Lakshmana gaped at her, but I simply said, “I do not want your influence in me. My mind is my own, and that is all I have left.” Even as I spoke it, I wondered what she had already done to me.
“Your mind is still your own. My magic—it is not in your Binding Plane. It simply soothes your body into sleep, or into wakefulness.” She now looked less than divine, as though she had taken on my own fatigue. My experience with gods was admittedly limited, but I did not expect Nidra to seem so… mortal. “But I did not come here for you.”
“Of course not,” I said, but there was no heat in my voice.
Nidra turned away. “Lakshmana, you are a virtuous man. I have been in your mind before this, and I know you are steadfast. Is it your intention to guard Sita every moment of the day for the next ten years?”
“It is,” Lakshmana said from his position on the ground.
“Even the gods must sleep,” Nidra said. “But as the goddess of sleep, I will make an exception for you.”
“Thank you, Devi.”
“Do not thank me yet. As with all things, there is a price. Someone else must take on the burden of sleep for you. For these ten years, they will sleep for nearly the whole day and spend only a few waking hours each evening. If you can find someone willing to shoulder this responsibility, I will grant you this allowance.”
“I will do it,” Urmila said at once. “I will take this burden if it means that Lakshmana can protect my sister and stay alive.”
“No, you cannot,” Lakshmana said, quiet desperation in his tone. I did not need the Binding Plane to see there was a deep affection between my son and his wife. “I will not ask you to do such a thing.”
“You do not have to ask me,” Urmila said. “I have already made this decision. I am not as bold as Sita or as brave as Radnyi Kaikeyi. I will have nothing to contribute to Ayodhya, but I can do this. And in ten years, I will have my life back once more. I will have you and my sister back. It is not a death sentence.”
I had never truly gotten to know Urmila, something that I now regretted. Clearly, she was an extraordinary young woman. I knew I would not have been willing to make such a sacrifice at her age.
“Very well,” Nidra proclaimed. “It is done. From the first night that Lakshmana stays awake until he returns to Ayodhya or loses his life, you, Urmila, will pay the cost of his sleeplessness.” She turned toward me. “If you have need of my powers, you may pray to me. We minor goddesses cannot do much, but I promise that from now on, I will answer. And perhaps I will not be the only one.”
A gust of wind blew through the fully enclosed room. I blinked, and when I opened my eyes, the goddess was gone.
Urmila and Lakshmana rose to their feet, rubbing their knees. “I had never heard of the goddess of sleep before,” Urmila said.
I turned to look at her. “I would bet anything that your sister has heard of her. But it matters not.”
“It matters a great deal,” Urmila said. “She has just blessed us. Or cursed us.”
“It is all right,” Lakshmana said softly. He came to me, first touching my feet and then embracing me. “Goodbye, Ma. Do not worry. I will do my best.”
Somehow I managed to wrap my arms around him. “I know,” I said. “Please be safe.”
And then, in another moment, they were gone. I sank back on my bed, my eyelids suddenly heavy as iron. I watched Lakshmana’s back vanish as my eyes dragged closed.
For the first time in my life, after the worst day of my life, sleep came easily.
I awoke with total lucidity, just as the sun’s rays brushed the edge of the horizon. And with that clarity of thought came the realization that I needed to speak to Rama one more time.
I knew without much reflection where I would find him. And sure enough, he stood with Shatrugna on the palace’s training field, conversing in low tones.
“I did not expect to see you, Ma,” Rama said without turning.
Shatrugna, however, spun to face me. His usually sweet face filled with hatred. “What are you doing here? How dare you—”
“Shatrugna. Please leave us,” Rama said. Shatrugna looked back at Rama, and then pushed past me without another word.
“This whole time I thought I could convince you,” Rama said softly. “This whole time, I thought you were on my side. But it turns out you were deceiving me. Deceiving everyone. Everyone else was right about you, and I was a fool.”
“No, Rama. I was never deceiving you. I am your mother, and I love you still.”
He turned around. “Don’t lie. You were never a friend to me. How could you be, when you have forsaken the gods? I should have listened, should have taken away your power when I had the chance.”
“Listen to yourself,” I said. “What has happened to you?”
“I was betrayed by my own mother,” he said.
“Betrayed?” I demanded. “I love you. I gave you everything I could. When you cried, I sang to you. I handed you the moon. I played with you, took you to my homeland. And in return, you turned your back on me. You spurned my teachings and put me in danger.”
“Then why are you sending me away?” He looked away, a thick curl falling into his eyes as he blinked rapidly. There was real hurt in his voice, and the knowledge that I was responsible for it stung.
“I am helping you,” I said, my voice thick. “Removing the responsibility that you said burdened you. I asked that you only be sent away for ten years. I believe you can change. You need not spend every hour being crushed by this divine responsibility you feel you are called to carry out. When you were a child and unhappy, I could hold you. Make you feel safe, tell you everything would be all right. I cannot do that anymore. But I can do this.”
“You think I don’t want the responsibility, but I do. It is my duty. And you are attempting to thwart it.” He shook his head. “You think people only agree with me because I have forced them to. But there are so many people in the city whom you have ignored or pushed aside. You asked I be sent away for ten years because you knew you could not get away with exiling me for my whole life.”
“You are a child. Just a child. You do not know what you speak of,” I told him. “Do you not remember how it used to be? Our family was happy.”
Perhaps I imagined it, but I thought for a moment his eyes grew distant, watery. “We were,” he said softly. I wondered which memory he saw playing out before him.
I could remember clearly watching my sons running in the bright Kosala sun, chasing one another, getting stuck in barrels and teasing their father. I remembered too that sense of foreboding that we would be torn apart. How I wished I had been wrong. “We can be happy again,” I said at last, for I had to believe it was true.
We stood there, heads bowed in the early morning light. Mother and son, both wishing for something different than we had. Then he straightened. “I doubt it,” he said.
I stepped back, pushing away the hurt, for this was not a surprise. The pause had given me a moment to think, consider the other person bound up in this besides us two. “At least do not bring Sita with you.”
Rama shook his head. “I see. Even now you did not come for me, your supposed son. You came for Sita.”
I had come to see Rama, to speak to my beloved son before he left, but he would not believe me if I said so now. “How can I convince you to let her stay?” I asked instead. “Surely there must be something.”
“I did not come here to bargain, and yet you insist upon it. Fine. Repent everything, Ma. Support me, and you may keep your seat on the Mantri Parishad. You get to keep your power.”
Maybe once that had been what mattered to me, but now it wasn’t even a choice. I took a deep breath to collect myself, and when I spoke it was with a steady voice. “I am sorry, Rama. I have failed you as a mother. I raised a cruel, callous child. This hurts me too. But I deserve this pain.”
His eyes widened almost imperceptibly, and I could tell I had shocked him. But it was too late. This was not enough.
“I hope your time in the forest serves you well,” I said at last. I turned from him and walked back through the door.