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[auspicethebeginningoftheend]

1855, Cardiff, Wales

Darling, dearest, dead.

The scarred boy smiled as he read the sentence. It was not the first time he had read it, and probably wouldn’t be the last. He stretched and gazed into the woods, alit with sunlight, looking beautiful and ethereal as a single ray peeked through the dense green canopy. Sunlight, which brought life into others. Sunlight, which to him, was forbidden.

He was five the first time he got sick. He remembered screaming. His vision blurring, and his joints screeching in white hot pain. The second time an attack came, he simply sobbed as the waited for the pain to fade. By the third, he muffled his cries against the pillow and attempted to go back to sleep.

There were rules of course. The healer had said as much. The boy’s disease was uncommon, but not unheard of. No sunlight, he still remembered the healer saying, his forehead glistening with sweat, no garlic. Try to sleep, try not to move.

Nothing to do but suppress it until it moves on.

They called it the Devil’s Curse. Said it must have been the result of the sins his past self had committed. Gods, with the the amount it hurt, it sure did feel like that. 

He even said so to his mum, that fateful august day. At which point she took him into her arms, and squeezed him into one of her warm hugs. He was already taller than her, but the scarred boy seemed to shrink into his mother’s embrace and she whispered furiously into his hair with tears in her eyes, her voice thick, that he never say that to her or to anyone ever again. And that had been the end of that. 

The scarred boy was resting against the window after another one of his attacks. His chocolate hair soft, his forest eyes gentle. As watched, a crow flew onto the branch of the giant oak, atop a lonely swing creaking with the wind, right under that lone streak of sunlight. He remembered playing on that swing as a kid, his father pushing him, laughing loudly as the boy yelled to go higher Papa! higher!

His father, who couldn’t even look in the eyes of a son long lost to illness. Always dependent. A disappointment, in his eyes. Forever a child, and a hindrance to society.

The boy forced himself to look away from the sight, his wretched heart already seeping inside. Away from a childhood lost. Away from the crow which had more freedom than he had ever had in his fifteen years. Away from it all.

He sighed, his chest suddenly, strangely empty, his heart vaguely gray and forced himself to read on.

Darling, dearest, dead.

[auspicethebeginningoftheend]

1847, Lucknow, India

“Please Mama? I’ll be a good girl I promise, pakka, pakka, pakka!” Asha begged one august night, as her mother shook her head.

“Let her go cara, she needs to experience the world she needs to grow up in, sooner or later.” Her father spoke up. 

“And let a six-year old go by herself into a bustling city full of strangers doing bhagwan jaane kya? Not a chance.” Her mother replied firmly.

“But I wouldn’t be alone, I’ll be with Papa! Please, Ma?” Asha reasoned. She could see the gears turning in her mother, and saw the exact moment her resolve crumbled.

“Fine, but I want you to finish your school work on the trip. I will not be wasting time at home. You are one of the only girls who get to school, and I better not see you wasting that privilege.” 

Her mother had been opposed to her going to school in the beginning, but once her father persuaded her, she would accept nothing but the best from Asha. Asha often thought how it would be like to be Shyamala, their neighbor who didn’t go the school and spent the entire day running wild. 

Asha huffed, but nodded, and in five minutes was in front of the horse cart with her bag slung over her shoulder, her father helping her climb it. She grinned as she made herself comfortable on the cotton bags, she was finally going to Delhi.

***

Delhi was all she expected, and everything more. It was a bustling busy marketplace, and she sunk deeper into her father’s side as people stared; a white man with a brown daughter wasn’t a usual sight there. 

Asha smelled the scent of the sweet perfumes wafting from the shops, the sharp tang of spices in the air, the clop of hooves heard dimly blending with squawks and the bleats. Her father stopped the cart near a shop as a man came out, smiling good naturedly.

“Salaam Anthony ji! Phir wahi saaman?” the man with the strange cap on his head greeted.

“Ji.” Her father replied back in Hindi, having seasoned it over the years.

 “Bas aur lauki add kar dijiye ga.” Asha scrunched her nose at that. She did not like bottle gourd. The man started, having just seen her pressed into her father’s side.

“Wah! Aaj to gudiya bhi aa nikli!” The man smiled at her.

“Hanji. Bahut jyada ki demand karti hai madam.” Her father poked fun at her, as he reached for the vegetables and fruits they needed to get them for the next month, giving the man some coins.

“Alvida gudiya.” The man waved at her, and she waved back.

As they walked back to the cart, her eyes caught onto something. She pulled her father’s sleeve, and motioned to that stall, pulling him along as she ran there, scared that someone else would take her treasure. Asha crouched down, and pulled out a book. It was a black book with gold engravings, and little dots which traced out a pattern. She was just beginning to learn English, and stumbled over the title.

“T-th-the S-sky At-atlas.” She read aloud and looked to her father, silently asking if she could have it. Her father laughed, and proceeded to buy it for her. 

“Do you know what these are tesoro?” He asked later, when they sat comfortable in the cart, the beginnings of sleep lulling over them. Asha shook her head.

“These,” he traced over the dots, “are stars. Do you want to learn about them?” She nodded excitedly. 

“Well, then I suppose, we’ll have to continue teaching you English through this. But this will be our little secret, okay candessa?” But as he looked to her, he saw that she had already fallen asleep, her head bent toward his arm, hers clutching her beloved treasure close to her self.

-------------------------------

hello! slight note here + translations

Anthony is English, but has Italian lineage, so he speaks both Italian and English, and so does Asha. Also, Asha’s arc (for the time being) is centered on her being in India, so a lot of Hindi will be used, but rest assured, I will be attaching the translations for both the Italian and Hindi parts.

I don’t speak Italian, so the pet names are all from a fic I liked and the meanings are from there as well. If a native speaker wishes to correct me, and would like to help, I would be ever so grateful. 

I will try to update daily, with Asha’s and the Mysterious Boy’s POVs on alternating days. The Boy’s name will not be revealed yet for plot reasons, but I’d love to hear you thoughts! :)

This book is also majorly based on ‘The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue’ by V. E. Schwab, and is largely inspired by it, with a twist of my own.

TRANSLATIONS:

pakka- absolutely/promise (informal)

cara- dear

bhagwan jaane kya- god knows what

Salaam Anthony ji! Phir wahi saaman - Hello Anthony sir (not sir exactly, more like respectfully, used for elders or important people)! The same things again?

Bas aur lauki add kar dijiye ga - Just add more bottle gourd please.

Wah! Aaj to gudiya bhi aa nikli! - Wow! The doll came out today!

Hanji. Bahut jyada ki demand karti hai madam - Yes. The madam demands a lot. (said teasingly, and not the exact translation, same for any other sentence/phrase and there is a language disparity)

Alvida gudiya - Bye doll

tesoro - darling

candessa - candle

[auspicethebeginningoftheend]

1845, Cardiff, Wales

The house has a heart, and it is pounding. It is pounding, pulsating through the ground, attracting all the night's creatures, little croaks and buzzes heard everywhere.

The house has a heart and it is pounding. And in the center of the heart lies a screaming boy. For even though the house's heart was pounding, his was gently slowing to a still.

The house has a heart, and it is pounding. It is pounding as the boy parents rush in, pounding as a healer gets called, pounding through all of the chaos. It is still pounding when the boy wishes for the first time that he would feel nothing, for surely feeling nothing would be better than feeling this all the time.

[auspicethebeginningoftheend]

1846, Lucknow, India

The rain fell hard on the house, almost as if it were yearning to be heard. Asha shivered, and crawled into her blanket as the thunder roared, shouting over the rain. She buried her face into Babbit, a matted, no well-loved rabbit she had had for two years now, and inhaled deeply. Asha wished she was with her mother right now, as all five-year old's should’ve been, but her new sister was taking up all the space, and her father was set to return that night. Asha thought briefly about praying to the gods to give her courage as her mother often did, but she had never quite believed in the gods, and besides she remembered what her great-grandmother had once told her before her demise.

Never pray to the gods that answer after it’s dark.

Just then, the door creaked open, and a beam of light shone into her darkened room. “Asha?” she heard as she felt strong arms shake her, as if to rouse her, and she slowly opened her eyes to the sight of her father.

“Papa!” she laughed, and hugged him tight, her mother smiling in the doorway with her little sister bundled up in a blanket, all gods forgotten as she sunk into his warm embrace.