Ellen Datlow - The Beastly Bride

When my Nani told me this I did not understand.

She glanced at me, cutting onions by feel. Her eyes were bright, the knife swift and steady in her wrinkled hand. “You will,” she said.

He is waiting for me in the garden, his tail coiled under him, his head in his hands. He looks up as I hurry over, but he does not speak until I am close. Then he puts his arms around me, leans his head on my shoulder, and says, “They took it away.”

“Who?” I do not have to ask what. I hold him, stroking his hair, breathing in its dark-leaf fragrance.

“The elders. Not all of them; your Nani said not to.”

My arms tighten around him. “Nani?”

“She is our storyteller. But the rest are — angry — that any of us would learn your people’s magic, and shocked that any of us could .”

“Magic?” The lizards and birds do not come when he plays.

“Making the sweet sounds with your fingers. They said it was wrong, and. they took it away.”

The grief in his voice shakes me. Even Auntie would not take music away from me. I ask, “Why?”

“They’re scared, I suppose.” He speaks into my shoulder.

“Of course they’re scared. It is our bane. So beautiful, so powerful. ” He pulls back, looks at me, and says, “We cannot resist that pull.”

I rest a fingertip on his nose. “Bane.”

He blinks.

I smile and hold the flute to his lips. He reaches out a hand, slowly, to touch it, and looks wide-eyed at me.

“Blow,” I say.

He does. It makes no sound at all. He looks surprised, and indignant, and I cannot help but laugh. This makes him glower, so I kiss him before showing him how to coax a sound from the flute.

Later, as his fingers trace the beadwork on my kurti , around my neck, across my breasts; as my lips are learning the shape and taste of him in the dark, he says, “I am not allowed to be here.”

I kiss his shoulder, his neck, his jaw. Whisper in his ear, “Nor I.”

Papa’s call pulled Mama out of the kitchen, wiping flour off her hands, and Gautam out of his room to the big, scarred-wood dining table. Vikram was at the other end, with heavy books around him, and Vikram showed no signs of leaving. Shruti was still in the garden and did not hear.

“Well,” Papa said, “maybe it’s for the best. She will be less of a problem if she hears it from Gautam.”

Vikram looked up.

“Hears what, Papa?” Gautam asked.

Mama polished an imagined smudge from the wood with the end of her sari.

Papa sighed. “She cannot go to college,” he said, “and no normal man will marry her. And Mr. Bhosle says Amit heard her playing that music of hers with someone. What next?”

Gautam said, “She can stay with me.”

“A live-in mousetrap,” said Vikram.

Auntie, coming in with a stack of stainless steel plates, laughed. “Wait until you have a wife, Gautam.” She set the plates on the table with a clatter.

“But listen,” said Papa, “I know a much better solution. I have written to — you know that boy, he was on television. The one who holds cobras. He is still alive; I wrote to his parents. They agreed that he should meet Shruti.”

“Oh, what a good idea,” Mama said. “They will have so much in common.”

“They can open a pet shop,” said Vikram.

Gautam glared. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

“Than in my own home?”

Gautam turned his back on Vikram and said, “She’s never even met the boy.”

“Your mother’s right. They both like snakes to the point of obsession. Neither is quite — normal. ”

Vikram snorted.

“. but his parents are happy that she will not scream at his cobras.”

“She’s only sixteen, Papa.”

“Am I getting her married tomorrow?”

“Are they Brahmins?” asked Mama.

“No, but they are well-off, and we cannot be too—” He stopped, and glanced at Gautam. “That is, in this day and age, it is very old-fashioned to care about caste.”

Gautam pushed himself to his feet. Hands flat on the table, he leaned over his father. “You talk like she’s defective,” he said.

Vikram murmured, “There’s a reason for that.”

“She’s not stupid, Vikram. She’s clever enough to stay away from you.”

The microwave beeped insistently into the silence that followed.

“Vikram,” said Auntie, a little too loudly, “can you clear away your books and call your Papa? It’s time for dinner.”

“She’s just. innocent, Papa. Look, you don’t need to worry about her. She can stay with me. Really.”

“What kind of life would that be for her?” Mama demanded. “Unmarried, unwanted, and underfoot in her brother’s house? No!”

“Sit down,” said Papa. “I know you want your sister to be happy. We all do. But you are too young to see the wisdom of age.”

“Does the wisdom of age mean settling her life behind her back?”

“If she cannot even be home at dinnertime, maybe it does!”

Gautam’s eyes widened. “Shit.”

“Gautam,” said Mama, “What have we said about language?”

“Well, it’s not like her, is it? I’d better go look.”

Vikram stood up, smiling. “I’ll go with you,” he said. “Mama, you’ll clear my books, won’t you? The poor darling might be in trouble.”

Knowing that we are both disobeying our elders brings us closer. I do not leave when I normally would, nor do I pull away when he tugs at my kurti , when he eases it over my head. My jeans follow. The bra confuses him, until I help.

He is a shadow cast by the waning moon above me, black limned with silver. His tail strokes my leg, tossing an arc of light between its coils, and light catches in his circlet. He picks jasmine flowers, lets them drift through his fingers onto my bare skin. I taste jasmine on the roof of my mouth, and crushed leaves, and arousal. He leans down. Kisses my neck. I feel teeth against my skin.

He slides a hand teasingly down my belly, and shifts. The wind grows stronger, bringing me the rich leaf-scent of the great forest. His magic tingles just under my skin. I arch up, aching to shift, and find myself pressed against him. He is in man-form. His gasp matches my own. We stare at each other.

We both hear the snap of a broken twig.

We freeze. Another footfall and he shifts, from man to half snake to snake.

I snatch my jeans and jam my legs into them. Not Vikram, I pray, not here, not now.

The snake melts into shadows. I grab my kurti , telling myself that he had no choice. A click, and the great forest is washed away on a wave of overbright blue light, leaving me alone. I hold the kurti to my chest.

“What have you been doing?” It is Gautam’s voice. And Gautam’s LED key chain torch, the one he is so proud of. I wince.

“I think that’s pretty clear, no?” says Vikram behind him. “The question is, who’s Little Miss Innocence doing it with ?”

I clutch my kurti closer.

“Put that on, stupid. It’s not for playing with.”

I twist away and pull it quickly over my head, inside out, trying not to show him more than he has already seen. Beadwork scrapes against me.

“I never would have believed it,” says Gautam softly.

Vikram shoulders past him. I shrink back. “Believe what you want,” says Vikram. “The question is what the neighbors—” His foot jerks sideways under him and he falls crashing through the bougainvillea bush. He screams.