The next day I trailed Ren as he supposedly was searching for me. Instead, I found him trying to pick flowers only to strip the petals from the stems as they were crushed in his tiger jaws. He spat petals and leaves and sneezed often, growling softly before giving up. Eventually, he settled on bringing her mango fruit. He harassed monkeys in a mango tree until they began pelting him with the heavy orbs.
Snatching up several in his mouth and dropping some along the way, he made his way back to camp. I was watching from the top of a tree in my human form and delightfully tortured him by using the power of the amulet to raise large boulders or move fallen logs in his path to thwart his progress.
He’d stop and smell the freshly unearthed rocks and then head around them until he picked up the scent of his trail again. When he offered up his sad, slobbery gift, I had to stifle a snicker, especially when Kelsey said she didn’t really want them. If only Kelsey knew the pains he’d undergone in tiger form to bring her back so simple a present.
They swam together near the waterfall, and when the rock fell, I had to hold back from saving Kelsey myself. After a few hours of intense speculation, I decided that Ren saving her there might have been the catalyst for her to fall in love with him. She’d seemed largely indifferent to and perhaps a bit afraid of Ren before the waterfall rescue, but after he saved her from drowning, it became rather obvious that she was starting to feel something more than sympathy for him.
Impatient with the long hours, I found out I could skip ahead in time, fast forwarding like one of Kelsey’s movies. The sun set in a matter of seconds; stars moved as if someone pulled a dark blanket full of shining lights across the sky. My stomach lurched with the process, but it didn’t affect me for more than a few seconds. Adjusting to the discomforts of time travel couldn’t happen fast enough.
Around midday, when they sat together again by the fire and Ren was in human form, I slowed time to normal. Ren was saying the last lines of a poem. I rolled my eyes and listened.
…Thee, O slender maid,
love only warms;
but me he burns;
as the day-star only stifles the fragrance of the night-flower,
but quenches the very orb of the moon.
This heart of mine,
oh thou who art of all things the dearest to it,
will have no object but thee.
“Ren, that was very beautiful,” Kelsey said.
She spoke softly and I couldn’t quite hear everything, so I used the amulet to move a bit closer and rematerialized just as Ren was saying, “…permission…to kiss you.”
Black intent filtered through my body. Even knowing their history, I wanted to strangle my brother. It took me a minute to calm down and realize that nothing was happening. Kelsey closed her eyes expecting him to kiss her, and he just sat there like a lump of breakfast porridge.
When she realized he wasn’t going to make a move and began lecturing him about being old-fashioned, I felt happier than I had in months. I actually laughed out loud, caught myself, and used the power of the amulet to turn myself invisible. Ren, who had stalked off angrily into the forest, looked around suspiciously but soon wandered off after seeing nothing.
I watched the camp long enough to see Kelsey meet me for the first time. I heard her say she knew that I was Ren’s brother, the one who had betrayed him and stolen his fiancée. Though it was true, I winced. Ren had already soured her against me in the beginning, and my refusal to go with them on the quest didn’t help either. For a moment I considered revealing myself to the black tiger I used to be.
A swift kick and a brief explanation might be the trick to get my stubborn self to help them get the Golden Fruit. Also my presence on that quest would serve to dampen Ren’s romantic intentions. But Kadam had declared in overdramatic fashion that to meet up with our old selves would trigger a tragic result such as the collapsing of the universe.
Since that was definitely not my purpose, I sat there pondering the ramifications of altering history, but ultimately decided that this was an information-gathering trip. If I was going to change anything, I’d do it after I’d collected all the facts.
Unwilling to take the chance on sending my past self on the first quest, I again berated myself for being an idiot and used the power of the amulet to shift to the next place on my agenda—Kishkindha.
This time I appeared at night, and my dark clothes hid me from the light of the small campfire. When I felt the trees around me come alive and send their slithering vines toward me, I used the Damon Amulet to freeze them. An audible snap and a crack from the dangerous sapling nearby made Ren lift his head and peer into the trees, but he soon settled back down next to Kelsey.
Irritated at seeing him act that possessive of her so quickly, and unwilling to watch him sleep next to her for hours, I bent time. I sped through the minutes and they fell away quickly. The power of the Damon Amulet flowed through my limbs and raised the hair at the nape of my neck. My skin tingled as time flowed over and around my body like fall leaves brushing past me in a stiff wind.
When Kelsey woke the next morning, I paused and watched her trace the lines of Ren’s face. An ache shot through me so thick I had to swallow. She’d never looked at me with such open admiration. Ren woke and cradled her close. The ease he felt with her soon changed, however.
Ren was a fool not to see something was wrong. Instead of being careful with her, letting her have her space, he pushed her too far too fast. He let his pride get in the way of seeing her fear. I watched them retrieve the Golden Fruit and saw her draw further and further away from him.
Perching invisible on the top of an ancient building, I listened to the two of them shout at each other as they were pursued by hundreds of monkeys. The creatures descended upon them like a flood, but still my monkey-brained brother was more worried about Kelsey’s rejection than he was about the horde. I shook my head. Saving her life was more important than analyzing her feelings. He was lucky she wasn’t killed.
When Ren bounced down the drawbridge with dozens of monkeys attached to his fur and Kelsey was safely out, I waved my hand, and the remaining tidal wave of monkeys stopped and headed back to their perches; their quivering mass of bodies became silent as they turned into statues once again. I wondered, if I hadn’t been there, hadn’t taken care of the monkey problem, would the two of them have even made it out of Kishkindha?
The idea was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. What if, at some particularly dangerous time, I’m not there when she needs me? Kadam’s words came back to me in that moment, but this time they were comforting. He’d said that whatever changes, whatever decisions I have made or will make have all been recorded in the annals of time. In essence, Kelsey will be safe because she was safe.
Though it was a relief that whatever I did, or would do, didn’t cause Kelsey’s death, it was still uncomfortable to consider. I hated the idea that all my decisions were subject to the universe somehow and that some unseen agenda was dictating my life. The concept chafed.
“Might as well cage me,” I muttered quietly to myself.
Hearing a grunt, I twisted and studied Kelsey through the trees as she faced the remaining monkeys with the gada. She was proud of herself when she made contact. Her pleased jolt of enthusiasm reminded me of when she landed a solid kick on our workout dummy or when she was finally able to hit a flower with her lightning power.
Content to watch her, I sat back and smiled, zapping the monkeys she hit with a little lightning of my own when she wasn’t looking. They scrambled back to the city with their tails between their legs, and with a wave of my hand, they were inert once more.