Forever the Road (A Rucksack Universe Fantasy Novel) (17 page)

“I’ve never seen it either,” Jigme said. “But I don’t believe in the gods anyway, so what they carry doesn’t matter to me.”

“You don’t believe?”

Jigme shrugged. “People say the gods do kind things, help people. Amma and I spent years asking the gods for help. Asking for my father to come back. Asking for us to live better. Every time we asked, we lived the opposite of what we asked. So I stopped believing in them. There are no gods. There’s just a world that lets anything happen but good things.”

Jay stepped away from the statue. The fire was gone from his eyes. “There’s a time I would’ve agreed with you,” he said. “Not saying I believe in gods. I’m only interested in living the life in front of me, not pondering ethereal maybes. If there are gods, they don’t do much. If they’re supposed to be in charge of the world and they’re this damn lazy, then they don’t deserve any consideration. If they’re not around, there’s nothing to consider. Gods or no gods, there are people, good and bad, and things that happen for reasons we may never understand. Maybe it’s like The Blast. Some say we’ll never know what really happened that day in Ireland. Maybe it’s like our parents. We’ll never know why we had to get cut to the core with that deep a love only to have it ripped away.”

“Any love I feel, I feel for Amma,” Jigme said. “The only love I get in life, I get from her.”

“I wish I could say something to soothe that,” Jay said, “or fill the void that must be inside you. I won’t patronize you with empty words, though, about how love is all around, how life is love, or any rot like that. I thought I once knew a lot, and then found out I didn’t. Ever since I’ve been on the road, all I’ve learned is that there’s so much I’ll never know. One of the few things I know is that life is how we deal with the road in front of us. There’s always a choice. Even if it doesn’t seem like a good one, there’s a choice you can make.”

“It never seems like I have choices,” Jigme replied. “Or if I do, they’re never good ones.”

“You’ll find your choices,” Jay said. “You’re strong, Jigme. You’ll find ways to be stronger, do more. ”

Jigme finished the lassi. “What makes you strong?”

“Going on,” Jay said. “My own way. My own decisions. I learned to love my solitude, and I keep my rules simple: Don’t get too close. Don’t stay too long. Leave when the time is right. Never look back.” He nodded at Jigme. “What makes you strong?”

“Hoping Amma gets better.”

“I get that,” Jay said. “And I hope she does too. Your world will be all the better for it, but whether or not she gets better isn’t something you can control. If you want to be strong, you have to find something in yourself that’s up to you—not something that’s dependent on someone else. What else makes you strong?”

His mouth opened, but there were no words. What did make him strong? He hardly went to school. He didn’t know many songs. He only knew one thing. The rush of the hot air on his face, the big laugh inside when he barely missed colliding with someone—

Jigme grinned. “I love to run.”

“If it gives you a smile that big, then it must make you very strong,” Jay said. “You hang on to that.”

For a moment, they stared at each other like brothers. Jigme wondered how long Jay would stay in the city. He couldn’t help but like the tourist.

A hot breeze blew out of the alley.

Jay turned and looked toward the faraway shadows. A glint like sparks gleamed in his eyes again.

“Jigme,” Jay said, “what’s at the other end of your alley?”

“No one knows,” Jigme replied. “No one ever goes that far. No one ever goes much farther than our door, and most never even come near that.”

“Do you know what it means when people don’t go somewhere?” Jay asked, his voice quiet and far away.

“No.”

“It means there’s a reason to go there.” Jay stepped toward the mouth of the alley again. He patted the statue like a dog and grinned at its turn-back-now gesture.

He stepped into the alley. The noise from Jay’s pack seemed louder.

“Wow. That was harder than I expected,” Jay said, “but easier than before.”

“I… I don’t think you should go to the dark end,” Jigme said.

Jay started walking down the alley. “If you haven’t been there, how would you know?”

“It isn’t done,” Jigme replied, standing next to the statue. “No one goes there. There are shadows there.” Even as he said it, Jigme realized how flimsy it all sounded. All his life, he’d heard the whispers about the alley that led to the heart of the city. It was never anything but “It just isn’t done” and “Oh it’s dark” and “That doesn’t go anywhere, so why bother?” But no one else had been there either.

“You told me you wanted to travel,” Jay said, glancing back, the fire bright in his eyes. “Traveling starts with what’s outside your own door. If you won’t go there, how will you be brave enough to go anywhere else?”

What do they know? All they do is tell me what isn’t,
Jigme thought.
Asha isn’t good. Jigme isn’t worth breath and food. The alley isn’t worth going down.

They’re wrong about everything else.

“No one else goes there either,” Jigme said, “but they all say what’s there. Why is that?”

“They let fear get in the way of knowledge,” Jay said. “To a traveler, fear is an opportunity to learn.”

Jigme smiled and started walking down the alley.

“By the way,” Jay asked, “do you know why The Mystery Chickpea wasn’t set up today?”

“What?” Jigme asked, stumbling and only just staying on his feet. When he had seen Jade following Jay, he hadn’t noticed anything else.

“Yeah. I wanted to have breakfast there,” Jay said. “What’s the deal with the old man? Holiday? Birthday? Sick off his own cooking?”

“I… He’s always been there before,” Jigme replied. “Long as I can remember. There’s never been a day he wasn’t there.”

“Bugger. I know there’s a first time for everything, but why does that have to happen the day I’m here?”

“I hope he’ll be back,” Jigme said. He didn’t understand why it bothered him so much, but the street without The Mystery Chickpea was a void in the city, like an organ that had gone missing from the body.

“Have you ever eaten there?” Jay asked.

“No one ever eats there.”

“That’s fine for no one. How about you?”

Jigme had never told Amma, and far as he knew no one else had either. Maybe no one had noticed. But on that day long ago, when he had stepped inside the steam, it was as if a door had closed between him and the world. Jigme could see them, but to everyone outside the steam, Jigme somehow knew they saw only an empty cart and an old man.

“We were very hungry, and I had not been able to find any food for days,” Jigme said at last. “I don’t know why I even went there. My feet seemed to work for my stomach, and there I was.”

The old man’s smile had been small, kind, and safe.

“He patted my shoulder. Everyone says he can’t talk. He just handed me a bowl and a spoon, and pointed to the two pots.”

“Which did you choose?” Jay asked.

“I asked for an egg,” Jigme replied. “I don’t know why. An egg sounded so good. But instead the old man just pointed again to the two pots. I picked the one to my left, and he filled up my bowl.”

“What was in the one on the right?”

“I don’t know. Same thing, for all I know. He just seemed to want me to choose for myself.”

“When I took a bite, it…” Jigme’s voice fell off. The strange sensations rushed back.

“It’s okay,” Jay said. “It was only food for a hungry boy, right?”

Jigme shook his head. “No. That’s the thing. When I dipped the spoon in the bowl, it looked like regular dahl. The broth was broth, and it smelled so rich and amazing. There were lentils and vegetables. The scent itself seemed to speak to me, like it was telling my stomach and my heart how much it was going to help me.” Jigme’s mind deferred to his stomach and his soul. “But taking that first mouthful, it was like… It was like biting into a conversation.”

“What, did the food talk to you?”

Jigme nodded.

“You aren’t serious.”

He doesn’t believe me
, Jigme thought.
I don’t know why I thought he would.
“I am serious, Jay. The food said that when I asked for an egg, the old man had said no because I would have egg enough to come. It said my love was pure but would not be enough. And it…”

“It what?”

“Forget it. You don’t believe me.”

For a moment, Jay said nothing, then, “Look, I’m sorry. You’re right. I’ve seen some hard-to-believe things over the years. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Jigme nodded. “The food sang to me.”

“What did it sing?”

Jigme closed his eyes for a moment as they walked. The song flooded back:

“He loves to run, but one day he will stand still.

“He will know the world in the city.

“When he burns, he will be the flame in the fire.”

“Do you know what it means?” Jay asked.

Jigme shook his head. “That was all the food said to me. After that, it was just soup. I ate it and the man gave me more to take home to Amma. I started to offer him work to repay him, but he just shooed me away.”

“Have you been back since then?”

“No.”

“You have a mystery of your own to work out,” Jay said.

They walked by the red door. The wall around Jigme’s home was white, but as Jigme stared, a shadow seemed to darken the red on the door. He stopped. “I don’t think we should go any farther, Jay.”

“How would you know when you never have?”

Jigme started walking again. They had hardly passed the door when the world seemed darker. When Jigme looked up, the sun was still bright in the sky, yet all around him, the alley’s white walls had become grayer. Shadows seemed to grow with every breath. The air seemed cooler too, as if they were in a part of the city that somehow never knew light and stayed always in the chill of just before dawn.

“It’s cold,” Jigme said.

“Think this is cold?” Jay replied. “You ought to go to Mount Everest. It’s so high up, the air is thin and everything is cold. You can be there in the mountains only a couple of days and you start to forget what warm is.”

They said nothing more. Jigme ached to turn around and run back to his door, throw it open, run inside, and lock the door. Only Amma was not at home anymore, he remembered. Home was no longer home.

Run back to the hospital,
he thought.
Go back to Amma’s side, stay there until she wakes up. Maybe she’s awake already, and feeling better, and wondering where I am.

Jigme stopped again. He turned away from Jay and the whispering raspy noise coming from Jay’s daypack. There seemed to be a glow. It began in Jigme’s mind, but its red warmth soon bled out over the alley.

“Leave,” a voice inside whispered, “and there is no world. Keep going, and see the world. Keep going and your mother will be healed.”

Already he could see down toward the brighter end of his alley, where first lay his old home and then the people beyond and the street and the city. Amma was out there, waiting for him.

But the voice held a promise that sounded as sure as the sun talking about dawn.

Jay said nothing when Jigme caught up.

Mists swirled now, as if the river’s morning fog didn’t burn off during the day but instead came here to wait out the sun before returning to the water. Jigme couldn’t see the walls anymore. He could hardly see Jay, could only make out the strident outline of the man and his pack as they moved forward.

“Scary, isn’t it?” Jay said.

“Yes.”

“That’s usually a sign it’s the right thing to do,” Jay replied, but his hard voice sounded brittle and cracked.

The mists fell away. A dim gloom of light showed them where they were.

The alley stopped. At its dead end, at the heart of the city, a wall of smooth, glasslike black stone rose to the height of one story. It had no features, except for two statues standing before it with a passage between them. The statues were identical to the statue at the mouth of the alley, and they stood no more than the length of a step in front of the wall.

“Where do we go now?” Jigme asked.

Jay shrugged. “Forward is the only direction I know.”

“But there’s nowhere to go.”

With a grin, Jay pointed to the statues. “It looks like a wall,” he said. “But how can we really know until we get closer?”

Fear split through Jigme. “We need to stop,” he said, tugging at Jay’s arm before the tourist could walk between the statues.

“What’s your deal?” Jay said. “We came all this way already. Why stop now?”

“Because we have to!” Jigme said. “We shouldn’t go here. It’s wrong!” The words made sense from his mouth but not in his head.

“She will die,” the voice said again, clear yet harsh in Jigme’s mind—powerful but raspy, as if unused for eons. Its ancient echoes burned away everything else in his mind, including his own thoughts. Jigme’s hand fell away from Jay’s arm.