The Island of the Day Before Read online

  She closed her eyes, feeling herself sway a little.

  ‘Why did you bring me up here?’

  He didn’t reply at first. Something about him was different here, up in this hidden Olympus, away from the blaring of the earth. He seemed sad, almost. For a moment.

  Then he turned, and that moment was ash.

  ‘Do you see now, love?’ he whispered. He was laughing at her again, and she would have torn herself to pieces rather than bear it a minute longer.

  ‘It’s a nice view, if that’s what you mean,’ she fired back.

  He raised his arms around him, an artist about to unveil his masterpiece to the world.

  ‘This!’ he cried, his voice shattering the calm of the dormant monument. ‘This is Paris. It’s a city of darkness, of horror, of the everyday wretchedness that might push a man to impale himself on the tallest needle he can find. We paint over the shadows with elegant streets and rooftop cafés, with pastries and love found on silver bridges, with such a glorious glowing city that nobody stops to wonder … where all this light is coming from.’

  His arms lowered to his sides, slowly, pointedly.

  ‘But the monster under the cobblestones is rising, darling. And you’ve just walked into the belly of the beast.’

  ‘Don’t treat me like an ignorant child,’ she began, voice shaking. But that’s precisely what she felt like now; a small, scared toddler in need of a wee, badly regretting some earlier flight of imagined bravery.

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of it. No, I’m sure you know everything you need to.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Like why that man was killed.’

  ‘I— you killed him!’

  ‘Ah yes, just part of my morning routine, was it? Just my way of getting exercise?’

  ‘You’re a madman! How am I supposed to know how your brain functions?’

  ‘Tut tut, little miss hasn’t been doing her reading. Think about the stone on which you’re standing. How’s that for a clue?’

  She paused, unsure.

  ‘Well, you must have a connection to this church or you wouldn’t have chosen it!’

  ‘Oh, splendidly done, Mr Holmes.’

  ‘A connection that allows you to come in and out at will.’

  ‘Really on a roll, aren’t you?’

  ‘But you can’t own it. This is a monument, it’s government property, it’s church property.’

  ‘And was it always?’ he sneered, eyes narrowed to poisonous slits.

  ‘I … I don’t—’

  ‘This was ours,’ he went on, blazing forward, determined to get it all out. ‘This was our little castle. Greystone. This is where we got our name from, these very walls were all we had …’ He bent to the ground, scraping at the roof with jagged nails. She saw dried red and dust beneath them. He rose again, clutching broken bits of stone within his whitened fist. ‘And then … we wanted more. We asked for more. We deserved more. The church said no. So we threatened to tear it down.’

  He closed his eyes, trying to shield them from the words his tongue spat out.

  ‘They tore us down first.’

  ‘It’s not possible,’ she whispered, hushed. ‘I have read up on this. This wasn’t built by some noble family, it was built by the church, it’s not privately owned, it’s … I…’

  He looked up at her, menacing and indignant.

  ‘I’ve lied to you seven times in the past twenty minutes. This isn’t one of them.’

  ‘You … why…’

  ‘And if you don’t believe me,’ he finished, ‘tell me, O wise one: how did I get in?’

  She took a deep breath. ‘And why did the man have to die?’

  ‘We wanted it back.’

  ‘You weren’t even alive when they built this. What does it matter to you?’

  ‘A family slaughtered and in hiding is not something the balm of a few generations can take away.’

  ‘Fine. So why kill him?’

  ‘I’ve told you—’

  ‘Yes, but why him? Or did you find the first poor sod to come up to the roof that morning and fling him off?’

  ‘Well,’ he began, savouring every syllable as though it left the sweetest taste upon his tongue, ‘he was a priest’s son.’

  ‘Which priest?’

  ‘Ah, but you don’t need to know about that, do you?’

  ‘If a priest’s son was killed, the press would be all over it.’

  ‘Right. Unless the priest wasn’t meant to have a son, and would rather let his murder go unpunished than stake his reputation on finding the killers.’

  ‘That’s a big gamble to take for a murderer.’

  ‘Not a gamble if you know you’re going to win.’

  ‘You can’t have known.’

  ‘The human mind is a fragile and predictable thing, laced with a desire for self-destruction. Tempt it with something shiny and it will throw itself at your feet. Look at us right now…’

  He’d moved closer to her without her even realizing it, a snake making circles in the tall, tall grass.

  ‘Tick tock, little Allison. I’m through with the flirting now. And I’ve grown rather bored of you and your nosy ways.’

  She saw his eyes harden to coal. He took a step closer. For the first time, she believed he could kill.

  Allison turned and ran for the stairs, heart pounding in her cracking chest. She heard his footsteps behind her, swift and forceful. She wasn’t quick enough.

  His hand closed upon her shoulder, sending an electric shock down her body. The scream burst forth from her before she felt the terror. His second hand closed around her mouth.

  She fought. Hard. Her elbow smashed into his abdomen, her hands scraped at his. She felt her nails draw blood. He only tightened his grip, cutting off her air supply till the world seemed to glow with a blurred shine. Her screams had grown weak and hoarse, muffled behind his palm.

  He was dragging her over to the side of the tower.

  ‘Poor little Allison,’ he whispered, hot against her ear. ‘All her life, running from her own mediocrity. But there are some people that were born to be nothing … so think of this as a favour. At least in death, people will notice you.’

  Her cheek was splattered with panicked tears. She looked over his shoulder into the city she loved. It was glowing with the vibrancy of its life, a coral reef at the bottom of a dark blue sea. At once, as though saying goodbye, the Eiffel Tower began to sparkle. Thousands of shining silver star fragments lit up its golden form, twinkling like a fairy into the smoky amethyst moonlight. It was so beautiful.

  ‘Sweet dreams, Allison.’

  He flung her off the roof, pushing her with such force that it almost seemed rude to argue. She fell, arms splayed wide, lips apart, eyes glazed over in wonder and hope. With a horrible crunch, she felt herself split into two, torn apart on the spire now dripping with thick, crimson liquid. The pain was furious and instant, licking at her insides, yet slowly throbbing away.

  He was smiling down at her. The sky was his cloak, the constellations silver against his scaly black form. The last thing she felt was a burning in her heart as she looked up into his eyes.

  ‘Welcome to la ville d’amour, madame,’ he finished, triumphant. ‘Welcome … to Paris.’

  Moments in Between

  Is it okay to start a piece

  Without knowing what it is? Could be a poem, I guess.

  But the sentences are too long.

  Besides, doesn’t rhyme. Doesn’t flow.

  Just is.

  It’s weird, I think. All this art, all these scripts, all these plays

  And no one really cares about the moments in between.

  Not grand moments of triumph

  Not horrific moments of loss

  Not interesting moments of silence

  Not meaningful moments filled with nonsense

  Not inescapable moments of complex emotion

  Just moments in between.

  When you sit and do nothing. Don’
t even think. Don’t debate. You just are, a floating piece of flesh and bone and blood in the universe.

  Those moments staring out of a car window through raindrops or sunshine or mist

  Those moments when you’ve just stepped out of the shower and you’re still warm

  Those moments when you’re on the verge of sleep but just

  Not

  Quite

  There yet.

  You need these moments. They give you peace. They let you be. They exist like the air around us, loved and lingering, yet always forgotten.

  Sure, yes, kings and queens ascend thrones and vanquish armies; little girls with explosive imaginations tumble down rabbit holes or vanish into closets or almost lose their souls to a woman with buttons for eyes; gods and goddesses shower a mortal with prizes and love and magic. These things do happen. Every day.

  But that’s not what makes these people who they are. It was never their greatest, most shining moments, rife with the stuff of temple mosaics.

  It was the moments in between.

  So this is an ode, then.

  A toast.

  Here’s to you, dear reader.

  Here’s to the moments in between.

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank the wonderful publishing team at HarperCollins, for believing in me as a young writer and giving me this amazing opportunity!

  Thank you to my professor at Harvard Summer School, Ms Katie B. Kohn, for teaching me to wonder at the Power and Politics of Fairy Tales.

  I would also like to thank my parents, for always lifting my spirits higher and helping me to chase my dreams, as well as for telling me candidly when something I’d written was rubbish.

  I thank my brother for reminding me to laugh. It’s amazing how often we forget to do that.

  I sincerely thank my school, Dhirubhai Ambani International School, as well as my teachers, for always inspiring me and pushing me to do my best.

  Special thanks must go to my dogs, for encouraging me every step of the way despite not really knowing what was going on.

  Lastly, I want to thank Anjali Savansukha for being the most supportive and incredible friend anyone could ask for.

  Thank you to everyone who played a part in the making of this book!

  About the Book

  A little matchstick girl seeks a companion

  An otter lies in wait for fish in the sea and wonders about humans and their way of life…

  A merchant and a gnome set out on an extraordinary adventure to deal with an impending war…

  An island wakes up to a hovering storm and an untold danger…

  With The Island of the Day Before, Zuni Chopra takes the readers on an extraordinary and consistently unpredictable voyage. Boldly experimental in terms of themes and forms, these whimsical tales – prose, poetry, flash fiction – of the everyday and the extraordinary, the fantastical and the mundane, will keep haunting you long after you have read them.

  This is a work of exceptional imagination from a young, prodigious talent – a rising star in the literary firmament.

  About the Author

  ZUNI CHOPRA is a seventeen-year-old author who has published two poetry collections. Her first novel, The House That Spoke, released in January 2017. This is her fourth published work. She has contributed articles to Vogue India and Hindustan Times. Zuni has a passion for writing, especially fantasy and poetry, and her favourite authors include Neil Gaiman and Lewis Carroll. Her main source of encouragement and inspiration remains her six dogs!

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  First published in India by

  HarperCollins Publishers in 2018

  A-75, Sector 57, Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201301, India

  www.harpercollins.co.in

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  Copyright © Zuni Chopra 2018

  P-ISBN: 978-93-5302-287-7

  Epub Edition © August 2018 ISBN: 978-93-5302-288-4

  This is a work of fiction and all characters and incidents described in this book are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Zuni Chopra asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  All rights reserved under The Copyright Act, 1957. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers India.

  Cover design: Steve Leard

  www.harpercollins.co.in

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