Moonwife

Vishaka spends her time by the river plotting revenge against her wife, the moon. She is a jilted lover—lone woman against the pearl in the sky, part fury, part hurt held together by a thousand strands of yearning and jealousy but she is a witch first and a witch of her lineage is not one to be fucked with. 

In the glades, veiled in the shadows from the eye of her wife’s cautious brother, the witch traps her snake, catching its neck within the confines of her forefinger and thumb. The cobra wriggles, wrapping the body around her arm and baring fangs, but there is fear in the serpent’s bulging eyes. Vishaka smiles and kisses it, mouth to mouth, fangs sinking deep into her lips.

She sucks the snake’s poison in, hiding it within the confines of her mouth. She takes the venom and more, every sip taking life.

The snake writhes in fear. It knows its fate and begs. 

Oh, the terrible wife of the moon, what brings you to me?  

Vishaka doesn’t reply. For what could she say to the creature of the night? How could it know of the lonely cold, when her once beloved now left her to dance the skies with another? Vishaka’s eyes are the brown of the loam, brown of the living, hungry earth, brown of the poison she drinks. And when she lets go of the snake, it is two bodies that hit the ground. The poison is slow as it runs through her veins, the bloodrush heady and strong. 

Her eyes are heavy, but Vishaka knows that she will survive. She is rage and spite, a trembling mass of jealousy. She will survive if only for her revenge.

#

Young Vishaka first sees the moon take shape in her father’s garden, cloaked among the flowers that trail her wake. Sandhya descends in her resplendent glory, silken in silver and pearls. For Vishaka, raised among thorns and soil, the moon descending is enough to make her heart skip a beat.

“What brings you down here, my lady of the night?” Vishaka’s words are whispers of awe, but also pride. This is her father’s garden and she is her father’s daughter, grown from bleeding roses and weeping jasmine. Here, she fears no god, not even one who rules the skies.

 “Your beauty, my dearest,” the lady replies. Sandhya smiles and right then, Vishaka knows she would follow that smile for the rest of her life, chasing its brilliance in the darkest of nights, if only for a glance. She is sixteen and at sixteen, forever seems infinitely closer and passion burns, tracing its path through her groin to her stomach where it coils like a serpent as she tends to the roots with hands deep within the earth, inching closer and closer to her chest where it grips her heart at twilight when her beloved traces a path across the sky, until it comes to her throat and spills out as words she speaks to her father, trembling in fear, holding the skirts of her dhavani close as she whispers that she wants the moon, that she wants the moon like no one else had ever before. 

Her father sighs, and in that sigh is the secret bet of the heaven’s court. On a shorn-silver evening, the gods gathered to celebrate; to brag, bluster, and share wine amongst equals. To make claims that lesser folk, mortals, and woodland sprites would bear the cost of. The moon who had proclaimed that there are none immune to her charms and the court that demanded her to prove it. Sandhya, in her audacious glory, had turned to him and asked to test her powers on his daughter, one he had grown from sweet jasmine and soft roses, one of the earth, not the sky. He stood powerless as the court had laughed at the witch. Now, his daughter stands before him, trembling, longing for the moon. 

He thinks of the hundred ways this story could go. One where he imprisons his daughter in the high tower and Sandhya uses Vishaka’s hair to bridge the skies, one where he pleads with her but his sweet Vishaka takes to the sky, eloping with her clandestine lover. Wherever it began, the story ends with the moon and however he might wish to protect her, Vishaka’s mistakes are hers to make. 

So he sighs again and acquiesces. Vishaka beams at her lover in the sky, triumphant. Sandhya is hers, in a way nothing has ever been. Vishaka is sure she will love her forever. She doesn’t question how short forevers can be. 

# 

Vishaka awakens to a loam filled mouth. She scrabbles and digs her way out of the earth, hacking out her lungs to get the soil out. 

“The Earth gave you back again.” Her father stands there, holding a shovel with the ease of a well accustomed gardener. His hair looks matted at a glance, but if one treads closer, they’d see fine vines and wet pondweed, growing into each other. 

“She knows I will poison her if she keeps me there too long.” Vishaka replies wryly. The old witch scowls. 

“Is this what you wish?” He’s asked this question a hundred times and each time, his daughter responds the same, despite his fears that she might refuse. Theirs is a collective revenge, hers for love and his for the humiliation he had suffered all those years ago but the dice is Vishaka’s hands.

“Is its poison mine?” She asks instead. The snake is their latest; before, it had been foxglove she grew, and belladonna that sprouted directly in her throat. Then were the spiders her father coaxed into biting her (beastcraft had never been her strong suit. Hers is a delicate constitution, one of the grass and flowers). Now, the snake whose life she stole. Mortal poison will not bring down her wife. But venom calls to venom and she needs to bear the mortal poison to find its immortal counterpart.

Her father nods. “Slowly, you are becoming poison, my daughter. But common venom will not hurt your wife. ”

Vishaka’s answering grin is humourless. “The venom I will become is nothing common.” 

#

The marriage of the moon is a grand affair. The court invites everyone worth their salt for the occasion, and to make sure Sandhya’s brother—the sun—could attend, the skies made a special provision. The twins are allowed to take up space at the same time in return for the moon sacrificing a day in the sky, right before the wedding. 

 It is on the moonless night when the witch blesses his daughter. 

“A witch’s strength comes in threes but I am not strong today, my daughter, so I’m going to bless you once. Remember you are my daughter; even if the skies are your new home, the earth will always welcome you.” He braids her hair with jasmine, a grounding scent for the daughter he’d grown. But even as he speaks the words, the witch realises the futility of such a promise; for how could he, a witch of the garden, shelter her against the whole of heaven? If Vishaka ever flees the moon, is there such a glade that’s beyond her wife’s silver gaze or one that resists their divine court? 

“I grant you a wish,” he says, desolate. “Anything you ask, if it is within my power, I will give it to you.” 

Vishaka turns but he quells her with a finger. 

“Use this blessing carefully, Vishaka. I am no free man to protect you but with this wish, my will be yours.” 

Vishaka nods. He completes her braid and crowns her flowers. He doesn’t tell her of the ache under his chest, the pre-emptive grief already anticipating her absence. Soon, she won’t wear flowers but pearls. Soon, she will belong to the moon rather than to the earth. He wishes to hide here in this lonesome night, to stretch out expanse like those awful ones where time is honey. But the night is running water and before the father and daughter know it, a new dawn encroaches. 

The ceremony is vibrant, with the heavenly court in attendance. Veiyyon, the sun god, stands beside Sandhya, and Vishaka has her father by her side. For a moment, Vishaka forgets all nervousness as she takes her bride in. 

Sandhya is decked in her silver, hair long and loose, crown holding it in place as she offers Vishaka a hand. In front of all, Vishaka shivers as she takes it and they circle the fire, Sandhya leading and Vishaka following, thrice for luck, prosperity and faith. Three is where witchery thrives and the fire, burning and fiery, stands witness to their pledge.

Sandhya laughs. Vishaka never knows her life to be the same.  

# 

Travel is only possible by shade or moonless nights. Her wife’s brother is a vigilant protector, careful in warding Sandhya against any and all ill will, and Vishaka finds herself resorting to darker means, dallying with the gods themselves as long as it keeps the sun off her back. The rains are brought with a kiss to the rain god’s lips, and the clouds with a story to the twins’ estranged mother, the mistress of the skies. But the god of the forest lends their assistance freely, growing trees to guard her just as the sun guarded the moon. 

Her father, she leaves behind. He is but a servant to the heavenly court and he must cover for them both in her absence. 

She finds her quarry in the estuary, where the boundary between salt and river is broken. The world snake curls up around the great mountain, sunning himself. Even from a distance, he is a glorious monster; a black that eats the light, only separating for the cracks in his scales. 

Vishaka calls up her venom, common krait and nightshade and her spiky loneliness and neglect. Poison rises from her throat to mouth to eyes and she bleeds, from her mouth, her eyes and ears, every orifice dripping red. The blood flows down the creek, from the glade she sheltered into the river that fed into the sea. 

“Vasuki,” she calls, and the great snake trembles. He tastes the blood in the water, its poison. His forked tongue flickers hesitantly, but Vishaka is adamant. She strikes her stomach, calling upon more of her poisoned blood. Vasuki might be the lord of snakes but he is a snake all the same, and no snake resists the call of venom. He lifts, head first, unwinding his great body from the mountain. It spins, grinding against the white sea. 

Somewhere in the ether, the gods sense his awakening, the great snake rising. Earth shudders and the sky fears, but he takes to the water, following the trail of blood and poison, to the indistinct cove where Vishaka waits, clutching her stomach. 

He draws in first, curious, and spreads his great hood, frustrating prying eyes. The great shadow swallows Vishaka’s form, and all that breathes retreat from the cove, the greens curling into themselves, the critters burrowing deep or taking flight.

“Moonwife.” His voice is sibilant. Up close, the damage the mountain did to his scales is evident; they are cracked, skin underneath scarred. Great snake in name, now reduced to a lonely refugee.

Vishaka inclines her head, baring her bloodied teeth. A facsimile. “Snake lord.”

“You come clothed in the skin of my brothers, stolen venom flowing in your veins. State your purpose.” 

 “Does venom need ownership?” Vishaka doesn’t like the implication. “Venom is venom, whoever bears it. Consumed, it kills. In my blood, it’s mine.”

The snake sways, lifting his body higher until it touches the ceiling of the cove. He fixes her with a glare but Vishaka is green daughter, moonwife. She does not back down. 

“When the gods and demons sought to mine the great sea in their greed, they claimed my body as rope. They wrapped me around the mountain, gods to my tail and demons to my head. They pushed and pulled. The mountain moved, back and forth, front and back, and I broke against it. I was not mine, I was not a snake, I was a rope.” The susurrus of his words is edged with barely concealed fury. His great head could easily envelope her.  

“But my venom was mine. When I screeched in pain, they did not stop. When I pleaded for mercy, they paid no heed. But when venom spewed down my mouth into the demons holding my head, then I had their attention. Venom does have an owner; sometimes, venom is all you’ve left.” 

Vishaka is not so easily convinced. “Your birthright is venom, snakelord, but mine is a tended poison, one that grew from the bitter fruit of loneliness. I may not have secreted my poison but it is mine. I claimed it in blood, quickened it with burial. And I’m here to ask you for yours. Let it be mine.” 

“The wise would counsel you to banish your poison, green daughter.”  Sorrow coats his breath as he bends down to meet her at eye level. “Let this slight go, cut ties with your wife. You are of the lowly earth and the gods have never held our kind in any regard. The wise would ask you to live your life free.” 

“The wise have no pride. They have no love they tended till it turned sour, no heart that yearned itself to hardness.” She looked at the snake’s eyes, mirrored sorrows. Placing a hand on the scales between his nostrils, she whispers, “I didn’t come to you for wisdom, Vasuki.” 

 He was Hers once, for who else could convince the Great Serpent to give himself up as a rope? Why else would he do it if not for love? He tastes the air with his tongue, as if searching for deceit. But what he would find is the acrid scent of her jealousy—an ugly yet honest emotion. And with serpents, one does not default to deceit. 

Slowly, as if he’s scared to break her, he opens his jaws. Twin fangs emerge, grisly bone framed by the pink flesh. She walks closer, positioning his fang over her clavicle, right where Sandhya used to kiss. 

The fang pierces, viscous venom flowing down its hollows into her body. She wraps her arms around his gigantic head, holding the snake fiercely. 

I will survive this, Vishaka thinks. I must survive this. 

****  

Sandhya’s court of wives greet the new bride with welcome smiles and sharp eyes. Twenty five of them. Vishaka doesn’t realise they are twenty five parts demanding Sandhya’s love, sunflowers spinning in search of her radiance but their beloved’s eye is capricious, always in search of a new conquest. 

“A new one to join the flock, I suppose.” Dhanista stares, a lemon’s wedge of bitterness between them and heat blooms on Vishaka’s cheeks. She has never felt shame before, never traced the edges of the emotion, its uncomfortable contours an unfamiliar territory. 

“Dhanista.” The name is a sharp reproach. The owner of the voice steps into the centre, her eyes shaped perfectly like the kayal fish swimming downstream. “You should be kind.” 

“Kindness is easy for the favoured, Rohini.” Dhanista spits out as she stalks away. 

“Don’t mind her,” Rohini says to Vishaka. “She has not always been this prickly.” 

Vishaka would come to learn that prickliness all too well, throughout the nights she would wait for her beloved, alone in her chambers. She would suppress the feeling when she learns of who owns Sandhya’s nights, when every moon, a new bride walks in. 

But for now, she stares at the offered hand, and takes it. Unsure but hopeful. 

***

The venom burns through her body, searing new veins where there had been none, and the fever rises, like a tide. She shudders and writhes, as phantom hands hold her down. 

“What have you allowed to prosper, witch?” A harsh whisper cuts through the cold.  “Eight different poisons, seven times she’s died. Even for a moonwife, she’s at most got another death in her before she’s lost for good.” 

“But she’s not just a moonwife,” the other voice, frail and old, now determined. Desperate. “She’s greendaughter, my daughter. She’s of the earth as she’s of the sky. A plant tended in poison should absorb it, it should become poison itself.”

“You wretched witch,” There’s anguish in Dhanista’s voice, “you have no idea what you’ve lost for your revenge.” 

Vishaka forces her eyes open, heavy-lidded. Dhanista’s face comes into focus, twisted and bitter. Vishaka lurches forward, coughing blood, and grabs her hand. 

“The revenge is mine, Dhanista. It is mine for the life I’ve lost. For all the years I spent at her feet, for all the memories that are now tainted. The world has taken much from me. Don’t let it take my revenge. It is mine, first.”

 She’s still in the cove, against the creek that fed into the sea. Vishaka could feel the poison in her, the alahala that had slain demons and gods fighting against the common krait, the foxglove and her jealousy—a battle it is winning. Suddenly, she’s afraid. Afraid that all of it would mean nothing, that she would be felled right before the eve of her revenge. Afraid that even her raging hurt won’t be enough. 

Dhanista looks at the hand Vishaka held. Up close, her eyes were red, a flood of tears held back with a will of iron. A single drop traces its path down her cheek, coming to rest on the bow of her lips. Vishaka wonders what it would feel like to close the gap, lean in and swallow that tear whole. 

Dhanista turns to the witch. “Hold her legs. I’ll take up her hands. We must reduce the heat on her body before it burns her whole.” 

Vishaka is limp when they carry her to the creek, Dhanista cradling her head against her chest as her father holds her legs. So they bury Vishaka for the final time, in water. Vishaka pours all her love, everything she had been, into the poison. Loss is venom of the heart and as Vishaka finally gives herself permission to grieve the girl she’d been, the poisons begin their convergence. 

****

The first night of Sandhya’s absence is needles on Vishaka’s skin, the gentle breeze scouring all the places her lover had touched. Months pass, the court congregates and Sandhya promises her again and again that she will be back. 

The fifth time her wife doesn’t show up, Vishaka is inconsolable. She is sure the fault lies within her, something she’s spoken, something she’s broken. The elder wives congregate, one by one as they bring in fruits and flowers as if they are nursing a grieving widow back to life. 

The eighteenth time, Vishaka takes to her bed, letting what grew rot away. There are spirits aplenty in the god’s abode and all she needs to do is drown in the alcohol, if only not to look at the fresh new thing to grace her wife’s bed. Dhanista is the only one who comes now to wild Vishaka’s chambers, on whose lap Vishaka rests her head. Their shared envy is an ugly comfort but neither can afford to let go.

By the twenty third night, in Vishaka is a rage. By now, she’s familiar with the moon and her fickleness. Of the wives bound to the palace and to her. And how Sandhya only visits each wife on her first and twenty seventh visit, tepid water to parched throat. 

Vishaka descends to her father’s garden again, ready to ask for her boon, to ask him to grow her like poison.

***

When the moon comes down again, Vishaka is ready. Sandhya is all she remembers and more. She is just as vibrant as the day she married her, but there was a sardonic tilt to her lips now, that she had missed. On the eve of her betrayal, Vishaka sees her lover the most clearly, beautiful, terrible and cruel. And she has never loved her more. 

There are a lot of loves the moon gathers. The love of poets who marvel at her nightly, the adoration of the court that bends to her beauty, the care of a brother who keeps vigil daily. And the love of her wives, varied in their twenty seven graces. Aswini loves her steadfastly, dutiful and obedient while Bharani is a burning star, passionate in her craving. Dhanista is a wilting flower, desperate for her attention and Rohini is the one who sleeps by her side often. 

 But Vishaka, she’s never loved the way that had been enough, or found love given to be enough. Hers is a love of hunger and wanting. Wanting is a dream and nightmare, wanting is love and less than love, wanting is what remains when all is gone, what keeps this fragile body of hers together. And Sandhya, in all her glory and grace, had never acknowledged her wanting as enough. 

“What’s the occasion, my honoured wife? What brought you down to earth?” 

Sandhya tilts her head backward, looking at Vishaka through her lashes. A coyness, a surprise that her wife who had chosen the earth after only a few rotations is questioning her. 

“You are angry.” It is a statement, not a question. 

 Vishaka turns away, trembling. “I am not,” she says.

Sandhya laughs as she envelopes her wife from behind. “I am a god, my dear wife.” 

There it was. Vishaka was not even enough for a sharp admonition. Those, she knew, Sandhya reserved for her more beloved lovers. If love was a hierarchy, Vishaka was the forgotten trinket, too trivial to be assigned a place. 

But the weak vine can strangle too. Vishaka gives in as her wife lifts her chin up, placing a tender kiss on the corners of her lip. Vishaka shivers. After all this time, the body remembers hunger. It remembers want. Vishaka kisses her back, passionately, fearlessly, for it is only one night she has her sakhi. She must kiss her with all the love she’s harboured. She must kiss her with poison.