“…should have been there for…didn’t you come to tell us…died in my arms…”
Asha frowned. “Who died?”
“Agh!” Naveen curled up into a ball and rolled onto his side with his hands pressed to his ears.
Asha nodded and chewed on her ginger for a moment. She pulled her bag off her shoulder and searched inside with her fingertips among the heavier things down at the bottom. The two rods had slipped down below everything else, and she pulled them out as quietly as she could. With one in each hand, she pressed the cool metal bars to the sides of the boy’s face. Instantly, his whole body relaxed. His breathing slowed and the murmuring stopped, but his heart still pounded against his chest.
After a moment, Naveen rolled onto his back and she moved with him, still holding the rods to the sides of his head. He opened his eyes, and although all she could see were two pinpricks of reflected light, she knew he was looking at her. She smiled. “Hello, Naveen.”
He smiled back. “Hello.”
“Your father says you’ve been very sick for a long time.”
He nodded. “I feel better. Am I all better now?”
“No, not yet. But I’m working on it. Can you tell me what you were doing before you got sick? Did you eat any strange plants? Or a frog? Or a mushroom?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Maybe you touched something. Some black moss on a stone, a sharp red thorn, or a gray vine with blue flowers?”
“No.”
“Did you meet any strangers on the road?”
“No.”
“Come on, kid, help me out here. Did you go anywhere special? Into a cave, maybe?”
“No. But I did go to the old village.”
“What old village?” Asha asked.
“The one at the bottom of the valley. It’s only an hour’s walk away.”
“Were you visiting your friends or running an errand for your father?”
“No one lives there,” he said. “It’s all gone now. Just some rocks where the houses were. The forest is starting to grow over it. It’ll be gone soon, father says.”
She frowned. “Do you go there often?”
“Sure, in the summer.”
“What about six weeks ago?”
“No, it’s been too cold. But I did go down to the stream once looking for frogs. Sometimes they get frozen under the ice.”
“And were you near the old village?”
He shrugged. “I guess so. I couldn’t see very much that day. The fog was too thick.”
3
Asha used the boy’s discarded belt to tie the two iron rods to the sides of his head, but she still made him promise to hold the rods with his hands and to remain on his bed. Then she stood and went back outside, leaving the door standing wide open. Chandra leapt forward to close it, but she stopped him and nodded back at the figure on the bed.
“He’s so quiet. The light doesn’t hurt his eyes?” The man clamped his hand over his mouth, and then slowly removed it. “And he can hear again? You cured him?”
“No, I just gave him something for the pain. Iron can conduct all sorts of harmful things away from the body, temporarily at least. But I’m not sure what’s going on here. Whatever it is, his heart is still racing and his life is still very much in danger.” Asha led the man away from the house. “Priya, why don’t you and Jagdish say hello to him? I think he’d like the company. Just keep him quiet and calm.”
The nun nodded and found her way inside with the aid of her bamboo stick.
“Naveen told me he goes to play in the old village at the bottom of the valley.”
Chandra frowned. “I’ve told him not to go there.”
“Why not?”
The man blinked. “Because he shouldn’t. It’s not safe there.”
“Why? What happened to the village?”
Chandra exhaled. “Two years ago it was attacked by Persian soldiers.”
“Persians? Here?”
“It wasn’t an army. Just a dozen men or so. I’ve heard there was a battle somewhere far to the west in Rajasthan. Maybe these men were survivors or deserters who didn’t, or couldn’t, return home,” he said. “They found the village, killed everyone, took what they wanted, and moved on.”
“Did they burn the village?”
“They tried to. I saw the smoke myself. But the fire didn’t last. Most of the village was still standing when I went down to see for myself.” He swallowed. “I buried the people in their homes as best I could.”
Asha sighed. “I’m sorry. You were lucky that you and your son survived. Why didn’t you live in the village?”
“I did. I mean, I was born there. But there are weeds and grasses there that make my eyes itch and my head hurt so I moved up here to this old place when I married Naveen’s mother. It was hard, being alone up here, but at least I could breathe in my own home.”
“Allergies, huh?” Asha dug into her bag and pulled out two slender brown sticks. “If they ever flare up again, try burning this. The smoke should help.”
“Thank you.” He took them. “But what about my son? Can you help him?”
“I’m going to try, but first I need something from you.”
“What?”
“The truth about the village. I can hear your heart pounding and the breath shaking in your lungs. I know you’re lying, or at least holding something back,” she said. “What is it?”
He took a step back. “How could you possibly hear my heart and my lungs?”
Asha swept the hair from the side of her face to reveal her right ear and the man gasped.
“Are those scales?”
She dropped her hair and nodded. “Dragon scales. It’s a side effect of the venom, just like being able to hear the blood in your veins, or in your son’s, or in the lizard near your left foot.”
The man looked down and jumped away as a soft rustling in the grass darted away toward the stream. He looked her in the eye. “You’re cursed!”
“In more ways than one.” Asha raised an eyebrow. “And I’m still waiting to hear about the village.”
Slowly, he nodded. “All right, I’ll tell you everything. But you have to promise not to tell Naveen.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s about his mother.”
“What about her?”
“How she died.” Chandra covered his eyes. “It’s my fault that she’s dead. It’s my fault that they’re all dead.” After a moment, he looked up though he avoided her eyes and he said, “My wife hated living here, so far from her family and friends. She was lonely, and sometimes scared being so close to the road like this. She was terrified of being robbed for some reason, even though we had nothing worth stealing. She pestered me for years to move back to the village. I don’t think she believed me that the grasses made me sick. Either that or she thought a man shouldn’t let such a thing force him out of his home. I refused to move, so she left and she took Naveen with her. He was still very small then. As he grew older, he started to come out here to help me with the house and garden. We hunted birds together, back when there were birds to hunt. Even when he was small, he was a good hunter. Sharp eyes and sharp ears. And he can be very quiet when he wants to.
“One day while we were in the forest, I found a man peeing on a rock. His clothes were ragged and filthy, but he had a sword on his belt and a helmet on his head. The soldier saw me before I could run, but I waved Naveen back and he hid in the trees behind me,” Chandra said. “At first I thought the soldier was going to kill me where I stood. He spoke Persian. I had no idea what he was saying, but I recognized the sound of the language from travelers I had met on the road. He came toward me, his hand on his sword. But then he spoke in Hindi, though not very well. He wanted to know if there were people nearby. He wanted food and water.”
“What did you say to him?”
Chandra shrugged, his eyes dull and lifeless. “I was going to say no, but then I thought of how terrified my wife would be at the sight of this man wandering through her precious little village. I thought it might change her mind, and that she and Naveen would come back home to me. So I said yes. I pointed the soldier toward the village and he nodded, but he went off in the wrong direction. So I stayed with Naveen in the trees to wait and be sure that he was gone before we went home. And then he returned, leading a whole troop back through the woods toward the village. We watched them go past. I didn’t know what to do. I told myself that it would be all right. They just wanted food and then they would be on their way. They didn’t kill me, after all. So I took Naveen home and waited.”