The Temple of Indra’s Jewel:

by Rachael Stapleton

  “I’ve gotta go.”

  “I was worried about you. Why won’t you see me?”

  “You strangled me and knocked me off a cliff, Nick. Why would I see you?”

  “It was an accident. Besides, it wasn’t like the cliff was that steep.”

  “Right,” I mumbled.

  “Sophia, we need to talk.”

  “We certainly do not.”

  He hurried to catch up with me.

  “Don’t!” I yelled back. “I thought Gigi told you where to go. Can’t you follow directions?”

  But he kept coming, and his features displayed an agonizing torment.

  “Don’t come near me… this is entirely wrong. I’m going back to the cottage. Please don’t follow.”

  He reached out and pulled me roughly into his arms, ending my pleas with a fiery, one-sided kiss. I attempted to pull away, but he was stronger and proved his force.

  “I missed you so much, Sofa.”

  He shoved my skirt up to my hips and slipped his hand beneath it like a crazed animal.

  “No—stop this! Stop it, Nick!”

  I pulled away and turned back to the cottage, but he caught hold of me, and we both fell to the ground.

  I could tell he was growing more upset with me.

  He flipped me onto my back, holding me down at the elbows, sinking the angles of my arms into the grains of sand. With one hand holding both wrists, he undid his pants. I fought, but it only took him seconds before he had my underwear wrenched to the side. Between the tops of my closed thighs lay a triangle of space. He angled his way in, easily punching through. I hated it, and yet a moan escaped my lips as he hardened further. My mouth hung open in a sob. It hurt, so I cocked my hips to lessen the discomfort, keeping my thighs firmly shut. He rubbed hard against me, and I swelled against his rubs, until that part of me was ripe and round like a blueberry. I didn’t want to like it. I didn’t want to allow him to treat me this way. Putting more of his weight on me, he worked up to a faster pump, beating against me until the inner curves of my thighs began slipping in the sweat. I shut my eyes, and my breathing changed.

  He slowed, knowing I’d given in. With my arms still pressed into the beach, he slid in and out, oiled repeatedly as he bounced against the round, ripe blueberry. He let go of my elbows, and his fingers moved directly to my breasts, squeezing my nipples.

  He propped himself up, his elbows above my shoulders, and put his hands on my throat. I looked up at him, widening my eyes. On either side of my neck he placed a thumb. Both thumbs pushed inward toward the front of my throat. I grabbed at his wrist, but he pushed my hand away. I knew fighting would only make it worse. His thumbs continued squeezing as his hips jerked harder and faster against me, until his body shook convulsively before going limp.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Every inch of my skin prickled and burned. I wanted him off of me. I wanted to shower and scrub my skin raw.

  “Get the hell away from me!” I yelled as he stood up and pulled me to my feet.

  “Come on, Sofa. I was just having a little fun. I missed you.”

  “Well, you sure have a funny way of showing it.”

  I looked out to the water. Gigi’s boat was still just a speck at the end of the lake.

  I turned and started walking back toward the Lake House.

  “Sophia, wait. I want to talk to you. I wanna know what happened with that Irish asshole.”

  “What? It’s none of your business. We’re through, Nick. I mean it.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  I could hear the anger rising in his voice as I walked farther away.

  I started to run. I heard his footsteps gaining on me.

  He was faster than me.

  “Leave me alone!” I shouted, half-turning, almost running over old Mr. Crawford and his dog.

  “You all right, Sophia, dear?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. Just heading back home. Alone,” I said, emphasizing the last word as I looked behind me. Nick had already taken off.

  I locked the door and tried to think of how to tell Gigi. She’d go ballistic and go after Nick with one of Grandpa’s old shotguns—if she could still lift it. I hoped not.

  I stepped into the bathroom and out of my dress. I turned the water as hot as I could get it. I wished I had a wire brush, but even that wouldn’t be enough.

  I closed the glass door and stood there, letting the water beat over me. Maybe I wouldn’t have to tell her if there weren’t bruises from the pressure of his thumbs and fingers around my neck. I took a washcloth and lathered it up. I scrubbed hard until my skin turned beet red, and then I put the towel over my face, letting it wipe away my tears.

  When Gigi got back to the Lake House I was pleased to see she was in a joyous mood. “Hey, doll. You get restless? That son-of-a-gun Crawford had his mutt out there soiling the lawn when I got back. He said he saw you.”

  “Yeah. I walked down to the point,” I said, pouring myself a smoothie from the blender, leaving out the part about running into Nick. “I was hoping to catch up, but I guess I missed ya.”

  “Yeah, I went down to Mabel’s for a tea,” she said, fiddling with her glue. “Now where’s that other box of pictures? Sophia, could you check the closet in the office?”

  I wandered into Grampa Jackson’s office; tall bookshelves lined the room, and there were ladders that ran on tracks. This was where I had fostered my love for books. Dust hung suspended in shafts of light from the windows. Gigi obviously hadn’t ventured into his office since his death. I turned in circles, sensing the familiarity, trying to remember all the times I had spent in here colouring at Grampa’s feet or arguing from the other side of his desk. He had loved to tease.

  Why had it been so long since I’d come here? I was rummaging inside the little closet, wondering where to begin, when I noticed a half-covered cubbyhole above the door.

  “Well, now, Gramps, what were you hiding up here?” I moved to the cubbyhole and pulled it down. The box was filled with papers and books. At first I thought nothing of it; I pushed it aside and returned to the closet until I found the box filled with the old photos Gigi wanted. Then I began to wonder why Gramps would hide a box. I decided I’d take it up to my room and browse through it later.

  “Hey, Gigi, I found them!” I shouted as I walked back down the hall.

  “Great. Set them over here.”

  “Can I help?”

  “You can make a pot of tea and keep me company, maybe do some gluing now and then.”

  “Sure, I just need to run upstairs for a minute.” I ran to the office and grabbed the box. I carried it up the stairs and set it in the corner. Then I unzipped the secret pocket of my suitcase. The rosewood box had remained safely hidden through everything. The box in itself was a beautiful piece of art. I rubbed my finger over the ornate elephant carved on the side before carefully carrying it back to the kitchen where Gigi sat at her crafting station.

  Setting it on the table before her, I turned and grabbed a tea bag out of the cupboard. “There’s also something I need to talk to you about.”

  I glanced back. She was touching the top.

  “Where did that come from?” I asked.

  “And I thought I was the one supposed to be losing my memory. A Punjabi carver.”

  “Not the box, Gigi.”

  “You want to know about the jewels, that it?”

  “Yes,” I said, setting her tea off to the side so it could cool.

  I popped the box open. We both gazed at the necklace. It was covered in purple gemstones, with two large emerald chips for eyes. It was much too decadent to wear normally, as was the matching bracelet that lay underneath. That was the reason I’d only ever worn the ring.

  “Where’s the ring, honey?”

  “You know, I don’t know, Gigi, and that’s what I need t
o talk to you about. You said this was an old family heirloom and to keep the box tucked away somewhere safe.”

  “Yes, you did that, didn’t you? Did someone find it and steal the ring?”

  “No—I don’t know. It may have just slipped off my finger in the water.”

  “Sophia, you wore it?”

  “Yes, Gigi, I did.”

  “Oh, dear,” she said more to herself. She quickly pushed back from the table and began to pace.

  I felt the blood rushing to my toes and wondered if I looked as pale as I felt.

  “What’s wrong, Gigi? Wasn’t I supposed to wear it?”

  Silence.

  “Where did it come from?”

  I followed her to the window and shook her shoulder to bring her out of her daze.

  “What? Oh,” she said, looking up into my face. “It came from my Opa. He gave it to my mother on her wedding day. He only ever spoke of it once and he did so with humour, but my Oma seemed very wary of it and asked that I never touch it.”

  “Did it come from Monaco?”

  “Not that I remember, dear, but then again I was a child. I could have been distracted by a fly at the time. Why would you ask that?”

  “Gigi, sit down. I need to tell you where I went when I fell into the water.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Gigi wasn’t feeling better the next morning. My story had shocked her. She’d gone to lie down afterward, only getting up to pick at a small meal later and then lying back down. I wondered if I should have said anything at all. She’d always seemed so tough, but somehow she was growing frail, older by the hour. I worried that it was my fault, that I’d somehow pushed her over the edge with my outrageous story. She seemed so distant; even I was beginning to doubt my sanity. Maybe Nick was right: maybe I hit my head and fantasized the whole thing based on Gigi’s bedtime story and my guilt at losing part of the family heirloom she’d given me to keep safe.

  I took the canoe out for a paddle after breakfast. As I paddled back, I felt melancholic. Even the beautiful sounds and smells of nature weren’t pulling me from my funk.

  As I walked up the hill to the house, I saw an ambulance parked in the driveway and realized I had heard sirens while on the lake. Gigi’s coat hung loosely around her, unbuttoned, as she was being led to a gurney near the door and helped to lie down. I ran the rest of the way to the emergency vehicle.

  As straps were secured over Gigi, she stared up at me with a mixture of alarm and confusion. Two men collapsed the gurney’s legs, picked it and her up and slid it into the ambulance. One of the men hopped into the narrow cabin and began to put an IV in her left hand. I asked to come along, and they allowed me to jump inside. I patted her arm, trying to look calm and reassuring. I didn’t know what to say to break the silence. Minutes seemed to pass before finally the doors of the ambulance were closed. Time was both elongated and slowed.

  The ambulance roared to life. I bucked forward when it started out over the gravel. Gigi let out a moan, and I leaned forward, whispering in her ear. The floor vibrated as we twisted and turned. Finally I felt it speed up as we reached the open road. On the gurney, Gigi was a mass of resistance, complaining of the pain in her spine. Watching her suffer was ethereal, as if we were being transported somewhere—not just our bodies being carried in an ambulance. The siren was on, but it didn’t seem loud. How will the world go on without Gigi? In the eerie quiet of the ambulance I felt like I was the one being taken away. I would be alone without her.

  We arrived at the hospital. Doors opened, and she was rolled out and into an examining room. Someone asked, “Are you family?” It seemed a silly question. Why else would I be there, tears streaming down my face? Gigi was making sounds somewhere between language and a moan. Finally, someone I took to be a doctor came into the room; dark-haired, he appeared to be in his late thirties. A stethoscope hung around his neck. He looked at his printout and wandered out of the room.

  I followed him out to the hall, trying to catch up, before Gigi’s scream rose and echoed with the blood-curdling resonance that only the truly terrified could create.

  I ran into the room, called by instinct to discover what pain had brought such absolute horror to my beloved grandmother.

  I saw nothing but my aged Gigi sitting up in the bed, her arms stretched out in front of her, all but one finger curled into her fists with a terrible rigidity, as if she was pointing. I looked desperately around the room, meeting the eyes of a nurse as she entered.

  “Gigi! What’s wrong?” I cried out. I tried to ease her back down onto the bed, but she was inflexible. The nurse came forward, calling her name, holding her and then shaking her. Once again, Gigi ignored us.

  Then she went down. She simply crumpled into a heap in the centre of the bed. The nurse and I looked at one another.

  “What’s happening to her?” I asked, my voice high pitched and anxious.

  The nurse shook her head, staring at the monitors as if stumped.

  “Nothing. She’s fine. Must be a nightmare,” she said before leaving the room.

  Green eyes, the colour of grass, opened to mine. They were filled with pain. Her head was haloed by her wealth of white hair, and she smiled sleepily at the sight of my face, as if nothing had happened—as if the bone-jarring sounds had never come from her lips.

  “Did you have a nightmare?” I asked anxiously.

  Then a troubled frown knit her brow. “He’s there! Turn around!” she whispered in a panicked breath. A sorrow deeper than despair hit me. I wondered if she was hallucinating.

  “He wants Mama’s jewels!” she cried. “Hide them.” For a fleeting second, I wondered if Gigi knew more than she had let on. Then guilt hit me as I realized I had done this. I never should have told her what happened—it was just too much. I felt overcome, but I swallowed the sob. A nurse wheeled in another bag, fussed with the intravenous line, attached an access joint to it, and began another drip.

  “Morphine,” she said. “That should help.”

  As I tried not to think about what she’d just said, I realized I should call my grandmother Greta.

  We were moved to a room with monitors, a chair and a television suspended above the bed, with curtains that could be drawn for privacy. It wasn’t brightly lit, but whispers of grey light filtered in through the window. Gigi was transferred to the bed, and I prayed the morphine was working. An hour later, the nurse returned to apply cold compresses to her forehead, as if we were living at the turn of the century and there was nothing to do but apply a damp cloth for comfort.

  Gigi bolted upright. “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven,” she mumbled. “A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant.”

  “Gigi, what are you talking about? Are you singing right now?” I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  “Ecclesiastes three,” she whispered. Her words were so jumbled, they were hard to understand, but by the fourth time, I knew she was quoting her favourite passage in the Bible.

  “A time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.” I finished the passage with her, which seemed to agitate her more.

  “Too soon. I need to show you.” She fought me as I tried to lay her back down. “You don’t understand. My Bible. Where is it? Find it!”

  I guess everyone wants to hear God’s word in a situation like this, I told myself, scanning the room for a bible. Then the nurse returned.

  After watching the nurse give Gigi another shot of morphine, settling her quite comfortably, I sat holding her hand until she fell into a deep sleep. The nurses had been very kind and brought me a reclining chair that I could doze in and out of in a dreamlike state.

  Finally she woke. She seemed much better. She turned to me, tears brimming in her eyes.

  “Come closer, child.”

  I dutifully moved out of the
recliner and into the chair by her bedside.

  “I’m so sorry, Gigi. I never should have said anything.”

  “Now, now, hush. Let your Granny speak before it’s too late… I know I romanticized life for you when you were younger, telling you magical stories my Opa told me, but I never told you everything… I never told you what she said… about the jewel being cursed.”

  “Who said the jewel was cursed?”

  “Oma-Gretchen.”

  I shook my head, forcing back tears as she patted my hand.

  “Opa-Johanne playfully spoke of it at dinner one night—the night my mother wore the necklace. Oma grew very agitated. Opa called her superstitious, said she was upset because she blamed it for Velte’s disappearance.”

  “Velte was your father’s twin who died on the passage over from Germany, right?”

  “You do pay attention, don’t you, dear?”

  “Of course, Gigi; you never talk of your family much, so when you do, I listen.”

  The nurse returned; we both stopped speaking. She asked Gigi some questions about her pain and pulled back the blankets to check her leg.

  Gigi groaned as the nurse moved her.

  “Is it your back, Mrs. Jackson?”

  Gigi nodded, squinting in pain.

  “I’ll get you something for that. I think it’s time for a heavier dose. Just a minute.”

  The nurse left the room, and Gigi turned toward me. “We don’t have much time. I can’t think through these drugs, so listen up. Oma said the gem was cursed. She said Velte touched it and that’s why he died.”

  “Where did your Opa get the jewel set from?”

  “He got the original gem from a curator in Ireland. He had it made into a necklace, bracelet and ring set for Mama. It was accompanied by a typewritten note that warned of a curse. The answer lies with the curse.”

  “A curse?” I asked just as the nurse returned. I wanted to ask what the curse said, where the note was, but I knew Gigi’s pain was bad. She was starting to shake, and I figured I could wait until she was better.

  I never left her side. I woke with every IV and shift change. Sometimes she was lucid, but she was never as clear as the first time. More and more she confused me with her sister, Zafira, and mumbled incoherently about the family curse. That alarmed me, based on everything I had been through. Could she know something more? I rocked back and forth on my feet, needing an outlet for the energy that was rumbling inside my bones. I tried to question her further, but the nurses told me I should let her rest, that the drugs created hallucinations and the patients were apt to ramble incoherently. I had trouble accepting that, but what more could I do? It was like she had a million secrets to tell, and I would never hear any of them.