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“But Angma—”
“You can’t protect me if Adah hurts you,” she said. She’d kept one egg, still hot, and carefully rolled it over my bruises and swollen eyes. “Don’t let him hurt you. I need you, Channi.”
I need you, Channi.
Words that undo me, even when I am only remembering them.
In the following weeks, Vanna took me to the river. Every morning, with the patience of the goddess Su Dano, she taught me to float, to work through the fear of my reflection, to swim.
For so many years, I’ve been focused on saving her life. I forget how many times, in little ways, she’s saved mine.
I grab my mask and put on my sandals. It doesn’t matter whether Angma will show herself today, or whether she will wait for Vanna’s birthday. Angma is not the only monster that walks this earth.
My sister needs me, and I will not let her down.
CHAPTER SIX
It is midmorning, and I dart across the wide street, pressing my hood over my head as I move from shadow to shadow. So far, no one has noticed me. I need to keep it that way.
There must be over a thousand people crammed into Puntalo’s tiny market—the entire village and then some. Everyone is dressed in their finest. Women wear lilies around their necks and begonias in their hair, and the men have brightened their sun-faded tunics and pants with beaded necklaces and brass bangles. Crisp knots of pandan leaves hang from every stall; they serve to repel roaches as well as freshen the air. I can hardly smell the horse dung that carpets the dusty streets.
I weave my way deeper into the market. Today is different, even if it doesn’t look different. The local peddlers and merchants have all laid out their wares—baskets of curries and spices, copper pans of ginger rice and shrimp noodles, along with spiky durians, ripe bananas, and hairy rambutans piled on coarse blankets—but no one is shouting them out to entice potential buyers. The entire market is frozen, and everyone clusters in the center courtyard, waiting for a glimpse of the kings, for a glimpse of my sister.
Before I lose my nerve, I climb a stack of fruit crates and hoist myself up the pole of an empty merchant stall. After I lift my legs onto the awning, I duck my face out of sight.
What a coward you are, my inner voice rebukes. You’re not afraid of tigers, but you fear a bunch of harmless villagers?
The reason’s obvious. When I was younger, boys and girls my age would throw pebbles whenever they saw me, snickering and hooting when they hit. During monsoon season, they’d gather outside my kitchen and sing:
Channi, Channi, Monster Channi.
Rain and wind and gloom all day.
When the sun sees your face,
It goes away….
I can run faster than a sunbird flies. I can throw a knife behind my head and still hit the target. I can nick off my scales and have them heal overnight. Yet I can’t stop the pain that such taunts bring.
Which is why my heart leaps with dread when a young man calls from below: “I would rethink that hiding spot if I were you.”
I recognize the voice, and my stomach pinches when I look down and confirm its owner: a scrawny young shaman with lank black hair and a bright orange scarf over his shoulder.
Oshli.
I flatten myself against the roof’s awning. Gods be merciful, make him go away.
The gods are not merciful. Oshli crosses his arms and all but stakes himself in front of my tent. “Shouldn’t you be at the temple with your sister and your parents?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
My face folds. He knows why not.
“Come, Channari, I’ll take you to the front myself. They’re about to start.”
It’s unlike Oshli to be so considerate. Usually it’s a game between us: who can ignore the other better.
