Tiger's Voyage (7 page)

I was gentle but thorough. As I slowly swiped the towel across Ren’s cheek, I absently stroked his skin with my thumb. Something inside me switched on. A tender emotion slowly rose to the surface of my mind. My hand trembled, and I froze. The room had become silent. All I could hear was the hitch in my breathing as my heart began to beat faster.

I felt him cup my wrist, and slowly, I shifted my gaze to his eyes. He stared into mine with a tender smile. I lost myself in his eyes until he softly said, “Thank you.”

Abruptly, I pulled the towel away, and he let go of my wrist. I saw him rubbing his fingers with his thumb.
How long was I staring at him like
an idiot?
It must have burned him terribly. Quickly, I lowered my gaze and stepped away. Everyone was watching me now. I turned my back on them and arranged the bed. By the time I turned back around, I’d composed myself.

I smiled brightly. “Phet’s right. It’s time for bed.”

Phet clapped his hands. “Kahl-see in house. Tiger outside. Phet,” he grinned, “with Scarf.”

He cackled with glee and created a nice tent for himself. Then he opened the door and waited stubbornly for the tigers to leave.

Kishan touched my cheek, said, “Night, Kells,” and ducked under the door awning.

Ren followed but paused at the door and gave one of his trafficstopping smiles. My heart burned with a hopeful pain. He inclined his head roguishly in my direction and stepped outside. I heard Phet murmuring directions to both of them as they settled down for the night.

The next morning, I woke to Phet humming in the kitchen.

“Kahl-see! Awake. Eat!”

His little table was full of a variety of dishes. I joined him and scooped up fruit salad and something that looked like cottage cheese. “Where is everyone?”

“Tigers have a bath by means of river.”

“Oh.”

We ate in silence. Phet studied me and gently grasped my hand in both of his. He twisted it and stroked it in different places. When he touched the skin, the henna markings he had given me on our first visit surfaced and glowed red for a short time before disappearing.

“Hmm. Ah. Hmm.” He picked up a slice of apple and bit into it juicily, keeping his eyes on my hand while he smacked his mouth.

“Oh, Kahl-see, you set eyes on many thing, go a long way away places.”

“Yes.”

He peered into my eyes.

“Are you staring into my soul?”

“Huh-uh-huh. Kahl-see extraordinarily depressing. Why damage?”

“What’s my damage?” I laughed dryly. “It’s mostly emotional. I love Ren, and he doesn’t remember me. Kishan loves me, and I don’t know what to do about that. It’s one of those awful love triangles in which no one is happy. Everyone is miserable. Except for Ren, I guess. He can’t remember if he’s miserable or not. Any advice?”

Phet considered my question seriously. “Love resembling water. Water on all sides of us everywhere. Ice, river, cloud, rain, ocean. Some is big, some is tiny. Some good drink, some too salty. Every one usefulness for earth. For all time be in motion cycle. Necessitate water to endure. Woman like earth; need immerse water. Water with earth sculpt each other, grow.

“Earth change for river, make waterway. Lake bed know how to hold water in basin, all contain. Ice water is glacier; move earth. Rain make mudslide. Ocean make sand. Always two: earth and water. Need each other. Become one together. You be required to choose. Soon.”

“What if I can’t choose or don’t get to choose? What if I make the wrong choice?”

“No wrong choice. Your choice.”

He went to his bed and picked up two pillows. “You be fond of round pillow or square pillow?”

“I don’t know. They’re both pillows.”

“You like round? Choose round. You like square? Choose square. Not matter. You want sleep, use pillow. You pick rock? No! Pillow is good. Same water. You choose ice? River? Ocean? Is all good. Pick ocean, you change sand. Pick river, you grow to be silt. Pick rain, you are garden soil.”

“Are you saying I choose the man based on what I want to become? What kind of life I want to have?”

“Yes. Both man put together your life special. Choose ocean or choose river. No matter.”

“But—”

“No but.
Is.
Kahl-see back is sturdy. Can embrace many burden, many duty. You like earth. Your back transformation shape to be same with man your picking.”

“So basically what you are trying to tell me is that Ren and Kishan are both pillows in a world of rocks and that I’d be happy with either one?”

“Ah! Smart garl!” Phet laughed.

“The only problem is … one of
them
is not going to be happy.”

Phet patted my hand. “You no be troubled. Phet be of assistance tigers.”

The brothers stomped noisily into the hut a half hour later. They both greeted me politely: Kishan squeezed my hand, and Ren nodded to me from the table.

I quietly asked Kishan, “Did it work? Does he remember?”

He shook his head no and retreated to the table to help Ren quickly polish off every dish that Phet had created. Their hair was slicked back and wet. Ren had gotten all the pink stuff out.

I smirked, thinking,
either that, or it had been absorbed into his brain
overnight.

While the brothers ate, I thought about what Phet said.
Could I really be happy with either one of them? Could Ren and I fall in love again?
And if so, what would we do about our physical relationship? Would I ever be
able to touch him again without inflicting pain?
I’d never really considered a future with Kishan before. I was always so sure about my relationship with Ren. Now that his memories of us were gone, I didn’t know if it was even possible to get back what we’d lost.

I caught Kishan watching me from time to time as he listened to Phet. Could Kishan have been right? Was losing Ren somehow part of my destiny? Was Kishan the person I was supposed to be with, was meant to be with? Or, as Phet said, am I just supposed to choose which one I want to be with? Which one I want to make a life with? I just didn’t see how I could be happy when one of them wasn’t.

After breakfast, Phet asked to see the weapons. I dug the
gada
, the
chakram
, Fanindra, and the bow and arrows out of the backpack and handed each to Kishan, who deposited them on the table. Every time his fingers brushed against mine, Kishan smiled. I smiled back, but my happy expression wavered when I saw Ren quickly look away with disappointment.

Phet studied each intently before handing it to the person Durga had originally given it to.

“How did you know?” I asked incredulously. “How did you know the bow and arrows were mine and the
gada
, Ren’s?”

“Snake make clear to me.”

As if in response, Fanindra uncoiled, stuck her head in the air, hood open, and stared into Phet’s eyes. He began singing and moving his head. She started rocking back and forth as if under the spell of a snake charmer. When he stopped singing, she lowered her head and rested again.

“Ah, Fanindra declare be partial you, Kahl-see. You good woman and show consideration for her.”

He picked up Fanindra and handed her gently back to me. I pulled a round pillow over and set her in the middle of it.
Huh. I like round
pillows. I wonder which man the round pillow represents.

Phet announced it was time to look into Ren’s eyes. He pulled two chairs away from the table and set them across from each other. Ren sat in one; Phet, in the other. Kishan joined me on the bed and reached out to hold my hand. Ren’s eyes darted over to us.

Phet slapped his hand. “Glimpse my eye, Tiger!”

Ren growled softly as he turned to face the old monk. Phet peered into Ren’s eyes and clucked his tongue while turning Ren’s head to several different angles as if Phet was adjusting the rearview mirror in a car. Finally, he was satisfied, and the two men froze in place for several minutes while Phet just stared. I bit my lip nervously as I watched.

After an uncomfortably long silence, Phet jumped up out of his chair.

“Can’t patch up.”

I stood. “What do you mean?”

“Tiger vastly stubborn. Block me.”

“Block you?” I turned to Ren. “Why would you block him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Phet,” I asked, “can you please tell us what you know?”

Phet sighed. “Fix it the hurting of knife and cage. Evil black at this time gone. But remembrance is jam, have trigger, only white tiger be acquainted with it.”

“Okay, to clarify, you were able to fix the
PTSD
, the pains, and memories of the torture? All the trauma of Lokesh is gone now? Can he still remember it?”

“Yes. I still remember it. I’m right here, you know,” Ren grumbled.

“Okay, but Phet says he took the blackness away. Do you feel differently about it?”

He concentrated. “I don’t know. I guess we’ll see.”

I looked at Phet again. “But his memory is still blocked? What do you mean there’s a trigger?”

“Means tiger hinder himself. No from criminal one, evil one. From tiger mind. Only he be capable of fix.”

“Are you saying he’s deliberately doing this to himself? He’s blocking his memories of me on purpose?”

Phet nodded.

I gaped at Ren, stunned. He looked at Phet dumbfounded; then knit his brows together in confusion and stared at his hands. Tears filled my eyes.

In a tiny voice, I choked out, “Why? Why would you do this to me?”

He worked the muscles of his jaw and looked up at me. His blue eyes were bright with emotion. He opened his mouth to say something … then closed it. I backed toward the door and pushed it open.

Ren stood. “Kelsey? Wait.”

I shook my head.

“Please don’t run,” he softly pleaded.

“Don’t follow me.” I shook my head, tears dripping down my cheeks as I ran off into the jungle.

I sat in the jungle with my back against a tree. I was tired of running away from emotional turmoil. The reasonable part of my brain told me that Ren most likely had a perfectly legitimate reason for purposefully forgetting me. However, there was another side that doubted him, and that voice screamed louder. It hurt. If someone had asked me before he was taken if I trusted Ren, I would have said yes. I trusted him absolutely, 100 percent. There was no question in my mind that he was sincere.

But.
A negative voice picked away at me, telling me I wasn’t really right for him anyway and that I should have expected this. It said that I never deserved him in the first place and that it was only a matter of time before I lost him. I’d always considered him too good to be true. I never wanted to be right, but there it was.

That he took himself out of the picture made it worse. Much worse.
How could I have been so wrong about him?
I’d been naive. I wasn’t the first girl to have her heart broken, and I wouldn’t be the last. I’d trusted him. I believed his professions of love.

Before the visit with Phet, I could tell myself that Lokesh had done this. That it wasn’t Ren’s fault. That somewhere deep inside, he still loved me. Now I knew that he deliberately wanted to forget me. He wanted to cast me aside and had somehow found a very convenient way to do it.

How nice it must be to just erase your mistake. Pick the wrong girl?
That’s okay. Just highlight and delete. Those pesky memories won’t bother you
anymore. You could sell that pill and become a billionaire. So many people
have done things and been with people they’d like to wipe out of their memory.
To forget completely. Expunge your memory! Buy one, get one free! Limited
time offer!

After an hour of feeling sorry for myself, I returned slowly to the hut. When I walked through the door, all talking ceased. Both brothers watched me while Phet started busily grinding spices.

Ren stood and took a step toward me. I looked at him dully, and he stopped in his tracks.

“There’s nothing else you can do for us, then?” I asked Phet.

Phet turned to me and tilted his head. Soberly he said, “Phet regretful. No can help this.”

“Okay.” I turned to Kishan. “I’d like to leave now.”

He nodded and began filling the backpacks.

“Kelsey,” Ren stretched out a hand and then pulled it back when I stared at it like it was a foreign object, “we need to talk about this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.” I shook my head and took Phet’s hand. “Thank you for your hospitality and for everything you’ve done for us.”

Phet stood and hugged me. “You no worries, Kahl-see. Don’t fail to remember water and earth is contented all together.”

“I remember, but I think this time I’m like the moon. No water for me.”

Phet pressed his hands on my shoulders. “Is water for Kahl-see. Moon maybe, but moon pull tide anyway.”

“Okay.” I said softly. “Thanks for the optimism. I’m sure I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me,” I assured him as I hugged him back. “Good-bye.”

Phet said, “Future time pay a visit you happier, Kahl-see.”

“I hope so. I’ll miss you. Sorry to leave so abruptly, but I’m suddenly anxious to get this curse over and done.” I grabbed my backpack and headed out the door.

Kishan gathered his things quickly and caught up to me.

“
Kells,
” he started.

“Can we just walk for a while? I don’t feel like talking.”

His golden eyes perused my face until quietly he said, “Okay.”

Before I’d taken many steps the white tiger was walking next to me, butting his head against my hand. I refused to look at him, clutched the straps of the backpack, and purposefully moved to Kishan’s other side. Kishan looked at my tight expression and then at the white tiger, who fell back and walked behind us. Soon he was far back enough that I couldn’t see him anymore.

I relaxed my stance and hiked without speaking and without stopping for food or rest until I couldn’t walk another step. Creating a small tent with the Scarf, I fell on top of my sleeping bag, skipped dinner, and let the brothers fend for themselves. They left me alone, for which I was both grateful and disappointed, and I fell into a deep sleep.