Craving (39 page)

I crossed my arms stubbornly. “How? It’s not as if you can torture me. I don’t feel pain anymore and heal, dare I say,
super
fast. There’s nothing you can do to harm me.”

I watched as the tiny muscles in his face writhed. Each movement of his features seemed vast to my eyes, but resulted in only tiny differences of expression. I found that I could see his pores, detect the tiny blood vessels on the lids of his eyes. I was so lost in my newest ability that I barely heard him threaten me.

“Have you forgotten
how
you came to be here?”

I swallowed. They wouldn’t hurt me; they would go for my human friends, Unger, Sam, possibly my aunt in Ohio, or my two cousins in New York. It was just one more reminder, as if I needed it, that I was not on an adventure or safari among a new species of animal. I was among enemies.

I wanted to hurl an insult at him, but I couldn’t. The tree-climber was watching, and try as I might, I could not avoid the sensation of accountability, as if I should know better. It reminded me of my mother, of the times when I was small and would get it into my head to do something naughty. She would glance at me with that look that said “I know what you’re thinking and though I am not going to stop you, you should consider that I am far wiser.” That one look at him recalled for me the desperation of the Arhat, the terror they must be enduring. One look inspired pity in me, and again, calmed me completely.

“If you say so, but the harder you squeeze, the more it will slip through your fingers,” I said lightly, glancing up at the wide limb where my new friend had been sitting.

“Advise me when you contemplate chewing a hole in a rubber wall and we will see how blithe your replies are,” Karl spat. Then he turned back to the other man and dropped his arms to his sides where he clenched his fists. “Everything has an end!”

Turning on his heel, he stormed off to perpetrate some villainy, and for the first time, I thought I could see the impatience bubbling at the surface of his character. Where Arthur was a peaceful lake on a summer day, that man was a simmering volcano about to blow, and the mute man in front of me was . . .

I blinked at him. He stared back comfortably.

Still waters run deep.

He was tall and thin, but by no means skeletal. Long, dark hair was tied at the very top of his head like a plume, but fell down his back without a strand out of place. His taut, smooth skin seemed to glow with a bronze shimmer. Long, thick lashes brushed against finely arched brows and perfect lips curved into an almost ethereal smile of welcome. He looked exactly like statues from Thai temples, but much more inviting.

“My name is Lilith,” I said, knowing it was unnecessary. Like Arthur, this person exuded an aura of omniscience, or perhaps an aura of acceptance. Maybe he didn’t know everything, but what he didn’t know would come to
him
, not the other way around; he was so inviting, I could imagine knowledge flooding toward him like unloved animals, wiggling up to his fingers to be stroked and coddled.

Shaking my head in confusion, I looked at the careful lines in the sand and wondered where it was I was supposed to sit. I tried, with slow, deliberate movements, to leap to a rock and not disturb the patterns, but the rock was too far to make it a clean landing. My companion watched me politely, saying nothing of my manners, nor any other topic. At the edge of the garden, the man with the tea tray seemed put out that I had ruined the wonderful effect.

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I hope you can fix it.”

No one spoke. Shielding my eyes against the sunlight that streamed through the branches, I looked up at my companion. His head was tilted to the side and he was still smiling.

“I get the feeling you don’t talk much and that maybe he should have just left me in the cell,” I said nervously.

Instantly, his posture changed. He dipped at the knee and took a seat in the sand. Like a graceful stork, he folded his legs and slid into the lotus position as if born to it. Then he looked up at me through his eyelashes and seemed so sweet that I found myself laughing. He was an empath, I was sure. He had known how strange I felt staring up at a man I had never met.

The servant came over, pointedly tip-toeing to keep from mussing the lines.

“The lady wants tea?” he asked in a thick accent.

If the timeline was accurate, then I hadn’t eaten in a couple of weeks, and, stubborn, I refused to go beyond the point of no return. “Yes, the lady does.”

He obliged, setting the tea tray on a large flat rock beside his master, though he refused to look at me. When I held out my hand for my teacup, he shied away from it deftly, and instead left the cup on the tray for me to take. I recalled the things I had read about modern Buddhist monasteries and their practices. Monks avoided women, so as to cleanse their mind of impure thoughts. I still got the impression he didn’t like me very much.

He poured a second cup from a separate pot and carefully handed that to my silent companion. When he retrieved a lemon wedge and dropped it into the cup, I realized that the liquid was just hot water. I eyed my tea and swished it around, suddenly feeling like an extravagant heathen.

Finished with his chore, the monk stepped cautiously off the sand, again trying to make as tiny an imprint as possible, and then arranged himself at the edge of the little oasis of sand like a sitting hen.

My friend watched him go and as soon as the man found a comfortable position and was paying attention, he shoved his hands into the sand and dug a great hole. With youthful glee, he swirled his fingers through the lines, upset mounds and furrows, and in one final flurry of movement that sent sand into my clothes and hair, smoothed the entire plain around himself as if making a snow angel. Then he glanced at the monk and smiled.

I take it he doesn’t make mandalas.

I giggled, thinking that he seemed like a large child, playing in a sand box in his best clothes, just to spite his parents. The monk bowed, but I could see the frown on his face. It occurred to me then that he must have just raked the lines, for there had been no footprints of the tree-climber’s trek to his perch.

I tried to blink an apology, but got nowhere.

My friend looked at my cup and nudged his head, so I sipped it politely. It was a creamy green, with earthy back notes and just a hint of a floral nose, and it rolled around in my stomach warmly. It was also very strong, and before I had even finished drinking it, I felt the kick of the caffeine. Jinx would be glowing happily.

As I swirled it around my tongue, I thought of the ‘nanobot’ metaphor. If it was accurate, Jinx could probably manufacture caffeine in his own body like a cocoa plant, but I had no idea if that would have some kind of effect on the homeostasis he talked of. I wondered then, if I could interrupt the drug, stop its effects by convincing my body to ignore it. If I could, then poison would be one less thing I’d have to worry about in that horrible place. I made a mental note to try it later, if the near future allowed me another opportunity to go into the
jhana
, which it most certainly would.

My companion was sitting amicably, awaiting my attention without intruding upon my thoughts. I tossed a casual smile at him and he responded, the bright yellow lemon wedge covering his teeth completely.

I laughed, surprising myself and our chaperone, but could not stop. I kept laughing until long after he took the rind out of his mouth and set it on the saucer. It seemed that all my pent up emotions saw the tide, and like drowning rats, clung to debris in hopes of finding dry land. I laughed until I was empty, until my sides hurt.

“Thanks for that,” I said, wiping my eyes.

He put his hands together and bowed over them.

I set the cup aside and leaned forward, dropping my voice. Ursula’s gift might not work on him, but I had to try and get some truth out of this meeting. I watched him closely and asked my test question. “Is this a vow of silence, or are you just a quiet person?”

He blinked, tilted into my confidence, held up a finger, then leaned back looking satisfied, as if he’d just uttered an entire soliloquy and been applauded.

Amused, I took the hint. He avoided gifts by simply not participating. It was like Arthur’s Zen, all done in silence, each meaning unique to the individual watching.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d assume you weren’t speaking out of spite.”

He frowned delicately, for obvious comedic effect.

“That’s what he’ll think, you know.”

He gave a minute shrug, as if to say he had no control over anything that our jailer chose to feel.

“How long will he leave me here with you?”

He shrugged again. His robe dislodged and slid down his shoulder.

“Will it be a while, do you think?”

The little monk sitting on the rock came to life suddenly. “Hours sometimes. Long time.  Last girl here for whole day.”

My heart skipped a beat. The last girl. He must have meant Eva.

“Was she blond?” I asked, trying to sound casual. “Her hair, was it blond?”

The man nodded, though it was clear he did not want to talk about it anymore, and perhaps felt he should not have mentioned it in the first place. I nodded stiffly and lay back on the warm sand, hoping he wouldn’t bury me and make designs over my body while I slept as revenge.

“I hope you won’t mind if I pop out for a bit,” I said to my companion.

He shook his head, and made a hand sign that to me plainly said he was comparing me to a bird flying to freedom. I grinned and closed my eyes.

If they weren’t going to give me an opportunity to escape bodily, well, then, I would just wander around the astral plane. Short of killing me, they could not stop me.

Part of me was anxious to get back to Arthur, to reveal what I had seen, ask him if he knew my silent conversationalist, tell him about Moksha’s strange nervous breakdown, and Eva’s visits to the Vihara. The other part of me wanted to see if, in this round of concentration, I’d somehow manifest Karl’s or Moksha’s gifts. I wasn’t sure if it was possible, but I might as well try. It might come in handy, especially if I wanted to teach that asshole a lesson in humility.

I went straight to Arthur like a bee to honey and found him, not at Jinx’s side, but standing in a darkened room. The tiny auras of hundreds of lit candles flickered, illuminating a large, golden sculpture on a low platform. It sat in contentment and utter acceptance, one hand nestled in its lap, the other raised in the semblance of a wave.

It was a temple and Arthur was looking the Buddha right in the eye. In the background, monks went about their business, cleaning, praying, watching Arthur without watching him. In tiny glances, they took in his seemingly disrespectful demeanor and said nothing.

Arthur,
I murmured to his psyche.

His chin dipped in welcome, but his eyes remained fixed on the Buddha’s face.

Shouldn’t you kneel or something?

“This is not my religion,” he said, almost surprising me right out of my meditation.

Oh?

“It was never meant to
be
a religion.”

The look in his eye seemed almost confrontational, and I could imagine why. It was not the Buddha he disliked; it was the existence of the statue that upset him. Arthur was against the entire idea of a messianic leader, and I could see it in the cold blue stare he gave the golden face.

Freedom from ritual.

He nodded.

A withered old man in a pumpkin-colored robe tottered toward Arthur from a door at the side of the platform. Beside him walked a younger monk, who occasionally put a hand out to assist him.

They’re going to kick you out if you keep glaring at their icon and talking to yourself.

“They know what I am,” he said quietly, dipping his chin in welcome.

So this is the monastery you told Sam to call?

“Yes.”

The old man said something in what sounded like Cantonese and bowed as low as his crooked back would let him. I wondered how old he was to look so gnarled with age, for it seemed to me that men of Asian descent did not show the effects of time until there were many years tallied behind their names that it dwindled in significance.

Arthur spoke to him for several moments, his smooth tongue making easy work of strange syllables. It was astonishing how many languages he spoke, but then again, if I had forever, I could probably pick up a few things too.

It’s not a hypothetical anymore.

If I had been a slave to my own neurochemistry, I might have felt uneasy at the notion of facing eternity. As it was, in the
jhana
, I was fine with the idea. If the Sangha were not there to constantly perplex and endanger me, I could see myself considering the many hobbies I would eventually master, like knitting, acrobatics, or playing competitive backgammon.

“Is there such a thing?” Arthur mumbled, while the old man conferred with his companion.

You know, I really have no idea. What’s that Japanese game with the white and black chips?

“Go.”

Huh? Where?

“It is called Go.”

Oh. Do you know how to play it?

“I lived in ancient Japan,” he said quietly, as if I could forget that he was so well traveled, “where it was very popular. Someday I will teach you.”

No thanks. Knowing you, you’d probably be trying to make a pretty design and win totally by accident.

He continued to converse with the monk while I waited to reveal my newest information to him. It seemed that they were hashing out a difficult arrangement of some kind. The younger man’s brows were furrowed in concern and he periodically glanced at his elder to gauge the old man’s reaction to whatever news Arthur was disclosing.

What are you to them?

“Nothing,” he said. To my amusement, the little old man seemed not to mind Arthur’s spontaneous bouts of English directed at the air. Indeed, he would wait patiently and look around as if searching for signs of me.

So how do they know you?

“They . . .”

Let me guess. They
found
you.