But Bogli the demon was gaining on us quickly. The ground trembled and the air was filled with his spoiled-eggy breath.
“Bogli eat you now!”
“It’s the only way,” Neel said apologetically to Ma and Baba. “I’ll go last to help you all make it.”
I looked at my parents, who nodded. Demonic wheatgrass shots, check. Ridiculous level of faith in Neel, check. No other choices, check.
I decided to jump first. If it wasn’t possible to hit the boat from here, I wanted it to be me who found that out.
“I’ll go to make sure—” I started saying, when a shrieking voice cut me off.
“In my belly!”
“Go!” I felt Neel’s hand push me, and I was in the air. I fell for a ridiculously long time, but somehow, miraculously, made it. I landed with a thunk on the floor of a peacock barge. “Come on!”
Baba and Tuni came next. Well, Baba came next but the bird flew alongside him as he fell, shouting encouragement. He actually ended up hitting the water, but it was a short swim into the boat. As I dragged him in, I yelled up to Ma and Neel, “Let’s go!”
They didn’t have a lot of time. The demon was gaining on them. I was sweating bullets. Would they make it?
“Bweakfast! Lunch! Din-din! Snack!” The demon’s claw was right over their heads.
“Jump!”
Neel and Ma leaped, hand in hand. But at the last minute, one of the demon’s talons caught on Ma’s sari. She lost hold of Neel’s hand.
“No!” he yelled, trying to reach her. In mid-fall, he threw her his sword. Which—and this is the real testimony to how much horsepower must’ve been in that dark energy goo—Ma actually caught.
“Me eat the mommy! Me eat the mommy!” the demon brat howled.
“Hya!” And that’s when my mother—my sweet-making, inventory-taking, ever practical, ever optimistic mother—did the bravest thing I have ever seen her do. Just as I had sliced through Lal’s scarf to free him from the demon on our front lawn, Ma sliced through the loose end of her sari, leaving the demon rug rat bereft and meal-less.
Unfortunately, it also left Ma without anything to hang on to, nowhere near the peacock barge. She fell like a rock—right over Demon Land.
Ma!” I screamed. I couldn’t watch, I couldn’t watch, I couldn’t watch!
Baba and I grabbed each other and held on.
My eyes were closed, but I opened them when Tuntuni exhaled. “She’s okay!”
Unfortunately, what I saw made me scream again. Ma was alive, yes, but she wasn’t exactly safe. When Ma cut herself free, she fell in the direction of Demon Land. And on that awful shore was a very familiar figure.
“Ai-Ma!” Neel shouted.
“Ma!” I yelled at the same time.
The drooling old crone held my mother in the palm of her ginormous, warty hand. Ma was looking right at her, her hands in a “namaskar.” I couldn’t hear what Ma was saying, but she seemed to be pleading for her life.
“Bogli hungwy!” the demon brat wailed from the border of Maya Pahar, but we all ignored him. The border had shifted even farther away from us now, and the baby demon didn’t seem to know how to get to us.
I focused on what was going on in Demon Land. I aimed my bow and arrow, not caring that it was Neel’s grandma I was aiming at.
“Let her go, Ai-Ma!” My voice shook with fury. I didn’t come this far to see my mother get eaten.
“Kiran, please!” Neel begged.
But I didn’t let him distract me from my target. My arrow was pointed right at the old rakkhoshi’s chest. “Put her down!”
And that’s when Ai-Ma shocked the heck out of all of us. She reached her knobbly hand in Ma’s direction, and, very gently, patted her on the head.
“Ai-Ma isn’t so old she can’t recognize a girl from a boy, or a prince from a pup,” the crone cackled. As she guffawed, her hairy cheeks puffed out in pleasure. “You have a very brave—and yummy-smelling—daughter,” she told Ma, her rough voice carrying over the distance.
Ai-Ma’s lips were covered with drool and her tongue waggled a little, but she walked straight toward the shore of the Ruby Red Sea. No sign of even nibbling a little on her captive. The arm bearing my mother reached out farther and farther from the old rakkhoshi’s shoulder, until, like some extendable fire hose, it reached our peacock barge.
“I give you back to your little coconut beanpole.” Ai-Ma—or rather, Ai-Ma’s extended hand—gently deposited Ma in the barge. “Your nub-nub was good company to old Ai-Ma, and old Ai-Ma always remembers a favor.”
Before it retracted, Ai-Ma’s warty hand chucked me under the chin. I know she was trying to be gentle, but she made my teeth seriously rattle.
“Be good, sweet beetle-dung toadstools,” she cooed from the distant shore.
I threw down my bow and arrow in the bottom of the barge and held my mother tight.
“Thank you, Ai-Ma, thank you!” I yelled as Neel and Baba pushed the barge farther and farther away from the shore of both Demon Land and Maya Pahar.
“Head straight across the sea and you will make it home!” Ai-Ma waved to us, a three-toothed grin on her face. “I make it a rule not to eat mommies while their boo-boos watch,” she called as we sailed. “It’s bad for my digestion!”
* * *
“What a nice grandmother you have, Prince Neelkamal.” Ma beamed. We’d been sailing for a while into the Ruby Red Sea, and everything seemed relatively calm.
Baba had stopped hugging Ma, and now was just wiping tears away and thanking Neel. “Yes, a very nice … erm … woman.” Ma elbowed him, making him cough. “Most charming.”
I shook my head and smiled as I looked out over the calm, dark waters. People—even demon people—really surprised you sometimes.
“How is my brother?” Ma asked Neel. “And my lovely niece, how is she keeping up with her stable-hand duties?”
“Wait, Neel knows your brother?”
“The prince didn’t tell you, darling?” Baba was rowing us into the dark night, with Tuni perched comfortably on his shoulder. “We were knowing something unexpected might happen around your twelfth birthday, so we took some precautions.”
Ma patted my arm. “It was your uncle Rahul, the stable master, who suggested that the Princes Lalkamal and Neelkamal might be dispatched to help you.”
“Wait,” I said, “let me get this straight. Lal and Neel’s stable master is your brother?”
My mother nodded.
Neel had just finished explaining the Queen’s unfortunate decision to eat Lal and Mati, and their subsequent transformation into inanimate objects.
I pointed at the humming silver object in Neel’s sling. “So that bowling ball is my cousin?” No wonder Mati felt so familiar to me.
“Oh, yes,” Baba agreed. “But as you know, where we come from, even the most distant cousin is called a sister.”
My cousin Mati, I thought. My sister Mati. After having had so little family for so long—and then recently discovering some less-than-desirable family members—it was nice to know I had some normal relatives. If you count someone who was trapped inside a silver bowling ball—and occassionally turned into a solar phenomenon—normal.