The winner of the Best Children Book of the Year in 2019 The Hidden Children, which was also longlisted for the NEEV award in 2019, Reshma K. Barshikar is back with Book 2 in the series, The Lost Prisoner, another magical YA fantasy set in Mumbai.
In this dark and breathtaking adventure, Barshikar takes us back to the fantastical world of witches, magic, and a beautiful friendship between four friends who are standing at the crossroads of their lives, again.
An Indian YA fantasy with a very global theme The Hidden Children series is an Indian Harry Potter coming-of-age fantasy series filled with themes of friendship, magic, romance, and mystery.
Book Excerpt – ix-xi
Previously
Shayamukthy Mukherjee (Shui) is sixteen, lives in Bombay, and spends her days shooting hoops, sighing at boys, and passing time with her best friends- Nallini and Jai. She prefers blending into the background in Mumbai to being surrounded by doctors and whispers in Denver when she started seeing colours surrounding people and the letters began to jumble up, before she was diagnosed with dyslexia. She is now content lunching under old trees and being doted upon by an annoying brother and weirdly wonderful parents. But one October morning, a ‘new girl’
– Anya, walks into class and the air around Shui begins to fizzle. Anya is shy and keeps to herself until the day Shui catches her balancing a pencil mid-air. When their eyes meet Anya runs away flustered and Shui pushes it aside until she finds her again, sitting alone in a fugue, talking to butterflies as they flutter around her knuckles. And then Anya asks her a question that changes everything- ‘do you want to speak to a butterfly?’
Taken in by the strangeness and the odd familiarity of it all, Shui invites Anya to a Diwali Dinner where she meets Shui’s family- her mother Saba and her father Sumit, and her elder brother Subodh who’s still deeply hungover from the move over three years ago, still preferring cold KFC to Hilsa. Despite talking into the night, her reluctance to upset Nallini- who’s taken an instant dislike to Anya after a game of cards, makes Shui distance herself from Anya and life circles back to status quo, the strange encounter just a small speed-bump on the usual humdrum of life. But Shui begins to notice changes – the nightmares are back, especially the one that began after that summer spent in her grandmother’s house in Calcutta, and worse- she’s started seeing things again, things she hasn’t seen in a while. But Shui has no wish to revert to a life filled with teasing and worried parents, and so she ignores it all. As days tumble into weeks, we get drawn into Shui’s life, her unrequited crush on a handsome classmate Aadyant, their collective enmity with a trio led by the Queen Bee Malvika, basketball politics, and the entire classes strange penchant for Shakespeare. But during a basketball match, Shui finds she’s unable to make a penalty shot despite being the team’s top shooter, and this time she’s unable to ignore the signs; the anxiety comes to head when a substitute teacher who doesn’t know about Shui’s dyslexia picks on her in class; the situation snowballs into Shui having a meltdown in public and she retreats to a small forest of coconut trees in the school property. Anya finds her there and seizes the moment; she oRers her way out of a life rife with humiliation, even as Nallini oRers her solace in the form of friendship- this time Shui chooses Anya.
When she reaches Anya’s house, she is no more shy-and-vulnerable ‘new girl’, but strong and confident, and together they do the impossible
– raise a solid HB pencil or the table and Shui feels her body explode with power. After a deep sleep Shui awakens and realises two things- one she’s not crazy and has never been, and two- there exists a magical world where her oddities are considered normal. Anya tells her she’s been brought up in a coven in Scotland and that Shui has experienced the Kairos, an awakening, and Shui finds herself tumbling down a rabbit hole, and into a parallel world called Witana, a community made up of gifted individuals who are blessed with powers or ‘graces’. Anya takes her to a Bile Rath, a temple where the priestess tells her she’s most likely a ‘hidden child’, one who comes from a family where the ‘grace’
has skipped many generations. While her grace is weak it might develop through practice and study, or perhaps not, because not all are meant to have great power. Nevertheless, Shui is thrilled to know she’s not crazy and feels an overwhelming sense of gratitude to Anya. So when Anya asks Shui to help her find her family Grimoire- a book that has been stolen by a woman who killed her mother, Shui promises to help. But where do they begin?
As Shui researches the world, she finds many roads lead to a renowned Witan called Abha, a young woman who escaped Calcutta on a ship to Scotland where she founded a flourishing coven that Anya grew up in. What she doesn’t realise is that both of them are related to Abha and that the Grimoire was begun by her and is a repository of all her power. When they run out of ideas, Anya suggests they call on Mara, an old deity obsessed with Grimoires and eager to help those who desire them, at a price of course.
Despite the Bile Rath’s warnings, Shui agrees, and Anya forms a coven with the unlikeliest of allies- Malvika and her best friend Ruksana. Łe coven meets in a small shack in Juhu and with every spell, despite an initial turf war, the coven gets stronger, so eRective they are even able to help a coven member. Łey have, become, quite literally, a force to reckon with. As November melts into Christmas, Jai and Nallini fade into the background especially after Nallini makes Shui a substitute in the basketball team, but someone else has noticed this new confident Shui- Aadyant invites Shui to a party and soon she’s living a new life, one with parties and possibilities for romance; one where she can close doors with her mind. But it’s not all sunshine and puppies: every time they do a spell, Shui finds herself being transported to the middle of nowhere and she’s unable to shake the feeling someone is watching them; that each ritual is binding them to something darker even as the bond of sisterhood deepens. Her dreams of the door are also getting more vivid, and she’s certain something is trying to reach out to her, or is she reaching out to it?
About The Author
Reshma K. Barshikar is a feature writer, author, and teacher. Her first novel Fade Into Red (Random House India) debuted on the Amazon Bestsellers list. She contributes to National Geographic Traveller, Harper’s Bazaar, Grazia, The Sunday Guardian, Mint Lounge and The Hindu. She also hosts creative writing workshops for young adults at Dr Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum and Kala Ghoda Festival. She is the founder of The Hidden Imagination Writers Academy.
(Extracted with due permission from author, publisher)
