Alright readers, here is a slightly longer than usual chapter, to make up for the long wait last time. Enjoy!
***
I feel the world re materializing around me, and suddenly I am sweltering hot. I think that I can sense the blazing Indian sun beating down on my face, so I open my eyes.
I see a reddish-brown dirt road lined with small, wooden grocery stalls, selling their wares. Busy shoppers and vendors yell and grumble as they haggle over prices and all the while birds and monkeys call loudly from their perches in the trees and on the red brick walls which run alongside the road. The road itself is barely visible underneath its covering of carts, carriages, rickshaws, playing children, frustrated parents, assorted animals and animal dung. In short, the place is utter pandemonium which causes me to grin; I am home.
"Cows? Why…are…there…COWS!"
I stifle a laugh. Although Kartik appears to feel right at home, like I do, Felicity seems to be in a state of shock. I look in the direction she is pointing in and I see a heard of cows walking aimlessly down the road. People scramble out of their way, but no one chases them off. "Well, Fee, cows are actually considered holy in one of the major religions of India, so they can walk around freely."
"That's all very well, but they can't just let cows wander the streets at random!"
"Obviously, they can."
I smile at the look on her face. Clearly she doesn't love the exciting chaos of India as much as I now do.
Just as Felicity starts to mutter darkly about the precious "gifts" the cows have left all over the street, Kartik calls to us from behind one of the nearby stalls. "Miss Worthington, Gemma, come over here. Hurry."
The urgency in his voice makes us rush over into the shadow of the stall as quickly as we can. "What is it?"
Wordlessly, Kartik points at two nearby Englishwomen. I can not see their faces because of the matching parasols they carry, but I they are about the same height, and they have an Indian attendant with them. From this distance, their waiting lady looks rather like Sarita, my old nanny.
Bloody hell… it is Sarita! Oh, I remember her so well! She used to play with me, and cook my favourite meals when I was good. Wait a second, if that's Sarita then…
"Kartik, that's my mother and me!"
Kartik turns and meets my eyes. He is wearing a rare, affectionate expression which I wish he would give me more often. "Yes. I brought us back to the time and place we met."
Felicity wrinkles her nose and looks around at the dusty, dung covered road. "You met here? I mean, it's a bazaar of all places. Honestly, how unromantic."
Kartik smiles shyly at me, "Yes, we met here. And at the time I thought that you were the most beautiful girl in the world."
I smile inwardly. Kartik can be so sweet at times; he flatters me almost as much as Simon Middleton did. The big difference between him and Middleton, however, is that I know that Kartik always means what he says. "You thought that I was the most beautiful? In the past tense? Has your opinion changed?"
Kartik shakes his head softly and moves towards me, "No, no, of course not. My suspicions that you were the most beautiful have merely been confirmed." Then I am in his arms and he is kissing my forehead. I pull him closer and bury my face in his chest. "I love you."
***
"I love you", she sighs into my shirt. I hold her closer, and I feel happier than I have in a while. A part of me wishes that we could be like this forever, and just forget about saving that Isabelle girl. A girl whom I haven't ever met, but am trying to rescue.
Kartik, how can you be so selfish?
Gemma moves her mouth up to place kisses along my jaw. I turn my face to catch her mouth with mine, forgetting about Isabelle yet again.
Oh, that's how.
"Will I be constantly telling you two to untangle yourselves? Or will you get a clue and stop it all by yourselves?" An annoyed Felicity huffs at us.
Gemma begins to make an angry retort about how rude it is to interrupt people when they are er, embracing. Her cheeks are flushed as red as her hair, but I am not sure whether the coloring in her cheeks is from anger or embarrassment.
Then I see what I have been waiting for; my brother and my younger self slip out of the ally way behind us.
If they've left my, well, their house, then Felicity, Gemma and I can go check out the book…
I take one more look at my other self and sigh.
I look so lighthearted there…all I really cared about was whether or not my brother and the Rakshana were pleased with me. Wait a minute, isn't that my old friend, Geeta, over there in that stall? She's practically drooling over my other self…not that I blame her. I am handsome…
"Kartik, why on earth are you smirking?" Gemma asks, amusement touching her face.
"Why, just for fun, of course…" I grin at Gemma and she laughs.
"You. Are. Mad."
"Perhaps…but not nearly as mad as you." Gemma makes a face at me, but I ignore it, "At any rate we can go up to my house now, my brother and I just went down the street, so the house will be empty." I set off in the direction from which my brother and I came.
"The house is empty? That's odd, where were your parents?" Felicity asks boldly.
It's not her fault, she doesn't know.
"My father was dead. He died on a Rakshana mission, and my mother was devastated."
"I take it she died too?"
I sigh deeply. "No, Ms. Worthington, she didn't. When my father died she became horrified that working for the Rakshana would get my brother and I killed as well. When we refused to leave the Rakshana to appease her, she kicked us out of the house. She disowned us, so all we had left was each other."
Gemma gives me a look of sincere sympathy, "I'm so sorry."
"Don't be, there's no need. It's over." I set my jaw and increase my pace, jogging through the alleyways until I reach the small stone flat which served as my home until my brother died. In a few hours, my other self would come here and cry himself to sleep over the death of his brother. Then he would vow to make up for his brother's failure by devoting the rest of his life to the Rakshana.
I feel a light hand on my shoulder, "Kartik?"
"This is the house." I lean down and count up three bricks from the bottom of the house wall. Then I carefully pull the third brick right out of the wall.
Felicity raises an eyebrow at me, but Gemma looks into the brick-sized gap I've created and asks, "Is that a key in there?"
I grin, "It was my idea, when my brother and I first moved here." I grab the key and replace the brick into the wall.
Slowly, I insert the key into the lock and turn it. When the door opens, it takes me a minute to remember the layout of the house. It wasn't the biggest or nicest home, so it only had a few rooms. Feeling slightly out of place, I make my way down the hall. I was a completely different person when I lived here. I was young, carefree, rash, and arrogant. Very arrogant.
"How is it that this whole country smells like-"
"Felicity!"
Once again, I am jolted from my reminiscing by the girls, who are now squabbling like irked hens. I shake my head to get back on task, and I make my way to Amar's room. Once there, I bend down to look under his cot, and I find what I am looking for; a box.
"So, the book's in there?" Gemma asks in a voice barely above a whisper.
"It should be." I reply.
"It had better be."
For one ridiculous moment, I start to feel guilty. When I was ten years old, my brother put the book into this box, and told me that I was never to open it, and being the adoring little brother that I was, I never did. Going against old my promise now makes me feel almost dirty.
I hesitate.
Kartik, don't be a child, you're not ten years old anymore! Besides, Amar's dead
I grit my teeth, open the box and then I see it. The book.
Gemma grabs it before I even have a chance to think about it.
***
The moment I see the book, I know that it has the answers we need. I snatch it from Kartik's hands, and begin to flip through. I reach the table of contents, and scan for the section we need.
The Order, The Inhabitants, The Realms, The Borderlands, The Winterlands, The Runes, The Temple of Magic, The Cave of Sighs, The Tree of all Souls - p288… Bingo.
Hands trembling slightly, I turn to page 288 and find the heading we need.
"This is it! 'The Tree of All Souls is a powerful tree which gains and contains the powers of souls. It can not be destroyed, only changed.'"
My eyes scan the rest of the page for some information which I don't already know.
In the winterlands…blah blah blah, more useless rubbish about how to find the tree…
"Here it is! 'The only way to bind the tree's magic forever, and keep it pure is to offer it the purest of all souls. A dove.'"
I gasp as I finish reading. "But…but that's just another sacrifice! How is this any better than when I killed Nellie, or when you killed that bird, Fee? How can this be right!"
Kartik puts his arm around me. In a gentle voice, he says, "Gemma, sometimes you can't help these things. When you killed Nellie, when you lost your mother…those things were sacrifices for the greater good. Perhaps this is too."
I rest my head on Kartik's shoulder, "Fine."
Felicity looks at us with frustration, "Well then, what are you both waiting for? I say it's high time we went and hunted down one of the purest of all souls."
"Er, Ms. Worthington, the bird has to be alive when we offer it to the tree." Kartik says with an eyebrow raised. He probably finds it odd that Fee, an Englishwomen, can speak so lightly of killing.
"Alive? Pity, but that will make it more challenging; I'm partial to hunting with a bow and arrow." Felicity sighs deeply, "Challenging, but not impossible. When we get back to our time, I'll catch one somehow."
I smile at her and she flicks he wrist in an, it's nothing, for a person as talented as me, sort of way. Straightening, I hold my hand out to Kartik, "Then take us back to New York, at the same time we left."
"What's the magic word?" Kartik teases. He starts to walk towards the door of the flat.
"Please, Kartik." I say, exasperatedly, as I follow him out of the flat's door.
"No." He looks at me over his shoulder, and takes off down the street without a warning. Felicity and I are left to follow him, and we have to sprint to keep up. She looks at me questioningly as we run, and I shrug."
When we reach the busy street we first arrived on, Kartik comes to an abrupt stop.
"If please – isn't the – magic word – what is?" I pant.
Kartik doesn't answer. Instead he points to the street in front of us. I see what he wants me to see instantly.
A red headed girl is walking along, wearing a dark expression. Then her eyes cloud over and she seems to be in a trance. She is joined by a curly haired Indian boy who rushes to her side and looks at her with concern. The girl starts to scream and shake violently, and the boy looks scared. After that the girl loses her balance and falls right into the boy's arms.
I fall into Kartik's arms.
"Love." Kartik whispers into my ear as I watch my past play out like a show.
"Mmmm?"
"Love. That was the magic word. I just thought that I would let you know for future reference."
"Ah."
Felicity has been silent the entire time, so she startles me when she approaches us. In a very un-Felicityish soft voice, she says, "Shall we?"
"Go back?"
"Yes."
Kartik grins and says, "Of course. All aboard the INS Kartik, bound for New York!"
