They shared an apple for supper and then the two women and their little mongoose curled up in the corner of the room and fell asleep.
From a dreamless oblivion, Asha awoke. She lay very still, peering into the darkness. There had been a sound, but she was not sure if it had been a true sound in her left ear or something stranger in her right ear. The dragon scales itched but she did not touch them. She sat up and looked around the room. Priya lay snoring on her back with the little mongoose Jagdish curled up in her hair. The six elderly sleepers appeared unchanged, all lying at different angles to fill the floor space according to their heights with their heads all clustered in the center of the room and their legs spiraling crookedly out to the walls.
A soft thump drew Asha’s gaze to the center of the room where the bowl made a black circle in the shadows. Beside the bowl a small black shape rested on the floor. Round but lumpy, the thing teetered and rocked for a moment before coming to a stop. She looked up and saw several holes in the roof thatching all large enough that she might put her whole arm through them. Outside a light breeze troubled the trees and the leaves shushed and sighed like a wave crashing over a beach and a second thump sounded in the center of the room. Asha peered into the shadows and saw another little black shape rolling inside the bowl with a third one next to it.
She crept to the bowl and picked up one of the little black objects and found it was a fruit, though not one she recognized. It had a rough, wrinkled, leathery skin covered in prickly little hairs. Asha held the fruit to her ear, listening for the telltale thrum of life, the sound of the seed’s tiny, unborn plant soul. After a moment she heard it. The fruit rang like a silver coin flung into the air to spin on the wind.
“No.”
Asha stumbled away from the bowl and tripped over someone’s legs, falling back hard on her rear with the fruit clutched in her fist. “Who? Who’s there?”
Silence. Asha stared around the room. Priya was still sleeping soundly in the corner. And when Asha turned her right ear from side to side, she heard only the aetheric hums and whines and booms of the forest, the insects, the birds, and the six old people lying on the floor. Souls everywhere, but none of them new.
“Please.”
Asha looked down and saw a wrinkled face with yellowing eyes staring up at her. The old woman was drawn and thin, weathered and withered like an old tree desiccated by the sun and the wind in some dry and thirsty land.
“You’re awake.” Asha knelt beside the woman and cradled her fragile head in her hands. “Why are you all alone here? Who is taking care of you?”
“Fruit.” The woman shook her clawing fingers at the morsel in Asha’s hand.
Asha gave the rough little fruit to the woman, who gently pressed it whole between her lips. After a moment of awkward jawing and grunting, she swallowed it. The woman smiled. “Thank you.”
Asha leaned down close to the woman’s face, trying to inspect her eyes and mouth in the darkness. “Is there someone coming to care for you?”
“No,” the woman whispered. “We’re alone.”
“But you’re dying.”
“No. Not dying.”
Asha frowned. “Go back to sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”
The woman closed her eyes.
3
When the sun’s first pale pinks and yellows streaked the sky, Asha was still awake. She sat in the corner with her back against the wall, staring out across the room. Priya yawned and sat up. Jagdish rolled out of her hair, shook himself from whiskers to tail, and then squeaked for his breakfast. Priya nudged the little mongoose away and he scampered out the door in search of his own food.
“Did you sleep well?” the nun asked.
“I spoke to that woman.” Asha pointed at one of the motionless figures. Then she pressed one of the rough fruits into her friend’s hand. “I heard these falling through the roof. Eight of them fell into the room during the night.”
Priya rolled the tiny fruit in her palm. “What is it?”
“It looks like a gurbir, almost like a strawberry. But different. Darker and rougher.” Asha took the fruit back. “Don’t eat them.”
“Are they poisonous?”
“I don’t know. But during the night, I watched each of our friends here wake up just long enough to eat one or two of them and then fall back asleep. They swallowed them whole.”
Priya sat very still with her hands resting in her lap and her face pointed out across the room as though she could see the people on the floor. “Then are these people starving to death? They must be if they’re only eating a single berry each day.”
“Maybe.” Asha frowned. “But why would six people all lie down to die in this house, which just happens to be providing enough food to keep them alive? There’s something wrong with these fruits.”
“No,” whispered the woman on the floor. It was same woman Asha had spoken to during the night, and though her eyes were not open, her lips were moving slightly.
Asha crept forward and leaned her left ear down to the woman’s mouth. “My name is Asha. I’m an herbalist. What’s your name?”
“Hasika.”
“Hasika, how did you come to be here like this? Are you sick? Where are you from? And who are these other people?”
“My family,” Hasika whispered. “Father, mother, sisters, brother.”
“Is this house your home?” Priya asked.
“Yes.”
Asha held up one of the dark fruits. “What are these? I’ve never seen them before.”
“I don’t know.” Hasika’s voice sounded like dry leaves on the wind. “We never noticed them either, until one day when we found one had fallen through a hole in the roof. We didn’t have much food, so we started eating those berries.”
“How do they taste?” Asha sniffed the one in her hand.
“Terrible. They sting and burn your throat and nostrils, but only if you bite into them.”
Asha nodded. “So that’s why you swallow them whole. You know, bad tastes are nature’s way of telling you not to eat something, right? How long have you been eating these things?”
“I don’t know. It must have been soon after the little prince was born. Prince Pratap.”
Asha glanced back at Priya before remembering that the nun knew nothing of recent politics and the name meant nothing to her. “Prince Pratap is now Lord Pratap Singh. He was born over thirty years ago.”
The shriveled old woman blinked. “Oh my.”
“I don’t understand,” Asha said. “There’s no way that you could all live so long just eating these little fruits.”
Hasika smiled. “Well, we don’t move about much.”
Asha looked around sharply. “Then who cleans up after you?”
“No one. No need.”
Asha frowned. “That doesn’t seem healthy.”
“It’s healthy. Unless you stop eating them.”
Asha quickly set the fruit down in the bowl and wiped her hand on her sari. “What happens if you stop eating them?”
4
“When I was old enough, I married a young man named Niraj from the village at the bottom of the road,” Hasika said. “He was a very good tracker and trapper, and he was very good at building and fixing things. So when we married, he came to live here with my family instead of having me live with him in the village. Here, he could build his own house and help my father, and be closer to the game trails. And by living away from the village, he said he could keep the smells of people off his clothing, which made it easier for him to go hunting.
“The first year was very nice. We built this house and he was able to catch more than enough food for our table and to sell in the village. But then we had a very dry summer, and there were fires, and Niraj would come home empty-handed more often than not. We were all very worried. We asked everyone for advice, even travelers on the road. There was talk about moving on over the mountains to another village closer to the sea. But one little old man said we should wait a bit longer, so we did. It was easier to wait than to go. And then one night the first of these strange fruits fell through the roof. They tasted terrible, as I said, but we were worried about starving, so we tried boiling them and baking them, and eventually we just swallowed them whole.