Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes Read online

  Also by Roshani Chokshi

  The Star-Touched Queen

  A Crown of Wishes

  The Gilded Wolves

  The Silvered Serpents

  The Pandava Series

  Aru Shah and the End of Time

  Aru Shah and the Song of Death

  Copyright © 2020 by Roshani Chokshi

  Designed by Tyler Nevins

  Cover illustration copyright © 2020 by Abigail L. Dela Cruz

  Cover design by Tyler Nevins

  All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Hyperion, an imprint of Buena Vista Books, Inc. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Hyperion, 125 West End Avenue, New York, New York 10023.

  ISBN 978-1-368-05507-9

  Follow @ReadRiordan

  www.DisneyBooks.com

  For my parents, May and Hitesh, who always insisted on making sure we read the “real” versions of myths and fairy tales. Thanks for the delightful trauma. Love you.

  CONTENTS

  Title page

  Copyright page

  Dedication

  1. Aru Shah Is Not Spider-Man

  2. That Time Brynne’s Shoes Got Ruined

  3. No New Friends

  4. Magical Dead Zone

  5. Worse Than Being Sent to the Principal’s Office

  6. Password! But Make It Fash-un

  7. Bro, Do You Even Lift?

  8. That’s So On-Brand

  9. Goal: Don’t End Up a Dragon Snack

  10. Knock-Knock, Who’s There?

  11. Get In, Heroes, We’re Going Questing

  12. A Wild Goose Chase

  13. Begone, Discount Artichokes!

  14. In Which A Giant Nose Spells (Smells!) Trouble

  15. No One Signed Up for a Horcrux Hunt

  16. Florals for Spring? Groundbreaking.

  17. Never Trust a Hot Dog Stand

  18. The Plan Does Not Work

  19. Isn’t This…a Bit Much?

  20. At Least There’s Not a Dragon

  21. Well, Never Mind, Then

  22. That’s a Nice, Creepy, Destructive God You’ve Got There

  23. The Bird of Mass Destruction. Maybe.

  24. You Poor, Unfortunate Souls

  25. This Is Not Fine

  26. Is a Platypus a Bird?

  27. Quoth the Raven…

  28. Surprise Ostrich!

  29. We Are All Potatoes

  30. But Soft, What Light Through Yonder Window Breaks?

  31. It’s Not You, It’s Me. All Right, Fine, It’s Also You.

  32. A Parliament of Foul Fowls

  33. What’s in a Name?

  34. What’s a Publix?

  35. Where the Deer and the Cantaloupe Play

  36. Pick a Wife! Any Wife!

  37. Gods Don’t Nap. Ew.

  38. Someone’s Got a Burning Gaze. Literally.

  39. And I— Oop!

  40. Not the Tiny Legs!

  41. You Brought Us to Home Depot?

  42. Shh! The Baby Is Sleeping!

  43. I’m Not a Regular Mom, I’m a Cool Mom

  44. Who Is Groot?

  45. Please Don’t Say You’re Inevitable

  46. Green Is Not Your Color, Trust Me

  47. We’re Not Lost, Are We?

  48. Ignorance Is Bliss

  49. The Fury of a Pandava Scorned

  50. The Word Aru Never Spoke

  Epilogue

  Glossary

  About the author

  Keep reading for a sneak peek at Sal & Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez!

  Keep reading for a sneak peek at Tristan Strong Breaks a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia!

  Keep reading for a sneak peek at Race to the Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse!

  Aru Shah Is Not Spider-Man

  Aru Shah had a gigantic lightning bolt, and she really wanted to use it.

  “Please don’t, Shah,” begged her friend Aiden. “If you electrocute the targets with Vajra…we’ve blown this Pandava mission.”

  “Puh-leeze,” said Aru, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt. “I’m the daughter of the god of thunder and lightning. Electricity is practically my thing.”

  “Yesterday you stuck a fork in the toaster,” pointed out Aiden.

  “It was just for a second, and it was holding my breakfast prisoner.”

  A gust of wind hit the back of Aru’s head, and she turned to see a huge eagle with sapphire-colored feathers swooping toward them. The bird dove to the ground and in a flash of blue light transformed into Brynne, her soul sister and the daughter of the god of the wind.

  “No visuals on the targets,” Brynne said. “Also, Aiden’s right. I seriously don’t trust you around electricity.”

  “You weren’t even part of this conversation!” said Aru.

  “Still heard it.” Brynne tapped the side of her head. “I had eagle ears for a second, remember?”

  Beside Aiden stood Mini, daughter of the god of the dead. She clutched Dee Dee, her Death Danda, and looked around anxiously.

  “You could’ve electrocuted yourself with that fork!” scolded Mini. “And then you would’ve—”

  “Died?” guessed Aiden, Aru, and Brynne at the same time.

  Mini crossed her arms. “I was going to say that you would’ve suffered severe burns, cardiac arrest, possible coma…and yes, potentially, death.”

  Brynne rolled her eyes. “Enough about toasters. We need a plan to rescue the targets, and quick.”

  The three Pandavas and Aiden stood on the street, gazing up at the illuminated Ferris wheel that crowned downtown Atlanta. Beyond the wheel loomed the bright, jagged skyline. Cars honked and inched their way through rush-hour traffic on the street behind them, completely oblivious to the four kids holding glowing weapons.

  Earlier, Hanuman, their monkey-faced war instructor, and Boo, their pigeon mentor, had told them that somewhere on the Ferris wheel were two people in need of rescuing. The Pandavas had no idea what the targets looked like, but they knew one of them was a clairvoyant.

  Why would someone hide a clarinet? Aru had asked.

  Boo had sighed. It’s not a clarinet.

  Oh.

  Turns out a clairvoyant was not a musical instrument, but someone who could see the future and prophesize. The Otherworld had been waiting for centuries for an important prophecy to be uttered. If the rumors were true, it would hold enough power to determine the victor in the devas’ war against the asuras, who were currently being led by the Sleeper. But prophecies were sensitive things, Boo had explained. They would only reveal themselves in the presence of certain beings—usually those whom the prophecy was about. Boo believed that in this case only the Pandavas or the Sleeper’s soldiers would be able to hear it. And each side’s success depended on making sure that the other side didn’t.

  Aru eyed the lengthening late-winter shadows. So much had changed in the past year since they’d ventured into the Ocean of Milk. She was fourteen now. She had grown a couple inches, her hair now fell to her shoulders, and lately she could fit into her mom’s shoes…but she still preferred walking around barefoot. In the light of early evening, dogwood blossoms gleamed like stars caught on dark branches. Cherry trees lining the streets shed pink petals, and the damp pollen on the streets looked like flakes of gold.

  “I tried flying up to spot the targets, but some of the booths are dark and shut tight,” said Brynne. “I just don’t understand why anyone who can see the future would choose to hide out on an
amusement park ride.”

  “Especially a stalled one, with no operator,” added Aiden.

  “Maybe he or she wanted a better view?” suggested Mini.

  “Who knows, but first we need to get the Ferris wheel moving so we can access the closed booths,” said Brynne. “If I blast it with wind—”

  “The whole thing could topple over!” said Aru.

  “And if we try to start it with Vajra, we could fry the clairvoyant!” said Brynne.

  Mini bit her lip, looking from Aru to Brynne. “Maybe…there’s another way?”

  Aiden nodded. “Bee can use her wind mace to—gently—get it moving. I’ll take the perimeter and—”

  “We don’t have time for gently!” cut in Aru.

  “How ’bout you and I climb the Ferris wheel, and I use Dee Dee to scan the booths?” offered Mini.

  “Climb the Ferris wheel?!” echoed Aru. “Do I look like Spider-Man to you?”

  “Well, you sometimes wear those pajamas…” said Mini.

  Brynne snorted.

  “What pajamas?” asked Aiden.

  Abandon conversation! screamed Aru’s brain. Abandon conversation!

  “Let’s get moving,” she said quickly.

  Brynne grinned widely, then swung the wind mace over her head. Bright blue light burst from the weapon. A screech of metal tore through the air. Up ahead, the towering wheel slowly began to turn.

  “Go!” said Brynne.

  Aru ran toward the Ferris wheel—a nearly two-hundred-foot-tall contraption with rotating enclosed booths. Her nerves bubbled with tension as she dashed up the exit stairs and reached for the first inner rung. The metal bars were slick with recent rain and smelled of iron. Normally, there was no way she would agree to climb this thing, but her customized Pandava kicks came with enchanted suction cups on the bottom that promised she wouldn’t fall.

  The Pandavas had been preparing for this all week, and they knew what was at stake. Not a single day had passed without Aru hearing about increased demon activity in the mortal world. But no one had caught sight of the person behind the chaos: the Sleeper. Her father. Aru wished she could only see him as the monster that he was. But certain memories kept messing with her head, and sometimes she didn’t picture the Sleeper as he was now, but as the dad he had been in the past. The man who had cradled her. If just for an hour.

  Aru faltered, her hand slipping. A cool wind hit her face as her gaze fell to the ground more than a hundred feet below. From here, the lines of streetlights looked like faraway strings of stars and the groups of trees resembled clumps of mashed-up broccoli.

  “You okay?” called Mini from the spoke below.

  Steady, Shah, she told herself.

  They’d trained for this.

  She could do this.

  “Nope. I’m Aru.” She smiled weakly and reached for the next rung.

  Another cold gust lashed her hair into her eyes.

  You’re climbing a Ferris wheel, thought Aru. You know who does that? SUPERHEROES. And that guy from The Notebook, but mostly superheroes.

  “Superheroines,” she whispered to herself, and reached for another bar.

  Quietly, Aru started singing. Her hands ached and her teeth were chattering. When she looked up, she realized she was eye level with towering skyscrapers.

  “Are you singing?” asked Mini, who was getting closer.

  Aru quickly shut up. “Nope.”

  “Because it sounded like ‘Spider-Man, Spider-Man…does whatever a Spider-Man does,’ which I’m pretty sure aren’t the right lyrics.”

  “The wind is messing with your ears.”

  Mini, who had always been more agile than Brynne and Aru combined, moved past her.

  “I thought you were scared of heights,” said Aru.

  “I am!” said Mini. “I’m scared of lots of stuff…but exposure therapy is helping. Maybe for my eighteenth birthday we’ll all go skydiving.”

  “We?”

  “Look, Aru! First closed booth!”

  About fifteen feet away, across a slender metallic bridge, was a glass-encased compartment big enough to hold two people. Its red door was shut tight, and the inside was dark. Aru flicked her wrist, and Vajra turned from a bracelet into a spear. Her lightning weapon sent a shiver of electricity up her arm.

  Don’t fry the mission, Aru muttered to herself.

  The entire fate of the Otherworld was depending on them. Aru aimed at the door, then let her bolt loose….

  Bang!

  The lightning hit the door’s hinges. The door swung open with a screech, to reveal…nothing. The booth looked totally empty. Mini held up Dee Dee in its compact-mirror form. Its reflection could show the truth behind enchantments.

  “No one’s hiding in this one,” said Mini.

  Aru opened her hand and Vajra rushed back to her grip. “Onward,” she said.

  They slowly picked their way back across the bridge to the wheel’s hub, then hauled themselves up to the arm above. As they navigated the spoke to the next booth, Aru winced at the sound of her shoe suckers squelching on the damp metal. She zapped the enclosure open, and Mini scanned it with Dee Dee.

  “Empty,” she said with a frown.

  The third was the same: empty. In the fourth, Aru nearly leaped back as a pair of sneakers, tied to a seat belt, dropped out and dangled in her face….

  But it was just a prank left over from whoever had been in there last.

  The booth’s door swung shut with a heavy thud.

  Aru looked above them. There was only one more booth to check. Her pulse ratcheted up. She closed her eyes, imagining she could hear the hum of unspoken prophecies echoing through the night. The air felt colder, weighted down somehow.

  “Last one,” whispered Aru.

  She rose on her tiptoes to see better, her shoe suckers letting go of the slick metal bridge. As she adjusted her grip on the lightning bolt, the Ferris wheel lurched violently, pitching her to the right. Weightlessness gripped her belly as she swung out, her hand just barely catching a metal bar while her legs dangled over a steep drop.

  Mini screamed and held on for dear life.

  Demons have found us! said Brynne’s panicked mind message. Be careful!

  Aru’s legs dangled uselessly as she kicked for purchase. The Ferris wheel gave another jolt, just enough to allow her to swing her legs upward and hook a bar with the insides of her knees. She twisted herself until she was crouching on top of the spoke before she shakily rose to her feet, her shoes reattaching to the metal with a slurp!

  Aru risked one glance below…and quickly wished she hadn’t.

  Now the demons’ attention wasn’t on Aiden and Brynne—it was on her and Mini.

  “You still with me?” Aru called to Mini. “We’re running out of time!”

  Mini’s eyes went even rounder with fear, but she bit her lip and nodded. Aru stepped carefully down the spoke that led to the last booth, not ten feet away. It looked empty, like all the others, but the air around it seemed strangely warped. Mini snapped her compact shut.

  Someone’s definitely inside, said Mini’s mind message. It has to be the targets. Do we warn them we’re gonna bust down the door?

  Aru shook her head. Their abductor might be with them.

  On the count of three?

  Aru nodded.

  One…two…three!

  Aru threw Vajra, and the lightning bolt sliced through the hinges before returning to her hand. The metal groaned as it burst open, revealing a mass of black vines that writhed like snakes.

  “Release the clairvoyant!” shouted Mini. “Oh, and the other person! And don’t try anything, because we’re armed!”

  Aru brandished Vajra, on the verge of declaring And dangerous! But the Ferris wheel teetered and she ended up yelling, “And danger-ahh!”

  The writhing mass of vines went suddenly still. A green light broke through the middle of the tangle, like a hairy monster blinking open one eye.

  “‘Danger-ahhh’? Is that ev
en a word?” demanded a haughty feminine voice.

  “Are you the clairvoyant?” called Mini over the howling wind.

  There was a beat of silence.

  “Maybe.”

  Aru swayed, even as her shoe suckers gripped the bridge. She held out her arms for balance, and Vajra wrapped around her wrist in bracelet form. “Then come with us…if you want to live.”

  Another pause.

  “We’re fine here,” said the haughty voice. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

  “Seriously?” said Aru. “We’re here to save you! You should be way more grateful! How’d you even end up in a Ferris wheel?”

  From deep within the vines came the sound of whispers.

  “We were hiding,” said a different, softer voice. “Are you Aru Shah?”

  Aru paused. “Yes?”

  The vines parted, revealing a pair of identical dark-skinned girls who looked about ten years old. One of them was wearing a flower-print dress with a shiny blazer over it. A small tiara nestled in her dozens of tiny braids. The other wore a striped T-shirt and dark jeans, and her braids fell straight to her shoulders. Instantly, Aru knew them. She’d seen them in a dream.

  “You…” Mini breathed, before Aru had the chance to open her mouth. “I’ve seen you in my dreams!”

  Aru whipped her head around. “Wait, what? You’ve seen them, too?”

  The girl with the tiara huffed impatiently. “We paid a visit to all the Pandavas.”

  “We’ll discuss this later,” said Aru, holding out her hand. “For now, you’ve got to come with us.”

  Tiara Girl narrowed her ice-blue eyes at Aru and Mini.

  “First you have to save us. That’s what you saw in your vision, right, Sheela?”

  “Uh-huh,” said Sheela distractedly as she counted down on her fingers—three, two, one.

  “Save you from—” started Mini, but before she could finish, a sound like a wet slap echoed on the metal rung right above their heads.

  Aru reeled back. A rakshasa with the body of a man and the head of a bull swung upside down and let out a terrible roar. Tiara Girl coughed lightly, crossed her arms, and pointed at the demon.

  “From that.”

  That Time Brynne’s Shoes Got Ruined