Vanished (9 page)

“The dragons in the church and Lynne's notebook are all wyverns,” Neela said excitedly. “And this veena player has the same last name.”

“Your grandmother's veena. It must be a wyvern, too,” Pavi said.

“So what's the connection?”

“Isn't it obvious?” Pavi said. “This woman's name is Wyvern. She buys a veena with a wyvern on it. Bingo. You have your connection.”

“What about my grandmother? What about Lynne, Hal, and Mary's embroidery?” And the curse, she thought to herself.

“Maybe they're not involved.”

“Of course they're involved!” Neela exclaimed.

“Okay, maybe they are. We just need to figure out a few more things.”

Neela sighed. “What's the point? Even if we do, I still won't get the veena back.”

“Neela, you can't give up now. You have a lot more clues than you did before.”

“Sure. It's just…” Neela hesitated. “What did you think of Sudha Auntie's story?”

“The vanishing veena? Eh. One of her usual kooky stories.”

“But do you think it could be…true?”

Pavi blew her air out in a puff. “Sudha Auntie is a mental case. You can't believe for one instant any of that stuff she spins.”

“Yeah,” Neela said, unsure.

After they hung up, Neela felt out of sorts. She was frustrated with how difficult the mystery was, despite what she had figured out so far. Did Lalitha Patti's veena once belong to Parvati? Did it belong to Veronica Wyvern as well? How had the veena passed from so many hands, from Parvati, to Veronica, to her grandmother? And survived a train wreck in the middle? And what about the blond photographer who seemed to know about a Guru original in Boston? Neela couldn't even begin to figure out where the photographer fit in all of this.

On top of that, Neela was struck with a sudden yearning for…what? Whenever she felt confused and unsettled, she knew the best remedy was to practice. It didn't matter what, so long as she was playing something,
anything
, to block out the noise inside her brain.

She brought out the student veena and set it down on the floor of the living room, where she normally practiced. After months of playing on her grandmother's veena, the student veena felt strange and awkward, like a chunk of wood with strings attached to it, and a piece of duct tape wrapped around the bottom.

She paused to look at the peg box, which had a simple dragon head, just like the ones on all the other veenas Neela had ever seen. But to her, the dragon head felt incomplete compared to the one on her grandmother's veena with its spectacular, fully carved body and wings. This dragon was made from papier-mâché and painted crudely in bright colors, reminding Neela of her frog puppet from school.

She smoothed out the pages of the exercise book and began with the recital piece she had screwed up at the last lesson. She went over all the lines, repeating the ones where she had made mistakes. Her concentration grew stronger until she forgot the time, focusing on the notes and their exact pitches. If Sudha Auntie could only hear her now. If
anyone
could hear the way she played when she was by herself.

There was a rustling in the room, and Neela immediately stiffened. But when she turned around, she saw that it was only Sree, lying on his stomach under the coffee table.

“Go away,” she said. “I'm practicing.”

“No.”

“Go away.”

Sree stayed where he was, his chin propped up on his hands.

She turned back to her music sheets, deciding to ignore him. As she continued, the blood pumped through her body, flushing her cheeks, warming up her muscles. Slowly the area behind her shoulder blades relaxed. She ran through the piece a half dozen times and felt completely awake, as if a great eye inside her had opened. In the background, she could hear Sree stirring, but it didn't bother her after all. He didn't say a word, and it was actually nice to have someone listening who couldn't tell if she screwed up or not.

Her thoughts drifted to Parvati. It seemed impossible to go through life with just a single instrument. Yet Parvati had expected to do just that, and when she lost her veena, she gave up playing forever, and even put a curse on her lost instrument. Some people might call it crazy, but Neela could understand that feeling of dedication. And even if it was only a story, the part about Parvati had felt very real to her. After all, there
was
something special about her grandmother's veena, something Neela couldn't quite explain. She had felt it herself; she had seen it in the way her grandmother practiced on it, as if no one else existed in the world.

By now Sree had crept out from under the table and sat next to Neela. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him beating his knee with the flat of his hand.

She stopped practicing, surprised. “Sree, are you tapping the beat?”

He shook his mop of hair from his face and looked at her.

“Where did you learn that?” she asked.

“I watched you.” He showed her by tapping some more.

Seeing him reminded her of the first time Lalitha Patti had shown her how to count the beats. Neela was only three. She barely understood anything. But it thrilled her that her grandmother thought her important enough to learn. Neela rested the student veena on the floor. “Not bad, Sree. That's almost right.” And then she tapped the beat out slowly for him, until he joined in.

Pavi came over on Friday
. They were at Neela's window, which was frosted and covered in the corners by snow. “Maybe we should go to Lynne's house and spy on her.”

Neela drew a smiley face on the windowpane with her finger. “I'm done spying,” she said. “I suck at it.”

Pavi drew a cat. She always drew cats. She had always wanted one, but couldn't because of her allergies. But that didn't stop her from drawing them everywhere.

Neela started to add a dog to the windowpane. “And I'm not going to Somerville.”

“Somerville? How do you know she lives there?”

“I saw her address in her notebook.”

“Why is Lynne living in Somerville and going to school in Arlington?”

Neela frowned at her dog. It was starting to look like a frog. “I don't know. Why does it matter?”

“Hello? Have you heard about school districts?”

Before Neela could answer, they heard a loud thud outside the house. She and Pavi bolted down the stairs. The mothers and the boys were already at the front door.

“Did you hear that?” Neela's mother asked.

“It sounded like something hit the house,” Mrs. Sunder said.

They opened the door. A few tree branches swayed in the wind. But no one was there.

Mrs. Krishnan stepped out, frowning. “Was it snow from the roof?” She peered up to see if the snow had shifted.

They decided to look around the house. Mrs. Krishnan, Mrs. Sunder, and the boys went along the side nearest to the garage, while Neela and Pavi skirted the front, behind the azalea bushes. Pavi was the first one to shout out. “I found it!”

Everyone quickly gathered around. “It's a note,” she said excitedly. The note was attached to a rock with several rubber bands. “Somebody threw this and ran off.”

“Why didn't they put it in our mailbox?” Neela said. “What if we weren't home? We'd never find it behind the azaleas.”

Pavi undid the note from the rock. The words on it had been formed from letters cut out of a newspaper.

“Grandmother?” Neela's mother repeated.

Pavi was excited. “This is just like the movies!”

“Why is there newspaper on it?” Sree asked.

“So we can't recognize the person's handwriting,” Pavi explained. “They don't want us to be able to trace it back to them.”

“Why didn't they just type the letter?” Neela asked. “Talk about dumb.” Something caught her eye. “Look,” she said, pointing toward the edge of the lawn.

Everyone walked to the end of the property, where they found a line of tracks crisscrossing the snow along the edge of the driveway.

“They're boot tracks,” Neela said. “They stop here, where whoever it was threw the rock. And the tracks look pretty big. Like a grown man made them.”

“Like Hal?” Pavi asked.

“Is that the man from the church?” Mrs. Sunder asked.

Mrs. Krishnan looked worried. “I thought he was a thief. Now he's psycho, too. And why is he bringing Lalitha Patti into this?”

“It might be some kids pulling a prank?” Mrs. Sunder suggested.

“Over her veena?” Mrs. Krishnan asked. “I thought kids just threw rotten eggs.”

Pavi looked mildly insulted. “Kids are more sophisticated than that.”

“Maybe there's a clue in the note,” Neela said. She stared at the footprints in the snow. Was Hal warning her to stop trying to find her veena?

But Mrs. Krishnan wasn't interested in clues. “I'm calling the police.” She asked everyone to come inside. “I don't want some nut out there to hurt you.”

Mrs. Krishnan contacted the police department and gave a description of what happened. Within ten minutes, an officer came to their door. They showed him the rock and the footprints. He looked at one, then the other, and scratched his head.

“Tell him about the veena,” Mrs. Sunder said.

“The what?” he asked.

Here we go again, Neela thought. She remembered her father spelling “veena” at the station a few weeks ago.

Mrs. Krishnan ran through the whole past month, including the report they had already filed.

The police officer listened patiently and said, “Ma'am, I wish I could say these all added up to something. You know what I mean?”

Mrs. Krishnan murmured something to the effect of, yes, she knew what he meant. Which was basically that he wasn't going to do much more about it.

The officer turned to Neela. “Even so, you be careful. Watch where you go, and don't talk to strangers.” Then to Mrs. Krishnan, “If anything more happens, let us know.” As he left, they heard him muttering under his breath, “Weirder stuff every day.”

“Well, that was unhelpful,” Pavi said after the policeman was gone.

The rest of the afternoon the mothers drank coffee in the kitchen, discussing many things but always returning to the same topic—who was this strange man after Neela's veena, and was he after her as well?

Neela and Pavi sat at the foot of the stairs, eating chips and having the same discussion.

“I was so caught up with Veronica Wyvern, I forgot Hal is still lurking out there,” Neela said. She was actually relieved he was back in the picture. It was easier to deal with an actual person than a haunted veena.

“What if Hal has been following you all this time?” Pavi went to the window. “He could be watching from one of the bushes.”

Neela chewed on a chip. “Why would the note mention my grandmother? Isn't it kind of strange?”

“Maybe he knew the veena belonged to your grandmother before.”

Neela thought for a moment. “Come to think of it, I did mention her to him. But still, why threaten her? Unless he had a reason?” She ate another chip and looked at the note again. “Also, he misspelled ‘consequence.'”

Pavi came back to look at the note. “I'd misspell it, too. Actually, I'd say something else like, Watch out or I'll brain you.”

“But a grown man?” Neela was thoughtful. “He looked so well dressed and educated.”

“Grown-ups can be idiots, too,” Pavi observed. “Unless it was a kid. Like Lynne.”

“She wouldn't misspell ‘consequence,'” Neela said. “She's a good speller.”

“Then it's back to Hal. Remember the boot track.”

“Or,” Neela said, “it could be someone else. Someone other than those two.”

Just then, the phone rang. Neela answered it at the foot of the stairs.

“Can I talk to Neela or Lakshmi?” It was an older woman's voice.

“This is Neela.”

“Don't know if you remember me; I'm Julia from the church. You came by with your mom the other day looking for, what was it now? A viola?”

“A veena.” Neela gripped the phone. “Did you, uh, find it?”

“No, dear. Sorry to say I didn't.”

“Oh.” Neela was disappointed.

By now, Mrs. Krishnan had come to the stairs. “Who is it?” she asked.

“The church,” Neela whispered.

“But I thought I'd call,” Julia said, “because, well, something unexpected happened.”

“Really?” Neela asked hopefully. Maybe Julia had some other information to share.

“It appears that since this morning, the teakettle has been missing.”

“Missing?”

“Vanished. Mary's having a fit. She's crazy about it, with it being antique.”

Neela mulled over what Julia said. “Are you sure it's really gone?”

“We searched everywhere. I told her to call the police.”

“The police,” Neela repeated. She wondered if the same officer who came to their house would go to the church, too. He would think things were getting even weirder.

“But Mary said no,” Julia said. “As if…” Her voice trailed off.

“As if what?” said Neela.

“Maybe I shouldn't speculate like this, but as if she was
afraid
of something. She wants to wait, even though she keeps saying the teakettle is
priceless
. If you ask me, it's not worth the fuss. But I don't like the idea of Mary being afraid to go to the police. Anyway, I just thought it was a strange coincidence.”

“What about Hal, the man I saw that day in the kitchen? What if it was him?”

“That's what I said. I remembered your story. But Mary said no. She seemed so sure, I didn't press her.”

Why did Mary think it
wasn't
Hal? With all the stuff that had been happening with Lynne, and Veronica Wyvern, Neela had forgotten all about Mary. But now she remembered again the woman's strange behavior with the embroidery, and the squeaky shoes outside the kitchen door the other day. Was Mary protecting Hal, or just hiding something else herself?

After Neela hung up, she relayed the information to everyone. “Notice how,” she mused, “the teakettle and the rock happened on the same day?”

Mrs. Krishnan got an anxious look on her face before disappearing into the kitchen. A few minutes later she returned with Mrs. Sunder behind her.

Neela groaned when she saw what her mother held in her hands. “But Mom, the aarti didn't even work the first time. Now we're getting rocks thrown at us.”

Mrs. Krishnan lit the camphor on the brass plate. “Sometimes you have to do it a few times.”

“Drishti?” Pavi asked. She and her mother watched as Mrs. Krishnan circled the burning flame clockwise and counterclockwise in front of Neela.

“Everything helps,” Mrs. Sunder said.

Neela thought of the rock and the note. “We'll need all the help we can get.”