Ghost Leopard (A Zoe & Zak Adventure #1) (25 page)

The raft was almost close to enough to touch. If I had dared to take a hand off the pole, I could have taken a picture. Nobody would have believed it though. They’d just say I photoshopped the falling monkeys and hovering raft into the shot. After all, that kind of thing didn’t happen in real life. It didn’t matter anyway, I needed both hands to hang on. All three of us hung there silently for what felt like a long time, the shadow of the hovering raft above us. Luckily, from where we hung, the boiling water couldn’t get us. Eventually, the monkeys became less frequent and then stopped falling off the waterfall almost completely. I had strong arms from all the hanging around I had been doing, but I was getting really tired. I was also worried about Zak. His arm was still oozing blood where the arrow had struck him. The bhagwan's raft floated there for a long moment before moving backward into the cave. Zak was about to jump down to the ledge below the waterfall, but Amala stopped him. Instead she leapt down herself, leaving Zak and I hanging there.

The muscles in my arms had started to burn. Plus, it was hot and steamy. I didn’t think I’d be able to hold on much longer. At least a monkey hadn’t gone over the waterfall for a while. I didn’t think I'd ever think a monkey was cute again. But I was worried the bhagwan would come back. That would be really bad. I hoped Amala had a plan. Right now all she seemed to be doing was staring up at the water rushing above our heads.
 

 
I tried to distract myself from the pain in my arms with happy thoughts. I had no idea where Amala had come from, but I had been happy to have her there to help us. I didn’t think we would have made it that far without her. She was a real friend. I felt so pleased to have her around, that at first I didn’t notice the furry tail reaching down through the boiling waterfall. The tail was wet and thin and looked like no more than a shadow in the moonlight. But when the sinewy tail wrapped around Amala's neck and picked her up by the throat, I saw that it was more than a shadow. The tail belonged to the bhagwan.
 

The tail picked Amala up off the ledge, lifting her farther and farther into the air. Strangely, Amala didn’t seem to fight the tail, but instead, she looked like she was allowing it to lift her away, like she was sacrificing herself. I wouldn’t have it. Amala might not have minded sacrificing herself but I, for one, was not going to allow that to happen. Not on my watch. I slowed my breath and focused.

“Careful,” Zak whispered.

I swung myself back and forth like a gymnast on the uneven bars, willing myself toward Amala. Then I let go of the bamboo pole and crossed my legs, hanging in midair. The waterfall raged above me and, for a moment, I floated in the air almost as if I was levitating. I reached for Amala, but I couldn’t maintain my concentration. I dropped from the air to the ledge below.

“Promise me. Promise me you’ll protect the Leopard,” Amala gasped.

I said it automatically. I didn’t even have to think about it. “I promise.”

That’s when the muscular tail wrenched Amala upward. I tried to leap back up after her, but she was too far gone. As I watched Amala disappear, it looked like the bhagwan's tail was cutting right through her neck as it pulled her upwards, through the river. For a moment, I swore that his tail went right through her chest as if she wasn’t even there. A half second later, Amala disappeared completely as the wet tail pulled her out of sight.

The towering waterfall shimmered in the moonlight, but it wasn’t pretty, not to me and Zak. We were too busy trying to climb down the cliffside. I’m sure we looked like tiny ants on a giant mountain wall. I had wrapped a tourniquet around Zak’s arrow wound. I made it from one of the checkered gumcha scarves we had bought when things were still sane. I figured at that point it was more important to keep Zak’s blood in than to keep the cold out. Actually, I think that Zak got lucky with the arrow. It had poked him, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped. I guess the monkey had taken the brunt of it. Climbing down the rock face was slow going and neither of us spoke a word. Inch by inch we gradually descended the rock wall until, by the time we reached the river below, it was twilight, the deep purple sky lightening around us. The river was really noisy down at the bottom of the gorge. Zak took off his shirt, examining his arm and clawed back.

“Come on,” Zak said. “If we follow this river, hopefully we can get out of these mountains. Once we’re down, we can catch a train back to the hotel. If we’re fast, I bet we can get there before our parents even find out we’re gone.”

“He took Amala,” I said.

“With his freakin’
tail
!”

The sky was light enough that I could now see three mountain peaks towering above us. They were silhouetted amidst the clouds, one crooked, snow-covered spire jutting high above the others.

“That’s Tendua Tibba. I recognize it from the map.”

“They all had freakin’ tails. And claws. And don’t forget the river of monkeys. Look,” Zak said, pointing at the rocks where two reddish-brown heads bobbed. “There’s a couple of them right now.”
 

I picked up a stick and stepped over to the sandy river bank. I looked up at the mountains above and began to draw the map from memory. “The trail led up the valley and over the ridge to Tendua Tibba’s peak. I can see the route from here. It’s a straight shot.”

“Zoe, listen. I want to keep going as much as you do. But think about it. I got shot with an arrow. We were almost cooked in a river of boiling monkeys. Going up that mountain is not safe.”

Whoa. Was this the same Zak I had come to know? The semi-crazy kid who would do practically anything for a laugh? “We promised her we’d protect the Leopard,” I said.

“Promised who?”

“Amala.”

“Don’t you get it?” Zak said.

“Get what?”

“Did you notice anything strange about Amala?”

“What do you mean?”

“Back in the rickshaw in the city. Did Amala hand you the key to the hotel?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Think back.”

I cast my mind back. Mostly I remembered how wet I had been. And all those butterflies. “No, no, I think the rickshaw wala gave it to me.”

“And when you were getting firewood. Did she help?”

“We were talking.”

“But did she actually carry the firewood?”

I didn’t have to think about it, because I remembered she hadn’t. “No,” I said. “No, she didn’t.”

“And when she was swimming. Did you see her legs?”

“It was watery.” Zak waited for my answer. “No, I didn’t see her legs, OK?”

“What does that tell you?”

“That you spent way too much time looking at her and not enough helping me with the firewood?”

“Amala’s not like us, Zoe.”

I thought I knew what he was going to say, but I didn’t want to hear it. Zak said it anyway.

“She’s a ghost, Zoe. Amala’s a ghost. She’s not real.”

“You can’t prove it.”

“Think about it. Did she eat when we offered her cookies? No. Did she drink water from our canteen? No. Did she drown wearing that sari swimming? No.”
 

I thought about her wearing that sari in the cave pool, but Zak wasn’t done.
 

“The mummies, those were her past lives. Who she was before. Did you notice how she appeared out of nowhere? Did you see how his tail cut right through her?”

I thought about the tail. When she was hanging there by the bhagwan's tail, his tail definitely did go through her throat. It was almost as if she was playing along, guiding him away from us.

“What’s your point, Zak?”

“Nothing really, except you made a promise to a ghost, a phantom, a dead person.”

“So?”

“So does a promise like that even count?”

I shook my head. I couldn’t believe Zak. “So that’s it. That’s where you’re going with all this. You want to just give up? Pretend like none of this ever happened?”

“Look, I brought us on a little vacation. If things got crazy weird in these mountains, don’t blame me.”

“I’m not blaming you for things getting weird, Zak.”

“So? What are you blaming me for then? I’m the guy who got shot with an arrow.”

“I'm blaming you for running away.”
 

 
I stepped away from the river. There, I had said it. I knew it might sound hypocritical. I knew that up until a little while ago, running away from the whole situation had seemed like a good idea to me too, but something inside of me had switched over. I couldn’t run away from what was happening. Not anymore. I had to see it through. And that’s what was bothering me the most. Not the magic monkeys, not their fangs, not even the talking statue. What bothered me the most was that Zak had witnessed all of these impossible things, just like me, but instead of feeling what I had, instead of feeling like something inside of him had switched over too, he was going to run away from his responsibility to protect the Leopard.

 
“I don't know about this yogi thing,” I said. “I don’t know about Amala. I don't even know for sure if this Ghost Leopard is real. All I know is that I made a promise. I’m going up there. With or without you.”

“It’s not worth it,” Zak said. “Not if it means meeting the bhagwan.”

I stepped onto the trail and started hiking.
 

“Go ahead, kill yourself,” Zak called out. “I’m not climbing Monkey Mountain.”

I didn’t break my stride. I didn’t try to think of a clever reply. I just kept right on hiking. Zak would either follow me or he wouldn’t, but there was no way in a million years I was going to give him the satisfaction of looking back.

I was cold and wet and mad. Zak hadn’t followed me, but I didn’t care anymore. What mattered was that I protect the Ghost Leopard. I walked for a very long way up a rough trail. It must have been afternoon by the time I came upon some huts on the trail. It wasn’t as big as a village, more a collection of little mud shacks and one bigger hut that was more like a store. I realized that I hadn’t had a real meal in I didn’t know how long. I hadn’t slept either, but right now I just needed to eat. I knew I wasn’t actually starving, but I sure felt like it. Thankfully, one of the men who was cooking must have guessed how hungry I was because he offered me lunch with his family.
 

I think I thanked him about a million times, and that was before I even ate any of the food. Basically, lunch was rice and green lentils and bread. The lentils were called dal and you poured them on the rice like it was a sauce. The bread was this round thing called a chapati that they cooked on the open fire. The chapatis got bigger and bigger, just like balloons as they cooked, and then they popped and went flat again. The cool thing was you got to eat everything with your fingers. After I was done slurping down the rice and dal, I tore the chapatis up and used them to mop up my plate just like the others did. All in all, I was so hungry that it was probably the tastiest thing that I’d ever eaten. After lunch, I thanked them all again and traded the last of my soggy Indian money for some supplies.
 

 
I bought a simple bamboo backpack which I filled with rice and cookies, a few eggs, a frying pan, and two big blankets. I got a flashlight too. I then handed over the last of my rupees for a pair of sheepskin boots and matching coat. I didn’t know how high up the mountain I would have to go, but I did know that there would be snow there. Luckily, both the coat and boots more or less fit. I said goodbye to my new friends and headed up the trail.

Of course, it wasn’t long before the trail more or less ended and I found myself basically clawing my way up the steep, muddy mountainside. It was still very green and warm at this altitude and I found myself holding on to the wild grasses and tree trunks for support. I tried to ignore the monkeys screeching in the tree tops above. I could only hope that they weren’t somehow sending messages to the bhagwan. When I paused to catch my breath on the slope, I lost my footing and found myself sliding back down the steep muddy bank. By the time I slowed to a stop, I had slid down half the distance I had just climbed. It didn’t matter, I told myself. I would just have to work harder. Digging my toes and knees into the mud, I started up the slope again, more determined than ever.

It went on like that for what seemed like forever. Climbing up and sliding back down the muddy slope. I thought a lot about Zak and how mad I was at him. I thought about how much easier it would have been just to turn around and go back. I tried to remember if I’d taken the orange out of my locker on the day I had left school. But one thing stayed the same: I kept climbing up. After some time, I came upon a small temple to Ganesha built into the side of the muddy mountain. There was barely room to stand in front of the little shrine. The elephant-headed statue had a flower garland around its neck and incense burning at its feet. I had no idea who would have been up here to light the incense, but then, given my previous experience with Ganesha, he had probably blown fire out of his trunk and lit it himself.
 

“What are you looking at?” I asked.

The statue grinned back at me. But it didn’t answer me. It didn’t move. It didn’t even cry. Not one tear turned to diamond.

 
“Now you don’t talk?” I said.

The statue stayed absolutely still. I don’t know why, but just looking at it, staring at me like that, filled me with doubt. I picked up half a coconut from a pile of brown husks in front of the shrine. I felt like throwing it at somebody, anybody. I wanted the statue’s face to turn blue so it could tell me why I was still climbing. But the statue didn’t need to speak. It didn’t have to because a blood-curdling screech echoed through the hills. It sounded like a monkey. I could tell right then and there that something horrible was happening to it. The bhagwan was probably drinking its blood. I knew that if the bhagwan and his crew were coming, they couldn’t be far behind. I dropped the coconut husk at my feet and hurried on.