“I will not be a flower that wilts on the stem, unnoticed and shrinking. Yes. I have been razed by a storm. I have been crushed by a man’s bootheel. What is weak and vulnerable in me has been exposed and then tossed aside like so much rubbish. But I am alive still. This broken girl has sprung back. I have turned my face to the sun and taken nourishment from it. Do you not see? I, too, long for human contact. I want to be touched and loved by one who treats me with kindness and caring. I will accept nothing less, Sohan. Not when I’ve seen what is possible.”
I looked from her intense and pleading eyes to the four beings standing behind her. My hands itched to tear them all to shreds. Then I looked at her and my heart ached. Ana had become important to me, but if being with them would make her happy, then who was I to stand in her way? The man squeezed her arm lightly and she didn’t even flinch like she had when I touched her. My mouth in a tight line, I said, “Fine, Anamika. If they are what you want, I’ll leave you to them. Come and find me when you’re ready to leave.”
Turning on my heel, I tore out the back of the house, and, finding a familiar set of stairs, I bounded up, changing into my tiger form on the way. I roared out my frustration as I ascended the tree, only stopping when I found a little hollowed-out corner. It was fortunate I spotted it at all since I’d barely been able to see without the light that surrounded Ana’s body naturally. Crawling inside, I put my head on my paws and closed my eyes, trying to ignore the disparate feelings coursing through me.
I must have slept deeply because Ana came upon me without me knowing. “Have you stemmed your volatile emotions yet? Are you ready to wake, Sohan?”
Rising abruptly, I bumped my head on the roof of my little cave. Shaking my head, I hopped out and changed back into human form.
She had no idea what volatile emotions I was feeling right then. I had no idea how long I’d been asleep. How long Ana had stayed with the sirens. Just the thought of those men putting their hands on her, kissing her, holding her was like a vice around my chest. How could she kiss me like she did before and then turn to them without so much as an explanation? It didn’t make sense.
“Are you not going to speak to me?” she asked as we made our way forward.
“I see no reason to.”
“Ah, you are upset.”
“No. You can do what you want with who you want. It’s not my concern.”
“Oh? Then if it is not concern I see on your face, what darkens your mood?”
I shrugged. “I just want to get this over with.”
“I, too, want to get this over with.”
“Then, by all means, let’s go.”
She sighed and shook her head, and I followed her through the inner maze of the tree to a wide cavern that seemed vaguely familiar. When I spoke, my voice echoed in the space that, with the glow of the goddess brightening the outer rim, looked like a steep, tiered basin pockmarked with tall, petrified peaks. Each peak was connected to the next with bridges made of interlaced roots.
“Is this the bat cave?” I asked.
“I believe it is a good place for it.”
“It doesn’t look right. Kelsey and I had to scramble on hands and knees to get here and the bridges weren’t here. I had to leap from place to place to rescue her. It was some sort of test the bats made me go through.”
“Ha,” Ana barked a laugh. “Sounds like something you deserve.”
“I deserve? I’m not the one who—” The wood around us shifted and one of the bridges twisted and fell.
“I’d be careful if I were you,” Ana said, clicking her tongue. “You’re likely to collapse the entire area.”
She made her way to a bridge and started up. Grudgingly, I shut my mouth, fearful that anything I said would cause us to fall. We were hard to kill but I didn’t want to risk anything unnecessarily. Ana paused, her hand on a vine that sprouted green beneath her fingers.
“What is it?” I asked.
“A memory,” she answered, looking back with a sad sort of smile. “This root bridge, like all the others here, was created earlier. This one grew when you twined your fingers in my hair.”
She moved ahead and I stood there immobile, thinking about what she’d just said. Even when I went on, I was still processing it when she pointed to something else. “Do you see the way the tree bends just there?” she asked. “That was when—”
“Yeah, I get the picture,” I said, cutting her off. The way the tree curved around itself at the top gave the very clear image of two lovers entwined. “Why don’t you warn me when you come upon the section created when you embraced your sirens, so I can give it a wide berth,” I said.
Ana paused. I heard her voice carry to me softly. “There is no such place,” she said.
I lowered my head and refused to look at my surroundings anymore, telling myself it didn’t matter whether she meant nothing had happened between her and the sirens or if the phenomenon only occurred between the two of us. When I got to the top, she opened a doorway in the tree that led directly out onto one of the large branches. She lifted her arms and laughed as hundreds of small, screeching bats entered the cavern. Their sounds merged with her voice until it sounded like all the bats were laughing along with her.
Their hard, beady eyes flashed in the dim light. With the power of the amulet, she gifted them like she had the snake. They grew before my eyes and were granted with the power to speak. After leaving them with her instructions, we departed.
“Why did the cave look so different?” I asked.
“Perhaps you will irritate me again on this journey and the beauty of the tree will further deteriorate.”
“Very funny. No, I’m serious, Ana.”
She turned and shrugged. “Maybe it’s because you and Kelsey will not be visiting this place for a century.”
“We’re that far back in the timeline?”
“Things die, Sohan. Time turns everything to dust. Even tigers,” she said, poking my chest.
I didn’t like how flippant she was about it. The idea that I could die didn’t bother me so much, but her? I’d never thought of the goddess Durga as being mortal. I made a mental note to ask Kadam about it. Not that he was likely to tell me anything.
Ana’s foot slid off a branch and I grabbed her hand. Unfortunately, the dew on the branch caused me to slip too, and as we toppled over the side, I pulled her close to me and wrapped my arms around her, turning to protect her from hitting the branches. The wind raced past us, lifting our hair as we tumbled. But then we were no longer tumbling. Ana’s arms were laced around my neck and we were floating up higher and higher.
She snuggled against me, resting her head against my shoulder, and almost without thinking, I stroked her long hair. We said nothing, not out loud and not in our minds. We’d been closed off to each other since that morning, and I had no idea how I could breach the silence. The two of us arrived at the top too soon for me to figure out what I should do next. It only took her a few moments to create the Stymphalian birds and place the Divine Scarf beneath one of their ginormous eggs. Next, Ana whispered the words that would grant Ren and me the ability to be men for twelve hours a day the moment the scarf was recovered by Kelsey and my former self.
The Stymphalian birds had been soaring eagles before she tampered with them, and like the other creations she’d fashioned, she asked permission before gifting them with armored beaks and razor-sharp feathers made of metal. I shivered, remembering how close I’d come to dying the last time I’d encountered them. They seemed safe enough now, but I knew how dangerous they would become.
Seeing it was time to go, I reached down and swept her up in my arms. I kissed her forehead as a sort of apology. Ana gave me a beatific smile and kicked her legs as she used the air to lower us softly down. Her smile warmed me even in the shadows of the great tree.
While we soared high among the branches, I asked, “Why don’t they remember me—the sirens, the birds, and the bats? Did you take their memories?”
“Well, like I said, the birds and the bats are first generation. It’s highly unlikely that they will pass on stories of you to their descendants. Their understanding of things is very limited.”
“Okay, then what about the sirens? They’re the same, er, people, as they were when I encountered them.”
“Yes, well, in their case, I wiped their memories.”