Ghost Leopard (A Zoe & Zak Adventure #1) (16 page)

“How would I know?” I said. I was getting really annoyed. “Just be quiet.”

“Why?”

“I heard humming or an engine.”

We both listened. This time I couldn’t hear anything but the wind in the trees.

“It’s impossible that you heard an engine,” Zak said, measuring the width of the trail. “Piano, yes. Jeep, no. There’s no way he could get his car down here.”

“Listen.”

I thought I heard the humming again. It seemed to be coming from the slope directly above the stream. I needed to warn Zak.

“We’re being watched,” I said quietly. “Look behind us. But make it casual. We don't want them to know we’re on to them.”

“I told you it’s impossible,” Zak said. “This trail is too narrow for a Jeep.”

Then we both heard a loud cough. It didn’t come from Zak. And it didn’t come from me. There was no denying it this time. Somebody was watching us. Both of us froze. But neither of us were sure what to do about it so we continued to stare at each other. Then, like clockwork, we both whipped our heads around. I almost expected to see a fire-eating dragon. Or Rhino Butt’s Jeep turned into a flying tank. But no big deal, it was only Mukta. He sat on his carpet on the slope above us, floating above the rocks. Wait a minute, did I say no big deal? I meant very big deal. Mukta was floating, literally floating, above the rocks. Whatever he was sitting on was clearly some kind of magic carpet. The thing hovered in the air.
 

“Did I freak you, Mud Devils?” Mukta asked.

“Yeah. You freaked us, Mukta. What are you doing here?”

Mukta took a drink from a bottle and began to gargle.

“Gargling,” Mukta said. “Betel juice: Good for the stamina.”

“Mukta?”

“Yes, Mud Devil?” Mukta said, while still gargling.

“I mean what are you doing
here
? Why did you follow us?”

Mukta spit out his mouthful of betel juice.

“I am checking on your progress.”

I shaded my eyes against the sunlight and stared at Mukta. His carpet was at least three feet off the ground, but he sat on it as though he was on a park bench. Had he been following us the whole time on that thing?

“Does your carpet fly?” I asked matter-of-factly.

“Now it hovers. But yes, on a good day my carpet will fly.”

“Cool,” Zak said.

I raised my camera to my eye and snapped Mukta's picture, hovering carpet and all. But a weird thing happened. The same weird thing that I’m pretty sure was happening before when I tried to take a picture of whatever was following us in the sky from the top of the bus. When I looked at the camera’s screen, I saw only a shadow where Mukta should have been hovering. I snapped his picture again and the same thing happened. No Mukta, just a shadow.
 

“I see you have your camera, Mud Devil. I truly hope you are not planning to capture a photo of the Leopard.”

“No way,” Zak said. “We know the Ghost Leopard can’t have its picture taken.”
 

“Good,” Mukta said. “One cannot capture the moment, Mud Devil. The answers you seek cannot be found with one finger on the shutter.”

Mukta's carpet lowered and he stepped off of it and down the slope. He sat on the trail, crossing his legs.
 

“There is little time. We must sit.”

“Mukta, thanks for checking in on us, but I think we’re OK,” I said.

“Long journeys begin with the lizard's tiny step. I sense the yogi within you, Zoe Guire. Now sit. Both of you cross your legs.”

I shared a look with Zak and we both sat and crossed our legs. At least it felt natural to me. I was happy for all those yoga classes I'd done with my mom. Even though they were boring at the time, I had a funny feeling that they were about to become very useful.
 

“If you are to follow the Yogi Way,” Mukta said, “you must learn to believe. Close your eyes.”

Zak closed his eyes first, just like that, no fuss, no muss. He was always so eager. Though I was willing to listen, I was way more skeptical. I thought it was strange that this old man was following us around on a flying carpet, and even stranger that he wanted us to sit down in the middle of the trail and cross our legs. But if I had learned anything on this trip so far, it was that things were strange in these mountains.
 

“You must unloose your energies,” Mukta said. “Rocks, trees, the very world we live in, these things are in the mind. Living, dying, these things too.”

I could feel a New Age lecture coming on, like when my mom’s yoga instructor told her to say “om” while she sat in the lotus position. But I didn’t want to come across as a know-it-all, so I half-closed my eyes and listened.

“The Yogi Way, it must permeate your being. You must know this if you are to understand that this…” Mukta waved his arms through the air, “…is not this.”

I didn’t get it. I didn’t get how he expected us to see his arms waving around if our eyes were supposed to be closed and I didn’t get what he was talking about either. “What’s not what?” I said.

“This,” Mukta exhaled, gesturing at the world around him, “is not this. Your mind is matter. Matter is mind.”

“What’s the matter?” Zak said, his eyes still closed.

“Matter,” I said. “Matter is another name for material. I think he’s saying your brain is made out of material.”

“Material like you’d sew a shirt out of?”

“No. Like material, like everything is made out of some kind of material. He’s saying your brain imagines the world and that’s why we have a world.” I was guessing, but I thought that was where Mukta was going.

“That is wicked deep,” Zak said. “You should totally write that down, Zo.”

Zak had dropped the “e” in my name. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Generally only my mom and friends did that. Was Zak becoming my friend? I snuck a peek at him. He sat there, his legs crossed and eyes closed, a big smile on his face. Once again I was amazed at how fully Zak threw himself into everything he did. I guess part of me wished I could be more like that.

Mukta inhaled. “Being is all,” he said.

“Being is all,” Zak repeated. “Like human being?” he asked me quietly.

“I don’t know. I guess. Why are you asking me?” I said.

“Because you’re the deep one,” Zak said.

Mukta interrupted us both. “Once you know these things, you can do as you will,” Mukta said.

I let my half-closed eyes fall shut. But I just wasn’t as trusting as Zak. He could keep his eyes closed if he wanted. But I didn’t want to. So I opened up. Zak's eyes were still closed so he didn’t see me. Neither did Mukta. But then a funny thing began to happen. Mukta began to float. But he wasn’t sitting on his carpet. He wasn’t sitting on anything at all. He was levitating, rising higher and higher above the path, the spotted birthmark on his hand glowing faintly.

When Mukta reached about three feet up, floating there in midair, he stopped moving upwards. It didn’t look like a trick, but really, I didn’t know what to think. Last night’s show-and-tell with the little gods in the bowl had been freaky enough, but at least that had seemed explainable in some way. There could have been a TV or projector in the pot or something. The snake whip and carpet were less explainable, but the carpet was pretty far away. It could have been a trick. Mukta floating in the middle of the trail, however, was right in front of me. I didn’t speak. I was too interested in what might happen next. Because there was no logical explanation for what I was seeing. A stalk of green bamboo rustled in the breeze. Then the wind picked up and I watched as the bamboo actually passed through Mukta's forehead like he wasn’t there.
 

“The world may pass through you,” Mukta said.

Zak repeated after him. “The world may pass through you.”

Mukta extended his arm, passing it through the trunk of a gnarled old pine tree.
 

“You may pass through the world. Please. Open your eyes.”

Zak opened his eyes to see Mukta floating there with his arm in the tree trunk.

“Whoa,” Zak said.

Mukta took his arm out of the tree and settled back down to the ground.
 

“The world is yours to save. Do not forget this, Mud Devils.”

Mukta stood and bowed, his palms placed gently together, finger tips pointed up. Then he walked off through the trees.

“Wait,” I said.

I followed the path through the trees that Mukta had taken but was stopped by a sheer cliff. I saw a spotted green lizard basking on a rock but no of sign of Mukta anywhere. He was gone. When I looked back up the hill, his carpet was no longer there either. Black thunder clouds rolled in across the sky. I was annoyed. I might have been trying to expand my mind, but I still liked things to make sense.

“I don't believe in yogis,” I called out to no one in particular.

The only ones who seemed interested were the donkeys who stared at me through the pine trees. I wasn’t exactly sure why I did it, but I mimed pulling the donkeys’ tails, jerking down hard with both fists. That was all it took. The donkeys brayed loudly and took off back the way we came at a full donkey gallop. I kicked at the dirt in frustration. Not only did I not understand how Mukta had been able to do what he did, now I'd gotten us stranded. I felt the first big wet drop of rain hit my cheek. It was followed by another drop and then another, a little quicker than the last. The afternoon was definitely taking a turn for the worse.

Zak and I hiked up the trail, soaked to the skin. The rain beat down so hard, that I knew we weren’t dealing with normal rain. The rain was much heavier than that. This rain was like standing under a garden hose.

“Holy India,” Zak said. “They should have another name for rain like this.”

“They do,” I said. “It’s called a monsoon.”

“Mon whatever. It’s crazy!”

“Kind of like Mukta floating in midair?” I said.

“That was nuts too.”

“What’s really starting to get me is this reincarnation stuff. All this rebirth. As in the maiden being reborn all those different times, first as a soldier, then as a sailor, then as a tailor. That’s freaky.”

“That’s karma,” Zak said. “Everybody knows that. What comes around goes around. If you’re not nice to people in this life you could be reborn as a bug or something in the next life and someone will squish you.”

“Bugs aren’t all bad,” I said. “I wouldn’t mind being reborn as a ladybug.”

“How about a slug?”

“How about a Ghost Leopard with a crazy Monkey Man shooting arrows at you?”

“I guess the Leopard just got really unlucky. The whole karma idea is that you need to be nice now because you don’t know what you’ll be reborn as later.”

“I know,” I said. “That’s why it’s so freaky. It’s like our every move is being watched by the karma police.”

“It’s not that freaky,” Zak said. “My mom goes on these Buddhist retreats. She tells me about this rebirth stuff all the time.”

“Really? It’s not that freaky? There’s an old man that looks like he’s wearing a diaper following us around on a magic carpet. You’re telling me you don’t you find that just a little bit strange?”

“Well, yeah, that part is a little weird.”

“No, come on, you’ve got to give me more than that,” I said. “Some of the stuff that has been happening to us is downright nuts.”

“Let’s dry off and we can talk about it later,” Zak said.

I wiped the raindrops from my face. “How do you want to dry off? Should we do a reverse rain dance and wait for a giant umbrella to descend magically from the clouds?”

“Or we could just go inside,” Zak said.

“Yeah. Great idea. Like I said, how do you plan on doing that?”

“I was thinking we’d open the door.”

Zak pointed down the path. Stupid me, I hadn’t seen it. A building was visible through the mist. It looked like it was hanging off the canyon wall. I picked up the pace as we got closer. The building looked like it had a roof and, for that moment, that was all that I cared about. When we got nearer, it was clear to me that the building was a temple. The outside walls were made of wood and covered in strange carvings that looked a lot like the gods in Mukta's steamy brass pot. Cobbled stones led to the rough hewn wooden door. I paused for a moment outside in the rain. We didn’t know what was inside, but it had to be better than staying out in the monsoon. So I knocked.
 

There was no answer. Zak did what he did best and opened the door a crack, poking his head in.

“Hello?” Zak said.

A puff of warm steam floated out the door. I could see that it was dark in there. I wasn’t sure what to do. But Zak was. He walked right in. Against what was left of my better judgment, I followed him. It was like a sauna inside, hot and very steamy. It took awhile for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, but when they did, the first thing I saw through the steam was a huge stone statue of the pot-bellied, elephant-headed, Hindu god Ganesha. Great, him again. It was the same god I’d seen on the mosaic at the bottom of the swimming pool and then later on Zak’s matchbox. The elephant-headed statue sat at the end of the room, candles in its many hands, red wax dripping onto the floor.
 

“Lovely. More elephants,” I said.

“I love elephants.”

“So do I. I’m just worried this one’s bad luck.”

I wanted a closer look. A glistening, highly waxed floor separated me from the elephant statue. I took a step forward and felt myself falling. The next thing I knew, I was waist deep in the floor. I quickly realized that what I had thought was a shiny floor was, in fact, a large hot pool. Zak dipped his running shoe in the water.

“Feels good,” Zak sighed.

There was a small splash. I looked at Zak. Zak looked at me. Neither of us had moved.

“Welcome,” a voice said.

We weren’t alone. Super duper. More bad luck. I felt a lump of fear knot up in my stomach as I began to pull myself out of the pool. But I stopped halfway. A spark lit up the darkness revealing Amala, the woman from the rickshaw in the city. I relaxed, but only a little. What was she doing here?