When he was finished, Kadam winked at us, and Ana waved her hand as both he and the loom faded from sight. His voice echoed in our minds, And that advice goes for the two of you as well.
Ana looked down at me and I rubbed my head against her thigh. Her smile was soft but there was something troubled in her eyes. The niggling doubt that played at the back of my mind began circling, ripping up my hope and raining it down on me like so much confetti.
Ana rotated the weapons and presented Kelsey with the bow and arrows. My other self stepped forward, eager to receive a weapon, too, and, perhaps, the favor of the goddess. “Patience, my ebony one,” she said. And I sensed she was talking more to me than to the man standing in front of her. “Now I will choose something for you.”
“I will gladly accept anything you offer me, my beautiful goddess,” my old self said with a wink and cocky grin.
She stiffened next to me. I rolled my eyes and sent her the thought, I’m sorry I was such a scoundrel.
You should be. The corner of her mouth twitched. He doesn’t mean anything by it, though. Well, he does. But it’s nothing compared to....
Ana cut off the thought but it was easy enough for me to finish it for her. What my old self did and said was nothing compared to the evil she’d endured at the hands of the slave master. She deserved more than having the stupid beast I was lusting after her. I snarled softly but my besotted oaf of a self didn’t even notice.
After she gave my old self the chakram, he took her hand and kissed it. I bared my teeth. Ana not only allowed his kiss but she paused, considering him. It was almost as if she was trying to read his thoughts. A moment later, she snapped out of it and said a few more things before both of us were once again hardened into stone. Ana froze time and we emerged from the stone. When time moved ahead again, we were invisible. The two of us watched Kelsey and my old self as they prepared to leave.
“Hello,” Kelsey said. “Earth to Kishan.”
He remained standing in place, watching the statue rotate. “She is…exceptional,” my old self said.
“Yeah. So, what is it with you and unattainable women anyway?” Kelsey asked. Her words cut into me, confirming the uncertainties I carried in my heart. Kelsey was right. I hadn’t deserved Yesubai. If anyone had earned a happily ever after with Kells, it was Ren. And as far as Ana went, she was a goddess. She was so far out of my league that any attempt on my part to further our relationship was laughable at best. Insulting at least.
Ana’s hand slipped under my arm as I heard my former self say, “Maybe I can find a support group.” It wasn’t a bad idea. Not for him and not for me. I moved away from Ana. I didn’t want her comfort and I especially didn’t want her sympathy.
When the temple was empty except for the two of us, Ana said, “I think we should speak of it, Sohan.”
“There’s no need,” I said. “I think I understand.” Laughing self-deprecatingly, I added, “Besides, Kells said all there is to say.”
Ana stared at my back. I could feel her eyes tracing over me, but I couldn’t face her. Kelsey didn’t want me. Ana didn’t either. Could I blame either of them? Maybe the Grove of Dreams had been wrong. Maybe it was showing me what could have been if I had been a worthier man. Ren had suffered miserably for every bit of happiness he got. I suppose I was getting what the universe deemed I deserved too. But why would the truth stone give me a glimpse of paradise and then rip it away? Penance? It was too cruel.
Since we didn’t want to talk, or, at least, I didn’t want to talk, we spent the next several hours ticking off checkmarks on the list. Most of them were simple enough we barely needed to pay attention. We revived the henchmen that hunted us in the forest of Oregon so they could actually overpower me and Ren. Ana froze time, restoring those who’d been injured and whispering in their ears the direction we were headed.
If we hadn’t intervened, Ren, Kelsey, and I would have gotten away. Still, we did too good of a job, and there were then too many men who could have stopped me from getting away with Kells. Ana blinded all those who chased me so they never caught up. She winced in sympathy as we watched my old self struggle with staying awake and getting Kelsey into the truck.
Next, we took away Kelsey’s abilities in the green dragon’s castle, otherwise she could have escaped on her own. Then we put a sort of spell on Kelsey’s foster parents so they would allow her to get on the plane in the first place. Without our intervention, Kelsey would never have left Oregon at all.
Ticking off the next item, I introduced Ana to her first ever football game. Instead of cheering at touchdowns, she cheered when players got brutally tackled and consumed her weight in popcorn and hot dogs. We watched over Kelsey from atop the bleachers. Ana scowled at the boy Jason and created ice beneath his feet to make him fall hard on his backside when he fawned over the women on the field.
She asked me why the young man was behaving in such a fashion and how he could possibly think to impress Kelsey by acting like a fool. I couldn’t answer her question since I agreed with her. I caught her mumbling silently and asked her what she was doing, but her only answer was, “Brightening Kelsey’s spirits.”
Kells looked back at us once but didn’t recognize us since we’d used the scarf to modify our appearance. At the end of the night, we made sure Kelsey’s drunk date didn’t get a chance to take her home. Kadam only had a warning for that particular date. I wished we could have spared her other disappointing nights, but they weren’t on our list.
Visiting the Grove of Dreams again, Ana removed the truth stone from the bed and placed it in the crook of the tree where I slept, hanging in a hammock. She raised her eyebrow, looking at me in question as we fast-forwarded time, but I chose to say nothing about my reasons for leaving Kelsey alone in the bed. After Kells and I left the next morning, Ana moved the truth stone back and we shifted in time to the next place.
We wore disguises at Kelsey’s circus birthday party to make sure her foster parents allowed her to leave. We saw Kadam at the party but it was the old version of himself. He didn’t blink an eye when I introduced myself as a fan of the tiger and shook his hand. The only highlight of those hours together was seeing Ana taste Tillamook ice cream for the first time. It almost brought me out of my funk, but even Tillamook and a root beer, which I scrounged from a vending machine, didn’t help.
I watched her enjoying her bowl as I sipped my drink. My palm ran over my bushy beard that was a part of my disguise. The bulky sweatshirt rode up over my expansive belly. I felt heavy and not just because I literally was stocky at the moment.
Her disguise suited her better. She looked like a slightly different version of herself. I could still see the lovely goddess beneath the ebony skin, hear her laugh, clear as crystal, as one of the dogs wove between her legs, its leash getting tangled. When she turned her sienna-brown eyes on me, they flashed with the same fire I always came to expect from her.
Dusting my thick, pasty hands together, I rose from the table, ready to leave the tent. Ana followed with her mouth downturned.
I kicked a cement block and it shifted, showing a blackish gash beneath. Earthworms and bugs scattered. With a morbid fascination, I watched them slink off into the grass and wished I could do the same thing. “What is wrong with you?” she asked.
Grunting, I shook my head. The long dreadlocks that hung down my neck tickled like a hangman’s rope. “Nothing. I just…I need a break for a while.”
“A break?”
“Yeah. Why don’t you go on home? Get a good night’s sleep?”
The light overhead cast shadows across her face. “You mean you wish for a physical separation?”
I shrugged. “It’s not like you won’t know where I am. You can find me whenever you like.”
“But you wish for me to associate with others. To no longer isolate myself with you. Is that correct?”