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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Teens
- Theme: Action & Adventure
- Subject: Culture / Heritage / Lifestyles
- Published: 12/19/2024
The Stolen Pages of the Cilappatikaram
The Stolen Pages of the Cilappatikaram
Prologue:
` As Mrs. Griffins, my eighth grade homeroom teacher, carelessly tosses her ash-brown, shoulder-length hair, sending the papers in the classroom flying, she warmly states in her lilting voice, “Come in, Sangavi.” Mrs. Griffins stumbles over the name of the new student, making it sound like Sahn-gaavie, though I knew too well it was supposed to be pronounced contrastingly differently. An average-heighted girl with dark brown skin and a small white streak of powder on her forehead, a sign showing she was a Hindu, timidly walks into the teacher’s shadows, her upward eyes constantly dashing across the classroom, and her rosy cheeks absurdly hollow that I doubted a mini muffin would fit in it. Her ringlets of black hair are tied into a messy ponytail while fervent butterflies fiercely beat their wings in my stomach, or perhaps, it's the thick lump in my throat that is making me feel embarrassed.
When she pushes her thick-framed glasses with her slender fingers to stay perched on the bridge of her constantly-wrinkling nose, a few students wearing chic glasses silently let out impertinent snickers. An uneasy grimace squirming on my already-paled face, Mrs. Griffins’ words about the new student being a Tamil emigrant from Sri Lanka, where my parents were also born, makes my ears throb, bringing in an endless ringing sound. As soon as “Sri Lanka” hits my ears, I don’t know how to react. My chestnut-brown skin turns red in the second. Was I supposed to be excited, proud, worried, or should I start taking my Tamil class lessons seriously to not speak my broken-Tamil in front of the new student? What if I have to translate every single thing Mrs. Griffins says to the new student, help her with her homework, AND give her a whole tour of the school? The butterflies in my stomach start beating so fast that I uneasily sink further into my seat, and quickly pull my hoodie over my head, wishing this girl did not come to Canada in the first place.
Ever since my former best friend abruptly moved to British Columbia last month without informing me, I have been lonelier than ever at school. Most of the time, I stand alone in the dark shade of the trees, too embarrassed to be seen lonely while every other student at school has their own group of friends to laugh and play with. That hurts, and one of the things most people don’t realize is that being alone hurts ALOT. Would Sangavi be my new friend? Wait, was that a good thing or a bad thing?
The following day, when Mrs. Griffins announces our next project of researching about a cultural or religious story reflecting on our identities, I had been too excited to choose the Ramayana or the Mahabharata, two major epics from my religion, Hinduism. Though my parents had never talked much about these stories, I knew they all revolved around a prince and his wife, or in the case of the Mahabharata, five princes and their one wife. With more research and time, I knew I could learn more than ever about my religion and its spellbinding stories. But when Mrs. Griffins partners me with Sangavi, my palms sweat in fear as my confidence plummets like a roller coaster falling from the peak.
“Maybe we should pick a story native to the Tamil people, a story no person other than the Tamil know about,” Sangavi suggested.
“But, I…” I begin to protest.
“Please,” she requests with her impressive puppy eyes gleaming with hope, and I reluctantly relent with a sigh.
The Enigmatic Librarian:
After basking in the typical Toronto heat, the air conditioning ripples across my skin, which was coated with a thick layer of endlessly rolling sweat beads, sending sparks of coldness through my body like electric shock. As I embrace the cool air, I slowly take a deep breath, the sharp sweetness of new and fresh books seeping into my nose like venom, while the comforting hush in the room grows by the second, making me wonder if sound even exists in this place. The familiarity of the library’s aura weaves around me like the gentle ocean waves that move ever so slightly in the YouTube meditation videos my father plays on the TV as part of our super annoying “daily-upkeep-of-the-body” routine.
“What in the world?” Sangavi’s silvery voice booms, followed by the everlasting, sharp sounds of pages being restlessly flipped through.
“Huh?” I let out; a touch too loud. I stare back at her in utter confusion, noticing a tint of worry in her eyes for the first time.
“Where could it be?” Sangavi wonders, her mind trailing off in possibly a hundred worries, her thin, yet gracefully arched eyebrows bunching while her almond-shaped eyes dart around.
“Check the bookshelf it was found in,” Sangavi’s Thatha, or grandpa, suggests in Tamil, leaning into the shelf and thrusting his right arm behind the row of thick tomes in search of some fragile, torn pages. “Not here,” he finally sighs, shaking his head at both Sangavi and I.
Confused, I snatch the book from her, quickly tucking in any flying strands of my hair behind my cold ears and flipping to the section where several pages were forcefully torn along the book’s thick, chocolate-brown spine. Oh no, I pale in worry.
It wasn’t just any book. It was the Cilappatikaram, an ancient Tamil text, which we desperately needed for our major eighth grade project. Yet, upon searching library after library for this book, and frustrating our mothers by begging them to drive us out of our neighbourhoods to the public library in Downtown Toronto that owned the only copy of the book, we had just learned that, to our misfortune, most of the pages of this book were, quite frankly, gone. Razor-sharp claws had scratched the edges of the pages, tearing them off the book. The missing section was instead replaced with pages of indecipherable language etched across.
“Well, it's torn, and so are the chances of our project. I can call Amma and your mom so we can leave now. “ I airily reply, followed by an eerie, taut silence of tension and disappointment among all of us about what we would do to finish our project.
“Excuse me, please put the book back,” a rasping masculine voice sounds, jerking me to turn around. The icy voice sounds both faraway and nearby, with a funny, hissing sound layered beneath it. To my right, an average-aged man, with chestnut brown skin and streaks of grey, disheveled hair, strides in outrage toward us, furiously sucking through the plastic straw of his cup of cold Tim Hortons coffee (gross). Sangavi stares at him with utter disgust and horror at the sight of his odd dressing sense – a tight-fitting, charcoal blazer with a starkly contrasting pair of flamboyant shorts dyed in spirals of every single colour of the rainbow, blinding my eyes at the mere sight.
“What kind of outfit is that?” Sangavi whispers into my ears, pursing her lips. I put my fingers over my lips, gesturing to her to avoid inviting trouble.
“You pesky children, return that book back to me!” the man grunts thunderously.
“Why should I return the book?” Sangavi shoots back, squaring her shoulders in defiance as she always does when someone insults her. Before she begins her conventional retorts, I sharply nudge her in the ribs, whisper-yelling, “Show some respect to your elders. Why do you always want to invite trouble?”
She instantly ignores my advice (as usual), and continues glaring straight into the uncannily-pale eyes of the man, ready to pull his pupils with her stare while I stay frozen in fear. What does Sangavi think she’s doing?
“It’s against the rules to touch that book!” the man grimly argues back, menacingly craning his neck towards us, looking like a tall, bent pencil, ready to squeeze our throats to get his seemingly-precious book back.
“Well, it’s also against the rule to drink in the library,” Sangavi hardens her scowl, giving a pointed, dismissive look at his drink.
“THIS! IS! MY! LIBRARY!” he scowls, his face literally screaming terror and villainy as he snatches the book away from Sangavi’s clutches. She tugs on to the book in return, careful not to rip any more of the pages. With cold determination evident on their faces, they both clench onto either side of the tome. Sangavi’s slender fingers, slippery with cold sweat, run over the oddly inscribed pages.
The Altered Tale of the Cilappatikaram
Thud! Boom!
“WOAH!” Pinwheeling her arms out of balance as she trips on her sneakers and unwitting pushing me down as well, Sangavi calls for my help, “Ven–” She gulps for air, finishing her sentence in a spitting/coughing/croaking/crying manner, “PAH!” Flat on the ground, my poor face being slammed onto the floor and unable to bear the crushing weight of her body having fallen on top of, I croak, “Yes…”
“Oh, sorry! I didn’t mean to fall on top of you!” Sangavi gasps, realizing the soft layer beneath her is my body. She quickly scrambles back to her feet, lending me a hand. “No thanks,” I mutter under my breath, distrustful over the girl. I gently rub my severely bruised forehead, grumbling a bunch of cruel words at Sangavi (in my mind, of course) for not being cautious enough, while I struggle to cover my weary eyes from the blinding light blanketing us in the library. I realize the librarian must have scrambled, leaving no traces of his presence behind, and making me wonder if it was all a dream until I accidentally slap the bruises on my face. My mind replies with a blaring, NOPE! IT’S TRUE!
A transparent sphere, resembling an immense bubble, pops before our eyes in the middle of the vast library, as I fearfully come to the bitter realization that both of our parents, Thatha, and the other readers in the library had vanished. Within the bubble, a hushed vision plays as my clenched jaw drops in utter surprise, being washed over by disbelief.
A gaunt, yet tall, light-gold-skinned woman fiercely strides down the main hall of an ostentatious palace, followed by a furious crowd of women and men. The woman, her luxurious, ink-black hair cascading down her shoulders, moving like a turbulent river in the air, resembles the heroines from South Asian movies who are always introduced with their hair elegantly flying in the air (which I had recently learned was because they used a blow dryer in the films). A bright red, simple saree is draped around her body, with a miniature, red pottu (bindi), on her gleaming forehead, between her beautifully curved, long eyebrows. The lady is not as ostentatious in jewellery, and her round face betrays nothing but outrage. She clutches onto a gleaming, golden anklet until her knuckles turn white. Her eyebrows furrow in boiling anger, an endless stream of tears gracefully rolling down her perfectly-almond-shaped eyes.
She marches to the King and Queen joyfully seated on their ornate throne and throws her anklet forcefully at the floor before them, yelling in evident sorrow and misery. Though she tries to say something, all I hear is nothing. To make the story more dramatic, I scavenge in my mind for any piece of dramatic music. As my mind tracks off, I do a double take, turning my full attention towards the vision as I realize the lady must be none other than Kannagi, the revered female protagonist from the ancient Tamil text, Cilappatikaram.
So why did this vision pop out of nowhere? I wondered, striving to wrap my mind around what had happened over the past few seconds. I find Sangavi to my left, and just as I’m about to nudge her to ask my question, an intense look of concern spreads on her face, bunching her eyebrows in worry.
According to my mom’s nighttime stories, Cilappatikaram revolves around the Kannagi and Kovalan, and their life as a married couple. One day, Kovalan falls for the graceful dance performance of Madhavi, and abandons his wife, Kannagi, who is deeply shattered but clings onto hope that her husband would return. As Kannagi hopes, Kovalan returns back home, feeling guilty for what he had done, and the two decide to start a new life in the city of ancient Madurai. However, with no money left to use for their expenses, Kannagi lets her husband sell one of her anklets at the royal goldsmith. To their dismay, the royal goldsmith was also the thief who stole the Queen’s anklet at the time, and he blames Kovalan instead for stealing the royal anklet. Hearing this, the King instantly orders Kovalan to be beheaded, but when Kannagi learns about her husband’s unjust death, she furiously demands justice from the King as she proves Kovalan was not the thief. In outrage, she burns the entire city of Madurai, seeking justice.
In the vision before me, Kannagi forcefully throws her anklets across the floor in distress. However, instead of diamonds, round, lustrous pearls clink out of them. No, this is not how the story goes! I desperately want to yell, but my throat feels closed as if someone was holding their hands tightly around my neck. The King disdainfully laughs at Kannagi in mock sympathy. He gestures towards his royal guards, who forcefully clutch onto each of Kannagi’s arms, dragging her away with all their might as she screams words of fury in response. The vision fast-forwards, with Kannagi detained in the corner of the King’s prison, her hands wrapped around her knees. She rocks back and forth as if she is trying to calm herself down while steadily holding onto her eternal outrage for being accused as the thief of the Queen’s anklet. Her bare feet and hands are fastened to long manacles, and no matter how hard she tries to jerk her arms and feet, her fate of being detained in the King’s prison cannot be changed.
Greetings, Sidekick!
As the blinding light returns, a huge glitch appears before my eyes, the vision and its bubble disappearing in a split second. Just then, THUD! I fall straight to the floor, my forehead banging onto the library’s rug, as a human-sized weight had crashed into me in the wink of the eye again, alas. I toppled to the ground sideways, face planted on the ground for as long as I could, curling into a ball in pain as saliva drooled from my mouth onto the rug, after falling twice in a day.
“She’s sooo weak!” a shrill, singsong voice sneers.
“I mean, she is our coach’s least favourite student at school…” That must be Sangavi, my mind instantly decides.
“Hello…I can still hear you!” I croak in irritation.
I open my eyes, furious at who had bumped into me. When I achingly open my eyes, I see two faces way too close to me. Annoyed, I ask, “What happened to social distancing?”
“What’s social distancing?” the young, cold voice booms. Looking to my right, the light gracefully reveals a tan-skinned girl, approximately the age of a first grader, kneeling beside me with a scornful look pasted across her face, her slit eyes narrowing down at me. She wears an apple-green blouse and forest green skirt made from pattu, an Indian silk, embroidered with gold paisleys along the border. Her slick hair is as silky as shimmering satin, and falls to her shoulders, making me envy how it is perfectly matted against her head, unlike my static hair that always makes me look like a swelling porcupine in my braids.
“Didn’t your parents teach you to say sorry when you bump into someone?” I ask her, ready to scare her off.
“HUSH!” she howls at me, her arms crossed in vexation.
“I’m Malar. Did you both open the Cilappatikaram book?” she calmly questions Sangavi, ignoring me. Hmp. Rude!
Sangavi timidly nods her head, and Malar continues in her I-am-the-boss-so-you-must-listen-to-me voice. “Someone has stolen some of the pages of the official Cilappatikaram book, which is owned by this library. The pages were replaced with a fake account of its main characters, Kannagi and Kovalan’s life, falsely framing them as thieves for stealing the Queen’s anklet. Kannagi placed a curse under every current Cilappatikaram book, that whoever first reads the fake story would be obliged to find the thief and the original pages to bring the truth to the Imaginary World.”
“Hold on!” I shriek, anger fuming, “So, you want us to help you with this mission?”
“That’s exactly what I’ve been saying for the past hour and a half,” Malar murmurs in irritation.
“But I have to finish a five-paragraph essay that is due, precisely, at 11:59 p.m., today! I’m just on my introduction paragraph! Do you even know how hard it is to write an essay?” I wailed, kicking hard into the library wall with my shoes until a crack forms and a bit of the cement crumbles. Sangavi drags me away from the wall before my toes start to ache, and flashes a smile of assurance, “An essay is not that hard.” I grimace at her lack of understanding.
“When it comes to homework or Kannagi, Kannagi must come first,” Malar trudges up to me, punching her fist into the other palm at every word. On any other occasion, when someone is demanding to me, I yell back at them, adding some more nasty words in return for shattering my ego. However, knowing this young child for a mere five minutes, I knew she was not the person I should mess up with.
“I’d rather do my homework than have a first-grader as my sidekick.” I grumbled under my breath. When Malar hears what I said, she casts a withering stare at me, and I stay as frozen as possible, keeping my mouth shut, until we all depart from the library together.
Yay! We’re Cursed!
I step out of the library, bracing myself for anything that is to happen on this already-spoiled Sunday. For a Toronto Sunday evening, I had expected a scattered crowd in the Downtown area, basking in the warm sunlight as the late-November gusts of cold wind gushes onto the face, making the teeth endlessly chatter. Instead, the Downtown we had once been in is now blanketed with an ancient Indian aura and its sweltering heat, the modern structures of buildings and the reflective tiles of glass windows glinting in the sunlight being replaced with sandy-brown structures, intricately designed temples, and palaces topped with ornate gopurams in a majestic kingdom. Through the distance, I could see that instead of windows, the walls had holes looking out into the splendid view of the kingdom, with white, modest curtains gently dancing to the quiet beats of the breeze. An unpretentious sandy road stretches across the ancient kingdom, low houses for the peasants and the middle-class with doors too small for any adult to enter without ducking lining the sides of the road.
Looking like a wild goose as I cock my head in confusion, I ask, “What kind of world is this?”
“It’s ancient Madurai, the setting of the Cilappatikaram.” Malar intensely replies as if she is searching for something.
“We travelled back in time to the setting of the story?” I ask, too shocked to even grasp Malar’s reply.
“Yes, but we’re living in the world that was falsely written in the book. In other words, we’re living inside a story. Only Kannagi, the thief, and I are aware that this is not the true version of the Cilappatikaram.” She hollers out loud, darting past sweating, angry women carrying ceramic pots filled to the brim with water, motioning us to follow her pace. “Now, c’mon, we need to find Kannagi to get some clues for our mission. By the way, the curse also includes that until you finish your mission, you will be trapped in our Imaginary World.”
Amazing! my mind sarcastically grumbles, with more questions than answers. With that, our journey commences.
Behold…Kannagi!
“Ew, is that a half-eaten, rotten apple?” I helplessly yelp, flailing my arms in disgust. Malar and Sangavi look back at me, casting angry glares, and gesturing to me to quiet down. Here we are, crawling through the gross, pit-black sewage of ancient Madurai to find Kannagi, as Malar had called it “the highway to reach those detained by the King.” Fortunately, we soon find a latch, and open the camouflaged door in the stony, underground walls. Malar gestures with her fingers at us to keep silent, as we are to have a secret rendezvous with Kannagi.
‘What should I go for?” Sangavi excitedly whispers to me so loud that my poor ears could pour out blood in any second. “We have to make ourselves look and behave presentable for our first job,” she continues, and if she took the time to notice, my face was turning red by the second. “Should we be self-centered, sympathetic, or should we act like those rich kids at school?” her eyes bulge in excitement. I, on the other hand, I inwardly gulp down my fear, my hands shaking in nervousness.
Kannagi is wearing a plain, ash-grey saree, all of her small pieces of jewellery snatched away from her. Her beautifully-shaped eyes and her bunned hair are as grey as the dark clouds before a storm. Her half-lidded eyes make her look both young and old at the same time, as if she endured so much trouble, too much to bear. Within her pupils are tiny flecks of starlight, arranged scattered and giving off beams of light in the dimly-lit, dusty room. She radiates a mother's ambience, and suddenly I feel a long pining for my Amma.
“Hello, beloved children! You must be the ones who are destined to help revive my original story.” Kannagi smiles in her croaked voice, as if she has not experienced joy for such a long time. Her feminine voice reminds me of the texture of rough bark, with a softened, satiny beautifully hidden beneath it. It was the kind of voice that never tinged with fury, and was filled with affection.
What am I supposed to do now? Should I fall at her feet and seek her blessings, like how I’m supposed to do in my culture? Not knowing what to do, I paste a gentle smile on face, a South Asian smile I have mastered every time I see one of my adult relatives and don’t know how to respond to them when they comment for hours on how pretty your garment is (or where you bought it from), or how you have grown so fast (if they are someone who haven’t met you in such a long time).
“Kannagi Auntie, meet Venpah and Sangavi,” said Malar, with an unshakable humbleness in her voice that stood in stark contrast to her arrogance toward me.
“So, two children, that is?” Kannagi regarded us intently as we stood in our tapered, ugly hoodies and denim pants with striking graphics written on them (mine reading “loading” with a throbber beneath it).
“As a first step, you must find the cruel thief behind this drama so we can bring justice before the King and prove my husband, Kovalan, and I to be guiltless as the original story accounts. Will you both promise to not fail me, no matter what?” she asks. Just as I’m about to say, Depending on the circumstances, Ma’am, Sangavi overindulgently replies, “Yes, we won’t fail you. Plus, we’re a team, no one can defeat us.” I stare at her with my eyebrows raised in disbelief.
“Splendid! I am putting nothing but my trust in you both for proving me and my husband guiltless, and bringing justice in front of the eyes of the King and his kingdom.”
Just as we’re about to leave, I hesitate for the slightest second. Kannagi, noticing this, warmly gestures to me to talk to her about my hesitation. “What if we fail?” I ask timidly, wondering if this was a good question to ask. “Sometimes, it’s the “what if’s” that hold us back from our true capacity. And don’t worry, my dear, justice will always prevail.” She pulls off a diamond ring from her finger, and places it in my palm, saying, “Use this in your desperate times.” With a gentle wave from her, we find ourselves in the main halls of a King’s grandeur palace, my heart filled with an overwhelming sense of confidence, affection, and sympathy.
The crowd has all assembled for a royal meeting. The villagers crowd into the palace with soft whispers floating through the air, passing the gossip from one to another, squishing us until we suffocate for breath. Sculpted designs of lions and ash-coloured pillars carved with traditional aesthetics of floral designs cover every corner of the main hall. Suddenly, as the crowd starts to clear the pathway of the rich, red carpet, decorated with a fancy golden border, the silence falls, with everyone starting to bow. I look up and realize someone sitting on a golden throne chair, with the armrests carved with a lion’s face. The expression of boldness and authority radiates through the steely eyes of the man on the chair. The gleaming gold and diamonds of his crown cast a slight glow on my face and leads me to realize the King’s presence. From the gossip I heard, I had learned that the meeting was to honor the goldsmith who had claimed Kovalan was the thief and handed him to the King.
The King announces, “Now, I shall honor our royal goldsmith with the ancestral golds and treasures of my lineage, since the Viper, as we all know, has brought justice and truth to the kingdom. Your loyalty will always be my honor.” The goldsmith has a wide grin pasted across his face. The meeting soon ends, and as everyone disperses, Malar gets on all fours and motions us to follow her as we run across the King’s palace, following the goldsmith to his underground chamber that he now shared with the King for his accomplishment.
Stalking a Villain
In the darkness of the underground tunnel, all I could see were torches attached to the wall, flames crackling on top of them. The goldsmith, holding one of torches, approaches an open cavern, cackling in triumph, as he opens a chest brimming with the King’s irresistible, gold jewellery. Even watching from far away behind a stone pillar, the glints of the treasure ache my eyes. “All of this is mine,” the goldsmith, entranced, grins.
“Psst,” I whisper, careful not to be heard by the greedy goldsmith, “Why are we stalking this guy?”
“According to the true story, Kovalan handed Kannagi’s anklet to the goldsmith, who had lied to the King that Kovalan had stolen the Queen’s anklet, though he was the true thief. That means, the goldsmith must know why Kovalan was framed as the thief.” Malar replies.
Sangavi splutters, as she bites onto a slow smile spreading across her face, “HE LOOKS JUST LIKE THE LIBRARIAN, RIGHT?!”
“How am I supposed to know? You wear glasses!” I angrily remark, biting my teeth while being as quiet as possible.
“Ha, ha! You need glasses! You are getting old!” Malar taunts in her singsong voice.
“Hey! ‘Respect people who wear glasses, they pay money to see you!’” I shoot back.
“There’s no way you made that up on your own.” Malar snorts at me.
“Yep, and I found it on the world’s best buddy – Google.”
Malar raises her eyebrow in annoyance, while Sangavi rolls her eyes with a half-suppressed chuckle.
“I still have a question. Who would stalk a villian? What if we get caught, or die? Do we just run straight into him with a clenched fist and start punching him?” I ask.
“NO!” they both frown back.
As we watch, the merchant runs his fingers over the gold coins, plucking them out and licking it with his bare tongue. “Mmmm,” he relishes.
Gross!
He walks to the back of a room, and begins dialing in a bunch of numbers in a combination lock that lies on a door that I cannot make out in the darkness. I carefully follow his fingers with my eyes, sneaking a little further to catch a glimpse of what lay beyond the door when it creaked open.
“That’s our next destination,” Malar points at the door.
“What is the password, though?” Sangavi asks, her forehead full of creases.
“One, two, three, four,” I reply. They both stare at me with their mouths wide open. “What? We were supposed to be looking at the numbers he dialed, right?” I ask.
“Sneaky,” Malar whispers loud enough that it grates my ears.
Once the goldsmith enters through the door, we wait a few seconds, and stalk–sorry, follow–him again into whatever lay beyond the door.
Justice For The Librarian/The Goldsmith/The Viper!
“What if there are any traps?” I ask, surprised at how neatly organized the room is. For the lair of the villain, this room looked clean and unpretentious. Malar and Sangavi’s eyes dart across the group, suspicious of the wooden planks on the floor adjoined with screws. The room has a combined smell of sweet hot cocoa and the sharp smell of spring on a foggy day, tinted with some drowsiness as thick fog gradually rolls into the room. My fingers run along the spine of a book on one of the shelves as its ancient fragrance permeates my nose–it’s the original Cilpattikaram book. I hold onto it tight in joy. “Malar, Sangavi, look what I found!” I beam. They both flash smiles across their faces. Now, we just needed to escape with the book, and show this to Kannagi to rewrite the story.
As I step on a wooden plane, its creakiness leaves an echoing noise in the utterly silent room. A wall of fire falls from the ceiling, and I fearfully roll off to the side, clutching onto the sleeve of Sangavi’s hoodie, but Malar gets stuck in a fire trap.
“Go!” Malar wails and I can’t tell if the fire is hurting her. My mind is too frozen to process everything that happens before my eyes. Sangavi tugs my arms, weeping in worry, but I just stand there. Tears wouldn’t stop prickling in my eyes and rolling down my cheeks. I wanted to crumple to the ground and beg the Universe to let go of Malar despite her arrogance toward me. I solely stood there, my feet numb enough to not move, until Sangavi finally pulls me away. As the plumes of smoke gently part, I glimpse at Malar for the last time.
We run straight through the dark chambers, my mind flooding with overwhelming emotions. We open a door and run straight into a room, which turns out to be…a library.
“Well, well, well! Look who we have here!” a familiar voice taunts. It’s the librarian/the goldsmith/the Viper. He appears before us in the same extravagant outfit from the library.
“Is that your introduction? Why do all villains have to start with that? You know, we’re in a modern era, we could try something new?” I suggested.
“You can’t run away from us for long.” Sangavi retorts.
“Yes, I can’t, but I can make you all run away from me for long.” The plants in the library turn razor-sharp and bristle to life as the Viper gracefully shakes his fingers. A stream of magic awakens the books resting on the shelves, making them clatter in unison. The faint curtains along with the windows open and close, as if they are menacing teeth, ready to chew onto anything that tries to escape the room through the windows.
“The King punished me severely for stealing the Queen’s anklets and had left my family on the street while I was detained in his prison, beaten and given no food. And why? Because of Kannagi, she sought justice. You believe Kannagi was the only one who needed justice, what about me? I did not steal the anklet for no reason. I had stolen it to feed my child in my time of poverty, but instead, I was punished nearly to death, and no one cared about my pain, my suffering. How many times further will this world forget to heed our voices, to heed the voices of those punished?” the voice says.
“I stole the pages to seek redemption, and you, wise children, have figured that out.” he smiles.
The books in the room begin to weave into an immense vortex and huge, vivid images of various stories spring to life around me. They collide with one another and move around so fast that I get dizzy and begin to crumple to the ground. I feel like someone has wrapped their fingers around my brain and is trying to steal my memories. That is when I realize that this was not just the Viper’s lair. It is the place where various characters from mythologies and ancient stories around the world kept the pages of their books that they stole. They were on a dead hunt to change their stories. Why did they want to rewrite an entire story?
Surprise! Surprise!
“What are we supposed to fight with, if we don’t have anything to fight with in the first place?” Sangavi yells across the room.
A thought sparks in my mind. I remember the ring Kannagi had given me to use in desperate need. Fighting against hopeless odds to reveal the true story of the Cilppatikaram, to fight for Malar, and to stop the Viper seemed like the ring would be quite beneficial right now.
I don’t realize how heavy of a burden the ring is until I swiftly pull it off my finger and throw it away from me, hoping the Viper would let us go in return. I open my eyes, only to find more destruction than ever. The immense vortex suspends in motion. For the slightest second, I feel as if time has frozen. I notice the Viper’s grim smile reaching from one ear to the other, resembling the Grinch’s grin. Shaking an ornamented anklet in his left hand, a deep rumble sounds from under the wooden planked floor like the sound of a grumbling, hungry stomach. The diyas placed in the small alcoves at the top of the walls flicker, the fire waving unsteadily to the beat.
Suddenly, everything swarms into my mind after I notice the word “rani” inscribed across the pearls of the anklet: Queen. My mind races as I turn to Sangavi in horror. Those pearls had belonged to the Queen of ancient Madurai, which meant the Viper had not only stolen the pages of the book, but also the Queen’s precious anklets. The Queen’s anklets supposedly carried a sense of magic in the air, leaving sounds like the fizzles after eating the popping candy and an endless vibration in the air, with warm tendrils of magic weaving through the room, gently prickling my skin.
I find my ring on the slender fingers of the Viper, his tongue sticking out like the forked tongue of a real snake. The diamond on the ring gleams in the distance. The pearl anklet casts a bright gleam from within it, while with a single movement of the arm, the ceiling and the rubble frozen in the air all fall. The room that had once appeared average-sized now is so spacious I cannot even see the end of it at all. The Viper, a few meters away from us, is nowhere in sight while the embellished doors of the lair glide with the walls away from us as if we were lethal venoms.
Boom! Crack! The deep rumble of the thunder blasts my ears amid the blaring noises of broken pieces of brick, stone, and wood clashing against each other in the piercing whistles of the strong gusts of wind in the room. I pluck my ears, and Sangavi tightly wraps her arms around my arms, trying to balance the both of us in the commotion.
Sharp, harrowing images of my past sins cinch at my mind. Memories of guilt and shame that I hid deep into my mind coil their way through to the front of my mind, as my stomach churns as I remember every painful event, from the day I turned my head away from a poor, homeless mother that begged on the downtown streets, to when bitter words of resentment slipped out of my mouth like a pouring waterfall when I argued with my brother.
My stomach churns so hard, the weight on the bottom half of my body making me want to crumple. A knot ties around my throat as hotness fills my face, making me feel like a hot air balloon inflated with heat. I jar at the visions that burst into my mind as they overtake me into an endless pathway of bitterness, my tongue tasting more bitter than ever. The overwhelmingness also makes my mouth want to burst into sobs and snots, but though I manage to keep my mouth shut, the heaviness in my heart refuses to go away like someone has drilled a hole so big in my heart. I close my eyes tight to avoid the memories, but they keep pouring into my mind without stopping.
The Three, Poor Musketeers
Tender fingers tug at the thick sleeves of my hoodie. I slightly glimpse through my elbow shielding my face as my heart washes over with relief at the sight of a small girl with a cold expression on her face clutching onto me. Malar. I sigh as tears spring to my eyes in overwhelming joy. I wonder how she had escaped the fire, and as if she could read my mind, she hollers through the unending, harsh sounds in the room, “I’ll explain later, but for now, keep moving!” She also tugs onto Sangavi’s loose sleeve, and together, the three of us run away from the commotion, taking each stride with a small light of hope from the back of our minds rather than the biting exhaustion.
Holding onto the book, we run and run and run, and turn every corner in the hallway, as a fireball and a stream of heavy wind continue to follow us. Finally, we run out a door, the only thoughts in our mind of tasting freedom and escape, when–
“Aaahhhh!” I scream, louder than ever, until the world darkens around me, and thump. I land flat, my face slamming into a rough, woody surface. I hear the soft, nearby moans and groans from Malar and Sangavi.
“Well, well, well! Look at you three, poor musketeers!” the Viper’s raucous voice reverberates in the abyss, though he is nowhere to be found, “You have all failed!”
My stomach churns greatly with guilt over failing, so I gently try, “It should be 11:59 p.m. in the real world. Can I go back now to work on my essay?”
“NO!” Malar screams at me, crossing her arms. The knots and butterflies in my stomach cause the pins and needles in my arms, and it becomes colder than ever. What would Kannagi say when learns that we had failed her? What if she learns that we failed because of me?
In the Dark Pit…
“We know that the thief is the goldsmith, and is also known as ‘the Viper,’” Sangavi begins, recounting everything we had learned ever since we were trapped in the Imaginary World, “He kept the original pages of the story in his lair, but we failed to find them.”
“He must have changed the place where he keeps his pages, knowing that two fools are searching for it on behalf of Kannagi,” I grumble, rubbing my bruises across my weary body.
“Hey, what about me?” Malar whines.
“Oh right! Forgot about you! Three fools.” I correct myself, unable to stop the smirk on my face.
Malar must be shooting a glare, while Sangavi stifles a laugh that ends up sounding like a terrible cough.
It feels like hours since I saw the faces of Sangavi and Malar after plummeting into the Viper’s pit filled darkness, but my heart knew well that they were near me while we were despairing about our failed mission to retrieve the stolen pages of the Cilappatikaram.
“Venpah, do you still want to leave, and work on your essay?” Malar asks in a soft voice, leaving me surprised at her calmness.
I freeze for a few moments, as I gather the courage to let out the thoughts that had been lurking in my mind since our major failure. I squeak in my feeble voice,“I want to stay here, now that I think about it. Yes, we’ve failed, but I love it here. I would risk my whole life if I needed to relive this amazing experience and bring back justice for my favourite protagonist. So why give up now?” I suddenly squeaked in my feeble voice, as I gathered the courage to let out the thoughts that had been lurking in my mind.
Sangavi and Malar let out a quiet laughter. As we are all drained from our journey, my confidence springs out of nowhere. Being myself in the real world was difficult, but the Imaginary World was a place of freedom to me. Even though we had failed, we couldn’t give up; there was a lot more left to accomplish in this world.
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