The Search for Starlight

by Elyse Salpeter

  This knowledge was a bitter pill proving to her that, yet again, she would never just be a regular human girl trying to live a normal human existence. The otherworldly could not leave her alone. This time, though, something seemed different. It was a new feeling with a new meaning. She had the distinct impression the creature called out to her, and though she tried to understand it, all she could sense was that it was evil and it was… hungry? Yes, very hungry. Perhaps it’s some kind of Hungry Ghost Demon? But what is it doing here on the Earthly plane? They never leave the hell realms.

  Desmond had been standing next to her, holding her by her waist to give support, and he’d felt her tense. “You okay? What’s going on?” he whispered in her ear. He knew her too well.

  She’d squeezed his hand to imply she was fine, and then gazed around the cemetery, searching until she noticed a solitary man peering around a vault a few rows over. She couldn’t see his features clearly, as he was bundled up from the cold within the folds of his hooded coat, but something about him alarmed her immediately. His stance was not one of a gentle mourner.

  Was he the demon? A demon hiding in the guise of a griever? But at second glance, she didn’t believe he was the demon. There was something all too human about him. But is he working with one?

  Kelsey took a step towards him, and the man suddenly turned and fled.

  She’d wanted to go after him, but with her injury she could barely walk and knew she wouldn’t get far in her stilettos and crutches in the snow. Her anger rose at the audacity of someone spying on her while she paid respects to her friend. Oh, if I could only rise up to the size of the sky and pick him up like a little fish and shake him while he drowned in the air. If only I could light my fingers ablaze with fire and shoot it in front of him to block his path. If only…

  Kelsey flinched. She had to stop letting those arrogant thoughts invade and occupy her mind. Thoughts in which she believed herself superior to everyone else on earth. Thoughts that reminded her she could be a goddess if she left this Earthly plane and went to almost any of the other realms of existence.

  Thoughts that reminded her that she, too, was a demon.

  I’m not! I’m not! Seriously, she had the stitches in her leg to prove she was human. But I am better than a human. I can do every crazy demonic thing if I wanted to. Just not here on Earth. Or can I? Kelsey had tried so hard to stay human, she’d not actually attempted tapping into the powers she knew she possessed in the other realms. Stick to your human path, Kelsey.

  Kelsey came upon the address she sought and stood in front of an old four-story brownstone. A pharmacy took up the space on the first and second floors, and she could see parts of wheelchairs, walkers and old canes piled high behind the paned glass windows. She peered through the chipped metal grate blocking her entrance to the hidden basement apartment below. The door was recessed and no light came from the window, which she could see was heavily curtained.

  Kelsey unlocked the metal gate and stepped gingerly down the uneven concrete stairs. There was no sign or light to indicate anyone’s presence, and it was late so she knew the shop had closed, but she also knew it was occupied. She’d called earlier and when she’d introduced herself, an old man told her to come over immediately and then unceremoniously hung up on her. She peered into the windows, but the fabric curtain blocked her view. Kelsey rapped the heavy door knocker and waited.

  It took a full minute, but eventually she heard hobbled footsteps coming towards the shop door. Two locks unclicked and then a hunched Asian man with a wizened face studied her intently through the chain link door lock. She thought he squinted, but he had so many wrinkles she wasn’t quite sure.

  She leaned forward. “Are you Mr. Dolma? Chuong Dolma? May I speak with you, please?”

  The shopkeeper scrutinized her a bit more and then removed a leather cord from around his neck. Hanging from the cord was a palm-sized talisman of a bird. The shopkeeper thrust his hand out between the door and the frame and shook the carving at her.

  Kelsey tensed and took a slight step back. She reacted as if she’d been a vampire and he had thrust garlic at her. Her skin tingled and she got chills, just as she had at the cemetery. Like someone had suddenly walked over her grave. Dammit, something is in that charm. It’s another demon.

  The shopkeeper waved the amulet at her as if it were a weapon. “You know what this is, don’t you?” he asked, gruffly. “And don’t bother lying, girl. Because if you do, you’ll be wasting both our time.”

  She pursed her lips and decided that the truth was the best answer. She had to stop thinking she was the only one on Earth privy to the otherworldly elements of this realm. “It’s a talisman and you’ve imprisoned a demon in there.”

  The old man grunted and dropped the charm, where it landed hard on his chest. “So you actually know. I can’t believe he was telling the truth all this time.” The man unlocked the door chain and let her in. “Follow me.” He shuffled towards the back of the shop, meandering his way expertly through the maze of hoard-like stacks of books and heaps of papers. Golden Buddhas and elephant figures acted as paperweights, keeping down the plethora of documents strewn everywhere, all the piles threatening to fall to the ground with one wayward breath.

  Kelsey followed him, her nose crinkling at the smell of old moldy books and oily leftover Chinese food. “Who was right?” she asked, narrowly dodging an end table whose corner was thrust precariously out.

  The shopkeeper didn’t glance behind him. “Shingen,” he muttered as he shuffled along.

  Kelsey stopped in her tracks. “Did you say, Shingen? You don’t possibly mean Bantu Shingen, the monk from the Bodhidharma Monastery, do you?”

  Dolma stopped at a worn wooden table and sat down heavily on a metal folding chair next to it. “One and the same. He was my brother.”

  Bantu Shingen had been Kelsey’s beloved teacher at the Bodhidharma Monastery during her childhood. The monk who this past year had made the treacherous journey to a gher in the middle of Colombia just to give her a message. The monk who had ended up dying a painful death at the hands of Raul Salazar and his men. But Dolma’s brother? How could that be? Bantu Shingen told me that he didn’t have any family.

  Dolma interrupted her thoughts. “I’m sure he claimed he was an orphan, because he acted like he was one. When I was five years old and Shingen was seven, two monks and an elderly British man came to our little hut in the mountains and told my parents that Shingen was gifted and needed to join the order. They all looked so out of place standing at the front door of our dirt floor shack. I remember the Englishman staring at his shiny, polished shoes and being put out at the dust that had settled on them.” His expression clouded as he recalled the memory.

  “How did they know he was gifted?” Kelsey asked.

  “A very good question. They claimed they’d seen a prophecy and Shingen was specially selected. We were very poor and these men gave my parents a handsome sum to allow them to take Shingen. They were promised that he would be schooled and groomed to be one of the finest monks in the order. How could my parents say no? One of their sons was being elevated from poverty and now my parents had one less mouth to feed.

  “I clearly remember the day the man came and took him away. All of Shingen’s things fit into just one small sack. One minute he was with us, and the next he was gone. And though my mother was promised we’d have yearly visits from him and monthly letters, we never heard from Shingen again. This devastated my mother, and she died heartbroken many years later, always wondering if she made a terrible mistake sending him away. The screams and cries from her nightmares haunt me to this day.” He paused and took a sip of cold tea sitting in a chipped mug on the table. “But then, just two years ago, out of the blue, my brother showed up here at this shop in America. Not to reach out to me as his brother after all these years or to find out anything about our parents. Not to reconnect. He simply told me that I needed to help him. In fact, he demanded it. That the entire fate of the spiritu
al world rested in the balance.” Dolma slammed the mug down a little too forcibly in his frustration. Liquid spilled out and stained various papers on the table.

  Kelsey watched the splotches make the pages change from white to gray as the tea spread. The ink began to bleed on some of the pages. She pulled her eyes away. “What did he say you needed to do?”

  He stared at her with his rheumy eyes, considering her. Eyes she realized were the exact muted brown as his brother’s, but with none of the kind glint she remembered so vividly. “He gave me this talisman and told me that one day a beautiful young woman with eyes the color of the night sky would come visit me to find it. I was instructed to hand this over to her, no questions asked. That she would feel the demon inside because she was special, too. And now here you are.”

  Kelsey was startled. My beloved teacher told you to give me a talisman holding a demon? Two years ago? That was before Bantu Shingen’s murder in Colombia. He knew all along? Kelsey was miffed. Once again, she had proof of how the monks had meddled in her life. How her path was not her own. How even the teachers she trusted had set her up on one dangerous mission after another. They had known she’d be asked to search for this talisman all along. Who had told them? Who had predicted all of this? Her anger continued to grow at the revelation that yet again, she’d been played.

  Did the Emperor and Empress also know this would happen as well? And she realized they did. Why else would they have given her this very address to go to? The question remained, why did they want this trinket holding a demon? They had rid Xanadu of demons. In fact, she had helped them do this! Why would they want her to bring one back there?

  The skin on Kelsey’s arm prickled from sensing the raging demon in the charm and her shivers returned. She concentrated and tried to look inward, but could not understand what the demon asked.

  She stared at the sole remaining chair, on which a Russian Blue lounged. The cat stared at her aloofly and flicked its tail. Kelsey picked up the short-haired gray creature and placed it gently on the floor. She swore the cat stared back at her as if offended.

  “Don’t mind our visitor, Yeshe,” the bookkeeper said. He leaned over, and while still sitting, slid open a metal file cabinet nearly hidden by tomes. The heavy books had warped the top of the cabinet and made it difficult for him to open. Kelsey heard the screech of the metal as he forced the drawer open. It was thick with files. Dolma rifled through some and eventually pulled out a manila folder.

  “Here.” He dropped it unceremoniously on the table in front of her where it made a soft thud.

  She opened the folder and her heart slammed against the inside of her chest. The handwriting. She’d recognize it anywhere. It was her father’s, Benjamin Porter’s, and she knew it because she’d perused his translations for the monks in the land of Xanadu all those years ago when they’d lived in Tibet. Before he’d been murdered by Raul Salazar.

  Dolma pointed to a particular section. “My brother ordered me to have you read this passage specifically. I don’t recognize this language. Do you?”

  Kelsey swallowed and nodded. “It’s an ancient language, sir. From a land called Xanadu.”

  He scoffed. “All this bother and drama for a mythical world? Ridiculous. They had my brother chasing after legends all these years? Recite the passage aloud please, and I won’t even ask how you know the language. I’d just like to know what it was he so abruptly came into my life for, and then just as quickly left.”

  Kelsey turned to the words and translated. “It will be in this lifetime their paths will all cross together. Heed the signs. The girl needs to live. She is the only one that will be able to find the charmed one. She needs to seek starlight. And then the demon will die by her own blood and will be released. If not, all will be lost.” She glanced at the top of the text and the word Starlight was printed in English.

  “The charmed one? Starlight? Who is that? What is that?”

  “Damned if I know,” the bookkeeper muttered. He reached for a sheet of notepaper with scribbly handwriting on it. At the top was the word Starlight and listed below were all sorts of words and descriptions. She scanned the list. “The light that a star makes, lights in the night sky, lumière des étoiles, luz de las estrellas, taa ron, Odgerel, Twila, and Hoshi, among others.

  The bookkeeper tapped the page with his pointer finger. “I’ve been studying this word for the past two years, since it was the only one I could understand. All these words mean Starlight in different languages, or are descriptions of starlight, or are proper names with the words star or starlight in them. I’ve tried to match the words in this text to any language, but they don’t exist. How is that possible?”

  “It’s a very rare language, sir.”

  He snorted. “Really? How rare can it be? You know it.” He sat back and stared at her. “What does this mean, girl?”

  His question startled her. Why would I know? “I have no idea.”

  The man scoffed. “No idea. You obviously know something. You knew who my brother was. How?”

  “I lived in Tibet for two years when I was a little girl, and Bantu Shingen was my teacher. He’s the reason I learned this language. It was spoken at the monastery where I studied. Please, did Bantu Shingen tell you anything else?” She thought about the text she’d read and her mind raced. What demon would die? They didn’t mean, her, did they?

  He sniffed. “No, he told me nothing. He just said to have you read this and give you this amulet. That you would know what to do with it. That’s all.” He sat back and Kelsey had a brief moment where she could see the resemblance between the two brothers, if the bookseller would just smile. But he didn’t.

  She had to tell him. “Sir, I’m sorry to say this to you, but Bantu Shingen has passed away.”

  Dolma pressed his wrinkly lips together into a thin line. “Passed away? You say it like it was a gentle death where he went peacefully in his sleep. Why not say what it really was, girl? Murder. My brother was murdered. And do you know how I know? Because someone from the Bodhidharma Monastery visited me. Not to tell me about my brother and offer me condolences, not to make amends for destroying my family, but to make sure I still had the amulet to give to you. They said it was essential I follow through on what my brother asked,” he said bitterly. “How Buddhist is that, I ask you?” He sucked his cheeks in and chuckled, though the sound held no mirth. “Especially in light of what I know will happen to me after I hand this over.”

  “What’s going to happen to you?” Kelsey asked warily, but the shopkeeper remained mute on the subject. She put a hand on his arm and squeezed gently. “Who came to visit you from the monastery?”

  Dolma shrugged in frustration. “He didn’t give his name. A Tibetan soldier of some kind. I assume a Shaolin monk, because he carried a hook sword and a staff with him, as if he expected to intimidate me with his weapons.”

  “Did the monk talk at all about these documents and who wrote them?”

  “No.”

  Kelsey sat back on the chair. Dad, what were you doing? Were you conspiring with the monks all along? Did he know her perceived destiny all along? Her multi-great, great grandfather Kenmut had told her Benjamin Porter did indeed know her biological history. Did he know her spiritual one as well? He wrote that a demon was going to die. Did he know he might have been writing about me?

  A deep sorrow threatened to overwhelm Kelsey. Not a day went by that she didn’t think about Benjamin Porter. He knew I wasn’t his biological daughter, yet he still loved me and treated me like his own. But what about this prophesy? She didn’t want to even think of her real biological father, Armand Dupuis, the famed but flawed archeologist. While Armand had redeemed himself before he died, he was not someone she looked up to or admired. He’d been a selfish man who traded his soul for glory and wealth on earth. A decision that nearly got her killed. Again.

  My path is not my own to live.

  Seek starlight. So, what connection was she missing? Did it have something to do with the
Decans in the nighttime sky? Was it something hidden in the astrological signs in the Voynich Manuscript? Something in the colorful ribbons of the Xanadu heavens?

  A sudden commotion sounded in the front of the store, and then the shop shook and exploded in a hail of flames.

  Kelsey threw herself to the floor as a stack of books and papers fell in a heap around her. A hardcover hit her on the head and another smacked into her injured leg, and she saw stars for the moment as the pain roared in. She brushed the book off and called out to the bookseller, but he didn’t respond. Kelsey’s skin began to tingle again, but differently than before. Fires popped up randomly throughout the shop, alighting on one pile of papers and jumping quickly to another. The shop shook again as if in an earthquake, and it quickly filled with smoke and flames.

  Demons are here.

  Something whisked by her head and slammed hard into the file cabinet next to her with a loud, metallic clang. She glanced up to see a dagger embedded in the metal. That’s a flying dart!

  It was a weapon of choice of the Shaolin Monks. Are they in the shop now? Are they attacking us?

  Or worse, were they working together with a demon?

  Are they setting me up?

  Kelsey had no weapons with her to fight back and her leg was injured. Worse, the flames and smoke were spreading quickly, and she had to get Dolma out of the shop before the old man was killed.

  A girl’s pained scream echoed from the front of the shop. Another dart flew past Kelsey’s head and hit the cabinet behind her.

  The fumes from the burning books made breathing difficult, and Kelsey heard the old man cough ferociously. Kelsey crawled low to the ground, towards the sound of his coughs and found the shopkeeper under a stack of books and papers. She frantically uncovered him and discovered a puddle of blood pooling beneath him. A letter opener was embedded in his chest where he’d fallen on it.

  Another frustrated scream sounded from the front of the shop. The ground beneath Kelsey rumbled again and more books tumbled from the bookshelves, raining around them. Each falling book ignited in flames as if they had lives of their own. A fire demon is here. We have to leave right now. There is no more time.