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What did you say the Babaji's name was?”
    “I didn't ask. Truth to tell, he scared me, with a beard that covered his whole face and glittery red eyes. He looked like he could put a curse on you if you made him angry.”
    “Princess,” my sairindhri said, bowing. “Your hair is done. Does it please you?”
    I picked up the heavy silver-backed mirror while she held another one behind my head. The five-stranded braid hung glossilydown my back, sparkling with gold pins. I could smell the fragrance of the amaranths woven into it. It was beautiful, but it only made me dissatisfied. What use was all this dressing-up when there was no one to admire me? I felt as though I were drowning in a backwater pond while everything important in the world was happening elsewhere.
    What if the prophecy at my birth was wrong? Or: what if prophecies only became true if you did something about them?
    I decided that I'd accompany Dhai Ma to the holy man.

    “Absolutely not!” Dhai Ma exclaimed. “Your royal father will have my head—or at the very least my job—if I take you outside the palace. Do you want your poor old nurse to starve by the roadside in her old age?”
    “You won't starve,” I said. “Kallu will take care of you!”
    “Who? That no-good drunkard? That—”
    “Besides,” I interjected deftly, “my father doesn't have to know. I'll dress up as a servant maid. We can just walk to—”
    “You! Walk on the common road where every man can look into your face! Don't you know that the women of the Panchaal royal family are supposed to remain hidden even from the gaze of the sun?”
    “You can get me a veil. It'll protect me from men and sunshine, both at once.”
    “Never!”
    I was reduced to pleading. “Please, Dhai Ma! It's my one chance to know what my future holds.”
    “ I can tell you what your future holds. Severe punishment from your royal father, and a new Dhai Ma, since this one's life will be prematurely terminated.”
    But because I was the closest thing she had to a daughter, or because she sensed the desperation beneath my cajolery, or maybe because she, too, was curious, she finally relented.

    Swathed in one of Dhai Ma's veils and a skirt several sizes too large, I knelt in front of the sage, touching my head awkwardly to the ground. My entire body ached. To get to the banyan grove where the sage was residing, we'd had to ride in a palanquin through the city, then cross a lake on a leaking ferry boat, then sit for hours on a rickety bullock cart. It taught me a new respect for the hardiness of commoners.
    I was startled by a rumble like a thundercloud. The sage was laughing. He didn't look too frightening. In his lined, cracked face, his eyes shone mischievously.
    “Not bad, for a princess!”
    “How did you know?” I said in chagrin.
    “I'd have to be blind not to see through such a terrible disguise. At least the old woman could have given you some clothes that fit! But enough of that. Eager to learn your future, are you? Did you ever think how monotonous your life would be if you could see all that was coming to you? Believe me, I know! However, I'll oblige you both—in some part. You first, old woman.”
    He informed a delighted Dhai Ma that Kallu would perish soon in a drunken brawl, that she'd accompany me to my new palace after marriage, and that she'd bring up my five children. “You'll die old and rich and cantankerous as ever—and happy, because you'll be gone before the worst happens.”
    “Sadhu-baba,” Dhai Ma asked in concern, “what do you mean by the worst ?”
    “No more!” he snapped, his eyes turning tawny, making hercower. “Princess, if you want your questions answered, you must step inside the circle.”
    I hadn't noticed the thin circle etched into the ground around him. Dhai Ma grabbed at my skirt, whispering about witchcraft, but I didn't hesitate. Inside the circle, the earth felt hot against my blistered soles.
    “Brave, eh?” he said. “That's good—you'll