The Girl in the Garden (34 page)

I started to move back the way we came, but Krishna grabbed my arm. “We cannot go that way. They will know we are gone by now.”

So we turned and plunged deeper into the forest
as the sun vanished and night opened its black flower around us.

“Do you know where we’re going?” I said.

“No, I have never come this way.”

“Well, wherever we’re going, it is safer than where we came from.”

We began to run again, hand in hand, until we reached a clearing, which opened onto a paddy field.

By now the darkness was impenetrable. The moon had abandoned us behind a heavy bank of clouds.

Nalini Aunty had once mentioned something about how snakes loved to curl up in the paddy fields at night.

“We can’t go this way,” I cried.

“There is no other way,” said Krishna, bending down. “If we turn back, it will just lead us toward Ashoka. They’ll find us. They might have already come after us. Think what they’ll do if they catch us.” I heard her rustling around on the ground, and when she stood up she was holding a long stick in her fist.

She was right; we would have to go through that paddy field, snakes or no snakes. Here, we at least had a chance of making it through. If we turned back, we would be heading straight into the snake’s nest.

Our limbs plastered against each other in fear, we began picking our way through the high stalks, with Krishna beating the stick on the ground and making a shooing sound with her tongue.

It was so dark I could not see my own body. The only thing that reminded me I was alive and not drowning was the sensation of Krishna’s warm, pulsing arm entwined in mine.

The stick rasped against the earth. With every step, I prepared to feel the sting of fangs on my leg. Krishna
would never be able to carry me out of here. I would not be saved, like Amma. The poison would slowly suck out my life and I, writhing in pain, would die there in the darkness.

I tortured myself with such thoughts until I heard Krishna’s relieved sigh. “We made it.”

It was true. I moved my foot to feel the ground below me, and it was hard and flat. We were on the road.

The darkness began to lift. The clouds had dispersed, and we could see the moon paving the red road with light.

“Wait,” said Krishna, “I think I know where we are.”

“Which way should we go?”

“We haven’t gone very far. We just made a big circle. We are just past the village square, not far from Ashoka. We had better hurry.”

All around us the air rattled with a chorus of sounds, ushering us through the night.

But after a while I became aware of a sound that did not belong. A hectic rustling in the trees that bordered the road. Krishna heard it, too, because she came to an abrupt halt. The rustling intensified.

Someone else was sprinting through the night.

“Maybe it’s them!” I hissed.

“No, I don’t think so.”

Growls, barks, and yelps mixed in with the rustling.

“Dogs!” Krishna’s hand gripped my arm.

At first, I did not understand. “Oh good, it’s just dogs.”

“They’re coming straight toward us. Run, Rakhee, run!”

I remembered then what Meenu had said about stray dogs, about how they were dangerous and rabid.

Behind us I heard an explosion as their thrashing bodies broke through the trees, followed by the sound of barking and paws slamming into the earth.

My legs spun and I breathed in knives. But even as I fled I knew we could never outrun a pack of dogs.

Nobody outruns a pack of dogs.

So it would end here.

I was almost relieved. Amma would find us lying on the road with our throats open, and she would know that it was all her fault.

A thorn broke through my sandal, piercing the bottom of my foot. I fell forward but caught myself before I hit the ground.

My right sandal went sailing through the air and landed faceup several yards away.

I froze and blurted: “My shoe, my shoe.”

“Leave it, Rakhee, just run!” cried Krishna from up ahead, but somehow I could not move.

I stood rooted to the spot, blood seeping from my foot onto the road, watching the dogs approach.

“Rakhee!” Krishna shrieked, but still my limbs would not budge. Even my eyelids were paralyzed.

The dogs were getting closer and closer.

I felt a rush of wind as something streaked past my head.

Krishna.

She grabbed my sandal in one hand and my wrist in the other. “I know where we’ll be safe.”

My body came back to life.

The road veered off to the right and tapered into a thin pathway. I recognized it immediately.

The temple.

The iron gates of the temple were unlocked. We pulled them open, hurled ourselves into the courtyard, and pushed them shut. The barking grew louder, then faded just as fast.

We paused, leaning our backs against the gate, letting the relief wash over us.

“Come.” Krishna led me through the courtyard, past the goddess, past the shrines, and toward the brick wall.

“What are we doing here?”

“Rakhee, there is nowhere else to run. We will be safe under the Ashoka tree.”

I limped after Krishna, following her to the end of the brick wall, through the long grass, and to the tree, where we both collapsed against its trunk.

As my breath came back to me, I reached for my cousin’s hand.

“Thank you. You saved my life back there with the shoe. I don’t know what happened to me.”

“You are welcome.” Krishna gave me a wan smile.

After that we were quiet for a long time, huddled together, watching and waiting. For what, I don’t know.

Neither of us could sleep, but I was so exhausted that everything seemed distorted and exaggerated. The thrum of insects, the crying of birds, the faint breeze singing—they were all sinister sounds, and the grass was so green under the moonlight it hurt my eyes to look at it.

The well loomed in the near distance. The lair of the yekshi. I tried to pretend it wasn’t there, but my eyes kept falling upon its smoky gray silhouette.

“Krishna, do you think that story about the yekshi is really true?” Just saying the word made my skin prickle, and yet I couldn’t help asking, as if talking about it would somehow make it less scary.

“There have been stories,” said Krishna, “of strange things happening near the well. People say they have seen… her.”

“What does she look like?” The air was warm, but still my teeth chattered.

“I don’t know, Rakhee. I don’t want to know.”

“It can’t be true,” I said.

A soft wind began to whistle in my ears. It ruffled the branches of the Ashoka tree, which showered us with red petals. I held out my arms and caught them in my palms and Krishna sat up and gazed at the curtain of petals, her mouth hanging open in awe.

I closed my eyes, consumed by a sense of peace. “Nothing can touch us here.”

Krishna did not say anything.

I opened my eyes. Awe had been replaced by an expression of horror.

“Krishna?”

She pulled me so close to her that I could feel her breath on my cheek and her ribs bearing into mine.

“What is that?”

“What is what?”

“The yekshi.” Krishna was shaking so hard that my body, too, began to shake.

“Krishna, stop it, you’re scaring me!”

“Rakhee, it’s her. It’s the yekshi!”

I saw her, too, then. A figure dressed all in white running through the field toward the well.

“It’s real, she’s real.” The words fell from my dry lips, and the song of the wind turned back into a terrible drumbeat.

Beside me I felt Krishna slump over and fall into the grass.

Let me faint, too,
I begged.
Or let me be dreaming.
But I was awake and I could not look away.

The yekshi reached the well and paused before climbing
up on the stone rim, where she crouched like an animal. Slowly she rose, stretching out her arms on either side of her willowy figure. I watched her hovering there, a faceless form with a black flag of hair. Her body began to sway back and forth. I opened my mouth and tried to scream, but no sound came out. At the same time that her knees buckled, my breath caught in my chest. The yekshi let out a great, throttled cry, then lurched off the edge of the well and plunged down into its depths.

I
was drifting.

My entire body ached. I was cold and wet, but my head was nestled against something soft and wonderfully strong.

A light rain misted my cheek, the sort of drizzle that follows a downpour.

I tried to open my eyes a crack and saw a slender crescent of light. I lifted my lids a bit further, even though it hurt to do so. Up ahead, a man was carrying a limp rag doll in his arms.

My eyes fluttered.

Then came a voice, concerned and questioning, close to my ear. “Rakhee?”

Hope, radiant as morning, filled my chest.

“Aba!” I tried to call out, but I could not get the sound to rise up past my throat. My eyes closed again and I had no choice but to continue drifting.

The next time I awoke, I was lying in bed, clean and dry, with a bandage across my foot. Amma and Aba were sitting in chairs on opposite ends of the room.

“Krishna?” My throat was so parched that I did not recognize my own voice.

Amma came forward with a glass of water and held it to my lips.

“She’s fine. But she has a high fever. She’s asleep in her room. Thank God Vijay and your father found you when they did.”

“Aba,” I said next, and water dribbled out of my mouth.

He came over to the bed, sat down next to Amma, and put his arms around me. He had finally come. I could not help myself. I started to cry.

“Rakhee,” he said, stroking my hair.

I tried to choke out the story of Tulasi and the garden, but it came out more in a jumble of senseless words strung together.

Aba shushed me. “I know. Amma has just now told me everything.”

“Where is she? What have you done with her?” I turned to Amma and felt my strength coming back, along with my anger.

“Tulasi is safe,” Amma said. “She is with her father. She is with Prem. We went together to fetch her from the garden. We told her the truth. She’s very confused but she’ll eventually understand. We’ll get her the help she needs.”

Aba flinched. I started to speak but Amma interrupted me.

“Rakhee, Aba and I need to talk to you.” She paused and we both turned to Aba.

Now that the initial excitement had died down, I was able to really see him for what he had become over the course of the summer—a shadow of the man we had left behind in Plainfield. Thin with hollows in his unshaven cheeks and tortured eyes.

Amma bit her bottom lip. “Rakhee, I’m so sorry that I
haven’t been honest with you and that I let things go as far as they did. I will never forgive myself for that. When I saw that you had run off, when I thought that I might have lost you—” Amma’s voice cracked and so did something inside me. Bringing my knees up, I hugged them to my chest and buried my face. I could not even look at her.

“I never wanted you to find out about Tulasi in the way that you did. It’s just that I’ve been so confused and so sad. It was only when I heard what they were making Gitanjali do that I realized I had to make things right again. I can’t keep running away from my past. Rakhee, your father and I, we both love you very much, but—it simply isn’t working between us anymore. And if we stay together unhappily, it will be even more miserable for you. Rakhee, molay, won’t you please look at me?”

I shook my head and Amma sighed.

“Aba and I have decided to separate. I want you to come to Trivandrum with me. We can start a new life with Prem and Tulasi. And you can visit Aba whenever you want and spend the summers and holidays with him. I’ve already promised him I’ll go back on my medication. Things will be better, I swear to you.”

The mattress shifted and I raised my head. Through the screen of my tears I saw that Aba had stood up and strode away. His back was facing me and he was leaning against the wall with his head bowed.

Amma kept talking, though her voice wavered. “Prem has built a house for us. And he has found a doctor who can help Tulasi, and a great school for you. We can send Merlin over on a plane. I know it will be a huge change, but I think you’ll grow to like it. I know we can be happy together. I can’t erase my past mistakes, but I can at least try to make up for them now.”

As Amma spoke, the horror of the choice I had to make became increasingly clear. If I went with Amma and Prem I could be with Tulasi, and we could grow up together, side by side, as we were meant to. I could never get back the years that Amma had stolen from us, but at least we could have a future. This possibility sent a surge of indescribable happiness through me. I could handle moving to India; I could even handle Prem, if it meant Tulasi and I could be together. But could I handle leaving Aba behind and becoming a part of Amma’s betrayal? For a fleeting moment, the prospect of a life with my beloved sister hovered in front of me, a glittering bubble of temptation. But even though it felt as if I were severing a limb in doing so, I knew I had to turn away from it. In truth, I had no choice. Whether Aba knew he needed me or not, I could never abandon him, even if it meant that I had to give up Tulasi.