SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

The djinn turned away, with the reborn bird of fire on his arm, and placed an arm around the boy. He looked out at the horizon, where the sun would begin to rise.

“Come along boy,” he said, “We have much work to do.”

Originally published by Betwixt

“Your sister is such a sweetie-pie girl,” Manju Auntie was saying, sticking a pin in Archana’s middle and then hissing between her teeth. “Oof, beta, hilo mat, this all is coming down.” She undraped the sari entirely and Archana resigned herself to standing in petticoat and blouse in the middle of a public bathroom. “She will be getting married next, hai na?”

“Not for a long time,” Archana said. “Owww, Auntie, the pin—don’t, not there—ow. Okay. She’s out on deep-space exploration. But she always says…” She trailed off before she could finish the sentence about Tara-didi’s breathless missives all about Sasha this and Sasha that. Sasha was from Russia and had beautiful cheekbones and was also Tara’s ship’s chief engineer, not that that fact had come up all that often in Tara’s letters. “Right now it’s just me.”

“Ah, you,” Auntie said. “No, no, beta, it is Chandni I am meaning. She is a sweet girl. Not at all modern! She will drape your sari at her marriage even, ha.”

“Chandni?” Archana said, confused, and then the floor lurched under her feet, so Auntie squeaked and Archana hung on to the faucets for dear life; when the world righted again she pulled off the petticoat and blouse with no further ceremony and fished a shift dress out of her bag. “Come on, Auntie,” she said, “they all saw me in my finery, now all they care about is the food”—and then ran for it before there could be any argument.

Out in the space of the corridor it was quiet, except for the soft echoes of the welcome-to-the-wedding party drifting along the ventilation shafts. Definitely the sound of a lot of munching going on. “You,” Archana said, “are such a cow.”

“Aww, didi!” Chandni appeared at her left shoulder, as she always did. “You’re so mean.”

“And tipping Manju Auntie into the urinal wasn’t mean?”

“There wasn’t a urinal,” Chandni said, sulkily. “I had them all ripped out, they make me smell. And I wouldn’t have let you fall.”

“Huh,” Archana said, not quite convinced. “And why’d you do it, anyway? Can you even get married? Like”—she warmed to the topic—“with a giant baraat and everything?”

“It’d have to be light-years across.” Chandni frowned and bounced her hair over her shoulders. Such beautiful hair, Archana thought. Chandni looked young for her age and always would. “It’s not the same for us. Though I’m sure I’d look nice in red.”

“You mean, you”—Archana pointed to Chandni’s pretty pink anarkali and the roses in her hair—“or you ?”

That time she pointed to the wall, to indicate the exploratory mining vessel Chandragrahan . Both Archana’s baby sister, though. She suspected Auntie had just forgotten.

“Both, I think,” Chandni said thoughtfully. “Later on can I try on your lehenga? The one for the reception day?”

“Do you really want to do that?” Archana asked, surprised. “I thought you were—you know. You’re a ship, kiddo.”

Chandni glared at her. On her baby face, it looked more adorable than anything. “Yes,” she muttered, “but I’m not at all modern .”

“Well, then, of course you can,” Archana said, amused, and they went back down to the party.

Lupita was not on board. First, it was Archana’s father who had been doubtful—“Beta, it does not seem right”—and then Supriya Auntie had made noises like chee , chee , and after that Chandni had refused to open the docking bay doors.

“Not till afterwards,” she’d said when Archana complained, and later, in the privacy of the room they were sharing for the wedding festivities, she added: “Dad doesn’t like it! And I can’t. You know.”

Archana took a deep breath. “Chandni, we’ve been living together three years.”

“I know,” Chandni said, conciliatory, but the docking bay doors stayed firmly shut and Archana gave in.

“Just a week,” she said brightly to the screen, “and it’s been two days already, it’ll be fine! Christ, you look so hot and I miss you so much, let’s run away to Oort Station and elope.”

Lupita twirled in her dress for Archana’s benefit. “That bad, huh?” she asked, laughing. Her voice was crystal-clear, as though she were right there in the room, or as though someone somewhere were paying special attention to the quality of the connection. “And tomorrow’s the blessing ceremony, right? We’ll see each other then.”

“For, like, five minutes,” Archana said, “and there’ll be some guy chanting Sanskrit at us.”

“If that’s what’s on offer I’ll take it,” Lupita said. “Hey, is that your room? What’s with the”—she squinted and came closer so for a second the screen was entirely her nose—“florals?”

Archana looked at the pastel extravaganza walls with a sigh. “Chandni,” she said. “Every room I’ve ever shared with her has ended up looking like this after a while. Before you ask”—she held up a hand—“yes, it’s a ship, yes, there’s a tonne of space for all of us. But Mum thought it was important we shared a room growing up, for socialisation.”

“Chandni’s or yours?” Lupita stepped back. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. How are you holding up?”

“Urgh,” Archana said, morose. “All the aunties spent hours draping me. And undraping me. And pretending not to understand me when I spoke English. And complaining about my complexion.”

“You have a lovely complexion.”

“Shut up, what the hell even is a complexion.”

“I don’t know, but I’m sure you have a lovely one.” Lupita grinned at her. “See you tomorrow, honey.”

“Yeah,” Archana said, and the screen went black. After a minute Chandni sidled in, still immaculate in the same pink anarkali.

“I’d have given you longer,” she said, “but Naya is a bugger, na.” Naya was the orbital station where Lupita was staying. “Don’t you know there’s important traffic on the channel, blah blah. This was important.”

Chandni really did believe that these good-night chats with Lupita were important, Archana thought, trying to take comfort in it, but that night the bed seemed empty and cold. Chandni was curled up at the bottom of it and taking up three extra pillows, and that was nice enough, but she gave off no heat.

There was a package from Tara-didi in the morning, delivered via orbital station pickup with a note stuck to the outside. Should be opaque to little sister’s sensors, she’d written. Us bad girls need to stick together . Archana only had time for a quick peek at something pointy-pink with four speed settings before Dabbu Auntie barged in to call her to the beautician. “She has come from Naya Bharat!” Dabbu Auntie announced. “To thread your eyebrows! You want to get married with those so-shaggy caterpillars? Come!”

“Auntie,” Archana said, “Lupita already knows what my eyebrows look like. And Chandni can probably do them better, and less painfully, with a narrow-beam laser”—but Dabbu Auntie clapped her hands and strode forth, and once in the beautician’s chair Archana was poked and prodded and seared (with portable, not ship-mounted, lasers) while her mother wrung her hands and tried to be diplomatic and encouraging.

“Archana always had such different interests, na?” she said to Dabbu Auntie, who only sniffed, and the beautician made a noise like aaaaaie! at Archana’s bitten-down fingernails.