She didn’t tell me exactly what she’d seen, but I didn’t need her to. I’d lived with it, every day since she’d first spoken the words of her prophecy. She’d seen the maleficer I could have become, the dark queen I’d spent my whole life struggling not to be. That was what Ophelia would have made of me. What she’d still make of me, if I ever gave her the chance.
* * *
Deepthi had me push her chair along the next colonnade and into the biggest wing of the house. I smelled the incense first, then heard the chanting, and we came into a hall with everyone gathered round a raised altar in a many-ringed circle of power, singing together, spells of shielding and protection, still holding the wards up against the maw-mouth that was gone. The children were gathered in the center round the altar, a handful of them old enough to be afraid, huddling near their mothers. They noticed us at the back of the room, and one of them called out, “Aaji! Aaji!”
People began turning to look without breaking the circle or the chant, but then a woman turned, and it was my grandmother Sitabai. Even after the prophecy, she’d secretly kept in touch with Mum by email for years, begging her for photos like table scraps. I’d never wanted to see the ones Mum asked for in return, but I’d glimpsed enough of them to recognize her. And as soon as she saw me, she gave a loud cry, and the circle fell apart in confusion.
Just as well I’d taken out the maw-mouth already.
There was rather a lot of shouting on multiple fronts, until they quieted enough to listen to Deepthi and grasp that the maw-mouth was gone, and also that it was time to welcome Arjun’s daughter home with open arms. As you might expect if you’d just asked someone to get a cuppa for Pol Pot, there were a handful of initially bewildered looks, but they very quickly started to shift into realization. They all understood Deepthi’s power too, like my father had: when you speak the future, you shape the future. They must have been used to her prophecies coming true in unexpected sidelong ways.
But my grandfather went rigid and motionless, something awful in his face, and even as people started to murmur, he came up to face her at arm’s length and cut through the rising noise, saying in a terrible voice, “We are leaving your house forever.” He turned to my grandmother and told her to pack, and then he turned to me and said, “Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me,” and then put his face in his hands and wept like someone had torn out his vital organs.
It was almost down to the exact words a match for one of the many dozens of delightful fantasies I’d had over the years: me swanning in triumphantly, an acclaimed noble sorceress of great renown, having saved them all from some horrid fate and dramatically proving the prophecy false, everyone falling over themselves to apologize for having believed it and condemning my great-grandmother, only it was awful instead. I reached out to him and pried his hands away from his face, and when I got them he put his arms around me instead, and my grandmother ran in and wrapped hers round us both.
I woke up at four in the morning with my eyes sticky and dry with salt, and when I turned on my mobile there were thirteen voicemails, twenty-seven missed calls, and nearly forty texts from Ibrahim, starting with alarm and how do you know confusion, moving into we’ve checked but no one’s broken in, and we’re guarding the foundation to make sure. I nearly howled at past-him in rage. Then the texts moved on into the terror of something’s happening! the whole enclave is shaking! and we’re still inside! and pleas for help and where was I, please come back, how soon could I get there, settling only a few minutes later into the shaking has stopped, and it’s over it’s over and it’s all right and the enclave’s staying up! Only a few of the—and I deleted that and all the rest of his messages without reading them, the ones that would have told me how many people I’d killed, what I’d destroyed, when I’d ripped the maw-mouth out from under their feet.
There were a couple of messages from Aadhya, too, telling me Liu had woken up and was okay, and then another demanding to know what was going on and why was I in India; I wasn’t sure how she even knew where I was until I inspected my mobile settings and discovered that at some point she’d quietly turned on my location sharing.
I didn’t turn it off. But I didn’t call her back right away, either. I didn’t think I could tell her over the phone. Or at least, not by calling her. I could probably have managed a text: everything ok, made up with my dad’s family, btw turns out I’m the maleficer destroying enclaves, just had a go at Dubai, talk soon. But I didn’t really think that was the best idea. So I settled for long story there soon instead, and as soon as I’d sent it, I wanted to make it true; I wanted to get on a plane and get to Aadhya and Liu and tell them everything, as if I could pour it out of me and into them and be shot of every last feeling for a little while.