Mad sisters of esi, p.1
Mad Sisters of Esi, page 1
Copyright © 2023 by Tashan Mehta
New material copyright © 2025 by Tashan Mehta
All rights reserved. Copying or digitizing this book for storage, display, or distribution in any other medium is strictly prohibited. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, please contact permissions@astrapublishinghouse.com.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Jacket illustration by Upamanyu Bhattacharyya
Jacket design by Adam Auerbach
DAW Book Collectors No. 1986
DAW Books
An imprint of Astra Publishing House
dawbooks.com
DAW Books and its logo are registered trademarks of Astra Publishing House.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Mehta, Tashan, author.
Title: Mad sisters of Esi / Tashan Mehta.
Description: First edition. | New York : DAW Books, 2025. | Series: DAW Book Collectors ; no. 1986 | Summary: “Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi meets Italo Calvino’s If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler in this stunning meta fantasy about the power of stories, belief, and sisterhood. Myung and her sister Laleh are the sole inhabitants of the whale of babel-until Myung flees, beginning an adventure that will spin her through dreams, memories, and myths”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2025010205 (print) | LCCN 2025010206 (ebook) | ISBN 9780756420062 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780756420079 (ebook)
Subjects: LCGFT: Fantasy fiction. | Novels.
Classification: LCC PR9499.4.M45 M33 2025 (print) | LCC PR9499.4.M45 (ebook) | DDC 823.92--dc23/eng/20250311
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2025010205
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2025010206
First edition: August 2025
For those who kept my courage safe when I couldn’t find it,
and who built me a raft when they learned I couldn’t swim
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Myung’s Diaries
WHALE OF BABEL
Finding What We Lost: Wandering the Museum of Collective Memory
OJDA
Mad Yet?: The Found Pages of Famous Explorer Myung Ting
ESI
What of Fairy Tales That Sing?
WHALE OF BABEL, AGAIN
Myung’s Map
Acknowledgments
Ephemera
About the Author
Myung’s Diaries
No. CMXLII [Unpublished]
The problem with circular stories is that it is difficult to know where to begin. This story is circular, although no one told me this when I first entered it. A part of me wishes that they had; perhaps then I would have never traveled through it.
But as always, in moments of doubt, I find myself speaking to my sister. Laleh is not here—we have been separated for more than a century—but her memory does not fade. She answers as clearly as if we have never been apart, as if she is sitting beside me on this mad island, watching a painted sun shine in a blue sky. Myung, she says, if you’re the one telling this, then it must begin with us. Start with the whale, silly.
So, imagine—close your eyes—another universe growing inside this one. A baby universe shaped like a giant whale, with asteroids and dwarf planets stuck to its skin. This universe is not filled with planets or stars or cosmic squids, but with interconnected chambers that Laleh and I call “worlds,” some the size of a solar system, others as large as a galaxy. Academics call it the “whale of babel.”
Now look at two specks living in this cosmic vastness. They float in a chamber near to the whale’s heart. Peer closer and you’ll find that these specks are two girls, their hands loosely clasped. Twins, you think, for they look almost—but not quite—identical.
They are the whale’s only people. We begin with them.
WHALE OF BABEL
Laws of the Chambers
As recorded by Laleh and Myung, keepers of the whale of babel
In dedication to Great Wisa, Creator and First Friend
1. The whale of babel is a creature of boundless generosity. It is filled with many worlds, 780 of which have been recorded.
2. Every world has at least one door that leads you to a new chamber. The first door was discovered by Myung, the second keeper the first keeper* one of the two keepers of the whale of babel.
3. The doors are varied in appearance. The first door was shaped like a crack in a rock; the second looked like the shadow of a tree.
4. Doors do not like to be found.
5. Doors do not like to be traveled through.
6. Door hunting is an art, and Myung has perfected it.
7. The splendors of each chamber are recorded by Laleh on heart-shaped leaves so that they may be witnessed.
8. New chambers appear all the time, for the whale’s wonders are infinite.
Fear
The first time I realize my sister wants to leave, we are in the White World.
I call it that because it is all you can see when you first fall out of the door—swathes of white. The ground’s pull here is soft, bouncy almost, and we tumble gently into the milky mist. It covers our vision like a thin film, but I am unconcerned. The whale would never hurt us. As we bounce and tumble, I reach for my sister’s hand. Only when we clasp does the white clear a little, and we see what this world is made of.
Below us is a landscape of ochre and purple red. When we touch the ground, we discover it is sometimes watery, sometimes made of brittle ice that easily cracks. But it doesn’t matter; we are nearly weightless here. Myung’s fingers slip from mine. She disappears into the mist and then reappears, thoughtful.
In most chambers, we cannot see the ceiling or the walls—the rooms are too large. Doors themselves do not stick to the walls. They position themselves wherever they like. (The door to enter this world, for instance, was in the sky.) But we have never seen a world as obscured as this one. I can smell its freshness.
I know, then, that we are in a chamber that is still forming. I can tell from the turn of her head that Myung has realized this too. I bounce into the mist, away from her, and stay with my awe. I am watching a world being born. For the first time in my life, I am witness to what Great Wisa, our creator and first friend, must have seen.
I listen for the whale’s song. I hear only a hush, as if it is holding its breath.
When I look for Myung, I see her crouched on the purple-red plain, her head bent. I tumble toward her. She is staring at a pool of yellow water. When I peer over her shoulder, I find her reflection gazing at me: the wide eyes, the pointed chin, the small furrow between her eyebrows that means she is thinking. I feel a surge of love. My sister. My other half.
Myung touches our reflections, watching the water ripple out and our likeness disappear. She asks: Do you think there are more of us?
And I feel an emotion I have never felt before.
It strikes first in my heart, clenching it, and then sinks its fingers into my stomach. I cannot breathe. My skin is clammy. The name for it arrives a few seconds later, flowering in my mind’s eye fully formed, carrying its meaning with it—as if I have always known this emotion and its name, but only forgotten it.
FEAR. One syllable.
I do not know why I am afraid. There are only two keepers of the whale of babel, I whisper. You and I. Great Wisa made it so. Instinctively, I touch the back of her neck for comfort.
Myung contemplates my answer. Still staring at the pool, she searches for my fingers and clasps them. Her reflection smiles—a kind smile, a loving one—and my fear grows.
Choosing Fabrics: Imagining the Whale of Babel
Zoya, Mina, University of Mirabilia Diachronism Press, 89019. Retrieved from the Museum of Collective Memory, Corridor -|||•--, Object XIIIIV
Of all the man-made wonders of the universe, nothing has fascinated academia more than the whale of babel. When we still believed in the dominance of logic, it was assumed this whale was mythical and that its many chambers were fairy tales. But it is now widely accepted that the whale exists, although no one can find it. We are left, then, with more questions than answers. Who is Wisa and why did she make the whale of babel? What is its origin story? And what, indeed, is the whale made of?
Several academics have ventured to answer this last question. Early theories believed the whale was like any other, made of muscle, flesh and bone. But this conclusion is too simplistic: it doesn’t explain the whale’s chambers or how it keeps growing in infinite proportions. Tribes of the arboreal faith say it is made of wood and grows as a tree does: layers of rings accumulated as years pass. Common theory propounds that it is made of stardust, growing from the suns that birth and flake in its belly. This is why it swims so well in the black sea;* it is made of the stuff of universes.
Forget those theories for a moment. Remember that the whale is man-made, that Wisa is likely its creator. Don’t think in broad natural strokes but in the tools a person may use.
Imagine the whale is made of fabric.
Agreed, this is not a romantic notion. It is not sleek or aesthetic. If you are imagining it now, you’ll probably see a flaccid creature and not the whale baby-universe of wonder you were hoping
But fabrics offer us a unique possibility: they can be woven together. They are plural and singular, complex and simple. And our whale of babel, if nothing else, has been a symbol of this duality: a children’s fairy tale that remains the greatest mystery of our universe.
So, imagine the whale of babel as made of three materials. The first is a more traditional material, close to what we know as “matter.” This is a dense fabric that retains the shape it is given and is the essence of the heft in the whale. The second is a more pliable material, capable of changing its form. Professor Uoe calls this fabric “wish-giving”* and it is likely responsible for the formation of the chambers within the whale.
The third material, of course, is the fabric of time.
Great Wisa
I handle my fear by fleeing from it. So I usher Myung out of the White World and into a chamber with a floating island. There, we settle into our usual routine: Myung explores (that is, plays with the mud prawns living among the roots of the mangroves) and I study (that is, speak to the teal monkeys about their family structures and systems of power). For a while, everything is normal.
But at storytime (STORYTIME, three syllables, meaning to speak tales of the whale and Great Wisa) Myung asks again. It is as if we never ended the first conversation, as if the thought has been running in a loop in her head.
How do you know there aren’t others? she insists. There are two of us.
Why? I ask desperately. Have you seen anyone?
She can’t have. We spend all our time together, so I would have seen them too. But she doesn’t answer immediately, as if she must think about it. When she does answer, she says No slowly, as if she is not sure it is the right word she is looking for, as if a Yes lurks behind it.
It irritates me.
You’re being stubborn, I say, relishing the word we learned only recently.
Laleh.
I ignore her, tidying my pile of heart-shaped leaves.
Sister. She scoots closer, turns my face toward hers, places my palm on her heart. I feel it. It’s a certainty in my chest, a, a . . . need that’s pushing to get out. Laleh, I see hundreds of us. Thousands. As many of us as there are chambers.
There is no one else. You must forget it.
I cannot.
You must.
I cannot. It lives in me—she presses my palm to her—it won’t come out.
I know I am meant to ask, either in earnestness or anger, what would you have me do? But I don’t dare. The fear is pushing its fingers down my throat, traveling through my veins. Do you want to hear the story of Great Wisa? I say instead. Maybe it will help.
For a moment, she looks like she will argue. Then she drops her head, a peace offering, and I choose the most special story we have to call my sister back to herself:
In the beginning of beginnings, there was Great Wisa. She was born of the whale’s heart and she roamed through its belly, carving its insides into many marvels. The whale and Wisa were dear friends, but as the whale grew larger and larger, Wisa grew smaller and smaller.
“My friend,” she said one day, “as you grow bigger, I cannot roam through all your chambers. So I will make for you a pair of sisters, wise and kind and fearless, to watch over what I have created. Where I cannot see, they shall be my eyes. Where I cannot walk, they shall be my legs. Look to them, and see you have not one friend, but many. Love them as you would love me.”
And so Wisa created two sisters and named them keepers of the whale of babel. The sisters opened their eyes to a new world and have spent their time seeking their maker.
I know Myung loves this story. We take turns to say it, lingering on our favorite line—love them as you would love me. It gives us shivers. It doesn’t matter that the words come from our tongues and our lips. It is as if Great Wisa speaks through us, telling us what we already know, filling it with a bright white light.
When I finish the story now, I let the last word linger. The whale, whose song grew agitated when Myung and I argued, is humming gently. Myung is at peace again, her face iridescent.
• • •
But later I see her staring into a puddle. She is gazing at it intently, trying to recognize her reflection. I hear her whisper:
But where did Wisa come from?
Choosing Fabrics: Imagining the Whale of Babel
Zoya, Mina, University of Mirabilia Diachronism Press, 89019. Retrieved from the Museum of Collective Memory, Corridor -|||•--, Object XIIIIV
A whale made of three fabrics: a fixed fabric, a wish-giving material and the fabric of time.
The first fabric is obvious—without it, the whale would have no mass; it would not exist in the black sea. The second, a wish-giving fabric, is more startling but not unheard of. Sailors have long spoken of seaweed that, when plucked, can twist and transform into whatever you ask of it. It can grant only small wishes, but it shows that shapeshifting is not new in the black sea.
The third fabric, however . . . It is this fabric that has enthralled us for centuries.
Imagine it. Time as a fabric. Imagine silk gathered in your arms, satin slithering down them. Crêpe draped over your elbow. Long gossamer cloths of time hanging in the whale’s chambers like the forgotten ornaments of an old era, like the curtains that tumble down the sides of enormous palaces to flutter against diamond chandeliers. Imagine gossamer cobwebs hung across vast spaces, swimming with the colors of a diffused rainbow. Imagine touching time.
Sister
Myung has not always been my sister. We first met in the World of Bird and Leaf.
How do I describe those early days, before Myung and I were whole? I had woken up in a chamber filled with plants, some enormous and others tiny, and with birds that screeched their song across the sky. I woke up with nothing in my mind except the feel of grass beneath my fingers and a smell I did not recognize. A moment later, a name for it appeared in my mind’s eye: WATER. Two syllables. I went in search of it.
My days were peaceful. The whale would sing to me, teaching me how to weave the broadleaves into baskets (BASKET, two syllables) for berries and nuts. Each day, it would hide gifts and then trill when I found them. My beloved, darling whale. I tried not to have a favorite gift—it seemed ungracious to the rest—but I did, of course. It was the down feather from a simurgh, fallen from its nest. It became my first quill.
I knew everything and nothing about the whale and Great Wisa. The contradiction didn’t bother me. I wrote down my observations of this world on heart-shaped leaves. I measured my time in SLEEPS, for my writing stopped when my eyes closed and began again when they opened. Sometimes, I did nothing except watch the simurghs fly overhead or marvel at the giant palm trees that poked their fronds into clouds. Every moment of beauty felt made for me. It was the voice of Great Wisa, saying: My friend, my keeper.
One day, a shadow fell over me. It was a simurgh—not flying, but standing only a few feet away. I saw its beak first, golden and hooked, so big I could have climbed it. Then its ruby feathers, catching and trapping the light. Eyes, turquoise and kind. And then—
—perched on the creature’s head—
—someone who looked like me.
And then my life truly began.
Later, I learned that Myung tried to climb the great palm trees. She climbed and fell, and it hurt her for a long time, but when it stopped hurting, she climbed again. One day, she reached farther than she had before, but her foot slipped and she fell again. This was when a simurgh caught her in its talons and carried her to its nest. To eat me, Myung said, but I didn’t believe her; terrible things do not happen in the whale. Anyway, Myung charmed it and instead of becoming a meal, she and the simurgh turned friends.
Since then, Myung has flown to the top of the palm trees. She has eaten the fruit of the clouds. She has even seen the chamber stretch out below her, a tangle of leaves that ends on a border of a river basking like a long, lazy serpent in the sun. This I did believe: from the moment I saw her, perched on the simurgh’s head, I knew my sister was meant for the exceptional.
