super-blood-wolf moon.”
“January twentieth and twenty-first,” said Rudy at the same time. “I think the mortals called it a werewolf’s doom or something weird.”
“Super-blood—” tried Mini halfheartedly before she gave up.
“Mini just said that,” pointed out Aru.
“Oh,” said Rudy. “Didn’t hear.”
“Or didn’t listen,” said Mini sadly.
Brynne reached out and squeezed Mini’s shoulder as she walked toward the cramped service-and-maintenance entrance. “So we have to go through here?” she asked.
Rudy nodded. “It’s the only way to get into the House undetected. It’ll take us to December twenty-first, I think.”
“And they leave it unguarded like this?” asked Aru.
“I think they just assume nobody would ever want to go through the river tunnel.”
Aru looked at the dark, narrow entrance. This close, she thought she could hear the Yamuna River beneath them, cool and secretive. It raised the hairs on her arm.
“C’mon!” said Rudy.
Aiden looked to Aru. “Do you really think this is going to work?”
Aru almost reached for something silly to say, to make it less serious…less scary. But Aiden wasn’t the only one focused on her. Rudy’s eyes were full of hope. Mini’s gaze was nervous, but unwavering. Even Brynne, who normally wanted to lead the way, was waiting expectantly for Aru’s answer.
Aru squared her shoulders. “Of course the plan is going to work.”
The Plan Does Not Work
The maintenance entrance was no more than three feet wide and five feet high. Next to the tunnel opening, a little yellow sign read DO NOT DRINK THE WATER, which struck Aru as kinda weird. Who would want to drink river water anyway? Gross.
At first the group thought about entering in a single-file line, but that would be too risky if something went wrong and only one person could see ahead. So the plan became to send in a scout who could check things out and report back.
Rudy didn’t seem to have a clue about how long the passage was. Aru didn’t know much about the river herself other than it was named for a river goddess who once parted her waves to allow a baby god, Krishna, to escape when his evil uncle wanted to kill him. That sounded pretty dramatic, but Aru had learned that having one of your relatives want to put your head on a stake was par for the course in mythology.
“It must be short,” said Rudy, trying to feign casualness. “The House of Months isn’t far from here. Maybe it opens into a bridge—”
“Or maybe the tunnel ends suddenly,” cut in Aiden, “and you have to swim the rest of the way. Could be they only hire people from the aquatic parts of the Otherworld.”
Mini whimpered, and honestly, Aru wasn’t exactly thrilled at the idea of swimming through those dark waters either.
“Come on, guys,” said Brynne, rolling her eyes. “It probably just stretches over a stream.”
Aiden coughed lightly, which he’d started doing after Aru once threatened to electrocute him for beginning a sentence with Well, actually…
“What is it, Ammamma?” asked Brynne.
“The Yamuna River is the second-largest tributary that connects to the Ganges.”
“Meaning?” prompted Aru.
“Meaning it’s huge.”
“Well, one of us has to go in first to make sure it’s safe,” said Brynne.
“I agree completely,” said Rudy, taking a step back. “Be my guest—”
“Rudy,” said Brynne. “Since you’re the only one of us who actually has permission to be inside the House of Months, you have to go first. That way, if you get caught and sent back, we can troubleshoot what to do next.”
Rudy looked like he’d swallowed a bug. “But—”
“You’re a prince,” said Aiden. “I’m sure no one will mess with you.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I’m…a prince,” echoed Rudy sadly.
He looked from them to the entrance, then steeled himself. “Fine.”
He drew a gemstone out of his messenger bag. It looked like a chunk of quartz, but when Rudy held it tightly, it released the sound of raindrops gently hitting a windowpane. The white noise sanded down the sharp edges of Aru’s anxiety and slowed her shallow breathing. Without another glance, Rudy walked into the entrance, disappearing into the dark and humming to himself as he went.
Eventually, the sound of Rudy’s singing vanished, replaced with the rush of water.
“Rudy?” called Aiden.
No response.
The four of them exchanged worried glances.
“He should’ve been able to call back,” said Aiden nervously. “My mom is going to kill me if anything happens to him.”
“He’ll be fine,” said Brynne, crossing her arms.
But two minutes turned into three…then seven.
“I’m going in after him,” said Aiden finally. He touched the ends of his sleeves and his scimitars shot out. “Shah?”
Aru flicked her wrist and Vajra crackled to life. She brought it to Aiden’s weapons and electricity ribboned down his blades.
“You’ve got two minutes, then we’re going in after you,” said Brynne.
“I’m sure he just got distracted looking at his reflection,” said Aiden.
And in he went.
Once more they waited, and once more…nothing.
“I really don’t like this,” said Mini, holding Dee Dee close.
“I bet it’s a magical barrier, and they’re waiting for us on the other side,” said Brynne, but for the first time she didn’t sound so convinced. She looked at Aru and Mini. “I don’t want to leave you guys alone.”
“We’ll be fine,” said Aru even as Mini began to shake her head. “If anything happens, at least the two of us can go in together.”
Brynne sighed, still uncertain. “If I don’t come out in two minutes, come after me. Got it?”
“You got this,” said Aru, clapping her on the back.
“Brynne, be careful,” said Mini, holding her hand tightly for a moment. “Do you know what could be in the water? Huge fish. And riptides. Even a shark—”
