The haunted shrine

It was still very dark when they turned off the trail. Sakhi had prayed that they would not find the path, but Dhara picked her way with confidence through the undergrowth.

It wasn’t long before they came to a little grove of fine-needled hemlocks. Dhara stooped under the dark boughs of an old fir. The tall tree creaked and swayed in the last gust of night wind. All became silent. Sakhi hung back, then reluctantly followed as Dhara plunged on.

They came to a small clearing where a crude stone image with fat breasts sat squat and round-bellied, its thick legs bent and splayed apart. The stone image was so ancient she must have seen all the evils in the world. Sakhi’s neck prickled.

Set before the shrine were a bunch of dried herbs, a leather sack, some eagle feathers good for fletching arrows, a length of hemp rope. Sakhi wasn’t sure what she expected to see offered, but certainly not such ordinary things.

A little flask was nestled between the thighs of the stone image. Dhara knelt and reached for it.

“Don’t!” Sakhi cried. Dead leaves rustled. She jumped. With frightened chirrups a pheasant burst out of its hiding place and disappeared into the fir’s high boughs.

“What’s wrong with you?” Dhara snapped. She was frightened, too.

Sakhi craned her neck, looking for the bird. Above the treetops the dawn goddess had flung her silver robe over the sky, but shadows still clung to the grove. It couldn’t get light soon enough. “You—you shouldn’t take the offering. Someone left it for the Devi. Maybe one of the hunters—”

“What if I’m thirsty?” Dhara straightened her shoulders. “The Devi would share it. Your father shares the meat when the whole clan sacrifices a boar to Indra.”

“He’s doing what he was taught by his father, who heard it from his father and all his father’s fathers back years and years to when the gods learned the sacrifice from the First One. This is different.”

“This shrine is even older than all the rites of your father’s precious lineage.”

“What did you say?” Sakhi’s voice quavered.

“Sorry.” Dhara’s careless apology stung Sakhi worse than the insult to her ancestry. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter what’s forbidden by the gods. This is the Devi’s shrine.”

“You shouldn’t take it.” It seemed blasphemous to take gifts meant for the Devi without asking her blessing, the way her father asked Indra’s blessing to share the boar.

Dhara touched her forehead to the ground and began a prayer. “Om, Devi, jai, jai Ma. Victory to the Great Mother.”

Dhara reached for the flask and held it up toward Dhavalagiri’s proud peak, then put it to her lips.

Sakhi had a sudden premonition. “Don’t drink it.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“What if it’s soma?”

“Who would leave soma here?”

“I—I don’t know, but only a Brahmin can drink it,” she whispered, “and only during the sacrifice. You know that!”

“Your father isn’t the only one who drinks it.”

Sakhi suddenly knew. The shaman’s wife had brought it. “Have you tried it?”

A mocking smile twisted Dhara’s lips, very different from the half-teasing, half-daring grin that signaled she was up to mischief. “No. But now seems like the right time.”

Sakhi’s heart stopped. This was far more serious than Dhara’s usual pranks, like stealing honey cakes or daring a suitor to dive naked into the river, or even taking off on her father’s stallion, for which she’d been ordered to sit at her weaving for seven days. This would have far worse consequences than a tangled loom.

Sakhi must stop her, but her arms seemed pinned to her sides and her feet rooted to the ground.

Dhara sipped at the flask. Her nose wrinkled in disgust, but she took a brave gulp, gagged, and swallowed.

“You see, it’s nothing,” she laughed, coughing and wiping her forearm across her mouth.

“Oh, Dhara.” Sakhi wrung her cold hands. In moments the soma trance would begin. When her father fell under the sacred drink’s spell, the gods sent terrifying visions as often as blissful ones. Sometimes it took him days to recover.

Nothing moved; not a bird welcomed the dawn, not a squirrel scampered from branch to branch, not the slightest breeze whispered through the trees. Sakhi shook with cold and fear. Dhara knelt before the Mother’s image, sightless, waiting for the visions that would soon come. When the soma took Bhrigu he howled like a hyena or spoke in strange tongues, but his guru had trained him from his youth for the inward journey. There was no doubt he would return bearing messages from the gods. Dhara had no training and no guide. Her soul might never come back to her body.

In the darkness just beyond the clearing a dead branch cracked. There was another snap, then a low growl. Sakhi’s heart squeezed painfully. “Dh—Dhara.” Her throat was so dry she could only speak in a hoarse whisper. She stumbled toward Dhara and took her arm. “Get up! We must go.” Dhara did not respond. “Let’s go!” She gave a desperate tug.

A twig broke, very close. A ghostly shape moved through the trees, slow and deliberate.

A magnificent white tigress appeared, terrifying, beautiful, nearly the size of a horse—but that was not the most awesome thing. On its back rode Durga, the Devi in her warrior form, clad in a deerskin, a bow slung over her shoulder.

Durga dismounted. Sakhi stood and staggered backwards, tripped over a tree root, and fell flat on her back, the wind knocked from her.

For a long, painful moment, Sakhi struggled to breathe. At last she gasped. The air burned her lungs. With a groan she rose to her knees, compelled to face the goddess.

Durga was no longer. In her place stood the yogi Mala.

She was more sinewy, and her hair fell in stiff tangles to her waist. There was no looking away from the eyes that stared from the face smeared with white ash. Whatever truth Mala had found in her solitary cave had brought her no peace.

Mala joined her palms at her heart chakra and bowed. “Namaste, Sakhi,” she said in a hoarse voice.

“N-namaste, Mala-ji.” Sakhi pressed her hands together and bowed. The familiar greeting slowed her heart’s pounding a little. “Y-you remembered my name.”

“Of course. You’re Bhrigu’s—” Mala stopped. “She drank it?” Mala went to Dhara and took the empty flask from her hand.

Dhara had not moved, but her face now wore a horrified grimace. Sakhi scrambled to her side.

Sakhi began to babble. “Oh, Mala-ji, I told her not to! It’s only for priests like Father. What if her soul has wandered to the hell realms?” She gulped back a fearful sob. “Please, please, bring her back to me.” The yogi must have this power. She must.

In tears, Sakhi embraced Dhara.

“Hush. Crying won’t help. But I can.” At that moment there was a low growl. Sakhi nearly jumped out of her skin. “Rani and I will take Dhara.”

“You’ll bring her to the village?” Sakhi went weak with relief. “You mustn’t bring the tigress! The hunters—”

“Not to the village. Dhara’s karma and mine are entwined.”

“You must!”

“Silence!” Mala commanded. Sakhi shrank. “No one can change karma’s unfolding,” she said, more gently. “It is what Dhara wanted. To learn yoga with me.”

No. Mala was taking away the sister of her heart, her dearest companion. Sakhi’s lower lip trembled.

“Go tell Dandapani she is safe.”

“He will send men after her—”

“He won’t. He knows she will come to no harm with me.”

At that Mala stood. She collected Dhara in her arms and sat her on the tigress’s back the way one would set a child on a pony when it is just learning to ride. Through all this Dhara had not shown any sign she knew they were there.

Gathering up the sack and adjusting her quiver, Mala bowed once more over her joined palms. “Namaste, Sakhi. We will meet again.”