Tiger's Voyage (28 page)

“No,
I’m
sorry. I moved too fast.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s okay. I don’t know what I was crying about.”

He turned toward me, captured my hand, and played with my fingers. “
I
do. And I don’t want our first kiss to make you cry.”

I smiled lopsidedly, trying to tease. “This wasn’t our first kiss. Remember?”

“I mean the first kiss I didn’t steal.”

“That’s true.” I laughed softly. “You
are
the world’s best kissing bandit.” I bumped him with my shoulder and squeezed his arm in apology, but sadness still showed on his face.

He clasped his hands on the railing. “Are you still sure about this? About me?”

I nodded against his shoulder. “You make me happy. Yes, I’m sure about this. Will you try again?” I tried to snuggle closer.

He wrapped his arms around me and kissed my forehead. “Another night. Come on. I’m in the mood for a story.”

We headed downstairs, hand in hand.

We didn’t see Ren all week. According to the
GPS
tracker, he hid in one place or another in the lower decks of the ship.

Kishan didn’t try to kiss me again, at least not like before. He stroked my hair and held me, rubbed my shoulders and spent whole days with me, but when I stepped close to hug him goodnight in the evenings, he would hold me for a few moments before kissing my forehead. He was giving me more time, which made me feel both relieved and stressed.

We finally docked in Mahabalipuram, or the City of the Seven Pagodas, a week later. We were now on the opposite side of India, the eastern side, floating on the Bay of Bengal on the edge of the Indian Ocean.

It was time to start our third quest, and the idea of dealing with dragons both excited and frightened me. I was also itching to go ashore again. Kishan obliged by taking me sightseeing on his motorcycle. We spent the day strolling shops. He bought me a beautiful bracelet decorated with diamonds clustered like lotus flowers. Slipping it onto my arm, he said, “I had a dream of you wearing a lotus blossom in your hair. This bracelet reminds me of you.”

I laughed. “You probably dreamed of lotus because you sleep right next to the table where I put Durga’s lotus garland.”

“Maybe,” he said with a smile, “but a good dream’s a good dream. Please wear it.”

“Okay. But only if you let me buy you something.”

Kishan grinned. “It’s a deal.”

I made him sit at an outdoor table while I went into a shop. Several minutes later, I nervously sat down. He leaned forward to snatch my bag, but I pulled it away.

“Now wait a minute. Before I give this to you, you have to promise to let me explain what it’s for and try not to be offended.”

Kishan laughed and held out his hand for the bag. “It’s very difficult to offend me.”

Eagerly pulling my present from the bag, he held it in the air, stared at it in confusion, and then looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “What is this supposed to be?”

“It’s a collar for a very small dog.”

He dangled the black leather collar between his thumb and forefinger. “It says
Kishan
on the side in gold letters.” He laughed. “Did you think this would fit me?”

I took the collar from his hand and walked around the table. “Hold out your arm please.” He watched me curiously as I wrapped the collar around his wrist and buckled it. He didn’t seem upset, only puzzled.

I explained, “When Ren changed to a man for the first time, he had been wearing a collar. He held it out to me to prove that he was the tiger I’d been traveling with. He was quick to discard it. To him, it was a physical reminder of his captivity.”

Kishan frowned. “You are giving me a gift and talking about Ren?”

“Wait, let me finish. When I first met you, you were wild, a true creature of the jungle. You had ignored your human side for many years. I thought a collar would be a different symbol, a symbol of becoming reclaimed, a symbol of rejoining the world, a symbol of belonging. It means you’ve come home. That you have a home … with me.”

I dropped his hand and shifted to my other foot, waiting for his reply. I couldn’t read his expression. Kishan stared at me thoughtfully for a few seconds. Suddenly, he took my hand, yanked me onto his lap, and brought my hand to his lips.

“It is a gift I will treasure always. Every time I look at it, I will remember that I am yours.”

I pressed my forehead to his and sighed in relief. “Good. I was worried you’d hate it. Now that that’s settled, shall we head back to the boat? Mr. Kadam wants us all to meet an hour before sundown so we can go to the Shore Temple together. Unless you think I’d better go back to buy a leash. You might wander off,” I joked lightly.

Somberly, he took my hand, “Leash or no leash, I will never leave your side. Lead on, my proprietress.” He smiled contentedly as he draped his arm across my shoulders.

At the ship, we found Mr. Kadam waiting on the dock. Ren soon came down the ramp from his most-recent hiding place. After Kishan stowed the motorcycle, the four of us climbed aboard the motorboat.

The snap of the wind blew my hair back from my face, and I beamed happily at Kishan when he looked back to check on me. My gaze drifted, and I suddenly found myself staring into Ren’s blue eyes.

“New bracelet?” he asked.

I looked down at the twinkling diamonds and smiled. “Yes.”

“It’s … pretty. It suits you.”

“Thank you.”

“I—” he hesitated and shifted in his seat.

“What is it?” I prodded gently.

“I’m happy for you. You seem … content.”

“Oh. I guess I am.”

Despite the happiness I felt in being with Kishan, I realized there was a leak somewhere in my heart, a hole that wouldn’t close over. It seeped a bitter disappointment that trickled into my limbs, and being near Ren like this was like drizzling lemon juice into the hole. It stung.

I nodded noncommittally and let my eyes drift to the water. Holding out my hand, I let it splash against my fingers. I felt Ren watching me still. Something tangible sparked between us but only for an instant. A tug that was there one second and gone the next.

The sun had gone down by the time we reached shore. The brothers leapt out of the boat, dragged the prow onto the sand, and using a long rope, tied it to a sturdy tree limb.

I studied the temple as we walked toward it. It was cone-shaped but had two structures instead of one. Mr. Kadam fell back to walk with me as Kishan and Ren strode boldly forward. They both carried weapons, just in case—Kishan the
chakram
, and Ren his new trident.

“Mr. Kadam, why does this temple have two buildings?”

“Each one is a shrine. This particular temple has three, but you can’t see the third from here. It’s nestled between the other two. The taller one is roughly five stories.”

“Who is worshipped here?”

“Shiva mostly, but historically, others would have been worshipped here as well. The Shore Temple is the last of the seven still above water.” He pointed to the wall. “Do you see those large statues there?”

“The cows?”

“Actually, they’re bulls. They represent Nandi, the servant of Shiva.”

“I thought Nandi took the form of a shark.”

“He did, but he is also known for taking the form of a bull. Come over this way. There’s something I want to show you.”

We walked across the stone porch and approached a statue that looked like a large tiger with a doll clinging to his paw.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It’s Durga with her tiger.”

“Why is Durga so small?”

He leaned forward and traced the carving with his finger. “I’m not sure. Just the design, I suppose. Do you see this cavity in the tiger’s chest?”

I nodded.

“It was probably used as a shrine as well.”

“Should we make an offering here?”

“I’m not sure. Let’s explore the temple first and see what else we can find.”

We entered the temple through an arched vault. Mr. Kadam told me it was called a
gopuram
, an ornate temple entrance designed to awe and impress. Its function was similar to the Japanese spirit gates. People entering the temple would feel they were stepping away from worldly things to enter a place considered sacred.

We caught up with Ren and Kishan and walked into the dark temple together. Its inky gloom was made even denser by the overhanging eaves blocking the moonlight. Kishan turned on his flashlight so we could navigate.

“This way,” Mr. Kadam said. “The inner sanctum would rest directly under the central dome.” We explored the smaller of the two structures first and found nothing out of the ordinary. Mr. Kadam pointed to an uncarved rock set in the middle of the room. “This is the
murti
—the idol, or icon, of the shrine.”

“But it isn’t carved to symbolize anything.”

“An uncarved icon can represent something just as much as a carved one. This room is the
garbhagriha
, or the womb of the temple.”

“I can see why they call it a womb. It’s dark in here,” I said.

We all stepped to the walls to study the carvings. We’d only been at it a few minutes when I caught a flash of white at the door. I turned my head, but nothing was there. Mr. Kadam said it was time to move to the next shrine. As we passed an arch that opened to the outside, I looked down at the ocean. A beautiful woman, dressed in white with a gossamer veil over her hair, was standing on the shore. She pressed a finger to her lips as she gazed up at me before melting into a nearby mulberry tree.

“Kishan? Mr. Kadam?”

“What is it?” Kishan asked.

“I saw something. A woman, she was standing there. She was dressed all in white, and she looked Indian or maybe Asian. She sort of disappeared by actually walking inside that mulberry tree.”

Kishan leaned out and scanned the grounds. “I don’t see anything now, but let’s stick together.”

“Okay.”

He took my hand as we walked into the next shrine. We passed Ren, who I hadn’t noticed standing in the darkness behind us. His arms were crossed over his chest in one of his classic “watching me” poses. In the next shrine, I stayed close to Kishan while we scanned the carvings on the wall together. I found a carving of a woman weaving at a loom and traced the outline with my finger. At her foot rested her thread basket, and one of the threads had become unraveled. Curious, I followed its thin line through several more carvings.

The thread was wrapped around the ankle of a farmer, and then a cat toyed with it. The thread trailed on through a wheat field, where I lost it and had to search several carvings before finding it again. It joined a scarf wrapped around a woman’s neck, and then wove itself into a thick rope that blazed with fire. It became a fishing net, it wrapped around a large tree, it tripped a monkey, it was held in a bird’s talon, and then … it stopped. It ended at the corner of the room, and, though I searched the adjoining wall, I couldn’t find a place where it continued.

I pressed my thumb against the carved line to feel its texture. It was so thin, my thumb could barely sense it. When I hit the corner at the end of the trail something strange happened. My thumb glowed red—only my thumb—and when I stepped back from the wall, I saw a butterfly crawl out of a crack. It began flapping its wings rapidly, but it didn’t fly. I peered at it closely and realized it wasn’t a butterfly but a large white moth.

It was hairy, almost furry, with large black eyes and some kind of brown feathery antennae that reminded me of the teeth on a baleen whale. When it flapped its wings, something happened to the wall. This small section of wall had been smooth, which was odd because the rest of the wall was covered in detailed carvings.

Thin white lines appeared, and they all radiated from the carved thread I’d been following. They glowed with a light so intense, I had to squint to watch them. When I reached to touch one, the light jumped from the wall to my hand. At the same time, the white lines burst with all the colors of the rainbow. They outlined Phet’s henna design on my hand with white light that quickly began shifting color.

I turned to look back at Kishan, but behind me was only blackness. I couldn’t speak. There was nothing I could do except watch the wall as the lines stretched faster and faster. They were drawing something—a woman, sitting by a window, embroidering. One second I was standing next to the wall, looking at the drawing, and in the next second, the woman breathed and blinked, and I was inside the drawing with her. She was the same woman I’d seen standing on the beach. She was dressed in a white silk gown and wore a gossamer veil over her hair.

She smiled and pointed to the chair across from hers. When I sat, she handed me a circular embroidery frame that had the most lovely stitched version of Durga. The stitches were so small and delicate, that it looked like a painting. She’d created flowers that looked real, and Durga’s hair flowed from her golden cap in waves that looked so soft that I had to touch it. The woman passed across a needle and a small box full of tiny seed pearls.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Durga needs her Necklace.”

“I’ve never sewn with beads before.”

“Look here … they have tiny holes. I will show you the first two, and then you can finish it.”

Deftly, she threaded the needle, made the tiniest stitch, slipped a seed pearl onto the needle, tied the thread around it, and inserted the needle back through the fabric. I watched her go through the same process again before she handed the needle to me and placed the box of pearls on the windowsill.

She picked up her frame, selected some blue thread, and continued working. After I’d affixed two beads and was satisfied with my effort, I asked, “Who are you?”

She kept her eyes on her work and answered, “I am called by many names, but the one most commonly used is Lady Silkworm.”

“Durga sent me to you. She said you would help to guide us on our journey.” I blinked. “Oh! You’re from the prophecy. You’re the lady who weaves the silk.”

She smiled while looking at her needle. “Yes. I weave and embroider silk. Once it was all I lived for, but now it is my penance.”

“Your penance?”