The Light-Bearer's Daughter (9 page)

“Really? What sound does it make?”

“Haven’t a clue,” he admitted. “I read it in the brochure at the gate.”

They laughed.

Dana frowned. They were doing a lot of laughing.

“Let’s paddle!” she suggested, catching Aradhana’s hand.

It was a warm sunny day. They kicked off their sandals and climbed over the huge stones that cradled the pool. The water was the color of amber and icy cold. The spray from the falls cooled their faces. The dark wet cliff was rimed with green moss and filmy fern. Kestrels preened their feathers on the highest ledges.

Aradhana had rolled up her trousers to the knee. Her clothes were of a soft loose-flowing cotton, beige and cream. A burnt-orange scarf draped her shoulders. Her jet-black hair gleamed in the sunshine, strands curling around her face. Eyeing her surreptitiously, Dana felt scruffy in her cutoff shorts and faded T-shirt.

“What do you think of that creepy guy?” she said suddenly.

Aradhana looked uncomfortable.

“It would not be right of me to speak badly of your father’s friends.”

“He’s not a friend,” Dana stated. “Just someone we know.” But she was satisfied. It was clear that Aradhana didn’t like him either.

“Is there something you wish to tell me?” Aradhana spoke carefully, but her eyes were filled with concern.

“Nah. I just don’t like him.”

They circled each other in the sunlit water. Dana picked some wood sorrel from a cleft in the rock and offered it to the young woman.

“Gabe calls it ‘chip chop cherry.’ Tastes like cherry-flavored gum.”

Aradhana chewed it thoughtfully.

“Tart but tasty. I will try it in a salad, perhaps also a sauce.” She smiled at Dana. “I shall miss my Irish Barbie.”

“I don’t want to go to Canada. It’s not fair that Dad gets to make all the decisions.”

“It is unfair,” the other agreed. “But once you grow up, you will be in charge of your own life and it will all be up to you.”

“Roll on that day,” Dana said with a sigh.

She sat down on the rocks and kicked her feet in the water.

“We are alike, you know,” Aradhana said, sitting down beside her. “I was reared by my father also. There was only Suresh and me. Our mother died when we were very young and our father never remarried. His heart was broken and could not mend to love another.”

“That’s sad,” Dana murmured, but she felt uneasy.

She had known instinctively that this was the reason Gabriel’s girlfriends never lasted. But though she wanted him to be happy, she didn’t want his heart to mend just yet. Aradhana was different from the others and if there had been no hope at all—no hope of finding her mother— then … but there
was
hope now and Dana would do anything to see it fulfilled. If she earned her wish, she would find her mother and reunite her parents. Then they could stay in Ireland and live happily ever after.

“Do you believe in fairies?” she asked suddenly.

Aradhana smiled.

“This question of belief is a difficult one for people in the West, yes? It is not so if you are born a Hindu. You grow up knowing many gods and goddesses, many kinds of spirits and beings.”

“Irish people believe in a lot too,” Dana pointed out. “God and the Mother of God and angels and saints. Da says he believes in fairies and that he’s not the only one.”

“And you?”

Dana shrugged. “Well, weird things can happen.” She tried to sound casual. “But they’re just for little kids, aren’t they? Like Santa Claus?”

Aradhana gazed up at the great falls that tumbled toward them. Where the sunlight shot through the spray, silver spicules needled the air like miniature spears.

“I would not want to live in a world without gods or fairies,” she said softly. “I am happy to think that life is filled with mystery.”

Before Dana could respond to this, Gabriel called to them.

“Hey, you two mermaids! Come and join a poor mortal who’s starving to death!”

He had emptied the wicker picnic basket that he was so proud of, the one he had bought at an antiques market for a lot more money than he could afford. It came with a linen tablecloth and napkins, blue china dishes, and tarnished cutlery he had spent days polishing. There was plenty of food: a stick of crusty French bread, goat’s cheese from the deli and cream cheese from the supermarket, a jar of dill pickles and another of olives, a green salad with herbs, a bag of apples, a punnet of mandarins, and a box of chocolates for dessert. A bottle of cold white wine lay in the cooler for the adults, and one of cola for Dana. To the delight of the other two, Aradhana had brought vegetable samosas and spicy pakoras, along with crispy poppadoms and a raita dip of yogurt with cucumber and fresh mint.

“Yum!” cried Dana as she dived on the feast.

While they were eating, Gabriel told Aradhana about the movie
Excalibur
, and how some of the scenes were filmed by that very waterfall. Then with all the verve of a natural storyteller he recounted the tragic tale of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere, and the French knight Lancelot who stole the Queen’s heart.

Aradhana listened, enrapt, and so did Dana. Her father’s voice was like his flute, resonant and musical. She closed her eyes, overcome with happiness. It was as if her world was suddenly complete, as perfect as a pearl. Startled, she opened her eyes. The feeling had been strangely familiar, as if she were remembering another picnic, another moment like this. Guilt and panic swept through her. It was all wrong. This was not the family she wanted. This was not her life made whole.

Angrily, she scanned the park.
Where were they?
She had done what she was told to do. She had come to the mountains.

Lunch was almost over when it began to happen, and Dana was the only one who noticed. A silvery breath of mist rose from the earth itself, whispering through the grasses and around the trees. Like the sea come to shore, it flooded the valley. Dana stared at the lustrous haze, mesmerized. It even hung from the branches of the trees like icicles. The world around her had utterly changed. She was looking at the same scene, yet it was not the same. Everything was infused with an intensity of light that made her eyes ache.
What was it?
Some secret message pressed against her heart till she could barely breathe. Then she suddenly understood, without knowing how or why, that the other world hadn’t come to her, rather she herself had entered it; and instead of falling under a spell, she had woken to the truth that Faerie was all around her.

Then came the second shock.

Both Gabriel and Aradhana were frozen in their places, stopped in mid-motion as if turned to stone. And so, too, was every man, woman, and child in the park and everything else besides. The waterfall hung like sculpted ice. Not a trickle of water plashed. Nor did a single leaf on any tree stir. And no birds sang.

It was time to go.

For a moment Dana balked. Here was the price to be paid for her hopes and dreams. The sacrifice to be made. She would have to leave her father. Without warning or explanation, she would have to abandon him even as her mother had. The thought of the pain this would cause him was almost unbearable.

Now a sighing sound surrounded her, though she couldn’t see anything.

Follow the greenway
.

Invisible hands began to tug at her clothes. When she didn’t move, they grew more insistent, pushing and pulling her.

“Stop it!” she hissed.

She stood up to beat them off, but she couldn’t see what she was fighting. As she spun around, she caught sight of a slight figure above the waterfall. It was the Lady, waving at her! There was something urgent in her movements, as if she were entreating Dana to hurry.

“All right, I’m coming,” she muttered to the air around her.

She grabbed her knapsack. It was already packed for a journey, with jeans, sweater, running shoes and socks, a waterproof jacket, matches, and a flashlight. She shoveled in some leftovers from the picnic, plus the bottle of cola and the box of chocolates. Now she turned to her father. Frozen in mid-act, he was passing a glass of wine to Aradhana. Dana’s heart tightened as she saw the look in his eyes. In real time he could hide it, blinking shyly. Caught in that moment, his love shone like a beacon.

Dana didn’t want to look at Aradhana. She was afraid for Gabriel, who might be rejected; afraid for herself, not wanting the complication; and afraid for her mother who might be replaced forever. Yet look she did. And there, like the sun on the surface of a lake, the same love was reflected in the young woman’s eyes.

Any last doubts in Dana’s mind disappeared in that instant. She had to find her mother before it was too late. Before things progressed. Before people got hurt.

She hugged her father’s still body and kissed him good-bye. “Love you, Da. Be back as soon I can. I promise.” Then she whispered in Aradhana’s ear. “Look after him for me.”

Dana had only begun to climb the ridge when she heard footsteps echo from the parking lot. Someone else was moving in the park! She couldn’t turn around to see, as the invisible hands were dragging her upward. She didn’t fight them off this time. The cold prickles at the back of her neck told her all she needed to know. Whatever was coming behind her wasn’t good.

he demon was beginning to remember. Though the fire in its head still caused it agony, torturing it into fits of madness, it grew stronger and more knowledgeable each time it fed. The host body it possessed was aiding it too, nourishing it with the essence of human wickedness
.

An image had already taken shape in its mind, a faint imprint of the memory of what it was sent to murder. A dormant power. A sleeping giant. One who must be destroyed while still weak and defenseless
.

It knew it had to act furtively, to use its ability to creep and hide. In its own maimed and vulnerable state, it could not risk being captured or killed
.

Everything rested on the mission. The final step of the Great Plan. All else had been put into place. This shedding of blood, the red rite of slaughter, would seal the beginning of the end
.

For it had come in the name of the Destroyer of Worlds
.

ana scrambled up the steep ridge, past warning signs staked in the earth.
DANGER. DO NOT CLIMB. ABSEILING PROHIBITED.
Didn’t Gabe say these cliffs claimed at least one life a year? She found a trail too narrow for human traffic, most likely forged by the sika deer that ran wild on the upper slopes. The way was rough going. She had to push through bracken taller than herself, and the ground was wet and slippery. Higher up, she stumbled over knotted roots and patches of gorse that pricked her. Whenever she slowed down, the invisible hands hauled her upward. She was now glad of their help. She would never have made it without them.