Ghost Leopard (A Zoe & Zak Adventure #1) (17 page)

“Ganesha must have led you to me,” Amala said.

“Or else now you're following us too,” I said.

“Mukta asked me to keep an eye on you.”

“Really? Did you fly here on his magic carpet?”

“I flew,” Amala said. “But not on a magic carpet. I could have used the ride.”

“Well, if you were coming here anyway, why didn’t you come with us? We could have used the help.”

“Every yogi must find their own way, Zoe.”

“She called you a yogi,” Zak said.

I got out of the pool.
 

“I heard her. I just don’t like the way she’s following us around.”

“Zoe, don’t be like that,” Amala said. “I have a friend I want to introduce to you.”
 

I looked around the pool. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness, but I couldn’t see anyone else in the wooden temple. Zak stood there, one foot in the hot pool, one foot out.

“I don’t see anybody,” I said.

“We’ve already met,” a deeper voice said.

My eyes spun around the temple, but there was nobody else there. I was sure of it. Only Zak, Amala, and the stone elephant idol, candles burning in its hands. But I recognized the voice, I knew I did. It was same voice I had heard speaking to me from the bottom of the hotel swimming pool.

“Where are you?” I said.

“I’m right here. I welcomed you to India, Zoe Guire.”

Now I knew where the voice was coming from, but I didn’t want to believe it. It was too strange. I looked at Zak and then followed his eyes to the stone elephant-headed statue. This time, I watched the statue’s rock lips turn blue, then move as they spoke.
 

“We’ve been waiting for you,” the statue said.

“You’re made of stone. Why are you talking?” I said, my already high voice breaking in spite of myself.

“Sit,” the statue said. “Relax for a moment and I’ll tell you why.”

The misty temple was now lit up by an oil lamp, but even with the light it was really hard to see in there, there was so much hot steam and fog. I sat submerged in the hot water with Amala and Zak. I had been chilled to the bone in the rainstorm and it felt great to warm up, but it was kind of hard to relax on command, especially when it was a stone statue that told you to. Now at least I knew I hadn’t imagined the voice and the elephant winking at me from the bottom of the pool, but it was small comfort. I watched the steaming hot water pour into the hot pool from leopard-shaped spouts on each of the temple walls only because I was trying not to stare. The Ganesha statue was starting to really scare me, especially the way its stone face turned into what looked like glistening blue skin when it spoke. I noticed that Ganesha had only one tusk. Probably broke the other one freaking people out.

“Do you want to know why I’m speaking to you?” the statue asked.

“I want to know
how
you’re speaking to me,” I said.

“If I respond that I’m speaking with my mouth, would you think me glib?”

“I don’t know what glib means,” Zak said.

“It means superficial or insincere,” I said. “And I wouldn’t think you were glib. I’d still think you were a talking statue.”

“Clever girl. I am a talking statue,” the statue said. “But you’ll need to be more than clever to survive your destiny, Zoe Guire. You’ll need to become what you truly are.”

“I’m getting tired of all you guys speaking in riddles,” I said.

“The reason I speak at all, is to help you with your journey, Zoe. These are the Himalayas — home of the gods. There are strange things in these mountains. Things you wouldn’t believe in a million years.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Because I’ve been here for more than a million years and I don’t believe them myself.”

“Try me,” I said. “What’s not to believe?”

“That you, a young girl, has been sent to protect the Leopard, for one.”

“I haven’t been sent,” I said. “I came with my mother.”

“Yes, you did, didn’t you? Did you ever consider why that might have happened?”

“Because I asked my mom if I could come.”

“Her mom travels a lot,” Zak said.

“Of course.”

Zak smiled and slipped a little deeper into the hot water, allowing his eyes to close. Amala did the same. I felt alone. Was I the only one who didn’t find this situation relaxing? I turned my head to the side to look straight at the statue. In the soft light of the oil lamp I could see that it was made of rock, yet every time it spoke it seemed to have glistening blue skin. It was very confusing. I ignored the lump in my throat and spoke.

“You can’t speak. You’re made of rock.”
 

“Am I?” the elephant statue asked.

 
“What do you want?” I said.

“You’re in my temple. What do you want, Zoe Guire?”

“We want to find the Ghost Leopard,” Zak said.

The elephant statue laughed. “Listen to the boy with the dung hanging around his neck.”

Zak self-consciously touched his new necklace. “I kind of like it,” Zak said.

“It’s still stupid to carry it around your neck,” I said.

“Is not,” Zak said.

“Is too.”

“Is not.”

“Stop, both of you,” Amala said. “The dung is a powerful charm, but you won't need it here in the temple, Zak.”

Zak sniffed the elephant-poop necklace and threw it over his shoulder so that it hung off his back.

“Kind of grows on you,” Zak said, “like olives or mint toothpaste.” Zak looked up at the elephant statue. “Look, Elephant Man. You know why we’re here. Are you going to help us or not?”

“Technically speaking, that’s a job for Hanuman,” the elephant statue said. “This problem with the rogue Vanaras is his to sort through.”

“Hanuman, the monkey god?” I said.

“Yes. Hanuman. The monkey god.”

“Then let’s get Hanuman over here,” Zak said.

The elephant statue laughed. It was a deep, rollicking belly laugh that caused the temple walls to shake.

“Hanuman washed his hands of the evil Vanaras many moons ago. The Monkey Man is an embarrassment to him. He thinks he’s ruining his good name. You can’t bring up the topic without Hanuman uprooting a Himalayan peak and tossing it into the Celestial Sea.”

“That would make a big splash,” Zak said.

“You have no idea, mortal.”

“So, this Monkey Man, he’s a Vanara, right? I think that makes him pretty old. Does he live forever?”

“He’s no immortal if that’s what you’re asking. He’s simply very clever. He drinks monkey blood to stay young.”

“Ooh. Gross.” I couldn’t help but shudder.

“Monkey blood,” Zak said. “Got to try that some time.”

I was worried that Zak might be getting just a little too cheeky. He was, after all, talking to, well, a statue that might be a god. I bit my tongue though. Under the circumstances I just wasn’t sure what I could add to the conversation.

“So, like I said before,” Zak said. “Are you going to help us or not?”

The elephant statue smiled, bright sunlight shining out of its mouth. I shielded my eyes. The sunlight was so bright that I thought it was going to burn a hole in my face. Fortunately the statue closed his blue lips.
 

“I am going to help you,” the statue said. “Not because you deserve it, but because without my assistance you shall surely perish.”

“What are you going to do?” Zak asked.

“I’m going to cry for you,” the statue said.

“Why?”

“So that I may give you a tear.”

That was a weird thing to say. I stared at the blue face of the elephant statue in the lamplight. The elephant statue smiled back. I wasn’t sure if he looked sad or not, but I did see that a single large tear pooled in his soft, watery eye. Then the elephant god turned back to stone. As it did, the tear fell to the stone floor at its feet. The tear bounced with a clink before settling in a puddle. Zak splashed over a few feet to check it out. The next thing I knew he was holding a huge, glittering diamond between his fingers.

“Check it out,” Zak said. “Diamond tears.” He showed me the shiny diamond that had formed from the statue’s tear. It was big and beautiful and about the size of a golf ball. Zak didn’t seem that impressed though. He plopped the diamond into his dung sack.

“So what's with you and Mukta?” Zak asked Amala.

“Wait!” I said. Both Zak and Amala turned to me. “A statue, that statue, just came to life, and we’re going to pretend like everything is perfectly normal?”

“I didn’t think it was normal,” Zak said.

“Exactly,” I said. “It was crazy. Crazy things have been happening since we got here. Mukta floats on air. Statues talk. None of these things are even possible.”

“These things that you say are impossible, did you see them happen?” Amala asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Then perhaps it’s time you examined your definition of the impossible.”

I looked at the elephant statue. It was stone. I looked back at Amala. She was a living person. Maybe she could answer. “Why?” I asked. “Why us?”
 

As I spoke, the spotted birthmark on my hand glowed ever so softly. I know that Zak saw it, but he didn’t say anything.
 

“Don’t worry about the why right now,” Amala said. “Worry about protecting the Ghost Leopard.”
 

Amala exhaled a big breath and blew out the candles in Ganesha’s many hands. Then the light flickered away, plunging the temple into darkness.

I dreamt of leopards. I was camped outside on a rocky mountaintop, sleeping under the stars. The mountaintop was riddled with towering boulders and, as I slept, the leopards danced over my head. There were at least five or six of them leaping above me and running in circles around the rocks. There was something strange about the leopards though, and it took me a moment to see what. The leopards were losing their spots. As the leopards ran and jumped, their spots fell off of their snow-white fur and flowed down their legs. But I couldn’t see where the spots had gone until I looked directly above me. The leopards’ spots had gathered in a pile on a rock above. From there, the black spots were running down the rock and onto my shoulder. Then, from my shoulder, they flowed down my arm and hit the side of my hand. At that point, the spots turned to brown and glowed on my hand before dissolving into nothing.

I stirred awake, recalling my strange dream. Something, I wasn’t sure what, had woken me. I lay on the stone floor under a wool blanket. Zak was asleep on the other side of the room, snoring loudly. It was twilight outside, the sky a deep shade of purple. We were in a small room across from the main temple and I could see the shrine with the hot pool from my place on the floor. The first voice I heard was Amala’s.

“They’re not ready,” she said.
 

As my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw hot water pouring from the steaming leopard spout. Amala turned from the spout to Mukta who levitated above the steaming hot pool, his legs crossed, his ash-painted body glistening with sweat. I kind of liked the fact that they didn’t know that I saw them. I watched quietly.

“Perhaps not yet, but soon,” Mukta said.

A deep laugh filled the temple. The elephant statue turned from cracked stone to blue flesh.

“Soon?” He pointed his trunk in the air. “They’re children.” Ganesha blinked his watery yellow eyes. “It may be soon to me, but you’ll be waiting a lifetime.”

Mukta smiled. “Respectfully, your Eminence, I disagree.”

“You dare disagree with a god? How can you be so certain that what you say is true?”

Amala looked to Mukta hopefully.
 

“Because theirs is the way,” Mukta said.

“Because theirs is the way. Theirs is the way you say. What can I tell you, my friend?” Ganesha said. “We shall see.” The elephant god snorted in laughter. As he laughed, great gobs of green snot blew from his trunk. I watched silently as Ganesha slowly turned back to stone, brilliant green emeralds dropping from his trunk to the stone floor below.
 

I wasn’t sure if I should wake Zak up and totally freak out or go back to sleep, so, since I was still a bit tired, I went back to sleep. Like I told you before, I’m basically a calm person. In the situation I was in, I figured rest was more important than getting all worried about something I couldn’t control. When I opened my eyes again, a spotted blue butterfly fluttered out the open window into the sunlight beyond. Some part of me reflected that we’d been seeing a lot of those. I let the thought go. I was hungry. We’d lost the peanut butter, but we still had lots of cookies. It was time to crack open another pack. I pulled myself up and sat cross-legged, rubbing my tired eyes, blanket around my neck like a scarf. Zak must have heard me, because he got up too and stretched before poking his head into the main temple. Two seconds later he rushed back, excitedly showing me a handful of emeralds.

“I’m telling you, this place is a goldmine.”
 

“Don’t you mean emerald mine?”

“Emerald mine, diamond mine, call it what you want. We’re rich!”
 

“What about Amala?” I said.

Zak looked around. “Gone, I guess. Maybe she plans on keeping an eye on us from wherever she came from.”

“Zak. Doesn’t any of this bother you?”

“Any of what?”

“I don’t know? Elephants that cry diamonds?”

“I thought we decided it didn’t bother us last night?”

“It still bothers me,” I said ever so calmly.

“Have you not been listening to a word anybody's been saying?” Zak said. “This is India. These are the Himalayas — home of the gods. Expand your horizons.”
 

Zak picked an emerald out of his hand, lobbing it lightly at me. I caught the emerald and looked at it. It was shiny and beautifully cut, my reflection staring back at me from each of its surfaces. Hard to believe it was just petrified elephant-god snot.

“The Yogi Way, it must permeate your being,” Zak said. He lobbed another emerald at me. “The world may pass through you.”

I crossed my arms and furrowed my brow. “You may pass through the world,” I said. I exhaled and closed my eyes. “Mind is matter. Matter is mind.” I inhaled. “This is not this.”