The Serpent's Secret: Chapters 1–5

No matter how much I tried to be like every other witch or zombie or caped crusader in the neighborhood, my parents always had other ideas.

When I was in the first or second grade, the other kids thought the shiny silk saris my mom wrapped me in on Halloween were cool.

They believed me when I told them the bangles and necklaces I wore were made of real emeralds, diamonds, and rubies.

“Go tell your classmates that even kings and queens have to work hard when they move to a new country. And remind them, your father does not own a Quickie Mart; he owns a Royal Farms Convenience Emporium!”

But it wasn’t until that fateful twelfth birthday that I really understood why.

No ominous portents of doom, no noticeable rifts in the time-space continuum, not even a multicar, tractor-trailer pileup on the Jersey Turnpike.

No ominous portents of doom, no noticeable rifts in the time-space continuum, not even a multicar, tractor-trailer pileup on the Jersey Turnpike.

But if you were looking carefully (which I wasn’t) and had watched enough sci-fi television to know (which I probably had), you might have seen a tornado-shaped shadow hidden in all those clouds, something that looked like an intergalactic wormhole.

“Feliz cumpleaños! Joyeux anniversaire! Most felicitous of birthdays, Princess Kiran!”

Whether in saris and bangles or tutus and tiaras, the thing that really got to me about princesses was all that self-righteous, Pepto-Bismol-pink-coated prettiness.

“Oh, I think you’ll survive that, Princess Pretty Pants.” I imagined Zuzu pushing her hipster-red glasses up her pert nose. “But Ms. Valdez might impale you with her protractor if you miss the math test today.”

Baba shook his finger in mock jocularity. “A vampire is a second-rate monster, if you ask me. Now, a rakkhosh—that’s a monster with some chutzpah!”

Baba shook his finger in mock jocularity. “A vampire is a second-rate monster, if you ask me. Now, a rakkhosh—that’s a monster with some chutzpah!”

My father loved using expressions he learned from his customers. “Suck your blood? A rakkhosh will suck the very marrow from your bones and then use your finger as a toothpick!”

His laugh, which jiggled his paunchy belly as usual, seemed a little forced.

The boy looked at my dark jeans and black sweatshirt, furrowing his brows.

“You’re supposed to say ‘trick or treat,”’ I said primly, then immediately wanted to kick myself.

“Get off me!” I said in my loudest anti-attacker voice. Every muscle and nerve in my body felt taut—ready to fight.

I weighed the serving tray in my hand, ready to clobber him in his gorgeous head if I needed to.

The monster crashed blindly around the kitchen, ripping off the refrigerator door with its razor-sharp nails, crushing the cabinets with its huge feet. It was kind of hunched over, but its horns gouged long holes in the ceiling, and plaster flaked down on its already beady eyes.

Even as the adults sauntered by with their little ghosties, firefighters, and goblins in hand, a group of high schoolers dressed as punk-zombie-rockers stopped in front of the house to squint at the winged horses, blinking as if they weren’t really sure what they were looking at.

Lal stopped in front of the boys, growing as red as his turban. “You uncouth hyenas!”

My stomach clenched, and I felt my tear ducts doing something suspicious, until I reminded myself: Blubbering is for babies.

My skin prickled at Prince Neel being so close. Not just because he was a boy, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever sat that close to a boy, but because he was an obnoxious boy. A boy who thought he was all that and a packet of samosas.

Wow, rakkhosh really do rhyme! I thought in passing, before my mind became more appropriately preoccupied with my imminent death and dismemberment.

The demon’s black tongue lolled from between his fangs. “How he’ll holler, how he’ll groan, when I eat the mortal prince’s bones!”

“Seriously?” Neel mused. “That’s the best meter he could come up with?”

Some instinct told me to plunge the sword into the soft spots between the demon’s toes. I was scared, but felt something else besides fear coursing through my veins. Something brave and strong and heady.

I looked in horror as Lal’s weapon lodged itself right in the middle of the monster’s bulbous nose, resulting in yellow streams of rakkhosh snot streaming out of both nostrils.

Okaaay. No matter how stupid Neel thought I was, I knew about black holes. I’d been to the planetarium.

“But nothing can survive inside a black hole, not light, not matter...” My words tapered off as my voice was seriously wobbly. I coughed.

“You are unfortunately correct. Most of what you understand to be black holes manifest in other dimensions as demons—terribly greedy rakkhosh—who gobble up everything around themselves,” Lal said.

“The Tomopolous family is visiting Mount Olympus right now. The Mount Olympus Diner and Bowl-o-Rama, that is! Come to the heart of Parsippany to strike the best baklava this side of Delphi! And if you’d like to leave a message for Marina, Costa, Athena, Alex, Frankie, Niko, Zuzu, Grandma Yaya, or Zeus the dog, do so after the beep! Opa!”

My mother was reverently holding a statue of the blue-skinned Lord Krishna as a fat baby, a stolen dab of butter in his hand.

Right next to her, my father sported a T-shirt we carried in the store embossed with a New jersey Turnpike emblem.