“She stopped a snake from biting you. That’s your story. Is that all?” The old man sighed.
“She saved my life. That seems like enough.” Asha shrugged. “What have you done since you died?”
“Done? Nothing! I’m dead.” The ghost scowled. “What about paradise? What about the next world? Or rebirth? What about me?”
“Can’t say. Never been there.” Asha sniffed the dark oil on her needle. “All I’m saying is that you have the choice to rest here, quietly, without a care in the world. Or you could watch over this place and help it to heal. And maybe you could even help someone passing through.”
The ghost laughed. “You want me to save you from the bear?”
Asha slipped her mortar and pestle into her bag, along with her copper vials and her wool blanket. “No, I’ve got this.” She held up the needle.
“What good is that against a raging sloth bear?”
The words were barely out of his mouth before the bear’s roar drowned them out completely and the splash of light at the mouth of the cave vanished in a blur of dirty black fur. Asha’s hand flashed through the shadows and a faint hiss followed the needle through the cold air. The bear snorted and stumbled back from the rocks, and the sunlight glanced off the hint of steel in his nose.
Snuffling and grunting, the huge animal shambled away out of sight. A moment later, Asha heard the heavy thud of the bear collapsing on the dry earth.
“It’s just a tranquilizer. He’ll wake up in a day or so,” Asha said. She rolled over and began crawling back out through the narrow gap in the rocks.
“What about the boy? What about Naveen?” the ghost called.
“Don’t worry. I have enough for him too.”
7
Asha carefully took her needle from the bear’s nose, lingering only long enough to feel the bear’s hot stinking breath on her hand and to hear the steady thundering of its heart, and then she left. The sun was sinking through the pale blue sky and the still air grew steadily warmer in the bamboo forest as she started up the narrow path, walled in between the leaning shoots and poles and branches.
At the top of the slope she crossed the sunny meadow, circled the fenced garden, and found Chandra sitting just outside the house, his eyes closed. She touched his shoulder and he jerked upright, blinking rapidly. “You’re back.”
“I’m back. You didn’t tell me about the bear.”
“The bear?” His frown snapped into wide-eyed shock. “The bear! I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I should have told you. You saw it? Did it hurt you?”
“No, it just gave me a little exercise. How’s Naveen?”
“Much better. He’s been talking to your friend this whole time. He really likes your little pet, too. They’ve been playing in there.”
“Playing?” Asha frowned. “He’s supposed to be resting. But I guess it’s all right.”
“What did you find in the village? Besides the bear, of course.”
“Not much. Just some old houses and some yellow flowers.”
The man’s face fell. “Then you didn’t find a cure.”
“I told you. Naveen isn’t sick.” Asha held up her mortar and the steel needle resting in the dark pool of syrup. “But I did find a cure. Sort of.”
They went inside. Naveen was sitting up, the two iron rods still bound to the sides of his face, but now there was a chittering mongoose in his lap and a laughing nun at his side. They both looked up and Priya said, “I was beginning to wonder if I needed to come fetch you.”
Asha raised an eyebrow. “And I thought nuns were patient.” She knelt down next to the boy and touched his forehead. He was burning up and the sound of his little heart rattling his rib cage echoed in her right ear. “Naveen, I need you to take a little nap right now, and when you wake up you’re going to be all better. All right?”
He nodded and handed Jagdish back to Priya. The little mongoose raced up the nun’s arm and crept into the dense veil of black hair and white lotus blossoms covering her head. Naveen lay back on the blankets and Asha took his hand.
Chandra squatted beside her. “What are you going to do?”
“The souls of the villagers are clinging to him because they still want to live, and because they’re angry at you both for surviving when they did not. But ghosts are pretty fragile things. We just need to shake them loose.” Asha held up the boy’s palm. “Naveen, close your eyes.”
He did. He tried to jerk his hand away when she pricked him with the needle, but it was already done. She set his hand on his chest as he closed his eyes and his breathing slowed. She held his wrist and listened to the boy’s heart slowing, and slowing, and slowing.
“What’s happening?” Chandra asked.
“He’s going to sleep.” She tugged her iron rods away from the boy’s head and instantly he was shuddering and sweating and mumbling to himself, just as he had been when she first found him. But as they sat watching him, Naveen quieted and stilled. His chest stopped fluttering, the throbbing vein in his neck subsided, and the last incoherent mutter died on his thin lips.
“Is it working?” the father asked.
“We’ll know in a minute.” Asha listened to the babble of souls huddled in the little boy. As his heartbeat stuttered and slowed, the voices fell away and she could feel the heat in his skin fading. “It’s working. They’re leaving. But here comes the tricky part.”
“What’s that?” Priya asked.
“When his heart stops.”
A last dry exhalation seeped out of the boy’s mouth and a tiny wisp of white vapor slithered out of the corner of his mouth.
“There.” Asha grabbed Naveen by the arms and flipped him over onto his chest. She placed both hands on his shoulder blades and began pressing down in quick, sharp thrusts.
“What are you doing?” Chandra grabbed her arm.
Asha shook him off. “He inhaled the aether when he was down in the village. It’s still in his lungs.”
“Aether?”
“Yes, aether. The mist.” Asha eased off, massaging the boy’s back in longer, slower pushes to compress his chest.
“But you told me that aether needs to be cold or else it breaks up,” Priya said. “His fever is the worst I’ve ever seen.”
“Aether needs to be cold to collect and become visible. It doesn’t matter how hot or cold it is if it’s trapped in your lungs.” Asha kept her eyes on Naveen’s mouth. The trickle of mist was so faint and thin that she could barely see it, and it vanished utterly an instant after escaping his lips. “Normally, if you inhale aether, you just exhale it like regular air. But aether is the one thing that the souls of the dead can control, and they’ve been holding the aether inside Naveen’s lungs to give themselves an anchor in his body. We need to get it all out.”
“What about his heart?” Chandra hovered over her. “You said it might stop.”
Asha wiped the sweat from her eyes. “It already did.”
8
Chandra was yelling and wailing, Priya was asking urgent questions, and even Jagdish was squeaking shrilly.
“Shut up! All of you!” Asha couldn’t see any more aether oozing from Naveen’s mouth or nostrils, and she could no longer hear the whirlwind murmurs of the countless lost and angry souls around him. She rolled him over onto his back.
“He’s dead!” Chandra collapsed around his son’s head, cradling it in his lap.
“Not yet, he isn’t.” Asha pulled one of the copper tubes from her bag, opened the end, and slid a small golden needle out into her hand. There were three faint scratches on the needle. She placed her left hand on Naveen’s chest, feeling the ridges of his ribs under his thin flesh.
There.
She plunged the needle into his chest up to the first thin scratch on its side. The boy’s eyes snapped open and he sat up straight, his shoulder clipping his father’s chin and sending Chandra tumbling backward. Naveen gasped and blinked at Asha, and then at Priya, and then at the golden needle still protruding from his chest.