The Dream Runners by Shveta Thakrar

Author:Shveta Thakrar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-04-28T00:00:00+00:00

22

Tanvi hesitated outside her closet. Venkat was wrong; all she had to do was prove it.

But her feet wouldn’t move.

She could feel Venkat’s gaze drilling into her spine. How was she supposed to do this with him watching? “Quit looking at me,” she snapped.

Paper rustled behind her, followed by the squeaking of chair legs. “I can wait outside,” Venkat offered.

Tanvi nodded and took in the entrance to the closet. There was nothing to be afraid of.

Stupid, she told herself. You know what’s inside. You saw it just . . .

Now in her line of sight, Venkat edged toward the exit.

At least two days ago? Not possible. Sitting in the closet was her daily ritual. She couldn’t get by without it.

Her head threatened to go foggy again, but she shook it hard. Nothing could have changed in that time. The box would still be there, awaiting the moment she could lay her perfect charm bracelet in its velvet-lined nest.

That moment would be today.

Venkat turned the knob.

“N-no,” Tanvi stammered. “Don’t go. Just—just don’t watch, okay?”

Keeping his back to her, Venkat closed the door again. “Okay.”

Now she had no excuse not to take those last steps into the closet. Her foot twitched a half pace forward.

Two. The number hounded her. Two days ago? Like two soccer balls?

What had Nitya said?

I don’t care, Tanvi insisted.

Hadn’t Indu—

I. Don’t. CARE!

She glanced around the room, at all its familiar blankness and the absurd, out-of-place decorations that Asha must have given her. Asha, who had known about Nitya and maybe thought this was a way to make up for it. For having separated the sisters in the first place.

Tanvi didn’t want to understand Asha’s motivations. She didn’t want to see anything except her dreams and her vials.

Please don’t leave. Nitya’s frightened voice, her stricken face.

Tanvi’s hands trembled, each finger its own earthquake. She didn’t feel them, though. She couldn’t feel anything except the straitjacket of nerves contracting around her heart.

She’d only felt that way once before, when she’d downed three cups of burnt coffee from a convenience store in Bangkok to wait out her night owl of a dreamer and reap her harvest. When she’d smugly presented her wares to Venkat the next morning, her body had felt brittle, like blown glass. It had absolutely been worth the trouble—she’d netted a full three-quarters of a boon, her biggest triumph to date.

The nausea burned. If what Venkat was saying was true, had it been a triumph at all?

You don’t have to do this, she told herself. Just go back to sleep. The dreams have to go away sometime.

But she did. She had to prove Venkat wrong. So what if Indu had two soccer balls? So what if Nitya had said . . .

Before Tanvi could change her mind, she marched into the closet.

Her immaculate wooden shelves greeted her, with the velvet-lined enamel box as their crown jewel. The empty one primed for its bracelet.

Empty.

Tanvi breathed in the familiar air of the space, then exhaled hard, letting the panic drain out.

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