Chapter 3
983 자
Chapter 3
Om Dum Durgayei Namaha
.
—Prayer to Durga
for Protection
.
GITA
Her heart pounded like a herd of running gazelles as the fat lizard's clawed hand brushed against Gita's skin.
'I'm invisible, I'm invisible, I'm invisible!' she prayed.
Pain stabbed into her flesh as the lizard grabbed her shoulder and began to dig at the crevasse like a dog. Gita swallowed her cry of terror as the creature gnashed its fangs mere ubānu from her cheek, spraying her eyelids with saliva as it flicked its forked tongue along her skin.
Mother! Please!
She imagined her flesh was the same consistency as the rocks. Cold. Hard. Unyielding. She sagged into the earth, as heavy as a scrawny nineteen summer girl could make her body, and did not cry out, not even when the lizard dug its claws into her breast.
"Ubi est?" the lizard hissed.
Its eyes glowed fiery red as it stared into the shadows as if it could see her, but then it reached into the shadow next to her and began to dig furiously in that crevasse, instead.
Gita held her breath, too terrified to breathe. Quiet, please? She forced her heartrate to slow. Blood seeped out of her shoulder. She prayed he would not smell it.
I'm invisible. I'm invisible. I am nothing but a rock.
The lizard shook its fist into the next three shadows and roared, but then it lumbered back to the lizard it had killed and made a mocking gesture from its forehead to its snout and its chest. It crawled out of the wadi canyon and continued on its way.
Gita collapsed and vomited up the contents of her stomach.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you Great Mother!" she babbled in between dry heaves.
She waited until she was certain the lizard wasn't coming back, and then crept out of the crevasse to check the other lizard's body. Whatever falling out had happened between the two, neither she, nor the dead lizard, had seen it coming.
She poured a few drops of water over the lizard's severed head.
"May Ki grant you rest," she prayed softly.
She closed the lizard's bulging, lifeless eyes. Why had she done something so stupid as follow the lizards?
Because the fat one kept praying in the high-language of the Temple of Ki. Something about Ninsianna? Something about her child?
She splayed her hand protectively over her womb. How many turns of the moon had it been since she'd offered the Great Goddess her life in exchange for Mikhail's?
She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing.
"Great Mother," she prayed. "If I bring back Ninsianna, will Mikhail forgive me?"
A tear streamed down her cheek. Mikhail would never forgive her. She had stolen the one thing he would never willingly give. She had stolen from him a child.
The click-click-click of a bat drew her attention upward.
"Hello, little friend. Have you come to eat the mosquitos?"
It wheeled back and forth, catching insects drawn to the dead lizard's blood. The scent of anise-oil, cedar-wood and parsley wafted around her. Gita looked down into a pair of transparent, brown eyes.
"Shahla?" she startled.
The ghost gave her a lopsided grin. On her hip, the baby she'd miscarried appeared curly-haired, chubby and healthy, except for the fact they both carried an ethereal glow.
"I thought you'd passed into the Dreamtime?"
Shahla pointed north-east. Tears welled in her eyes.
"Immanu is still blocking you?"
Shahla nodded. She pointed south, in the direction the fat lizard had gone. Despite her attempts to speak, all Gita could hear was the wind.
"It's even more frustrating talking to you now than when you were still alive," Gita grumbled.
Shahla's expression turned apologetic. She tugged at Gita's arm. Her flesh tingled, though not in an unpleasant way.
"You want me to follow him?"
Yes. Shahla stepped in the direction the lizard had gone and beckoned.
"Why?"
Shahla moved her hands to create the outline of a curvaceous woman.
"Ninsianna?"
Yes. Shahla pointed to where Gita had her hand splayed across her womb. She made a bird-like gesture, her thumbs pressed together to make a body, with the other eight fingers to create wings. She pointed at Gita's womb and smiled, and then clutched her hands to her heart.
"He'll just do what Jamin did to you."
Shahla shook her head 'no.'
"You think he'll acknowledge the child?"
Yes.
Tears welled in Gita's eyes. Oh! How she wanted him to love her!
"I tricked him. Mikhail will hate me."
No.
"Do you think he might forgive me if I explain?"
Shahla held up one finger and then pointed at Gita's chest.
"I don't understand."
One finger. First? Shahla jabbed harder this time, pushing her incorporeal hand right into Gita's heart.
Gita gasped.
"You just want me to find Ninsianna so Immanu will stop doing black magic!" She'd learned the hard way that while Shahla watched out for her, her friend usually had an ulterior motive.
Yes. And no. Shahla touched Gita's sparse, black hair. Every time Gita's father had beaten her into a bloody mess, Shahla would brush her hair and promise tomorrow would be better.
She watched the ghost-baby tug at her mother's breast. She could feel Immanu's malevolent will, following her, cursing her, condemning her to wander the desert, the same fate as Shahla. What if his black magic condemned her unborn baby as well?
Mikhail's baby?
When she'd made love to him, she'd peered into the heavens and seen a magnificent tree whose leaves were made of stars. She could still hear the song, the one she'd sung to heal him.
Her vision grew blurry as she clamped her hand over her mouth. She would do anything to meet him beneath that Eternal Tree and sing, once again, the Song of Creation. Only this time, she would sing it as herself. Not disguised as her vain, beautiful cousin!
She jabbed a finger at Shahla's incorporeal face.
"This has to be the stupidest thing I've ever done!"
She gathered up her meager belongings and took off across the desert in the direction the fat lizard had gone.
- 작가
