“Aru, he’s…he’s in pain. If we take from him, then we’re no better—”

“Fine. I’ll take from him, so that we can survive.”

Aru didn’t wait for Mini to answer. She had to act now.

Around her neck, the gray pendant from Monsoon was cold and wet. Even as she reached for it, she remembered Monsoon’s words.

But be warned: regret will always follow. It is the price of aiming true. For sometimes, when we take the deadliest aim, we are nothing if not reckless.

Aru didn’t hesitate. She threw. Mini turned away as if she couldn’t witness this.

The stone struck the mirror in front of Shukra’s chest. He shuddered, clutching his heart. “Irsa?” he called. He stumbled forward, clawing at the air as if he’d suddenly gone blind.

The pendant bounced, shattering the mirror above him. Then it broke the third and the fourth.

Shukra fell to his knees. The snow seemed to notice him then. It stopped falling on Aru and Mini, perhaps drawn by how much more potent his memories were.

“No!” he screamed. “Please! They are all I have left of her!”

But the snow showed no mercy. Aru couldn’t watch.

“The bridge…” said Mini softly.

When Aru turned around, she saw that the bridge was being built, more quickly now. Each moment stolen from Shukra’s life was fashioning a sturdy step over the ravine.

Aru and Mini leaped across it, Shukra’s screams and cries chasing them all the way. No snow followed them. When they reached the other side, Aru turned to see Shukra looking lost. Snow frosted his skin.

“You are merely a child, and children are sometimes the cruelest of all. You have taken everything from me. For that, I curse you, daughter of Indra,” said Shukra. He held out his hand. “My curse is that, in the moment when it matters most, you, too, shall forget.”

With that, Shukra disappeared. Where he had once stood, now there were just two footprints gradually filling with snow.

This Place Smells Funky

Aru was no stranger to curses.

It’s just that she was usually the giver and not the receiver.

In the sixth grade, Aru had cursed Carol Yang. It was during a week when Aru had been suffering from a cold. Jordan Smith had used up all the tissues giving himself pretend boobs, which was not nearly as funny as he’d thought it would be, and it was the worst for Aru, who’d really needed to blow her nose. The teacher wouldn’t excuse her to go to the bathroom. So Aru had been left with that horrible, tickly feeling of a drippy nose, and she’d had no other choice….

Carol Yang had shouted, “Gross! Aru Shah just used her sleeve to wipe her nose!”

Everyone had started laughing. For the rest of the day, Carol had thrown balled-up toilet paper at the back of her head.

After school, Aru had gone home and cut out a picture of old-looking text from one of the museum’s pamphlets. She’d burned the edges of the photo with the stove flame to make it look even more antique.

The next day, right before homeroom, Aru had gone up to Carol and held the paper in her face. “I curse you, Carol Yang! From this day forth, you’ll always have a runny nose. Every time you look in the mirror and think you don’t have a booger, one is going to appear, and everyone will see it except you.” And then Aru had hissed, “Kachori! Bajri no rotlo! Methi nu shaak! Undhiyu!”

In actuality, those words weren’t a curse at all. They were just the names of various Gujarati dishes. But Carol Yang did not know that.

Neither did their homeroom teacher, who had walked in to find Carol holding a tissue to her nose and crying. Aru had been sent home with a note from the principal: Please tell your daughter to refrain from cursing her classmates.

Ever since, Aru hadn’t had a high opinion of curses. She’d thought they would function like gifts (It’s the thought that counts!), but both of those things were lies. Thoughts weren’t powerful enough by themselves, and the curse hadn’t worked.

But this time…This time was all wrong.

Behind them, the Bridge of Forgetting looked like a crescent of ivory. Every memory that had forged it had been stolen from Shukra.

She thought she heard the Sleeper’s voice. Oh, Aru, Aru, Aru. What have you done?

But it wasn’t the Sleeper. It was Mini. She touched Aru’s wrist lightly. “What’d you do, Aru?”

“I saved us.” Her voice wobbled. “I got us across the bridge so that we could get the weapons and save the world.”

This was true.

And true things were supposed to feel…clean. Unquestionably good. But she didn’t feel good. Shukra had given up his life-form, and a curse had followed Aru over the bridge.

She was allegedly a hero. Was this how heroes felt, knotted up with doubt?

Mini’s face softened. “It’s okay. When this is over, we’ll get the curse removed. I bet they’ve got places for that in the Night Bazaar. Or we can ask Boo?”

At least Mini was optimistic. Aru forced herself to smile. She tried to push the curse from her thoughts. “Yeah! That’s it! Good idea, Mini. People do that with tattoos all the time. There’s a girl at my school whose sister got a butterfly put on her lower back during spring break, and her parents took her out of school for a week to get it zapped off.”