Page 116 of Tiger's Dream
Ana frowned as we waited for Kelsey to finish dinner. Placing her hand on top of Kadam’s paper, she channeled her energies, and both of us felt the small pulse that thrummed on our skin. “The timing is wrong,” I said.
“You felt it too?” she asked. “This is my fault. I was…distracted when we leapt.”
Tilting my head, I waited for her to finish her explanation but she chose to say nothing. “Do you know how to fix it?” I asked.
“Hold on to me,” Ana said.
I placed my hands on her shoulders and she fast-forwarded time. The stars moved overhead in a blur, and then the sun rose and set within a manner of minutes. Still, there was a thrum of time being slightly off, and when she finally slowed us down, it was almost as if we’d dropped into a notch created just for us. It was late afternoon and the circus had already begun a show. Ren’s act had just been announced.
We crept invisibly into the tent and took a seat near the front. There weren’t too many people attending that day so we ended up very close to the cage. I immediately knew something was wrong. He didn’t take the mark the trainer pointed to. Instead, he ran around the cage, his head lifted in the air.
“He can smell me,” I said as I waved my hand, removing my scent. “We’re too close and I forgot to mask my scent.”
“Maybe that’s not it,” Ana answered. “He seems to have settled down now.”
Ana was right. Whatever had caused him unrest before, you wouldn’t know it now. He performed quickly and was as obedient as those blasted dogs. I tugged at the collar of my shirt, unnerved, feeling like I was tied down with invisible shackles.
When the show was over and Kelsey finished cleaning, we followed her to a large barn. I could hear Ren’s pacing before we even entered the building. He was clearly agitated. Careful to be as quiet as possible, we stole forward, keeping our distance from both Kelsey and Ren.
“Hey, Ren,” Kelsey said, approaching the cage. “What’s going on with you today, mister? I’m worried about you. I hope you aren’t getting sick or something.”
The moment he saw her, he calmed down. His eyes were trained on her and he was as ignorant of our presence as Kelsey. She seemed as transfixed by the white tiger as he was of her. Slowly, she reached out her hand and touched his forehead. I gave Ana a meaningful glance but she just shook her head and mouthed, “Not yet.”
I heard Kelsey gasp as he licked her fingers. She thanked him for not eating her and sat down to read him a poem. I rolled my eyes. Some things never changed. If any two people were meant for each other, it was the two of them. The fact that I even had that thought startled me.Do I really feel that way?Was Kelsey meant to be with him even from the beginning?
Despite my general dislike for poetry, I found myself caught up in the poem about cats. I liked that one. It served to fix the tiny rift in her character I’d allowed to rankle me over the past hour. Kelsey was young. She didn’t yet know who we were or what we’d been through. I couldn’t blame her for being fascinated by a tiger, even one who was in captivity.
As I listened to her read and talk with Ren, I realized two things. The first was that she and Ren were always destined to be together. The second was that it was time to let her go. To let Kelsey be free to live the life she had chosen for herself.
The moment she whispered, “I wish you were free,” I could almost feel the magic thrumming through the barn. It circulated through me as much as it did through her and Ren. The power of the goddess and her tiger rose, golden light lifting up and away from both me and Ana, and after a brief nudge from Ana, it settled on the two people standing by the cage. Ren and Kelsey responded to it. Whether they could see us or just our power, I wasn’t sure, but they could definitely see something.
The truth stones that hung on our necks gleamed, and we saw the white light of Ren’s and Kelsey’s auras become golden and bright as the sun. Kelsey fell back against a hay bale as she gasped and lifted her fingers to her mouth and Ren, snarling, scrambled to the back of his cage. Approaching my brother, I let myself become visible and used the Damon Amulet to give him back the ability to transform to man, albeit for only twenty-four short minutes a day.
When we left them, they had no memory of us or of what had happened. As far as they knew, the only magic was in a girl touching a tiger. We headed back to the forest.
“What’s next?” I asked.
“The Cave of Kanheri,” she mumbled after perusing Kadam’s list. “We have to create it.”
“Create it?” I echoed incredulously. “I’m not sure what it’s supposed to look like.”
“Since I am entirely unfamiliar with it, I will have to rely on your expertise.”
I rubbed a hand over the back of my neck, thinking, and then snapped my fingers. “I have an idea. We’ll have to be sneaky though.”
She willingly stepped into my arms so I could channel the power of the amulet, and I took her back to my home in India. Moonlight filtered through the wide windows as we snuck down to Kadam’s office. He snored softly in his room nearby. Using my tiger night vision, I perused his files and finally found what I was looking for—digital images of the Cave of Kanheri. Kelsey had taken them when she was there.
Turning, I bumped into a vase full of peacock feathers and knocked it over. Anamika shushed me, and I heard the thump of Kadam getting out of bed and the tick of tiger claws on the tiles in the kitchen. Clutching the files to my chest, I pulled Ana close and we disappeared, leaving behind the fallen vase.
Back at our home, we carefully perused the images.
“The monolith looks easy enough to fashion,” Ana said.
“There were traps,” I explained. “Thankfully, Kadam kept copious notes.”
“These sound dangerous,” Ana said.
“They were,” I mumbled, distracted by what I was reading. “Kelsey almost died.” I pointed to a note made by Kadam. “The cave is ancient,” I said. “We’ll have to figure out the approximate year. Also, there were carvings on the walls.”
