“What about a tiger?”
“Lots.”
The boy chewed his lip. “What about a lotus demon?”
Before Asha could answer, the boy’s mother said, “Kishan!”
“Sorry.” The boy dropped his gaze to the floor.
Asha turned to the mother. “What did he mean? What’s a lotus demon?”
“It’s just a story.” She coughed again.
“You know, I think have something for your throat here. A little tea.” Asha dug into her bag and glanced toward the leaf curtain between them and the outside world where the rain was beginning to fall faster and harder. “And I think I have time for a story.”
The woman looked back at the door as a fresh peal of thunder rolled across the sky. “I suppose you do.”
2
“Two hundred years ago, they say the village was much larger.” The mother set the water to boil for the tea. “More than a hundred houses stood on the banks of the river, and the river itself flowed deep and clear, full of fish and prawns. The river was so bountiful that the men often carried baskets of their catches across the forest to sell to other villages. In those days, there were deep pools upstream and downstream, and they helped to control the swelling of the river during the rainy season and the houses by the water stood on much taller stilts. And every year as winter ended, a village elder would go to the spring at the head of the river to offer the mountain spirit a goat in thanks for its bounty.
“But then, one summer, the river shrank to a mere trickle and most of the fish and prawns disappeared. Animals stopped drinking from the river, and sometimes the people would get sick from drinking the water themselves. After several months of this, a few men went up into the forest to see what had happened to the river. Many days later, one of the men returned. His arm was broken and his leg was swollen with poison.
“He said the men had found the mountain bursting with life. Enormous trees towered overhead. Broad ferns bent so low that they carpeted the ground. And everywhere they looked they saw white lotus blossoms. They followed the stream up the mountain to a cave, lit their torches, and went inside. After that, the man couldn’t say exactly what happened. They lost their torches one by one, and in the darkness something attacked them. He heard their screams, and the crunching of their bones, and the slithering of a creature moving along the floor and walls. The demon bit his leg and hurled him to the ground, breaking his arm, but he managed to escape and stumble back down the mountain and through the forest to the village.
“A few hours later, that man died.” The mother turned to inspect the bubbles in the kettle.
Asha nodded. “But then something happened to his body, didn’t it?”
“Yes. It was raining too hard to cremate him then, so they buried his body at the top of a steep bank overlooking the river, but soon all the plants and trees nearby began to wither and die. The villagers dug up the body and found it bloated and rotting far faster than it should have, crumbling and falling apart, with little green shoots growing up through his leg where the demon bit him. So they built a pyre far back in the woods, sheltered from the rain, and burned the body there, and then they heaped earth and stones on the ashes. After that, the poison seemed to disappear from the earth and the plants and trees recovered, and for a brief season there were lotus blossoms in the woods, far from the water.
“But the river was still only a stream, and without the fish many of the villagers began to move away. Some went down the river, but most cut across the forest. They said they would never go near these waters again. The few who stayed in the village lived off the land, struggling to find fruit or hunt for frogs and birds. Those were lean years.
“Several years later, the story of the demon in the cave had spread as the people moved out and settled their families in other villages. All manners of travelers, soldiers, and priests began passing through the village to see the demon for themselves. Some of these people stayed in the village for a day or two, visited the survivor’s two grave sites, and then left. Others climbed the mountain in search of the cave. None of them returned.” She poured the steaming water over the crushed leaves and the aroma of the steeping tea filled the hut.
Asha stroked the mongoose in her lap. His thick fur was warm and soft, and he nestled against her, curling up tightly on her belly. “And this was all two hundred years ago?”
“Nearly two hundred, so they say. After a while, the travelers stopped coming. But then, about ten years after they burned the survivor’s body, a young woman came to the village. She was a nun from Kolkata. She wore a saffron robe, and despite her shaven head, she was very beautiful. At least, that’s how the story is told,” the mother said. “Women are always beautiful in stories.”
“Of course they are.” Asha smiled. “Most stories are told by men.”
The mother did not smile back. “The nun didn’t stay long in the village. She visited the two graves and then she went up the river.”
“Let me guess. She didn’t come back either?”
“No, she didn’t. But a few weeks later when the monsoons came, the river swelled and rose. The villagers began catching fish and prawns again, not as large as before but enough to sustain them. There was no more talk of leaving and the village has been here ever since just as you see it now.”
“I see.” Asha stared through the narrow gaps in the leaf curtain at the dark rain rushing down through the forest outside. “I’d like to stay here tonight, if that’s all right. I want to see the two graves before I leave in the morning. I think the rain will stop before sunrise.”
The mother sipped her tea. “How do you know?”
Asha watched the rain fall outside. “It sounds like it will stop soon.”
The next morning the sun rose over a silent forest and Asha stepped out of the hut to see the early morning light streaming through the leaves overhead to paint the earth in brilliant greens and rich browns. Water still dripped and pattered from the branches and fronds, but the all-consuming shushing of the falling rain was gone. Asha could hear the river gurgling around stones and roots, and she heard the frogs and lizards dashing through the undergrowth along its banks. Above her, the monkeys leapt and chattered, and the birds fluttered and flitted from branch to branch. The little mongoose called Jagdish wrapped itself around the back of Asha’s neck, huddled within the veil of her unbound hair, warming her skin. “It’s nice to be able to hear myself think again,” she said.
Kishan stepped out beside her, his bare feet slapping on the soft mud. “You want to see the graves, right? I’ll show you.”
They walked upstream, picking their way around the large stones at the water’s edge. The rocks were warm and smooth underfoot. Just as the village passed out of sight behind them, they came to a bend in the river and Kishan led the way up the bank to a grassy bluff overlooking the rippling waters.
“Here.” He pointed to a depression in the shadow of an old twisted tree. “This is where they buried him the first time.”
Asha knelt and dragged her fingertips across the soft soil, listening. The grass was sparse and yellow, the tree roots dry and frail. “Whatever happened here, it’s gone now. Everything’s gone now. Even the worms.”
Kishan shrugged and led her east away from the river. They descended a gentle slope and soon came to a clearing where several large flat rocks sat in a circle of tall grass.
“The pyre?” Asha paced across the rocks.
Kishan nodded. “They say it burned from dusk to dawn. And it stank.”
“Did it now?” she said softly. A monkey cried out in the distance and a second one answered. A warm breeze played through the leafy canopy and for a few moments all the trees in the forest sighed and whispered their secrets to one another. Jagdish shivered on her shoulder and clutched the folds of her sari in his claws.
Kishan leaned back against a green sapling that bowed under his weight. “So where will you go now? Back to the city?”
She wondered which city he meant. “Actually, I think I’ll wander up the river a bit farther and see what else there is to see.”
“You’re going to the cave, aren’t you?” He kicked a pebble with his toe.
“Well, I did come all this way to see a rare creature. I don’t mind going a little farther to find one.”
