Resurrecting Ravana (8 page)

By then, Willow’s frown was gone and her mouth and eyes were open wide. “No, no, Ms. Daruwalla, you aren’t!”

“Oh, Willow, please . . . call me Mila.”

“Mila?”

“Yes, it’s short for Promila. I know Principal Snyder thinks that all students should address their elders as Mr. or Mrs. or Ms., but I prefer to be called Mila. Otherwise, I get the feeling people are confusing me with my mother.” She leaned forward and folded her arms on the desktop. “So, I’ll call you Willow, and you call me Mila.”

Willow felt her grin getting out of hand, as if the corners of her mouth might split open up to her cheekbones. “Sure . . . Mila.”

“So, you were saying?”

“Oh, yeah, I was saying that you’re right. Sometimes people do forget those things. About me, I mean. Like, that I’ve got the same doubts . . . and fears . . .” Suddenly, she didn’t want to talk about herself, and especially not about her problems. She wanted to get to know Mila more, because the way Willow saw it, Mila was the first real human being to get a job at Sunnydale High School since Giles had been hired. “So, how do you like being a guidance counselor?”

Mila laughed. “I like it. I enjoy working with students. It is so easy for the faculty — any faculty at any school, really — to forget that they are not the only people on the campus. That students are people as well, not just another part of their job, like chalk and erasers, and grading papers.”

Willow was surprised to hear herself release a burst of happy laughter. “Are you for real? I mean, I feel like I’m suddenly playing a bit part in Must-See TV, or something, because real faculty people, I mean, they don’t talk like that!”

Mila laughed again. “I’m just telling you how I feel.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “If word gets out, I have a feeling I won’t be holding this position for long, so enjoy it while you can.”

They both laughed.

“But Willow, I’ve not yet heard about you. You’re smiling now, and that’s good, but out in the hall, you looked so down. So unhappy. Why?”

Willow talked for a while, taking the lead from Mila about everyone thinking that someone who gets such good grades couldn’t possibly have the same doubts and fears they felt. Willow told her nothing of her
real
problems. If she told Mila anything about them, it might lead to further questions about the true Sunnydale. But even though she didn’t bring up her feelings of loneliness and neglect or the inexplicable coldness between herself and her best friend, it felt good just to talk with Mila. Finally, after going on about herself for several minutes, she decided it was time to shift the conversation to something else.

“Those are beautiful,” Willow said, gesturing to the statues on the sideboard. “What are they?”

“Ah, you mean my brother’s work?”

“Your brother?”

“Yes, he is a sculptor. Come, I’ll show you.”

They went to the sideboard together and Mila picked up one of the statues. “This is Vishnu, the highest of the Hindu gods.” She ran her fingertips over one of the statues’ four intricately carved hands. Each hand held something: a shell, a ring or hoop of some kind, a club, and a lotus.

Willow touched the smooth, blue stone figure. “Your brother is very talented,” she said.

“And quite popular in India. He was a cab driver for six years and did these in his spare time. Then he met a gallery owner through a friend, and suddenly, he’s a sought-after sculptor, selling his pieces for exorbitant prices. Now he does it full time, and he’s very happy. I’m very lucky, of course, because he makes something for my birthday every year. He has since he was a boy.” She put the statue of Vishnu down and picked up another. “This is Rama, one of the avatars of Vishnu.”

“Avatar?” Willow asked. “Sounds like a new car. The Chevy Avatar. The new Avatar, from Volvo.”

Mila laughed. “Yes, it does, doesn’t it? But it’s not. You see, Hindu gods often appear in many different incarnations, or avatars. Rama is one of the many incarnations of Vishnu, a very heroic god who saved Sita, his wife and the daughter of King Janaka, from the powerful demon Ravana.”

“Sounds like the Hindu religion has a big cast.”

“An enormous cast.”

Willow liked the statue of Rama even more than the first, partly because it looked like a normal man, slender, with muscular arms, standing with both fists in the air, eyes turned upward, victorious. He stood in a very intricately carved archway on a round, flat base.

Next on the sideboard were four elephants, a large one leading three small ones.

“Elephants are sacred in the Hindu religion,” Mila said, “so they are the subject of a great deal of our art.”

“Did your brother paint the pictures, too?”

“No. He tried painting for a while, but he was really quite dreadful. Everyone advised him to stick with sculpting.”

The bell rang, echoing in the hall outside the office.

Mila glanced at her watch and said, “I’m afraid I have an appointment now, Willow. I hope you feel better than you did earlier.”

“Oh, I do, Mila. Thanks for talking. I really appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome in my office anytime. I hope you won’t hesitate to come see me again soon.”

Out in the hall, Willow felt much better than she had before her visit with Mila. Of course, that might have been due, in part, to the busy hallway. It was noisy and crowded and people were hurrying in both directions. With all those people and all that activity and noise, it was easier than usual to put aside feelings of loneliness. But that wasn’t the reason. The time she’d spent with Mila had made her feel better about herself.

Promila Daruwalla was a fascinating woman. Sure, it was her job to talk with students, but she didn’t
have
to invite Willow into her office and serve her tea and spend nearly half an hour talking with her. That made Willow think that maybe the problem she was having with her friends — especially Buffy — was not her problem, that maybe there was nothing wrong with her after all.

She stepped into the busy foot traffic in the hall and headed for her next class. She was almost able to dismiss her worries about her relationships with her friends.

Almost. Not quite. She was still bothered by the coldness in Buffy’s eyes whenever she looked at her friend.

After school that day, Buffy headed straight home. Normally, she went to the library to check in with Giles and hang out with the others. But not today. If Giles had come up with something about the cattle-eating whatever-it-was, he would track her down and let her know. As for the others . . . she just wasn’t in the mood for hanging out.

And Willow would probably be there.

Buffy looked up at the sky as she went down the sidewalk. There were still patches of blue, but the dark clouds were moving back in for the night. They complemented Buffy’s mood much better than the blue sky and bright sunshine.

She didn’t understand her feelings about Willow. They didn’t make sense. Maybe it had nothing to do with Willow at all. Maybe it was just the pressure of too much slayage in too short a time, and from worrying about exams because she wasn’t prepared for them. Normally, she would go to Willow for help with that, but . . .

“What’s wrong with me?” she muttered. Her words were buried by the sound of a lawnmower being pushed by a man to her left. He smiled and waved at her; she waved back and smiled as best she could.

When Buffy got home, she saw an unfamiliar woman standing on the porch, talking to her mother, who stood in the open doorway. Her mother did not look happy. The woman was wearing a plain green housedress, no stockings, and sneakers on her feet. She was rather dumpy looking, overweight and sloppy, even lumpy, somewhere in her late forties, early fifties, with mousy brown hair shot with gray that reached just past her shoulder blades, frizzy and unbrushed, knotted in places.

“No, you don’t seem to understand,” Joyce said, obviously frustrated but trying hard to remain civil. “We have decided we do not want —” She stopped and smiled as Buffy approached.

“Excuse me,” Buffy said.

The woman glanced at Buffy and stepped aside so she could pass.

“This is my daughter, Buffy,” Joyce said, putting an arm across Buffy’s shoulders.

The woman’s face matched her body: round and lumpy. Her pasty, thick-fingered hands clutched the handle of her handbag in front of her so tightly that the skin over her knuckles had become even whiter. Her lips were paper-thin and her eyes were squinty. She had a faint mustache, and a mole on her chin that was small but vivid against her doughy skin. The mole, however, did not stand out as much as the bruise around her right eye.

She looked at Buffy and attempted a smile, but it came across as nothing more than a prolonged twitching of her lips. “Nice to meet you,” she said distractedly. She sounded as if she had a cold.

“By the way, Miss Lovecraft,” Joyce said, frowning, “what happened to your eye?”

Lovecraft?
Buffy thought. That sounds familiar.

“Oh, that, uh . . .” She reached up and touched her fingertips to her cheek, just below the bruise. “It’s, um . . . nothing, just a-a-a little . . . accident.” She looked up at Joyce pleadingly and her voice trembled when she spoke. “Mrs. Summers, I-I . . . I can’t tell you how very important this is to me.”

Joyce said, “As I was saying, we —”

“Ten days, a week, that’s all I ask,” Miss Lovecraft continued. “You wouldn’t even have to display them prominently, really, if you could just —”

“I’m sorry, Miss Lovecraft, but we’ve decided we don’t want to exhibit the collection.”

“Who
doesn’t want to?” asked Miss Lovecraft, sounding almost frantic. “I-is there someone else I should talk to?”

“No. We all decided. And that’s our final answer. Okay?”

The woman said nothing for a moment.

“Okay?” Joyce said. “Now, I have to go, so you have a good day.”

Joyce closed the front door.

As they headed into the kitchen, Buffy asked, “And that was . . .?”

“Oh, that was the crazy woman who wants us to exhibit her collection,” Joyce replied, flopping into a chair at the kitchen table with a steaming cup of coffee in front of her. “I don’t even know how she found out where I live. She followed me, for all I know.”

“Maybe she is crazy,” Buffy said, getting a diet soda from the refrigerator. She sat down at the table across from her mother.

“Oh, yes, I’m starting to think she is,” Joyce said. “Before, I was trying to be polite. But now . . . I’m really starting to think she may be a nut. She’s so wide-eyed and desperate about getting that stuff in a gallery. I can’t imagine any gallery taking it.” She sipped her coffee.

“What’s her name? Lovecraft?”

“Yes. Phyllis Lovecraft.”

“Lovecraft. That sounds familiar.” Buffy frowned, trying to place the name in her memory.

“You’re probably thinking of the writer.”

“No, not the writer.” Where had she heard the name before? She couldn’t remember . . . but it seemed to have something to do with Giles. Maybe he’d mentioned the name to her at some point. It felt important to her somehow . . . but she didn’t know why. She made a mental note to ask Giles about it the next time she saw him.

“You’re home a little early, aren’t you?” Joyce asked.

“You, too.”

“Oh, no, not really. I have to go back. But you . . . is everything okay?”

Buffy nodded. “Everything’s fine. I just need to study for exams.”

“That’s good,” Joyce said. “I like that. Studying. It sounds so . . . so . . .”

“Normal?”

“Yes! So normal!”

Buffy nodded again. “Well, don’t get too attached to it, Mom, okay?”

Joyce lowered her eyes. “Of course not.” She took another sip of her coffee, tipping the mug way back, finishing it off. Standing, she rinsed the mug, put it on the counter, and dried her hands on a paper towel. “Well, I’m off now.”

“See ya, Mom.”

Joyce leaned down and kissed Buffy’s cheek, then backed up a bit and smiled. “Study hard.”

“I’ll try.”

After her mother left, Buffy opened a textbook on the kitchen table. She usually studied in her bedroom, but she was afraid that if she went there, the temptation to nap would be too great. She would have that dream/nightmare again. She didn’t want to . . . she was already upset enough. And for no reason she could fathom.

Buffy studied for a while, focusing all her attention on the books in front of her, making a few notes, trying to burn short but pertinent facts into her memory. After about thirty minutes or so, though, her concentration began to get clogged up with thoughts of Giles. Had he found anything? Did he at least have some idea of what they were looking for now?

She decided she’d done enough studying for the time being, gathered up her books, and went to her bedroom. Before changing her clothes, she clicked on the clock radio and caught the end of the latest song by the New Radicals. By the time she’d put on a pair of cargo pants and a black sweater, two commercials had fought for her attention and the local news had begun. Buffy was reaching down to turn off the radio when she heard something that made her freeze.

“Oh, God,” she whispered as she listened.

She had to tell Giles.

Chapter 7

“C
ATTLE MUTILATIONS,”
W
ILLOW SAID, CLICKING HER
mouse. “That’s all I’m coming up — oh, wait, here’s a Web site that sells life-size fiberglass cows. Other than that, just cattle mutilations.”

Giles sighed as he paced slowly behind Willow. Oz stood beside Willow, hip leaning against the edge of the table, arms folded, watching the computer screen.

Xander and Cordelia were behind him in a couple of folding chairs they’d placed close together, Xander’s arm around Cordelia’s shoulders.

Oz leaned forward and nodded grimly as he scanned the screen. “That’s some serious mutilation.”

“Tongue, eyes, some internal organs removed with surgical precision,” Willow said. “And there’s never a drop of spilled blood found at the site.”

“Space aliens,” Xander said.

“Oh, puh-leeze,” Cordelia groaned.