Toil & Trouble Read online

  The empty page taunted her. Impostor. Phony. They’ll throw you out when they see what a fake you are.

  She slammed the book shut.

  Crunch.

  Shalini’s head jerked up to see a churel a few feet away, gleefully taking a second bite of a silver apple. Her heart didn’t just skip a beat; it nearly did a handspring right out of her chest. The churel was emaciated, with a hideous, piglike face; long, sagging breasts; tangled gray hair that screamed for a pair of scissors and a sharp comb; and backward-facing hands and feet. This last in no way interfered with her noisy enjoyment of the fruit.

  “So this is the Moonapple Menagerie, hmm?” the churel observed between smacks. “It’s charming enough, I suppose. In any case, it will do.”

  Shalini had never seen a churel in real life, but knew they were created when a woman died at the hands of her in-laws and hungered for revenge on the men in her former family. Did the churel think Shalini was part of that family? “What will do?”

  The churel shot her a look of disdain. “You requested help. I am here to help you.”

  “You’re from the bone palace?” Even though desperation had driven Shalini to the door of the yakshini’s abode, she hesitated now; asking for aid felt too much like cheating. It was what someone would do when they couldn’t make their own words, and she didn’t want anyone else’s words.

  “You’re a quick one, I see.” The churel shoved a pearl into Shalini’s hand. “This amulet will let you reach forward in time and locate the ending your future self will write.”

  Shalini broke into a delighted smile as she considered the pearl. To take her own words from the future—well, that was as far from having someone or something else write her ending as she could get. All she’d let herself picture was an extra dose of inspiration, but this was even better. Her own words with the struggle to find them already behind her...

  “Oh, tell the yakshini I can’t thank her enough! We’d love to finally see her this year.”

  With her fingers curled around the pearl, Shalini could already see herself leaping past the remaining days of mental thrashing and flailing to the moment when she wrote “The End” and meant it. She joined hands and minds with her future self, and her own precious words began to appear in her thoughts—

  The churel snatched the pearl away, scratching Shalini in the process with her thick, yellowed fingernails. “We haven’t settled on the price.”

  Shalini gaped muzzily at her, dazed with loss. The words had been right there. Right there!

  “You will put me in your production—in a role of my choosing. This is hardly the theater I would have selected for my dramatic debut, but one must work with what she’s given.”

  Shalini replayed the churel’s words. She wanted what?

  “As I said, I must approve my role in your production. There are distinctions your kind would never grasp about mine.” The churel’s unnaturally long black tongue skimmed her lips as she reached for Shalini’s book. “Let me see that.”

  Shalini tried not to look as horrified as she felt. “Okay, wires must have gotten crossed somewhere, and I’m really sorry about the mix-up, but we don’t have a role for you.” Her finger trembling, she pointed to the delicate loops of moonlight calligraphy from prior spell castings. “The play’s al—It’s already written.”

  The churel stared at her with red-burning eyes. “If that were true, I would not be here now.” She scoffed. “Where was this dithering when you were tearfully pleading with anyone who might listen? Are you fool enough to believe such aid comes for free?”

  “Why do you even want this?” Shalini asked. The churel had to see how absurd it was.

  “The speck of slime masquerading as my husband kept me from my calling while I lived.” The churel’s smile was the stuff of a horror novel. “But now you will fix that.”

  Shalini didn’t dare grimace at the churel—for who was to say whether her wrath was limited to her family?—so instead she scowled at the moon. This was not the inspiration she’d asked for.

  “Come back tomorrow during the day,” she said at last, not knowing what else to do. “We make our decisions as a group.”

  “And why would I do such a thing? If my offer fails to interest you, I certainly have better ways to spend my time.” The churel pivoted on her toes, leaving Shalini clutching her useless journal. She’d come so close... Future Shalini had written exactly the right words, and now Present Shalini was about to lose them forever.

  The coven would kill her. But at least this way, the play would be done.

  “Fine!” she called after the creature, hating herself. “You can be in our play. Just...just give me that pearl.”

  “Surely. Tomorrow,” the churel said, then lurched away before Shalini could protest.

  * * *

  No one had slept well. Shalini dreaded confessing the bargain she had made, Sabrina had come down with yet another migraine, and Gabrielle and Madhu had both had nightmares. Even Bianca seemed out of sorts. “Blame the full moon,” she said, rubbing her eye and smudging her kohl liner.

  Oh, I do, thought Shalini. The dew-studded beauty of the morning felt like an affront as she guzzled a steaming mug of tea. She’d lain awake fantasizing about the pearl, and by the time dawn had painted the sky pink, she’d convinced herself the churel wouldn’t come back. Her demand had been a whim. She was probably already off chasing down the men who’d wronged her, and Shalini would never see the pearl again. She would never be able to mine the genius words of her future self.

  But just in case, she decided to test the waters and share her “dream” with her coven sisters.

  “Is anyone else thinking what I’m thinking?” Sabrina asked, once Shalini was through. “That this is like our own weird little version of Snow White? We’re the wicked stepmother who sent out the poisoned apple—”

  Madhu toyed with one of her red-and-purple kundan earrings. “Wait, doesn’t that make us the bad guys? I’m not sure I like where this is going.”

  “Our apples aren’t poisoned, though,” Bianca pointed out, “and there’s no magic mirror on the wall.”

  Gabrielle nodded. “Aren’t we more like the helpful dwarves, if anything?”

  “And the only thing that needs to be rescued is the play,” said Sabrina. “Okay, so it doesn’t map exactly onto the original. Call it a really twisted retelling, where the tired tropes of good and evil get subverted in super disturbing ways.”

  “Oh, absolutely,” said Bianca. “Shalu’s writer brain is clearly using the language of fairy tales to work out her fears.”

  Gabrielle smoothed down her long white dress and lay back on the grass. “But if you think about it, it’s weird the yakshini hasn’t sent someone to check us out. I mean, it’s not like we don’t invite her every year.”

  Shalini very carefully kept her eyes lowered and her face still.

  Bianca reached over to pat her shoulder. “Dreams don’t mean anything. You’ll figure out the ending.”

  Guilt churned and churned in Shalini’s stomach. If the churel didn’t return, she would have to admit to her friends that she’d failed to finish the play, that even now—less than a week before opening night—she had no clue how it ended. If the churel did reappear, Shalini would have to admit that she’d sold them out. Which was worse?

  She smiled weakly. “Just a stupid dream.”

  * * *

  At exactly quarter to eleven, the churel appeared—wreathed in, of all things, foxgloves—the same flowers already arranged in a crown on Gabrielle’s head. The freckled magenta blossoms looked absurdly out of place woven into the churel’s scraggly locks, but she didn’t seem to mind. “Boo,” she said, making everyone jump.

  Just like that, the “dream” became a nightmare. “Um, so, everyone, guess what? It wasn’t actually a dream, and I did say she could be in the play if she gav
e me the pearl,” Shalini blurted. “And look, here she is!”

  “You did what?” Sabrina demanded. The others just stared at her, eyes and mouths round. Shalini cringed.

  “Shalu...” Madhu pursed her hot-pink lips.

  “I’ve read your script, and I will play the apsara,” the churel announced, blithe as a butterfly.

  “You stole my book!” Shalini cried. The journal she’d been holding when the churel walked away the night before was now in the churel’s clawed hand.

  “I would hardly choose my role sight unseen!” The churel’s eyes flashed the color of sacrificial blood, and Shalini recoiled. What had she done, entering into a bargain with this treacherous creature?

  Trailing gray and green skirts and filmy sleeves, Bianca made her way to Shalini’s side and took her arm. “Could you excuse us for a minute?”

  “If I must, but do not dally.” The churel casually bared her rotting teeth and mimed shredding flesh with her terrible claws. Shalini wanted to crawl right into her serpent skin and disappear into the grass for good.

  Once out of the churel’s earshot, the coven exchanged a five-way glance of alarm.

  “Shalini, what were you thinking?” It was a good thing Sabrina wasn’t in owl form, because her voice suggested she would have gone straight for Shalini with her talons. “We can’t put her in our play!”

  Madhu’s brow crinkled. “I just got you all fitted. Now I have to outfit a demon, too?”

  Too miserable to answer, Shalini only listened, her shoulders slumped. No one met her gaze. They were going to throw her out; she knew it.

  “I think we need to give her the part,” Bianca argued. “Or at least a part. Nobody wants this, but wouldn’t it be much better to have her on our side? Or at least not against us?”

  “Bianca’s right,” Gabrielle put in. “I’m not happy about it, but we’re stuck. That creature’s not going to take no for an answer.”

  “This sucks, and I’m sorry,” Shalini said. “But you don’t understand. I was never going to finish the play. Now, thanks to this pearl, I will, and it’ll be all right. It’ll be better than all right; it’ll be good.”

  Bianca looked over then, her mouth turned down with disappointment, her gaze heavy and sad. “Why didn’t you trust us? You should have told us.”

  “Yeah.” Sabrina’s eyes narrowed, and she folded her arms across her burgundy velvet blazer. “You really should have.”

  “We’re a team. It’s our play, too, and you didn’t even ask what we thought,” Madhu said, worrying a rhinestone on her scooter. “What if she ruins everything? What if she hurts us? How could you do that?”

  “I’m sorry,” Shalini repeated, but no one answered. Hot, desperate tears formed in her eyes, and she forced them down. Where was the magic spell to fix this?

  The others shared a meaningful stare. Then Bianca led the coven back to where the churel waited. “Have you settled your foolishness amongst yourselves?” the churel asked.

  “We discussed it, and we’re not sure you fit the part,” Gabrielle said, obviously trying to sound diplomatic. “But there are plenty of other roles you’d be great for.”

  “I could see you as a sea witch,” Sabrina added. “You’ve got the hair for it.”

  “Nonsense,” said the churel. “I come with my own cosmetics.” As they watched, she turned into an apsara, her splendor so great it mesmerized: thick, glossy black hair; wide, seductive brown eyes; a willowy hourglass figure draped in yellow silk; and an ornate gold coronet. “The role is mine.”

  A bracelet of twinkling stars tumbled down from the heavens to land at the churel’s newly delicate and forward-facing feet. The bracelet from Shalini’s play. Great—now she was even usurping Gabrielle’s role as stage manager.

  “Your story is acceptable, if a bit tame,” continued the churel-turned-apsara, “but you must work on the dénouement. Where is the pathos? The pain? The murder?” Her white teeth shone like the bracelet on the grass. “What is a drama without blood?”

  “Everyone’s a critic,” muttered Madhu.

  The book reappeared in Shalini’s grip, and she flipped it open. The churel had made arcane, illegible scratches on almost every page. Yet the longer Shalini squinted at them, the more she could decipher: Unrealistic character motivation; no jewel thief would EVER behave like this. No, no, no—even an ice dragon must be complex. I snored through this entire scene. Cut!!!

  It wasn’t enough that she was going to get kicked out of the coven. That horrid creature had critiqued her play, too!

  The weight of everyone’s eyes pressed down on Shalini like an anchor, keeping her submerged in her shame and guilt and unable to breathe. “How dare you? You think you can just barge in here and take over our play?” she shouted, no longer worried about offending the churel. “You can keep your stupid pearl! And your stupid bracelet. I’ll write the ending on my own.”

  “Shalu, no!” Gabrielle and Bianca called together, but it was too late.

  Shalini had already bent down and grabbed the bracelet. She moved to fling it at the churel, and everything dissolved into a sea of blues and greens.

  * * *

  The band of explorers, bearing the starry bracelet, embarked on a quest to restore it to its rightful owner. In the oceanic realm, they eluded wily sea witches and fled carnivorous mercreatures while singing naughty ballads astride the backs of seahorses. “You claim the poor young merprince only hungers for your love? On the shoreline he will eat you once you’ve taken him above! You think the sweet young mermaid simply wants to hold your hand? You may kiss her, you may court her; still she’ll stab you on the sand!”

  Eventually Gabrielle’s poison rings clicked open, releasing tendrils of magic like smoke that altered the scenery. When the mist dispersed, the band found itself in the crystal cave, where they battled jewel thieves, outwitted gemstone queens, and answered riddle after riddle from a greedy ice dragon.

  Icicles hung like melted prisms in the monster’s lair where its hoary breath had frozen the ceiling. Their long points reflected the dragon’s iridescent white scales as it lumbered back and forth. “What is blue as a flower, bright as a flame, and dark as a shadow, yet has no true color of its own?”

  “The sky,” said Gabrielle, weary at this seventh riddle.

  “Fun as this has been, we really need to get going.” Sabrina treated the dragon to a smile sharper even than the icicles, then pushed past its bulk into heaps of coins, ingots, crowns, and loose jewels. “Come on.”

  Shalini stumbled over a stray goblet and threw up her hands to catch herself. The dragon caught sight of the starry bracelet on her wrist. “Give that to me!” it shrieked, spraying the air with ice.

  “I don’t think so.” Ignoring its chilling breath, Madhu poked the dragon with one of her crutches until it keened and shrank away.

  Bianca’s poison rings opened as the explorers sang a song of victory, and the scene changed.

  The band now stood in a village shrouded in misery and darkness. To light their way, Sabrina unleashed a bottle of fireflies in pink and green and orange. A few even perched among her sable curls. Unfortunately, the villagers had been cursed to live forever in the gloom, and even the fireflies’ gentle luminescence hurt their eyes—never mind the starry bracelet. Furious at the intrusion, the villagers dragged the protesting explorers to a prison cell beneath the earth, where their light would never shine on anyone again.

  “Sir,” said Bianca to the surly guard, “we understand we’ve trespassed and caused harm with our light, but could you at least tell us how the village became cursed in the first place?”

  The guard merely grunted.

  She tried again. “It sounds like a sad and terrible story, one that would hurt my heart.”

  “Hearts!” grumbled the guard. “It was hearts that led us here. We gave ours up, we did, to force that stingy
ice dragon to hand over its treasure. But something went awry with the spell, and it plunged us into this everlasting night. A fine waste of our hearts!” He stomped out, locking the cell behind him.

  Once he left, Bianca divulged her plan. “Okay,” she said, “he’s not going to help us, and we can’t break out of here—but we can sneak out. It’ll just have to be in disguise.”

  Shalini as a serpent and Gabrielle as a vixen dug a tunnel in the dirt that led into the open air, and the others followed them out as owl, peacock, and black cat. Singing a song of escape, they rushed into the night, but at the border of the village, beyond which sunlight spilled golden motes like music, Gabrielle paused.

  “I know it’s not our problem,” she said, “but I still feel bad for them. Everyone deserves a second chance.” And she set down a packet of light-tree seeds for the day the villagers might choose to reclaim their lost hearts.

  The band of explorers, having resumed human form, hurried over a diamond bridge and into the night sky, where the apsara waited. Per the placeholder climax, she would shower them with gratitude, and the story would end.

  Yet a successful quest with no real stakes, no real struggle, left the story hollow. And a hollow story, as Shalini knew, was no story at all. It was the threat of losing something vital that gave a good tale its substance—that made it true.

  The apsara, draped in gold-and-sapphire silks, with sultry jasmine blossoms dotting her long braid, held out her hand for the bracelet. “You found it!”

  The veil separating the churel’s reality from theirs suddenly lifted, and there the coven stood, onstage on opening night. Gabrielle’s expert lighting left them nowhere to hide. Beyond the lights, Shalini spotted an audience frozen in mid-gesture: Madhu’s and Sabrina’s boyfriends, Gabrielle’s girlfriend, Bianca’s sister, her own mother—and even the yakshini from the bone palace, next to a man whose face had contorted in terror.

  Her stomach knotted in on itself. The churel was going to humiliate the coven sisters before everyone they cared about.