When Aru opened her eyes, she was standing once more in the decrepit palace hall.
Mini was a couple feet away from her, furiously arguing with…with herself? Two Minis? One of them was getting increasingly red in the face and hunching her shoulders. The other pushed her glasses up her nose and kept talking. Her! Aru would’ve bet money that version was the real Mini. Aru tried to run forward, but she was kept back by some kind of invisible barrier.
“Hey!” called Aru, pounding her fists against the air. “Mini!”
But the Minis kept right on arguing. The real one said, “And so it stands to reason that the fastest thing in the world is not a person or a creature, but a thought!”
The other Mini let out a horrible groan, as if she’d just gotten attacked by a headache, and vanished.
The remaining Mini braced her hands on her knees and took a deep breath. The invisible barrier must have disappeared, too, because Mini finally noticed Aru. A grin stretched wide across her face.
“You’re alive!”
“So are you!” shouted Aru, running toward her.
But no sooner were they next to each other than the palace roared to life. Torches flamed on. Even the roof pulled itself up, like someone adjusting his suspenders.
The two of them braced themselves. Aru wrapped her hand around the glowing ball in her pocket. Mini gripped her compact.
The palace shuddered.
“Only Yudhistira would’ve been able to out-reason himself through wisdom,” it said.
Aru dropped her voice to a whisper. “Seriously? Your task was to annoy yourself?”
Mini scowled.
“And only Arjuna,” continued the palace, “would’ve had the vision and perception to escape the mind’s own fear. Which means it’s you! It really is you….”
“Duh!” said Aru. “We told you that when we got—”
But the moment Aru started speaking, the ceiling split above their heads. Rain gushed in from the cracks in the roof. The whole palace rolled.
“I—”
The beams creaked.
“—thought—”
The foundation whined.
“—you—”
The roof caved in.
“—forgot—”
The floor tiles beneath them split.
“—about—”
The walls peeled back.
“—me.”
The rain was a waterfall now. There was nothing for Aru and Mini to do except clutch each other as the palace broke apart around them. When the crying (and rain) finally stopped, the walls pulled themselves back together. The roof dried its shingles and stitched itself whole again. The foundation rolled one last time, as if heaving a sigh.
The palace had a right to be upset. They had forgotten all about it. But was that really their fault?
“I missed you,” said the palace. “For three hundred years after you left, I kept the floors polished and the ceilings free of dust. I kept the larders full, and I watered the plants. But you never returned. Did I do something wrong?”
“No, of course not!” said Mini. She looked as though she wanted to drop to her knees and embrace the entire palace as if it were a sad giant dog.
“We’re not really the people we once were,” tried Aru. “We don’t even remember anything about that life. Otherwise…otherwise we would have visited.”
Moments later, the floors started to gleam. The fire in the torches turned from harsh to warm. Paintings that had been hidden behind layers of skeleton dust glowed with color.
“And yet you must leave again?” asked the palace.
There was a plaintive note to its voice. Like a pet who really didn’t want you to go and was convinced that if she were on her best behavior you might change your mind.
“We don’t have a choice,” said Mini. “You know that.”
Trickles of silver liquid ran down the walls. “I know,” said the palace. “This time, I won’t forget to polish the floors—”
“Don’t go to the trouble,” started Mini.
Aru jumped in. “Yes! Please do that, thank you,” she said. “And make sure you do a good job.”
Aru knew better than anyone that the worst part about being left behind was the wait. Whenever her mom left on business trips, Aru always cleaned the apartment from top to bottom. Sometimes, she even went to the farmers market so that there would be bright apples on the table instead of thick gray books like Representations of the Feminine in Ancient Hindu Sculpture. Every time her mom came home, Aru would stand off to the side, chest puffed out like a blue jay, waiting for her to notice. Sometimes she did, and sometimes she didn’t. Not knowing how her mom would react was what made Aru do it all over again the next time. And so she understood how the house must have felt.
“Excellent!” shouted the palace.
All at once, chandeliers dropped from the ceiling. Crystal bowls of light pink ice cream floated into Mini’s and Aru’s hands.
“Please…” coaxed the house. “Just a bite. You can eat and walk at the same time. I’ll make sure you don’t trip. Or would you rather skate? You liked to do that once upon a time.”
The ground beneath them turned to ice, and their sandals were replaced with pretty metal shoes with blades on the bottom.
Aru took a bite of the ice cream. It melted on her tongue and left behind the delicate flavor of rose.
“I’m not very good at skating,” said Aru. “Can we travel any way we want?”
“It is limited only by your imagination,” said the palace.
One step later, they were zooming through the halls.
Aru grinned. Imagine having a home like this….A home that knew what you wanted and leaped to answer. A home that grew carousels made of bits of stars and petals, and let her gallop on a horse made of dandelion fluff while she balanced a bowl of ice cream in one hand. A home with a floating bed, and books that knew when to flip the pages, so you didn’t have to get up from your pillow or move your hand….
But this wasn’t home.
Her home was small and littered with books she didn’t understand. The apartment had cracks in the walls and old plumbing. There was always straw on the floor from the wooden crates the statues were shipped in.
Her home had her mother.
The palace, as always, could read her thoughts. It sighed again. “You must be on your way, and what kind of home would I be if I pampered you and kept you back?”
Mini blushed. She had been bicycling through the air, ice cream in her hand and a book floating in front of her face. “You’re right,” she said. She wiped her mouth and set aside the rest of the ice cream.
Aru finished hers so quickly, she got brain freeze. The palace enchanted a hand towel to wrap around her head. “Mfanks,” she mumbled, hoping that the palace understood she was trying to say Thanks.
Unexplored rooms hovered around them, promising rich histories and secrets. Aru caught a glimpse of a chamber full of glass birds. A serpent slithered out of a hole in a wall, its scales fashioned of rivers and seas. Down a long hallway, Aru saw the skyline of a distant city. Part of her longed to explore, but she knew she couldn’t. Even without looking at her hand, Aru could feel the number on her palm as if it were searing her skin. They had two days left. They couldn’t waste time.
The dandelion horse, recognizing her unspoken wish, set her down gently.
Within moments they were at the rear exit of the palace.
“Here we are,” said the palace mournfully. “I’m sorry about the, you know, death threats, trials, and such….I do hope you can forgive me. I didn’t realize that it was…you….”
“We forgive you,” said Mini.
“I would have done the same if I were a palace,” added Aru graciously.
The palace beamed. Silver lights burst from the ceiling and drifted down like glittering confetti.
“I have a present for you as you continue on your journey,” said the palace shyly.
“What is it?”
“Just a trifle,” it said. “Something you might keep in your pocket and remember me by, should you not be able to visit me again.”