Julian’s simple question set me reeling, and I understood that Hana and I, we were not the same. I’d been a Gotmama, a loved girl with a lifeline. When my mother was taken, it was only off to jail. I’d had total faith that Kai would come for me. What faith could Hana have, once Kai was dead and gone? Hana was stuck wherever Kai had left her, with whatever brain-addled arrangement Kai had made—or failed to make.
Hana didn’t know that I existed, much less that I was looking for her. She didn’t know that anyone was looking. Hana wasn’t like me. She was like Candace, Shar, Karice—every lost girl in the world who felt herself unvalued and unsought. She had no way to know that somewhere in the world, right now, her name was being called.
CHAPTER 7
A long time ago, this happened, and it’s happening now. Raktabija, the Red Seed Demon, arose against the Earth. He came to burn it and warm his great red feet among the cinders.
The armies of the Earth rose up, swords lifted to protect their mother. They ran at him, and they cut him in a thousand places, all at once. The Red Seed fell, and the army cheered.
But even as the armies celebrated, the Red Seed’s blood was soaking into the earth, and the earth is such a fertile mother. From every place even a drop had touched down, another Raktabija sprang up, full grown, swords drawn, so that the thousand cuts became a thousand demons. The armies of the Earth fell back, with a host of Red Seeds now assailing them.
They fought so bravely, all Earth’s sons, but it did no good. Each time they cut a demon down, the blood would spatter. Each drop would spawn another from the soil, and another, and another, until the armies of the Earth were outnumbered. Their bodies lay in heaps upon the ground, and soon they would all be destroyed.
It was then that Kali came. She came not because she had been called by men; all human beings call out to their gods, and very few get answers. Kali came because the heart of Earth herself was groaning.
The demons were afraid when they saw Kali, until they realized she had no swords. Only bells. How they laughed and pointed, to see a champion so armed. She had tiny bells tinging on her fingers, larger ones chiming on her wrists and ankles, and great, deep bells roaring as they hung in a cinch around her waist.
They laughed, but they did not laugh long. Kali began dancing to the music of her bells, and as she danced, she let her long tongue unfurl from her mouth. It snapped like a whip, keeping time. It whirled like a dervish. Her tongue did its own dance to the tintinnabulation of the bells, and it was redder and faster than all the legion of the Great Red Seed.
The armies of the Earth rallied, and began to cut the demons down. Kali danced among them, whipping and whirling her red tongue, lapping blood from the air before it could fall. She licked up every drop, so by the time each demon died, he was a husk, as empty and transparent as a plastic bag. The drained bodies of the Red Seed were so light, so empty, that they flurried in the air as Kali’s feet danced through them. Earth’s armies reaped and mowed, and Kali drank and drank, until all the Great Red Seed was only dandelion fluff, riding the winds in swirls and eddies.
“Bitch, get off the phone,” a female voice says on the other end of the line, so loud it crackles.
Joya and I startle at the interruption. We are huddled side by side on the floor of the pantry with the old phone set to speaker, our heads cocked to listen to my mother’s story.
We look at each other wide-eyed, and then Kai is back.
“It’s okay. Rhonda’s talking to that rude woman about manners. Oh, wait—one more second.”
We hear muffled, angry conversation through the speaker.
Joya hugs herself and whispers, “Shit, your mama can tell a good story.”
“Yeah,” I agree.
My mother’s stories do not have a Disney version; if they’re spooky, then she tells them deep-down spooky. Maybe too spooky if she is going to be this far away, fighting about phone time with a mean-voiced lady who might be dangerous.
“I’m back. We have a few more minutes,” Kai says.
Joya asks Kai, “Is that the end of the story?”
“No,” Kai says, at the same time I say, “Yes.”
I don’t want my mother to gain a mortal enemy because I kept her talking. I want her safe. Also, I like it when the Red Seed tale ends here. If it were nighttime, and Kai were tucking me in bed, she would now say, Each of those demon-dandelion tufts is a wish for you. Close your eyes and make them. I’d be fast asleep before I ever finished wishing.
I don’t like Kai’s favorite end, where Kali, drunk on demon blood, cannot stop dancing. She’s so wild and mighty she begins to crack the earth itself. She cannot be stopped. The armies quail, and all seems lost, until her lover comes. He lies down directly in her path, and when her bare foot touches his chest, she stops at once. Lest she crush his precious heart, Kai says in that version, and that’s my cue to make a puking noise.