Rebel Queen by Michelle Moran Read Free Book Online

one of the little tortoiseshell brushes she used to line her eyes with kohl in the mornings. Then the images of the temple came back to me, and I felt an overwhelming sense of dread.
    When Father’s hand remained outstretched, I took it quickly and wrote, “Please don’t send me to work in the temple.”
    “What temple?”
    “Where Dadi-ji took me yesterday. I don’t want to work for soldiers. Please, Pita-ji. I want to stay with you.”
    Father looked across the burning pyre at Grandmother, and when her eyes met mine, I knew she realized what I had done.

    I t didn’t matter that our neighbors had gathered in our courtyard or that half of Barwa Sagar was outside. There was never a bigger fight in our house. The walls seemed to shake with Father’s bellowing and Grandmother’s shrieking, both sounds incoherent with rage. I hid in my room, and Aunt came to sit with me.
    “Did she really take you to the temple, Sita?” she asked.
    “Yes. The priest said he’d pay thirteen thousand rupees. Do you know what that means?”
    Aunt nodded, her eyes closed, but she didn’t explain. We listened to the fighting until suddenly, my door swung open, and Father pointed to my diary. I fetched it from its shelf and gave it to him, unsure whether I was supposed to write in it, or if he was.
    A moment later Grandmother appeared, and Father took a penfrom my desk. On an empty page in the diary he wrote, “Every person here bears witness to the fact that if something should ever happen to me, neither of my daughters shall ever”—and he underlined the word ever —“become devadasis. There is no money for a dowry fortune large enough to find them both suitable husbands. So tomorrow, I begin training with Sita for a position in the Durga Dal.”
    Since Grandmother couldn’t read or write, she looked to Aunt for a translation. When she heard what he had written, she sucked in her breath.
    “The Durga Dal is the most elite group of women in this kingdom! No woman in Barwa Sagar has ever become a Durgavasi,” she said.
    My father’s nostrils flared. He might not have heard her words, but he understood her meaning.
    Only ten women are chosen for this role. “You want Sita to become one of the women who not only guard the rani but entertain her?” She took the pen from Father’s hand and handed it to Aunt. “Ask him what will happen if she fails. Ask him!”
    Aunt wrote the question in her small, neat handwriting.
    “She will not fail,” Father wrote back. “She has me and she has our neighbor, Shivaji. We will train her.”
    As soon as Aunt relayed this message, the color rose on Grandmother’s cheeks.
    “They haven’t held a trial for a new member in three years. You don’t have the time for this!” She instructed Aunt to write. “What about a new wife? A woman who can raise your baby and give this family an heir?”
    Father replied, “Until Sita becomes a member of the Durga Dal, I will never consider remarrying. Ever.”
    He put down the pen. The decision was final.
    From this moment, Grandmother began to pretend that I didn’t exist. And since she could only communicate through crude signs to Father, our house became extremely silent. I’d like to tell you that this was ideal, that it gave me more freedom, but as anyone who’s ever lived inside a house of eggshells knows, nothing is more fragile.
    In the mornings when Avani came to help me dress, there was no more laughter. Grandmother had told her I was a shameless child, and whether or not Avani believed this, we no longer shared happy moments together. But I watched her with Anuja, and the tenderness she showed my baby sister made me understand that if I had been younger, more pliable, less shameless, things might have been different. Eventually, I grew so accustomed to the silence in our house that I became like a frozen stream—hard and impenetrable on the outside, but secretly bursting with life within.

Chapter Four
    1846
    F ather honestly believed I