Page 26 of Tiger's Dream
On the evening of the second day, Kelsey took a turn for the worse. She was losing the battle with the Kappa venom. She writhed in pain and I brushed away angry tears. I knew about this part. There was nothing I could do to stop it.Why didn’t Fanindra bite her and stop the vile poison? As Ren tried to get her to drink, I whispered, “Come on, Fanindra. Kelsey needs you.”
At that moment, the golden cobra awoke. She slid from Kelsey’s arm and coiled her body next to Ren’s thigh. He didn’t even notice her. Opening her hood, her tongue flicked out several times, and then she turned and looked directly at me. The snake swayed back and forth as if waiting for me to acknowledge her.
I knew I needed to ask.
Whispering into darkness, I begged Fanindra to help Kelsey, to take away her pain and heal her from the demonic poison. Her head lifted and her tongue shot out as if tasting my words. Then, she wove her golden-scaled body up Kelsey’s shoulder, lifted her head, and opened her mouth widely. She struck quickly and repeated the process several times.
Ren had his back turned; he’d been shuffling through the backpack when it happened. Fanindra was already coiled and inanimate again by the time he brought the bottle of water to her lips. Kelsey gasped and lifted fingers to her neck, which was when Ren finally noticed the puncture marks. Carefully, he cleaned the wound and then lifted Kelsey in his arms.
When Kelsey lost consciousness, he threatened the gleaming snake. “If what you did saves her life, then I owe you mine. But if she dies, then be warned, I will find a way to destroy both you and the goddess who sent us on this quest.”
Something dark and foreboding festered in my brother’s eyes on that black night, something I was very familiar with. Something I never wanted him to know. My thoughts turned to the goddess he’d mentioned. I frowned. The idea that Ren or anyone else could cause Anamika harm was ridiculous, and yet it bothered me when I thought of leaving her alone for so long. Closing my eyes, I tested our connection and was assured that she had come to no harm in my absence. I shifted, feeling a bit guilty, but determined to follow along my course.
It soon became obvious that Kelsey was healing, and after sunrise, she woke. Ren held her close and shared his feelings in a wistful sort of way that I never could have. How was I supposed to compete with a poet who wooed women with flowery speeches?
In truth, Ren openly sharing his thoughts and feelings with Kelsey at this stage in the game surprised me. He trusted her. Told her things he’d never shared with me or my parents or even with Kadam as far as I knew.
That he, too, had been contemplating ending his existence was something we never spoke of. I identified with that. And in the space of a few minutes, I came to see my brother in a new light. Perhaps he had suffered as much as I had. Perhaps when he looked at Kelsey, he, too, had seen a way out, a way through, a way to rise above our sorry lot.
I didn’t blame him for loving her.
I didn’t blame him for wanting to emerge from the jungle a whole man.
I didn’t blame him for taking his chance to have her and running with it.
Closing my eyes, I sucked in a deep breath. Kelsey answered Ren’s heartfelt words by saying, “It’s okay. I’m here. You don’t need to be afraid.”
Keeping my eyes closed for just a moment longer, I pretended she was speaking to me. Putting her hand onmyarm. Reassuring theblacktiger instead of the white.
Kelsey thanked Ren and then Fanindra for saving her life, and I couldn’t help but feel bitter about the fact that it was really me who had saved her and that she would never know. Grunting, I leapt down to the mouth of the cave to follow them inside and amended that thought to Kelsey didn’t know…yet.
I followed the two of them through the cave and was fascinated by the glimpses of scenes from our past and of their future. The haunted cave had no effect upon me other than to taunt me with images of things I regretted. Anamika appeared near the end. She was young and she was crying, something I’d never seen her do. She had a bruise on her cheek, and if I hadn’t known the nature of that cave, I would have gone after her to see to her injury.
In the tunnel leading to Hampi, I moved as soundlessly as I could, but Ren often glanced back and stopped from time to time to listen. At one point, he sniffed the air, and I realized he might identify my scent, so with a few whispered words to the amulet, I masked my scent like Kadam had, and soon all I could smell, other than Ren and Kelsey, was the scent of the moss growing on the walls.
Kelsey was exhausted and mostly oblivious to both Ren and her environment. The fact that Ren was in love with Kelsey, even in the beginning, couldn’t be disputed. But I already knew thathelovedher. The question remained, did she truly love him more than she loved me?
***
Leaping through time, I spied on them. Surges of hope were dashed with tender scenes that tortured my heart and cut me asunder. I forced myself to analyze their intimate discussions, listened to their whispered promises, and saw the love grow between them.
Disguising myself as a waiter, I served them on Valentine’s Day and was barely able to stop myself from pulling his chair out from under him before she perched on his lap. Hidden in the bushes, I watched him present her with an anklet and beg her not to leave him. At the dance in Trivandrum, I saw him shrug off the harem of girls and stalk away with a sober expression the instant Kelsey left in tears.
Invisible, I eavesdropped on their conversation on the yacht right after Ren regained his memory and thrilled for a brief moment when Kelsey said she was going to stay with me. But fast-forwarding a bit, I came upon them locked in a very intimate embrace in his cabin, at a time when, supposedly, she was with me. As I gripped the amulet, the scene disappeared. Anguish tore from my lips as I spun in a whirlwind, not knowing where I should go next or what I was really trying to accomplish.
My mind settled a bit, and I decided that what would comfort me the most, and help me to understand Kelsey’s feelings for me, was to relive the moments when I felt her love. A smile came to my face when I watched our ice cream fight and relived moments in Shangri-La that probably meant more to me than they did to her. She seemed comfortable holding my hand as we walked through the jungle and held on to me tightly when I carried her after she sprained her ankle trying to rescue Ren.
When I got to the day I proposed, I frowned, seeing that she was distracted. It took studying the scene from several different angles, and finally disguising myself as a beach goer lying out on the sand, before I realized that she was distracted byRen. As my past self was struggling with what to say and how to sound romantic, all Ren had to do was walk out of the water and every female within a mile was lusting after him, including my soon-to-be fiancée.
Ren froze when he saw me offer Kelsey the ring, and then he shot off up the hill like a bolt of lightning, changing to a tiger as soon as the bushes gave him some cover. Even then, at that time, I’d had an inkling that something was wrong. That Kelsey seemed almost sad as she accepted the proposal. I shrugged off the disappointment I felt. The fact was, shedidbecome my fiancée. Even though she knew Ren saw everything, she’d made a commitment to me, and it was obvious by watching the two of us together that she did have feelings for me.
Leaving the beach, I time jumped back to our date on the yacht. From the shadows I watched our kiss again and again.
“You must have been so lonely,” Kelsey said as I watched the scene for the tenth time.
“I was,” the other me responded. “I’d been alone for so long I felt like I was the last man on Earth. Then when I saw you, it was like a dream. You were an angel who’d come at last to rescue me from my miserable existence.”
I still felt that way. The curse was broken for Ren but not for me. I was still stuck in a miserable existence, and this one girl was the only person in the universe who could bring it to an end. I folded my arms and leaned against a post, moving my lips to the words I’d long since memorized.
