by Vered Ehsani
“Of course, you can always change your minds and come with Dad and I to the health farm,” Mom offered, an offer we immediately and unanimously rejected.
“Gee, Mom, sounds tempting,” Shanti said, “but I don’t see anything healthy about waking up at 5 a.m. to do yoga.”
“Yeah,” I added. “And I doubt they include peanut butter sandwiches on the menu.”
Even with the attic to deal with, I would way rather stay at home and use any available minute for getting ready for the long-awaited camping trip, as well as doing on-site history research.
“Now,” Mom continued, “I’ve left a list of numbers on the fridge: the farm where Dad and I will be staying for the week, our neighbors’, Shahnaz…”
“Wait a minute,” Shanti interrupted with an alarmed expression that mirrored my own. “I thought Shahnaz was staying with us? Why do we need her number?”
“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” Mom replied airily, as if this wasn’t critically important. “She had a last minute change in her work schedule, so she can’t come. However, Mrs. Garcia very kindly …”
“Garcia,” Shanti shouted, while I groaned again and instinctively clutched at my stomach.
The golden week was rapidly deteriorating into a week of hard labor and food that wouldn’t be fit for the neighbor’s dog. Correction: it wouldn’t be fit for the neighbor’s dog’s fleas, unless you wanted to simultaneously poison the fleas, the dog and the neighbor. In that case, Mrs. Garcia’s food was great.
“Shhh. She’s in the study unpacking her things,” Mom warned us.
“That’s ok,” Anjali said between giggles, “she’s stone deaf.”
“Yeah,” Gita agreed, “you can be screaming in agony as you die of food poisoning and she wouldn’t hear a thing.”
“Actually,” Anjali added, “someone could break into the house, smash a dish or two in the kitchen, knock over that large Chinese pot in the entrance so that it explodes on the tiles like a bomb, try to kidnap a screaming child and collide painfully against the study door on his way out, and she still wouldn’t hear a thing.”
“Girls, that’s enough,” Mom stated with a glowering look. “It was very kind of her to come at the last minute and offer to cook and look after Shanti and Ash.”
“Do I even need a babysitter?” I asked. Actually, I kind of whined. I straightened up, trying to look old and mature. “I’m fifteen now. I should be able to take care of myself.”
“Yeah,” Shanti perked up. “That’s a great idea. Ash is super mature and totally responsible. And he can look after me.”
One of Mom’s eyebrows twitched upward. Her expression needed no interpretation. But just in case we didn’t understand, she verbalized her thoughts for us. “You’re kidding, right? I mean, you are kidding. A week in the house, just the two of you? You’ll end up eating nothing but peanut butter sandwiches, if he”—and she gestured at me—“takes care of you.”
“That’s not true,” I protested. Everyone turned to me with an ‘Oh, yes it is’ expression. I deflated a bit. “Well, yeah, ok, but…” I mumbled. “Peanut butter sandwiches are ok. At least they’re safe to eat and taste good.”
“And they cover most of the food groups,” Shanti butted in.
“Mrs. Garcia is staying. Have a great week, kids.”
“Isn’t there a military boot camp we could go to instead?” Shanti grumbled, her eyebrows almost touching as she frowned darkly. “I’m sure the food would taste way better. At least it would be edible. We may just die of food poisoning after all. Then you’ll feel really bad you didn’t let us eat peanut butter sandwiches, you know.”
“Ladies,” Dad huffed as he entered the room, his round cheeks red with exertion from loading the suitcases into the car. “We need to get in the car, if we’re still planning on leaving today. And what in heaven’s name did you all pack? Rocks and lead weights?”
“Yes, dear,” Mom murmured as she strolled out of the room. “We thought that would be far more practical than clothes and shoes.”
Dad glanced around, went red in the face and blurted out, “What are you wearing?”
There was only one person he could be talking to.
“My baseball uniform,” Shanti responded with the obvious, somehow managing to sound polite and irritated at the same time. “The team is practicing this afternoon.”
Dad waggled his head from side to side, eyebrows wagging up and down. Anjali stood behind him, hands on hips, mimicking Dad. It wasn’t that difficult. We all knew what he was going to say.
“Why, why, why baseball? Why? Why can’t you study traditional Indian dancing instead?”
“But that would involve wearing dresses,” Gita chimed in.
“You know,” Dad continued in his efforts, “it’s a very lady thing to do, real Indian dancing. Your mother was an excellent dancer. I still remember …”
“Oh no, it’s the mushy how-we-met story,” Gita moaned as Anjali waggled her head back and forth, imitating Dad’s.
“Thanks, Dad,” Shanti interrupted. “I prefer baseball.”
“But…”
“Shall we go?” Mom called out from the front door. “That is, if we still want to leave today.”
“Bye, Ashish and Shanti,” Anjali called mockingly to us as Gita snickered. “Have fun cleaning the attic and starving.”
“Or dying of food poisoning,” Gita added and two of the brattiest sisters in human history burst into laughter.
“You are so going to regret that comment,” Shanti threatened in a low voice while I slumped onto the sofa in defeat. The front door slammed shut and a moment later, we heard the car veer out of the driveway and, by the sounds of it, narrowly avoided hitting Boomer, the neighbor’s dog, on the way out.
“So, you want to start on the attic?” I asked dejectedly.
“Oh, please, let’s,” Shanti retorted sarcastically. “And then after that, we can ask our dear babysitter to cook us some toxic stew. A good bout of food poisoning should make this summer holiday a smashing success. And if we’re really lucky, we’ll have to be hospitalized and that way we can actually enjoy our week.” She stormed off, fuming.
“So is that a yes?” I called after her, laughing despite my sour mood.
“Do I wear dresses?” she shouted back as she pounded up the stairs.
Still chuckling, I followed her slowly, wondering how long it would actually take to clean up the attic. I plodded past the study before going upstairs. I could hear the TV blaring from inside. Anjali was right: with her deafness compounded by the noise of the TV, Mrs. Garcia wouldn’t hear the fire truck if it broke down the front door and drove through the house.
Near the top of the stairs was Shanti’s room. I could hear some ‘loud and obnoxious noise’ (Dad’s words, not mine) pounding out unintelligible lyrics into the hallway. I think she likes any music that was impossible to dance to and even more difficult to understand. I caught a glimpse of one of her walls, covered with posters of baseball players. A bat was propped up in a corner. Anyone who didn’t know better would assume that was my room.
For the record, I don’t like baseball. I don’t like covering my walls with posters. I don’t like messy, cluttered bedrooms. And I don’t like having to tell my friends that I might not have much time to help out in planning and shopping for our camping trip. Although truthfully, most of that time together to ‘plan’ was really just an excuse to hang out. All the real work would be done the last few hours before we actually had to leave. Still… I wasn’t looking forward to breaking the news.
Once in my warm room, I slumped down at my desk and then smacked my hand down, which hurt me more than it hurt the desk. And it wasn’t even the desk’s fault that I had inadvertently closed the Book of History when Mom called, and now I had lost my place. My shadow scar began to itch a bit. Taking a deep breath, I started at the beginning of the book and slowly turned the heavy pages, studying the faded, hand-painted pictures. For the first time, I also looked closely at t
he handwritten sentences scrolling down one side of the pages. I realized that it wasn’t any script that I recognized. I wondered why I hadn’t noticed that before, but then stopped dwelling on it as I turned a page and saw the portrait of someone I knew.
“Bibi,” I exclaimed softly, staring dumbfounded at the little painting of my very eccentric Great Aunt. I had been through this book countless times, and had never seen her portrait before. That didn’t surprise me too much. It had happened before, so either I was really inattentive (I know some teachers who’d agree with that) or pictures appeared when they were needed.
I peered closer at the portrait. It was detailed, perfectly depicting every crease on her brown face, the mysterious depth of her dark eyes, the numerous veins crisscrossing her thick hands and the oddly shaped and rather unique blotch of a birthmark at the base of her left thumb. Even the cluster of small, round pockmarks around her neck was faithfully replicated, scars from scratching during a bad case of childhood chickenpox. Long grey hair seemed to swirl behind her, and I realized that this page was open for business.
While the book decides the place and date, I could always decide to enter, exit or close the book and walk away. Or in this case, I could check on Juna. Maybe she’d be less cranky and more grateful.
Sometimes, it really is better not to think too much about something. Not always, but sometimes. This was one of those times, I figured, when action was required before thought. So, before I could think more about it, I placed a hand on the picture and felt the strong sucking sensation that started at my fingers and quickly embraced my entire arm as I was pulled through the page and into the veil. There was nothing on the other side, which was strange. Usually there was some scene waiting for me to enter, but this time, I was only able to enter the veil.
Eagerly, I glanced about, still expecting to see Mir, a guide of sorts who liked to lurk about here. But she must’ve gone on an extended leave or something. No loss there. At first all I saw was the gently undulating, parallel curtains of misty light. Pearly white, glowing fog obscured the ground, the sky and everything around me. The brightness and continuity of the surfaces were a bit disorientating, as everything blended into everything else.
“Bibi?” I called out softly. My voice didn’t travel very far, and compared to the immensity of the silence, I sounded frail and tiny.
I called out again and then far in the distance I saw a shadow swirl. An image of the stalking hunter hidden in a snowfall came to mind. Before I could panic or jump back to my room, the shadow quickly brightened into a distant, blurry image of Bibi. She looked very tired and somber.
“Wait,” she called out, her voice sounding as faint as she looked.
“Bibi, what are you doing in here?” I blurted out, and then added hastily, “It’s great seeing you of course, but how did you get in here? And…”
“I don’t understand,” she interrupted, looking rather distracted and unfocused as she glanced around. “I’m not supposed to be here.” She sighed deeply.
That sigh worried me way more than her haggard appearance, and I tried to move closer to her but something prevented me. “Why shouldn’t you be here?”
“I’m not sure.” She kept glancing around and then seemed to see me for the first time. “Who are you?”
“Ah… Bibi, I’m Ashish, your nephew. Don’t you recognize me?”
Suddenly, her gaze sharpened and she stared at me. “You mustn’t go in,” she stated firmly, ignoring my question. “No matter how tempting it may be or how desperate you think the situation is. You. Must. Not. Go. In.”
I was relieved that at least Bibi seemed to know who I was now. “What about your whole lecture about making choices, not sitting on the fence, getting involved in life? Any of this ringing a bell?”
She kept staring at me and then shrugged her shoulders.
I frowned and tugged on my hair. I was used to not understanding, but this time, I was really confused. After all, Bibi had been the one to encourage me to go in when she gave me the Book of History. Actually, she had pretty much ordered me to. “Is something wrong?”
She looked at me like I’d just asked a no-brainer question, which I had. “Obviously,” she replied, her eyes brightening a bit, making her look a little less worn out for a moment. “Obviously, something is wrong, since I just told you not to go in, no matter what.”
She coughed and her eyes dimmed while her image shimmered and blurred further. “I thought I trapped him.”
I knew instantly whom she meant. “Yeah, you did. You told me you closed the book on him and that’s why he couldn’t leave.”
“Hmm.” Bibi tapped her lips with a finger, and then asked, “I told you that? Why would I do that?”
“Ah… yeah. You did. Along with other stuff like: what we focus on, we become.” I was seriously starting to wonder what Bibi had been focusing on lately, because she was acting weirder than usual.
She gazed upwards, her voice dreamy. “That seems vaguely familiar. But I also remember something else happening instead. Nothing to do with the book. Something else, something bad and unexpected. And how did this boy get in here?”
Then, suddenly, she shook her head, fixed her sight intently on me and continued in a strong, confident voice. “I don’t know how he did it, but I can’t find him where you last left him.”
I inadvertently took a step back, tugging at a lock of hair and resisting the urge to run. Bibi wasn’t just confusing me; she was scaring me. It was like she kept flipping back and forth between two different personalities faster than my dad could flip pancakes. And each persona had a different set of memories.
“Who…”
“Kali,” she snapped. “Kali has disappeared. He doesn’t seem to be in the 18th century anymore. It shouldn’t be possible, but he escaped and I can’t see where he’s gone to.”
“That’s not good,” I breathed out. Kali was the really evil dude who could control shadows and was desperately trying to get the Book of History. With that in his hands, he could wreck all sorts of havoc, more than usual, that is. He could also escape from the past and reunite with his reflection, a part of his energy that was currently trapped in the present, as in our time. If that happened, if Kali and his reflection got back together, we’d really be in trouble. Even his reflection, a paler, weaker version of himself, was nasty enough to deal with. I really didn’t want the fully functional Kali as my next-door neighbor.
Bibi wasn’t finished. “And there’s something else. Kali’s reflection is returning to Boston.” She hesitated, before reluctantly adding, “He’s coming here, to get the book.”
“Oh,” I whispered. The day just kept getting better and better. “So take the book back,” I blurted out. Just thinking of Kali made my heart speed up, and not in a good way. I felt cold. “Take it far away, hide it so that he can’t find it.”
Bibi was already shaking her head. “I can’t. I can’t because…” She paused as if considering her next words. Whatever she was going to say remained unsaid. “I can’t. Hide the book, stay out of it, keep the house locked up and don’t let anyone in. You should be safe that way. His powers are not so great in the present, at least not yet.”
“They’re strong enough,” I argued. Before she could say anything, I opened my mouth. I was about to ask her why she couldn’t take the book back but I paused.
On second thought, I didn’t really want her to take it back. As freaky as Kali’s reflection was, I didn’t want to give away my key to moving through the veil. I still needed it to help Juna. During my last adventure, I had made a decision: I wasn’t going to sit on the fence anymore and let life make choices for me. Despite her irritating attitude, she needed my help, and I was going to give it to her. Plus, I knew what it felt like to be abandoned while time travelling. Mir had done that to me on my first trip back in time. The past can be a pretty nasty place to get stuck.
I was tempted to tell Bibi all this, but for some reason that I couldn’t quite verbalize, I
didn’t. So in order to justify my open mouth, I asked the first thing that came to mind. “Where are you?”
Her eyes shifted slightly, and I had the distinct feeling that she was trying to avoid telling me something. It wouldn’t be the first time. “That’s not important for now,” she finally answered. “Just stay out of the veil.”
“I have to keep the book but I can’t use it? That’s not fair.” I sounded like a whiny little kid, so I cleared my throat and stated in what I hoped was a manlier and more confident voice, “I need to go back there.” And then, rather than shutting my mouth, I boasted, “I did a pretty good job dodging him before. I’ll be ok.”
Bibi stared at me, into me, and her eyes darkened with concern. I could tell she was not impressed by my reassurances or my ego. “Ash, be wise. Remember the Liberty Tree experience.”
I gulped and shivered, even though I couldn’t actually feel anything in the veil. The last time I had boasted about the powers the book gave me, I’d been slammed into a twisted, nightmarish parody of a Christmas postcard scene with bloodstained snow and living shadows about to eat me up, and I was literally unable to move until I’d humbled myself a bit. Well, actually, a lot. I had only just escaped being a monster shadow’s midday snack. I tugged at my hair and glanced around. Was it my imagination or had the lighting dimmed?
“Yeah, I’d rather not remember.”
“Well, you need to. Power without humility is dangerous. Your survival so far has been more from luck than anything else.”
“Gee, thanks,” I muttered. She was probably right though. That made it even worse.
That’s when I noticed she was fading, literally. I could now see through her. “Bibi, are you…” I stopped and gulped. She wasn’t just fading. She suddenly didn’t look very well at all. Worse than that, she looked scared, her eyes twitching as she clenched her hands together. “What’s happening to you?” I had to force the words out; my throat felt tight and my lungs didn’t seem to be working very well.
