I am Kayadhu, the mother of Prahaladh, a character in the story of Prahalad and lord Narasimha.

I am a naga princess. I married the asur-raj Hiranyakashyap based on the treaty made while the Naglok was attacked by Asuras.

I am a great devotee of Lord Vishnu, but one day my brother in-law was killed by the lord. From that day my husband started hating the lord. All my in-laws were against the lord.

I gave birth to 4 sons Samhlada, Anuhlada, Hlada, Shibi, Bashkala and Prahalad and 3 daughters Divyadevi, Paulami and Simhika. Everyone in Asur lokh were happy, but they didn't know that I was a devotee of Lord Vishnu. Once Guru Shukracharya blessed me with a great son, but after learning about my Vishnu bhakthi, he was displeased. He feared my son would cause trouble to Asura clan.

So he told my husband to do penance at the Mandrachal mountain. My husband went for his penance and soon after I came to know that I was pregnant. Guru Shukracharya learned about my pregnancy and tried to kill the fetus in my womb, but Devi Ganga and Devi Uma foiled his attempts. There was also another group who feared my child. The 'Devas'.

The Devas feared the child would be born as a great powerful Asura due to my husband's hard penance. They thought he would wish for a boon that would make his to be born son powerful than Devas. Indra even tried to kidnap me and kill my child, but I was saved by Rishi Naradha. Rishi Naradha the great Vishnu bhakth took me to his ashram and made a special hut for me. I was taken great care by his pupils and other rishis and their wives living in and around his ashram. I loved the hermitage very much, it was so peaceful.

Sage Nardha used to say stories of Lord Krishna from some other dimension. He used to sing about the lord, many times I used to sleep midway hearing the stories. Many say my child heard the stories from my womb itself. Thus, he became a great devotee of Lord Vishnu. He was more ardent than me. He gave everyone uncountable happiness and hence, we named him Prahalad, which means great happiness. He prayed the lord all the time, and the lord was happy with his Bhakthi.

As soon as my husband returned from his penance, he came to the ashram to take us back. He learnt the deeds of Indra the king of Devas and took his throne. Our son was sent to the gurukul of Asuras, where he was educated by the 2 great sons of Asura Guru Shukracharya. They were happy with his fast learning and praised him in the court. My husband was very happy and asked him to say something he knew. My son said Ashtakshara and was immediately kicked by my husband. He scolded the guru's asking, what they have thought our son. The Guru's said, they don't know, from where he learnt the Ashtakshara manthra and will teach him good things.

According to my husband he has won over the 3 Lokhas and even lord became invisible seeing him, so he proclaimed himself God. He has forced his own worship all around the world. But when our own son praised his enemy, he became very angry. The gurus took our son back to teach, what my husband wanted, but he denied it. Then they saw that the child was also influencing other children so they brought him back and left in the palace. My husband was very angry with him and gave him a death sentence, but the lord saved him from all kinds of torturous death my husband punished him with. He even once caged me in my room and the child in a prison, that night the lord appeared as Prahalad to me and as myself to Prahalad to feed and make fall asleep. Once even his sister Holica, who had a fire proof cloth tried to kill my son by sitting on a pyre with, but with the lord's grace the cloth flew due to air and fell on my son due to which Holica died instead of him. Later once he ordered me to feed a cup of poisoned milk myself to my son, i cried but he didn't listen and forced me to do so. My son happily accepted the milk knowing it was poisoned, then a snake bit him and removed all the poison.

My husband saw himself, how my son was saved each time by the lord. He had a boon that neither inside the house nor outside, neither on earth, nor in air, neither in the day nor in the night, neither by any weapon, neither by humans or animals or birds or another creature created by Lord Brahma the creator he can be killed, so he was not afraid of anyone. He asked my son where is Lord Hari, my son said everywhere. He asked a specific location, my son said he is present in even in the tiniest of a rust or the tallest of a pillar. My husband took him to the spot, where there were 4 beautiful pillars in the palace. These pillars were built in front of my husband and he knew nothing could be present inside these. He asked showing them is Hari present in this pillar. My son said the lord is present in any pillar. But, this time my husband asked is present in this pillar. My son said yes.

My husband said if the lord is not in this pillar, I will pick you like a lion picks a cow and will kill you mercilessly, just like it. We were all terrified and anxious hearing my husband's words. He may now anytime break one of the four pillars, and if the lord was not in, he will give my son a cruel death. My husband broke a pillar and the lord appeared in a half man and half lion form, that is neither human nor animal, it was as if the lord heard my husband saying about killing our son like a lion kills a cow. The lord beat him to lose his consciousness, he took my husband to the threshold of our house, the time was evening, that neither day nor night. The lord sat on the threshold with my husband on his lap, that neither in nor out. He was the Lord Vishnu himself, that is not a manifestation of Brahma. Our threshold is made of a single step, that neither land nor air. The lord used his nails to dig out my husband's intestine, that is no weapon, this was the end of the great king Hiranyakashyap.

Bert, the carpenter, stood with arms crossed, squinting up at the dripping mess of the gingerbread gable above him. The syrupy runoff dripped lazily down into a rainbow puddle at his feet, what was once-pristine candy cobblestones now was nothing more than a sickly, sticky mass of gumdrops and sugarcane.

“This is ridiculous,” he muttered, pulling out his pencil to make notes on his clipboard. He’d been called to strange jobs before, but this, well this took the cake. Literally.

“What’s ridiculous?” came a voice behind him, smooth and sharp as a shard of peppermint. He didn’t need to turn to know it was Mathilda, the owner of the sweet, chaotic, candied house.

“The gutters are clogged again,” Bert said, tapping the clipboard with his pencil for emphasis. “I told you last year, Miss Mathilda, those licorice ropes can’t handle the seasonal rains. And the sugar lattice just isn’t holding up.”

Mathilda, draped in her layers of dark, velvety robes with a hint of powdered sugar dusting her cuffs, sighed theatrically. “But Bert, you must understand, the aesthetic …”

“The aesthetic!” Bert cut her off, exasperation curling his words. “The beams holding up your entire east wing are made of chocolate. Chocolate! Do you know what happens to chocolate in the summer?”

Mathilda’s eyes narrowed, the green irises glinting like boiled sweets. “Yes, Bert. I am well aware of the properties of chocolate. I work with it quite often.“

“Then why …” Bert continued, waving his pencil as if it were a sword in the war against impractical architecture, “… do you insist on using it as a support structure? You could use oak, or spruce, or pine. You live in a damn haunted forest. There is wood everywhere.”

“Oak and spruce aren’t nearly as enticing,” Mathilda said, her voice dropping to a honeyed whisper.

“Enticing?” Bert’s brow furrowed.

“Enticing to whom? Birds? Bees?” He glanced at a nearby window where a curious sparrow pecked at a sugar-crusted sill.

Mathilda folded her arms, her smile as brittle as the spun sugar that decorated her front porch. Before she could answer, the contractor, a burly man named Hugo who had the unfortunate job of overseeing this confectionery construction, stomped over. He shook his head, bits of frosting flecking his bushy beard.

“The marzipan columns won’t last another storm,” Hugo, Bert’s foreman, said while glancing at Bert with an unspoken shrug that meant, Good luck reasoning with her.

“I told her that,” Bert muttered, scribbling more notes.

“Oh, Hugo,” Mathilda cooed, sidling up to the contractor. “Think of the magic! The charm! What would the forest creatures say if this house were made of something so dull as plain old wood?”

“They’d probably say, ‘Thanks for not snaring us in your caramel,’” Bert grumbled.

Mathilda shot him a look, the glimmer of mischief replaced momentarily by something colder. Bert shivered, the air around him suddenly sweet with tension.

“You just don’t understand. If you think you’re not up to the task just say so. How does the expression go? A crappy worker will always blame his tools. ” Mathilda said, her voice tight. “The candy is necessary.”

He didn’t bother correcting her that the tools were not the issue. It was the concoction of candy materials that held the blame.

“Necessary for what?” Hugo asked, his brow lifting. “The local kids don’t come near this place unless they’re dared. And even then,” Bert added, “they leave a trail of breadcrumbs to find their way back out.” He chuckled at his own joke, but Mathilda did not join in.

She exhaled slowly, the frost in her gaze thawing just a little. “It’s … it’s for my customers. They expect a certain… ambiance.”

Bert and Hugo exchanged skeptical looks.

“Customers?” Bert echoed.

“Yes,” Mathilda snapped, then softened her tone with a thin smile. “Travelers, wanderers… people looking for a taste of something different. I told you that you wouldn’t understand.”

“Try us,” Hugo said, crossing his arms over his chest.

Mathilda hesitated, eyes darting to the candy cane columns, the frosted eaves, the gumdrop-studded shutters. The house stood as a monument of to the whimsical or the mad, depending on who you asked. Finally, she sighed and gestured around her.

“If I build with wood, with stone, it’s just another house,” she said, voice low and almost wistful. “But with candy, it’s a promise. A whisper of enchantment. Something that sparks curiosity.”

Bert’s pencil stilled. For a moment, he almost believed her. Almost. Then he glanced at the sagging chocolate beams and the honeycomb rafters that were teeming with ants.

“Well, Mathilda,” he said, rolling his shoulders, “if we’re going to keep up your… ambiance, you’ll need to reinforce this entire structure. And I mean with something stronger than caramel cement.”

“But Bert,” Mathilda said, leaning in conspiratorially, “where’s the magic in that?”

“Right now,” Hugo said, pointing to the sagging porch, “the only magic happening is this place not collapsing while we’re talking.”

Mathilda pursed her lips, eyes narrowing as she weighed her options. Finally, she relented with a wave of her hand. “Fine. Reinforce the beams. But the chocolate facade stays.”

“And the gutters?” Bert asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Replace them with something sturdier,” Mathilda said. “Maybe—sugar-glazed iron.”

Bert’s sigh was heavy, but he nodded. It was a start. He glanced at Hugo, who simply shrugged for the second time today.

“Welcome to the witch’s house,” Hugo said with a grin. “Where logic comes to die.”

Mathilda smirked, the glint of a secret dancing in her eyes as she turned back to her candy kingdom.

Bert couldn’t shake the feeling that no matter how many beams he reinforced, some mysteries were better left unsolved. He finished the rest of his estimate for the bill for repairs and held them out to Mathilda.

She glanced at the cost then at Bert. “You wouldn’t happen to accept peppermints as payment would you?”

He gave her a stern look. “No.”

“How about a considerable donation of children’s cloths?”

“Children’s clothes?!?” Bert stammered. “You know what, whatever. We’ll load them up in the truck, the sooner I’m out of this damned forest the better. We will start the work next week when the materials arrive.”

As Bert pulled away, he glanced at the melting cottage in his rearview mirror. He couldn’t help but wonder what it was that Mathilda did for work and why she happened to have almost a metric ton of kid’s clothing, but work was work and he’d take on any job as long as he could make a small profit.