The Secret of Ka (9 page)

"If it's so magical, why can't it fly during the day?"

Not long after peeing, I had tried to get the carpet off the ground with the sun up, but nothing happened. It either needed the stars for power, or else we had lost our ley line. I told Amesh as much but he was unimpressed.

This was the first time I had seen him get mad at the carpet. I supposed it was because he was hot and tired.

Amesh continued. "Last night you kept saying, 'It knows where it's going.' Well, we tried it your way and now we're stuck on a deserted island without water."

"You just said we're bound to find water. And earlier you praised my intuition. Your opinion of me, the carpet, and the island keeps flip-flopping."

Amesh was weary. He plopped down on a boulder. "I'm sorry. I should have insisted we turn back when we were floating offshore."

My anger eased up and I smiled. "We're not dead yet. And you have to admit, the carpet's taken us to a pretty mysterious island. We can't even find it on the map."

He grunted, dug a candy bar out of the backpack, and then put it back.

"Amesh, when I say the carpet's alive, I'm saying there's an intelligence about it. And if my gut feeling is worth anything, I feel like it brought us here for a reason."

"So you're not anxious to get off this island?"

"I'd like to discover something first."

"What?"

"I don't know. Something magical."

Amesh laid his head back and closed his eyes. "I'd rather find a nice cool pond of water and take a bath," he mumbled.

I lay down and closed my eyes, too. We rested for over half an hour. Then Amesh was shaking me and saying it was time to get going. The sun seemed to be higher in the sky. It felt hotter. I wished I'd had the foresight to have brought shorts and sunscreen. My jeans and shirt were soaked through with sweat. I didn't have sunglasses or even a hat.

As we hiked, the terrain changed. The ground firmed up; there was more grass and shrubs to give it stability. That was good. Unfortunately, the hills got bigger and steeper. Up and down, up and down—there seemed no end to it.

Yet the ravines were not as deep as the rises. Which meant we were climbing. So we never got a clear look at where we were headed.

As my legs turned to rubber and the burning cramp in my shoulders swelled to encompass my entire back, I began to believe the island had been purposely designed so that anyone foolish enough to try to cross it on foot would not be given a glimpse of what they were in for. At the same time, I began to think Amesh was right. I was looking for mystery in a place where there was only misery.

God, I was tired! I did not want to just rest. I wanted to lie down beneath a tree—which we had yet to discover—and not wake up for twelve hours. My parched lips were cracked. The blisters on my feet had already popped. Now they were bleeding.

Without asking Amesh, without warning him, I sat down and took another break, even though we had taken one an hour ago. He walked on another fifty yards before he realized I was no longer by his side. He called from the hill.

"Are you all right?" he shouted.

"Great! Any other stupid questions?" My sarcasm was unfair and uninspired. If anything, I was feeling guilty for having dragged him to the island. But it was easier to complain than to apologize.

He stumbled back down the hill and sat across from me. Then he pulled out a chocolate bar and looked at me like a hungry puppy. I nodded and he opened it, took a bite, and offered me the rest. But I gestured for him to keep eating. He didn'tar gue.

"You know, I haven't seen you pray once since we left Istanbul."

"We generally don't pray in front of—"

"Infidels?" I interrupted, teasing him.

He frowned. "Non-Muslims. But I'll pray later." He paused. "What time is it?"

I checked my watch, stunned at what it said. "Six thirty!"

He nodded. "The sun will set in an hour."

"I didn't know it was that late." But as soon as I spoke, I saw how long the shadows between the hills had grown. All we had to protect us from the elements was a magic carpet. It was funny in a sick sort of way, I thought.

"Should we camp on top of a hill or down in a valley?" I asked.

He considered for over a minute. "I don't know."

"You don't know? You're a guy; you should know something like that. Weren't you in the Boy Scouts?"

"The boy what?" he asked.

"Never mind. Do we want to be up where we can see someone approaching? Or do we want to be down low where no one can see us?"

"We could fly around on your carpet all night," he said.

My carpet,
I thought. "In the dark? We'd smash into a hill."

"It's hard to say where to camp without knowing if there's anything dangerous on this island." He took a last bite of his candy bar and looked sad that it was gone. "What does your intuition tell you we should do?" he asked.

"Order room service and watch TV"

"That sounds like fun."

"What do Mira and your Papi like to watch?" I asked.

"The classics. They're big Hitchcock fans."

"I love them already. Tell your Papi I want to be adopted."

My remark was meant as a joke but Amesh took it seriously.

"He would never do that. You have a nice father."

I forced a smile. "A nice father I never see."

Amesh studied me. "You're an only child. You must be close to your parents."

The smile on my face slipped away despite my best efforts. Suddenly, there was a tear in my eye, and it was silly because I did love my parents and I knew they loved me. It was simply that I could not speak of them the way Amesh spoke of Mira and his Papi. I felt ashamed to tell him they were divorced.

Amesh asked if there was someone I did feel close to.

"My Aunt Tracy," I said, and this time I could not keep the smile from my face. "She's fantastic. I can talk with her about anything going on in my life. No matter what I say, she never lectures me."

"She doesn't judge you," Amesh said.

"Exactly! I don't know how she does it."

"She loves you. She can't judge you. It's like with Mira. We take care of each other. We don't worry what other people say about us."

"You must fight with your sister sometimes."

Amesh nodded. "Mira can get mad at me, especially if I try to do something she thinks is dangerous. For a little girl she can really yell. But no matter how much we fight, it doesn't matter. We respect each other. She's ten years old but she has the wisdom of an adult." He paused. "Will you be seeing your Aunt Tracy this summer?"

For a moment there—I don't know how, maybe it was the island—I had almost forgotten what had happened to Tracy.

"No. Not now." I paused. "She's dead."

Amesh was stunned. "I'm sorry, Sara."

"There was a car accident. A hit and run, we never did find the driver. It was four ... no, five years ago. She suffered serious head injuries and was in a coma forever. That summer we drove to visit her all the time. But come fall, my mother and father decided to pull the plug. But they didn't tell me; they did not ask my opinion, not until they had disconnected her from life support and had her remains cremated. I remember planning this trip to visit her at the hospital where she was staying. I had the whole bus route mapped out. I had already bought the ticket with my own money, without telling my parents. I was leaving the next day when suddenly they showed me this urn filled with ashes and said this was all that was left of her."

I stopped talking then; I didn't know what else to say. Yet suddenly Amesh did something very sweet. He came over and put his arm around me. And when I began to cry, he didn't wipe away my tears. He just let me be.

I wanted to kiss him then. I prayed that he would kiss me. Maybe a part of him heard my wish because he touched his lips to my head. I felt a soothing warmth as he pressed his cheek against my ear. There was a wonderful moment when I heard his heart and mine beat together.

He held me until my sadness passed and I took a deep breath and felt strong enough to climb the final hill. We had decided, after all, to camp up high rather than down low.

The sun was about to set when we reached the top of the peak. It was the highest one we had encountered all day. But we were well rewarded for our effort—at least that was what we thought when we saw the last orange rays of sunlight play over the ancient marble, transforming a network of temples and pools into a heavenly vision.

Amesh stopped and nodded toward the carpet, which was still pressed close to my heart. He did not have to say it; we both knew.

This was the reason the carpet had brought us to the island.

F
ROM A RIDGE
, staring down into a valley, we counted six individual temples. They stood at the points of a massive six-point star. The star looked as if it was made of some type of white stone. At the center was a circular pool of clear water. It was as large as the six structures combined. Grass grew between the spikes of the star, and long oval pools of water stretched from the central pond toward each temple.

Naturally, we were in a hurry to get a closer look.

I tried using the carpet, searching for a ley line, but couldn't find one.

We had to walk, which was okay; our adrenaline was pumping.

But with the fall of night, we had to carefully wind our way into the basin. At last our feet stumbled upon a path that circled the valley, running along a gorge that seemed to shield the temples and pools from the rest of the island.

Yet the path was in ruins. It was made up of an assortment of stones that had probably once been as effective as a modern sidewalk, but which now had lost the glue that held them together. A few times I came close to spraining an ankle.

"Who could have built all this?" Amesh said.

"The Greeks?"

He shook his head. "It looks more like something from the time of the Ottoman Empire."

"Then the Turks must have built it. Be proud."

"But look at these temples. They haven't aged."

"I know. But this path has; it's weird."

"It's magical," Amesh said seriously.

The pools of water we had spotted from above were connected to the central pond, and almost touched each temple. I called them temples for lack of a better word, yet their designs were simple. They were patterned after six basic geometric shapes: a square, a triangle, a circle, a rectangle, a pentagon, and a hexagon.

The roofs were flat, except for chimney-like protrusions that mimicked the shapes of the building themselves. These were located at the center of each roof and stuck up more than ten feet. But our view of the roofs was cut off as we neared the valley floor. The temples blocked our view; they were at least two stories high. The size of it all made my head spin.

Using the lines of the star as a sidewalk, we headed for the central pool. We were both thinking how nice it would be to bathe in it, but when we touched the water, we quickly changed our minds. It was freezing.

"An underground stream must fill it from below," he said.

"You mean an underground glacier," I corrected.

"At least now we don't have to worry about dying of thirst."

I knelt and studied the material that made up the six-pointed star. We had been in such a hurry to reach the central pool, I had not bothered to give it a close look before. It appeared to be made of marble. Yet it showed no signs of wear.

We retreated to one of the oval pools, on our way to the square-shaped temple, and tested the water. It was not as cold as the liquid in the central pond, but it was close. Amesh wanted to know if it was safe to drink. But he was not in a hurry to test it himself. I scooped some water into my hand and touched my tongue to it.

Immediately, I threw myself down and began to roll on the ground. "Help!" I cried.

Amesh rushed to my side. "Sara! Are you in pain?"

"It burns!"

"Allah save us! You shouldn't have drunk it!"

"I thought you wanted me to! Amesh! Help me!"

"You have to spit it out! Oh, Sara! How can I help?"

I shook my head wildly. "I'm poisoned! I'm dying! Oh, God!"

He grabbed my hand. "No, Sara! You won't die! I won't let you die!"

I couldn't take it anymore. I burst out laughing.

"That's so sweet of you," I said. "Now tell me exactly how you're going to keep me from dying."

He leaped up in disgust. "That wasn't funny!"

I sat up, still giggling. "You're right; it was hilarious!"

"Don't ever do that again! Or I'll..."

I stood. "Or you'll do what?"

"Leave you."

"You'll never leave me. You like me too much."

He shook his head. "You're dangerous."

"Of course. I'm an American babe. By the way, the water tastes delicious. But it's super cold. Let's fill our empty bottles with it and let them warm up in the night air. If we drink it the way it is now, we'll get cramps."

Amesh paused. "How do you know all that?"

"I used to be a Girl Scout," I lied.

"There's that
scout
word again. What does it mean?"

"It means you're lucky to have me as your partner." I pointed to the temple at the end of the pool. "Should we have a look inside that door?"

Amesh hesitated. "It might be better to wait until daylight."

"Don't tell me you're scared."

"I'm not scared."

"Sure you are. You'd be crazy not to be," I said, walking over to it. "But it looks like we're going to spend the night here, and it will probably be more comfortable inside than outside."

Too bad; the door to the temple was locked. There were rows of what appeared to be stained glass windows on all sides, but they were closed as well, and up high, out of our reach.

The doors to the other five temples were also locked. As we tugged on the handle of the last one, and it refused to budge, I felt a wave of frustration. To have come so far and to have learned so little!

But I kept coming back to my belief that the carpet had brought us to the island for a purpose. It couldn't be just so we could stand and stare at pretty buildings. We had to get inside the temples; I was determined.