Tiger's Curse (35 page)

“If you tickle me, I’ll protest and struggle violently, which will cause you to drop me and ruin everything that we are trying to accomplish.”

He grunted, leaned close to my ear, and then whispered, “That sounds like an interesting challenge,
rajkumari
. Perhaps we shall experiment with it later. And just for the record, Kelsey, I wouldn’t drop you.”

The way he said my name made goose bumps rise all over my arms. When I looked down to quickly rub them, I noticed the flashlight had been turned off. I switched it on, but the statue remained the same. Giving up, I suggested, “Nothing’s happening. Maybe we need to wait till dawn.”

He laughed throatily while nuzzling my ear and declared softly, “I’d say that something
is
happening, but not the something that will open the doorway.”

He trailed soft, slow kisses from my ear down my neck. I sighed faintly and arched my neck to give him better access. With a last kiss, he groaned and reluctantly raised his head.

Disappointed that he’d stopped, I asked, “What does
rajkumari
mean?”

He laughed quietly, carefully set me down, and said, “It means princess. Let’s find a good place to sleep for a couple of hours, shall we? I’ll run back and tell Mr. Kadam that we’re planning to wait till dawn to try again.”

He took my hand and led me to a grassy spot hidden from view. Once I was settled, he left. I bunched my quilt up under my head and attempted to sleep. Restless until Ren returned, I gratefully snuggled against his tiger back and fell asleep.

I awoke to find myself moving, nestled in Ren’s arms. He was carrying me back to the doorway. I sleepily mumbled, “You don’t have to carry me. I can walk.”

He smiled. “You were tired, and I didn’t have the heart to wake you. Besides, we’re here already.”

It was still dark outside, but the eastern horizon was just starting to lighten. The statue was the same as we’d left it—with red snake eyes glowing and mist seeping out from the mouth. We stood in the doorway for a moment. I immediately felt something twist and move. It was Fanindra. She suddenly came alive, swelled to her normal size, and unwound herself from my arm.

Ren lowered me closer to the ground so she could drop delicately to the dirt below. She wound her way toward the statue and found a way to climb up to the top where the snake heads were resting.

We watched from the steps as she weaved over and under the seven snakes. As she passed them, they too came alive and writhed back and forth. We could see the coils that the statue was sitting on slowly change to scaly flesh.

Fanindra made her way back down and slithered over to Ren and me. Winding her body into loops, she stiffened and shrunk back to her golden armlet form. Ren set me down and walked over to pick her up. He slid her carefully up my arm, smiled at me, then traced the scratches on my arm lightly and frowned. He brushed a light kiss on the tender skin and changed back into a tiger.

We approached the statue where the wriggling snake torso was now moving and shifting. The snake coils lifted and slowly raised the statue higher and higher in the air, until a black void opened up underneath. It raised high enough that there was space for Ren and me to step down into the opening.

Peering into the hole, I saw a series of stone steps that disappeared down into the darkness. The mouth of the statue suddenly stopped emitting fog, and, instead, began to draw it back in. Fog swept back toward us, up into the mouth of the statue, and dropped down into the pit below. I gulped and turned my flashlight toward the steps. We stepped between the thick snake coils, and Ren and I descended into a fog of nebulous shadow.

We had found the entrance to Kishkindha.

W
e walked carefully down the stone steps, totally dependent on the weak illumination of my tiny flashlight. When we reached the bottom, Fanindra’s eyes began to glow and gave the tunnel an eerie, viridian illumination.

I stopped Ren and reread Durga’s prophecy out loud.

For protection, seek her temple

And take hold of Durga’s blessing.

Travel west and search Kishkindha

Where simians rule the ground.

Gada strike in Hanuman’s realm;

And hunt the branch that’s bound.

Thorny dangers grasp above;

Dazzling dangers lie below,

Strangle, ensnare, the ones you love—

And trap in brackish undertow.

Lurid phantoms thwart your route

And guardians wait to bar your way.

Beware once they begin pursuit

Or embrace their moldering decay.

But all of this you can refute

If serpents find forbidden fruit

And India’s hunger satisfy . . .

Lest all her people surely die.

At the bottom of the page were Mr. Kadam’s handwritten notes in his usual, neat script. I also read it aloud:

Miss Kelsey,

There are several trials you must face when you enter Kishkindha, so be wary. I have also included the warnings from Durga as you described them. She said that you should try to stay near Ren. If for some reason you get separated, there will be great danger. She also said do not trust your eyes. Your hearts and your souls will tell you the difference between fantasy and reality. The last thing she said was that when you obtain the fruit, hide it well.

Bhagyashalin!

May you be endowed with luck!

Anik Kadam

I mumbled, “I have no clue what these dangers might be. Hopefully the thorny ones are some kind of plant.”

We started walking, and I babbled along the way about what kind of animals might have thorns.

“Let’s see. There are stegosaurus. No, stegosauruses. Hmm, maybe it’s stegosauri. Well, however you say the plural, there are those kinds of dinosaurs. Then there are dragons, porcupines, and we can’t forget horny toads. If I had to pick a thorny animal, that would be my number one choice. Oh! But what if the horny toads are giant sized with huge gaping mouths? They could swallow us whole. Maybe we should get the
gada
out of the backpack, huh?”

I stopped and took it out. The hiking would probably be bad enough without hauling around the club but it made me feel better to have it in hand.

The tunnel soon turned into a stony path, and the farther we walked, the brighter it became. Fanindra’s eyes dimmed and her light went out. Her eyes became mere glittering emeralds again. Something strange was going on. My weirdness meter had expanded considerably in the last few weeks, but this was weird even for me.

I couldn’t really tell where the light was coming from. It seemed to filter in from ahead. Literally, we were following a light at the end of the tunnel. I felt like I was in one of my nightmares in which it wasn’t bright, but it wasn’t dark either. A lurking evil permeated my subconscious and a powerful force chased me, thwarted my progress, and hurt those I cared about.

The rolling mist seemed to follow us. As we walked, it surged slightly ahead to hinder our view of the path. When we stopped, it gathered itself and circulated around us like small nebulous clouds in orbit. The cold, gray mist explored our skin with icy fingers as if looking for an Achilles’ heel.

The corridor began to feel different. Instead of walking on stone, my feet sunk slightly into moist ground, and I could hear the crunch my shoes made on stubby grass. The walls became mossy, then grassy, and soon were covered with small fern-like plants. I wondered how they could survive in this humid, dim environment.

The walls grew farther apart, until I couldn’t make them out anymore. The ceiling opened up to a gray sky. There was no depth to it, and yet I couldn’t see an end. It reminded me of a biosphere dome, but it wasn’t manmade. It was like we’d stepped onto another planet.

Our path turned downward, and I had to focus on my feet in front of me. We entered a forest full of strange plants and trees. They rocked on their roots as if the wind was pushing them, but I didn’t feel even a hint of a breeze. The trees were so close together and the brush was so thick that the path became difficult to see, and then it disappeared altogether.

Ren stayed in front and tore a trail with his body. The trees had long branches that drooped to the ground like weeping willows. Their tendrils were feathery and tickled my skin as I passed. I reached up to scratch my neck and found it wet.

I must be sweating. Strange, I don’t
feel
overworked. Maybe water fell from the branch.
Something was smeared on my hand. The greenish light gave the liquid a brown appearance.
What is that? Tree sap? No! Blood!

I plucked a feathery leaf to get a closer look. When I examined it, I was surprised to find tiny needles lining the underbelly. I reached out a finger to touch one, and the needles swelled out toward my finger. I moved my finger back and forth, and the needles shifted, following my finger like a magnet.

“Ren, stop! The branches are scratching us. They have needles underneath that follow our movements. They’re the thorny grasping dangers!”

When he stopped, feathery branches slowly slithered down from above and wrapped around his neck and tail. He jumped away and tore them viciously from the tree.

“We’ll have to run or they’ll ensnare us!” I shouted.

He doubled his effort to break through the undergrowth. I jogged after him. The forest seemed to go on forever with no sign of the trees thinning. After another fifteen minutes, I slowed, feeling extremely tired. I just couldn’t run anymore.

Panting, I wheezed, “Ren, I’m slowing you down. Go on ahead without me. Break through the tree line. You can make it.” He stopped, turned around, and raced quickly back to my side. The branches started snaking down and began to wrap their curly tendrils around his body.

He roared and rolled, then slashed at the branches with his claws, which made them retreat for a moment. I felt one twisting its way around my arm and knew that this was it for me. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I knelt to stroke Ren’s cheek.

I begged, “Ren, go.
Please
leave me.”

He shifted form and placed his hand over mine. “We have to stay together, remember? I won’t leave you, Kelsey. I’ll never leave you.” He smiled sadly.

I swallowed and nodded as he gently removed the curly branch from my arm and batted away another one that was reaching out for my neck.

“Come on.”

He grabbed the
gada
out of my hand and started beating it against the branches, but they just tried to wrap their sharp green fingers around the weapon, unaffected by its power. Then he moved to a trunk and beat it severely.

Immediately, the tree gathered into itself. Branches folded inward and wrapped around the trunk protectively. Ren stepped in front of me and cautioned me to wait by the injured tree. He walked ahead a few paces and swung the
gada
.

He thrashed the tree trunks, leaving gaping, pulpy wounds as he went. I followed a length behind as he made slow progress through the forest. The branches seemed to know what he was up to and tore at him viciously, but Ren seemed to have an endless amount of energy.

I winced as I watched the cuts and scrapes appear across every bare patch of his skin. His back was soon lacerated, his shirt torn and bloody. He looked like he’d been brutally whipped with a cat-o’-nine-tails.

At last, we reached the edge of the needle forest and stopped in a clearing. He pulled me out of the reach of the branches and allowed his body to collapse to the ground. He bent over, sweating and winded from his exertion. I took some water out of my backpack and offered it to him. He drank the entire bottle in one gulp.

I leaned over and inspected his bloody arm. His body was slippery with blood and sweat. I got out another water bottle and an old T-shirt and began cleaning the dirt from his cuts and bruises. I pressed the cool, wet cloth to his face and back. He started to relax and breathe slower as I continued my ministrations. His cuts quickly began to heal, and as my worry over Ren diminished, I realized something.

“Ren! You’ve been a man now for much longer than twenty-four minutes. Are you okay—well aside from the scratches?”

He rubbed his hand on his chest. “I feel . . . fine. I don’t feel the need to change back.”

“Maybe this is all we need to do. Maybe we’ve broken the curse!”

He considered for a minute. “No, I don’t think so. I have a feeling that we need to move on.”

“Why don’t you test it? See if you can become a tiger or not.”

He changed into a tiger and back and his bloody torn clothes were immediately replaced with clean white cloth.

“Perhaps it’s just the magic of this place that allows me to be human.”

My face must have appeared crestfallen. Ren laughed and kissed my fingers.

“Don’t worry, Kells. I’ll be fully human soon, but for now I’ll take this gift as long as I can keep it.”

He winked at me and grinned, and then he leaned over to pull me closer so he could have a turn at examining my injuries. He inspected my arms, legs, and neck. He swiped the wet cloth down my arms and cleaned my cuts with healing tenderness. I knew that his injuries were much more severe than mine, so I tried to dissuade him, but he wouldn’t have it.

He declared, “Everything checks out okay. You have one wicked scratch on your neck, but I think it’ll heal fine.” He bathed the back of my neck with the towel and pressed it there for a moment. Then he tugged at the collar of my T-shirt with his finger. “Are there, ah, any
other
places you want me to check out for you?”

I batted his hand away. “No, thank you. Those
other
places I can check for myself.”

He laughed good-naturedly, and then stood and helped me up. He slipped on my backpack and hefted the
gada
over one shoulder. After offering me his hand, we began walking.