“I’ve been through here before,” Asha said. “I remember it being thick like this, but not so quiet. Something’s changed.”
“Is the forest dying? Have all the animals moved on?”
“Maybe.” Asha knelt down and touched the thin dusty soil of the path. She scratched at the ground and found a hard, dry root just beneath the surface. “But I don’t think so. Do you smell that?”
“I can only smell the lotuses,” said the nun. “What does it smell like to you?”
Asha moved farther up the trail and stared toward the north. All she could see was the dense wall of bamboo, and all she could hear was the forest standing perfectly still, but now, beyond and beneath the aroma of the lotus blossoms she could smell something dry and dead. Something charred. Something burnt. And as she tilted her head back, Asha saw the tops of the trees obscured by a thin white haze that shimmered faintly. In the silence, a soft hum tickled her right ear.
Aether. Lots of aether.
Asha sniffed again. “It smells a little like smoke.”
“A forest fire?”
“No. If there was a fire, I would hear it. This is something older. Much older.”
In the deep stillness, a single rustle of animal life appeared at the bottom of the trail. The little ball of brown fur stood up and bobbed its head.
“Jagdish.” Priya smiled and held out her hand, and the little mongoose darted up the path into her palm and onto her shoulder, huddling in the warm mass of dark hair and lotus vines around the nun’s neck.
“He was supposed to be my friend, you know.” Asha smiled. “You’re lucky I’m good at sharing.”
“You’re terrible at sharing.”
“Are you saying that I take too much?”
“No. That you take too little.”
“Hm.” Asha squinted down the path, straining to hear. “There might be something or someone down there. But it’s still a long way off.”
They continued down the path, their sandals padding softly on the earth. Through the slender bamboo leaves overhead, bright white clouds drifted across the deep blue sky. A chill hung in the morning air.
It was early in the afternoon when the trees began to thin out near the foot of a high ridge. Tall green grass swayed along the edges of the path and soon Asha could hear a handful of crickets chirping softly off to her left. A few moments later, she heard the trickle of water falling on stone. At the bottom of the path a large flat rock had been placed over a narrow stream and across this small bridge stood a house.
It was a very old house, built of the native bamboo and thatched in dried bamboo leaves. One corner of the house was supported by thick bamboo poles to hold the floor level where the ground sloped away, and the entire mass of dark brown walls leaned slightly to the south. Beyond the house Asha could see the forest thinning away, and in that grassy field there was a poorly tended garden half-ringed in stones and half-fenced in bamboo rods.
Asha glanced to the north, to the edge of the forest at the bottom of the meadow and saw the white mist drifting out of the trees where it dissolved and vanished in the sunlight.
“Can you hear him in there?” Priya smiled. “I can. My ears are almost as good as yours.”
Asha glanced at the old house. “When you say him, do you mean the father or the son?”
Priya pouted. “You’re cheating.”
“I’m not cheating. I just have an unfair advantage.”
“That’s an interesting perspective you have.”
“It’s not a perspective. It’s reality,” Asha said. “Are you hungry? Let’s introduce ourselves.”
2
Asha had only just knocked at the door when a man thrust his head out and pressed his finger to his lips. He slipped out, closed the door behind him, and herded the ladies away from the house. He was short and slender, with a thin beard on his wasted cheeks and wide darting eyes. He spoke softly, “Yes? Hello? Yes?”
“I’m Asha and this is Priya. We’re just passing through, but this is the first house we’ve seen in quite a while and we thought we might rest here, if it’s not an inconvenience.”
The man shoved his hand into the unkempt mass of wavy black hair on his head and stared at them with a pained expression. “I’m sorry. Of course, I’d like to let you rest here, but my son is very sick.”
“Sick?” Asha squinted at the house. She could hear the boy’s heart racing, a faint but quick patter in the hollow of her right ear. “He has a fever?”
“How did you know? Are you a doctor?” He looked at Priya, peering at the bright flowers in her long dark hair. “You’re dressed as a nun.”
“Yes. Nuns often do that.” The blind woman nodded. “And you are?”
“Chandra.” He glanced back at the house. “My son, Naveen, he was fine, just fine. But then one morning, he complained that the sun was too bright. He stood by the window, rubbing his eyes and squinting for a while, but then he went out and I thought he was fine. But the next morning it was worse, not better. He needed to shade his eyes with his hand all day and he stayed in the shadows of the trees. On the third day, he couldn’t go outside at all, and on the fourth day he draped his shirt over his head to cover his eyes, even inside the house.”
“Do his eyes look different?” Asha asked. “Lighter or darker? Bloodshot?”
“No, they look the same.” Chandra tugged at the short whiskers on his chin. “But that was just the beginning. Soon after, I found him curled up in the corner with his hands over his ears. He whispered that I was being too noisy. I couldn’t even speak without making him shake with pain. I had to lay blankets on the floor to muffle the creaks in the wood and silence my footsteps.”
“And the fever?”
“I don’t know. It started in the night. Sweating, shaking. He was delirious. At first I thought he was dreaming, but the things he was saying were so strange. Sometimes he sounded like an old man complaining about his wife, and sometimes like a baby babbling nonsense.” The man rubbed his eyes. “I can barely get him to eat or drink anything. He’s gotten so thin.”
“How long has he been like this?”
“I’m not sure. Five, maybe six weeks.”
“Weeks!” Priya grabbed the man’s arm with her groping, uncertain hand. “Why did you wait so long? Why haven’t you taken him to a doctor?”
Chandra shook his head. “I don’t know any doctors.”
“It’s all right, Priya. As long as the boy’s still alive, then there may be something I can do for him,” Asha said. “Wait here. I’ll take a look at him.”
The man nodded. “Please, be very quiet, doctor.”
“I will.” Asha went up to the door. “But I’m not a doctor.”
She stepped inside and closed the door behind her. The single room of the house was pitch black. Mud and grass had been pressed into the narrow cracks between the boards in the walls, but a few slender spears of sunlight crossed the room just inside the door. She stood and waited until her eyes adjusted.
The boy lay on a pile of blankets wearing only a thin cloth across his hips and another across his face. His bony chest fluttered up and down, his ribs shaking with the pounding of his heart. Asha could barely see him, but she could hear his whole body shivering. She knelt beside him and listened to him mutter and gasp.
“…should have been there for…didn’t you come to tell us…died in my arms…”
Asha frowned. “Who died?”
“Agh!” Naveen curled up into a ball and rolled onto his side with his hands pressed to his ears.
Asha nodded and chewed on her ginger for a moment. She pulled her bag off her shoulder and searched inside with her fingertips among the heavier things down at the bottom. The two rods had slipped down below everything else, and she pulled them out as quietly as she could. With one in each hand, she pressed the cool metal bars to the sides of the boy’s face. Instantly, his whole body relaxed. His breathing slowed and the murmuring stopped, but his heart still pounded against his chest.
