Maya started moving towards the silver box.
The Shadows stood frozen at the altar – but Chhaya let out a heart-stopping howl. ‘Sanath,’ she cried, tears glinting in emerald eyes. ‘Sanath. Don’t you know me?’
Sanath started, and Maya saw hope flicker in his eyes. ‘Know you?’ he asked in an unsteady voice.
Chhaya opened her perfect, porcelain arms and wept. ‘I am … I am … your sister.’
Sanath looked at Chhaya with longing and hurt. ‘My sister … are you really—’
‘No, no. Don’t believe her,’ Maya cried. Maybe Sanath would hate her forever. Maybe he wouldn’t ever talk to her again. But he had to know. ‘She is not your sister, Sanath. She is your MOTHER.’
Outside, music pulsed and people laughed. But in the chapel, everything was motionless – a tableau that Maya would remember forever. Sanath broke the spell when he turned to Maya. ‘That’s impossible. She can’t be my mother. She’s just a few years older than me. She has to be my sister. My sister is seven years older that me. That seems right.’
‘Sanath,’ Maya said, trying to sound calm and reasonable. ‘Look at that girl in the pink tutu. She is your sister. She is still seven years old. She will always be seven years old. The woman with the green eyes is your mother.’
Sanath turned to look at the little girl, who looked back with bored indifference. ‘Don’t believe her,’ Chhaya sobbed. ‘She’s mad, she’s delusional. Oh Sanath. I’ve waited for this for so long.’
‘Maya is not delusional,’ Veda spat, but nobody was listening. So instead she edged towards her phone, picked it up and found Aadil’s number.
Maya kept talking. ‘These people are Shadows. They’ve drunk some magical potion to keep them young for a long time. That’s why she hasn’t aged at all. She is your mother.’
Even to Maya’s ears, the words sounded ludicrous. They trailed off as Chhaya enveloped Sanath in a tight hug that obstructed his view. In that split second, Aniruddh and Amara attacked like feral cats.
‘Chhaya, hold him,’ Owais yelled.
‘Chhaya!’ Sanath jerked, and his grip on the gun tightened. He flung Chhaya away and looked suddenly dangerous. ‘So you are my mother. The woman who left her son and never once tried to find out how he was. Why? Why? Why?’
‘Sanath,’ Chhaya flung her arms around Sanath, as Aniruddh and Amara inched towards the gun. ‘I did it for your own sake. It tore me to bits—’
Aniruddh lunged for the gun, and many things happened in that instant.
The gun went off with a shocking bang. Minty crumpled onto the floor, crimson trickling onto pale blue and puddling onto the yellow floor of the chapel.
Then a pint-sized fury flew into the room and smashed Amara on the head with what looked like a chopping board.
Behind Lola came Aadil, brandishing a massive butcher’s knife at Owais. ‘Pillai in the canteen wants his knife back in pristine condition,’ he said. ‘I’ll be much obliged if you don’t compel me to use it. Guys, somebody needs to help me. I’m not a natural at this Rambo stuff.’
‘In my opinion, you should have called the police,’ Veda grumbled, standing next to Aadil and looking fierce. ‘I told you to call the police.’
‘Nobody answered 100. Raz is still trying, but we decided to lend a helping hand here. We didn’t realise there was a GUN!!’
The words niggled at Maya. Where was the gun?
Sanath was leaning against a pew looking devastated. He didn’t have the gun in his hand.
Aniruddh and Amara were crouching next to each other, terrorised by Lola and the chopping board. No gun in sight.
Chhaya had vanished, as had the girl in the pink tutu.
Could they have taken the gun? Maya got her answer a second later when she looked towards the altar and tried to muffle a shriek.
Two men were standing there.
Charles Brown was trying to turn the key in a box that had not been opened for 60 years.
Professor Kekobad was holding the gun, aiming it straight at her.
‘P-P-Professor Kekobad,’ she stammered, and suddenly everybody was looking at the altar with uncomprehending faces.
‘Professor, your leg is better,’ Veda said. Then she looked puzzled. ‘Shouldn’t we call the police? Or something?’
Professor Kekobad didn’t answer. Instead, he watched them with a crafty smile. And suddenly, Maya knew.
‘You,’ she gasped. ‘You were the person who’s betrayed us every single time. You knew we were in the Zoology lab.’
‘You wouldn’t let us go immediately to the Ebbe Herbarium so that you or Charles Brown could get to the key first.’
‘You sent the little girl to my house because you knew that two of the keys were in my bedroom. You are behind it all.’
‘That’s impossible,’ Veda cried. ‘Maya, how can you say this?’
Professor Kekobad didn’t reply. Instead, he waved the gun and croaked, ‘I want everyone to stand next to Veda. Lola, Aadil, put your weapons down. NOW. GO. MOVE. Aniruddh, Owais, Amara. GO.’
In a nervous bustle, everybody huddled near the locked door of the chapel. Only Minty remained on the floor, motionless and unresponsive. Owais, Amara and Aniruddh stood in a shrunken group, shorn of their animal grace and beauty. Suddenly, the gorgeous clothes seemed three sizes too large.
Maya stood next to Sanath and squeezed his hand. It felt warm and human.
Lola and Aadil dropped the chopping board and butcher’s knife and joined their friends. ‘We need to get out of here intact,’ Aadil mumbled.
Veda ignored him. ‘Professor Kekobad,’ she pleaded, ‘is this true? Why are you are doing this? And with Charles Brown of all people?’
Charles Brown was still struggling with the recalcitrant keys. Professor Kekobad watched him for a minute and spoke into the bewildered silence. ‘As we have time, I might as well clear your doubts. After all, this is the last class I will be teaching at St Paul’s.’
He took a deep breath. ‘Karl Brun was my professor in college. He was the man who taught me everything I know. I have been helping him these past 60 years.’
‘Sixty years?’ Veda asked. ‘How could that be?’
‘Karl Brun came here in the 1940s in search of the Liquid of Life,’ Professor Kekobad said. ‘He was a Shadow. But he was also a great scholar. He used his extra years to gather knowledge. He deserved every drop of that potion.’
‘Karl Brun traced the bottle to St Paul’s College. That is why he taught here. He tried to frighten Father Lorenzo into shifting the bottle back to Rome. He planned to intercept it during the journey. But the strategy backfired. Father Lorenzo set up his own elaborate protection in this chapel.’
‘Ironically, Father Lorenzo chose to trust me with his secret. The great Father Lorenzo was good at building chapels and colleges, and setting up puzzles. But he was not so good at reading people. He never understood that my loyalties would always lie with my own teacher. With the great Karl Brun.’
‘I have been guarding the bottle for 60 years, not for Father Lorenzo, but for Karl Brun.’
‘But why?’ Veda asked again.
‘Because he was my professor. Because I loved and respected him. And because we will share the liquid together.’
This statement generated a stir. ‘It’s ours. The Liquid of Life is ours,’ Amara screamed. ‘We have to have it. We don’t have time.’
Professor Kekobad swung around and aimed the gun at her. ‘And why?’ he growled, spraying saliva as he spoke. ‘What did you do with the extra years given to you? You drank, you partied, you expended time on petty pleasures. You don’t deserve it.’
‘On the other hand, I—I NEED THE TIME—to complete my great work on Mumbai. To see my book in print. To expand human knowledge. I deserve it.’
‘But we helped to find the keys,’ Owais heaved. ‘We did everything that Charles Brown told us to do. We attacked the girl. We killed the librarian. We killed the dog. Minty has given her life for it.�
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Maya looked towards Minty and suppressed a scream. Where once was a girl with fluttery eyelashes and a charming smile, now lay a heap of stained blue cloth, bones and dust.
‘Dust to dust, ashes to ashes,’ Professor Kekobad remarked. ‘Her time had come. Your time has come too. Anyway, all of you were just the pawns in our game. Karl and I are the grandmasters.’
‘What game?’ Maya asked, revolted by Professor Kekobad’s boastful air. ‘The clues were set up by Father Lorenzo. Not by you.’
‘You disappoint me, Maya,’ Professor Kekobad replied in teacherly tones. ‘You are not as all-seeing as I thought. True, the clues and keys were hidden by Father Lorenzo. But he didn’t mean them to be found. He meant the liquid to stay hidden for as long as possible. He asked us to keep the box safe. And to pass on the secret to the next generation. Not to solve the clues.’
‘But, but … all that stuff about Knowledge and Perception?’ Veda was indignant. ‘The poem? The prophecy?’
‘Yes, Father Lorenzo recited that poem. But he planned that the liquid should stay hidden till the last Shadow crumbled to dust. He believed that one fine day—after the last Shadow had vanished—Perception, Vitality and Knowledge would join hands to find the keys and open the box. But that was to be in the future. In an age of enlightenment. Not today. Not now.’
‘So … so … you …’ Maya stuttered.
‘I took the liberty of rewriting the script just a little. I decided to fast-forward events.’
Maya noticed that Charles Brown had managed to turn the keys and was gently raising the lid of the box. The look on his face was rapturous.
Meanwhile, the professor was still gloating. ‘I spent many years trying to solve the clues myself. Then I remembered the prophecy. It struck me that perhaps I could get Perception, Knowledge and Vitality to solve the clues for me.’
‘All I needed was to find my characters – then I stumbled upon Maya and Veda and things started to fall into place. In fact, they worked better than I could have imagined. Maya had greater gifts than I hoped for, and Veda believed me always. After that, it was only a matter of time.’
‘But, but …’ Veda whispered. ‘You told us—’
‘How many times have we discussed the ease with which history is rewritten?’ Professor Kekobad asked Veda. ‘I know teenagers well. I’ve taught them for decades. And I knew that you would find it difficult to resist the lure of a quest. After all, that’s what all of you are reading about all the time. Lost rings. Lost chalices. Good teenagers versus evil monsters.’
‘Karl and I, we stuck to the truth as far as possible and set up our quest. And then, of course, gave nudges along the way.’
It was while Professor Kekobad was talking that Sanath squeezed Maya’s hand and muttered. ‘Watch the other guy. The white guy.’
Maya looked and her heart went into free fall. Charles Brown was carefully removing a glass bottle from the old silver box.
In this story, evil had won. And she had helped.
Instead of Father Lorenzo, she had assisted his adversaries. The men who had killed Wagle and Mr Pinkwhistle. Who had caused her father so much pain. Who had reduced all of them to puppets.
How had she not seen the signs? How did she not see something rotten at the core of Professor Kekobad? How was she fooled by the façade of an eccentric academic with harmless foibles and allergies?
Allergies. Allergies. An idea bobbed up from the depths of Maya’s despair.
Professor Kekobad and Charles Brown were already moving towards the door. Professor Kekobad held the gun. Charles Brown held the glass bottle in his hand.
With feverish eyes, Maya looked at the clutter near her feet. Phones, lipsticks, tissue. And a small flacon of Vivace perfume. ‘Help me,’ Maya whispered to Sanath and to the forces of good.
Taking a deep, determined breath, she lifted her foot and crushed the bottle of Vivace. Within seconds the sharp aroma of orange blossom and spices filled the chapel. Professor Kekobad made a loud, hiccuppy sound and sneezed. Then sneezed again.
Sanath reached the professor before the third sneeze. He snatched the gun, as Owais and Aniruddh leapt onto Charles Brown, who fell with a crash. The bottle slipped from his hand, spun into the air and smashed onto the stone floor of the chapel.
Charles Brown groaned. He tried to crawl to the smashed bottle, but Veda blocked his path and Sanath waved the gun at him.
Professor Kekobad sat down on a pew with a heavy thud.
Owais, Aniruddh and Amara gazed at the puddle of golden liquid, flecked with shards of glass. Amara pushed the others aside, thrust her finger into the puddle and licked it. Owais and Aniruddh followed her example, unmindful of their bleeding fingers and glass-speckled tongues.
Then they stood up, and melted into the night.
Within seconds, they had become a part of the inscrutable darkness.
CHAPTER 48
Messes that are made in minutes usually take hours to clean up. This particular one could well take years.
It was 3 a.m. before Maya and Lola made it back to Pine View. The intervening hours were a blur. There were policemen to deal with and parents to contact. Kidnapped priests to locate and spilt liquids to save.
Maya remembered telling the story again and again, till it felt as crumpled and limp as a letter that’s been read too many times. She gave the full, unabridged version to Sanath, and a concise version to Father D’Gama.
The police were not privy to the truth. It was generally agreed that they wouldn’t deal well with the twists and turns and strangeness. So they were served a garbled version, which they proceeded to garble even further.
‘Now I am understanding,’ P. L. Tambe, the portly, bug-eyed detective said after interrogating Father D’Gama, Brother Francis and Pillai, the canteen-in-charge. ‘This is case of stolen property. Old bottle was hidden in old silver box. It was destructed by dropping by antique smuggler. Brave students saving church by discharging gun.’
He stopped to give Charles Brown a filthy glare, and then looked uneasily at the pile of bones and dust that mingled with stained blue chiffon. ‘Evidence of animal sacrifice,’ he whispered to his colleague. ‘It is also alleged that antique smuggler is kidnapping old priest and hiding in undisclosed location.’
The problem was that neither Professor Kekobad nor Charles Brown was willing to disclose the undisclosed location. ‘We have to find him,’ Father D’Gama begged them. ‘He will not survive. In the name of humanity tell us.’
Two pairs of eyes stared back at him. Neither relented. Neither spoke. Neither possessed a shred of humanity.
Maya avoided looking at those eyes. She could still feel the undertow of fury and darkness; the pull of evil.
Then Maya, who had been reviewing it all in her head, had a sudden flashback. ‘I once saw an old man in the apartment in Sea View,’ she blurted out. ‘At least I think I did. I don’t know if it was him, but maybe.’
The police moved efficiently. Half an hour later, Inspector D. D. Jadhav contacted Father D’Gama. The old man in Sea View was, indeed, Father Furtado. He was dehydrated and exhausted, but alive.
There was one more person in the apartment, in much worse shape than Father Furtado. Pratik Purohit was a gibbering, babbling mess. He had been stripped off his Rolex gold watch (Rs 7 lakh), his gold chain (Rs 2 lakh), his cards and a stack of cash. Worse, he had been stripped off his sanity. At least temporarily.
He had seen something so awful that his mind had shut down. Only Maya could guess what that might have been. Not that she bothered to spare a millisecond for him.
Most other memories from that night smudged and ran into each other like a wet watercolour. But a few random images stood out.
Maya remembered Veda running to the puddle of liquid with her handkerchief and carefully wiping the area. ‘For science, we have to save it for science,’ she insisted, till Father D’Gama roused the Head of Chemistry and asked the formidable lady with steel grey hair to please come
to the college, collect the hanky and preserve it in the lab.
Once this was done, Veda sagged with relief. She had done her bit for Knowledge.
Maya watched Veda with admiration and unexpected affection. Through the entire adventure, Veda had remained strong and dependable. She hadn’t faltered even once. And that was what was important. Not haircuts and DPs and Likes on Instagram.
Most clearly, of course, Maya remembered that heartbreaking conversation with Sanath. ‘If my mother is a monster, what does that make me?’ he had asked. ‘What am I?’
‘You are you, and you are wonderful,’ Maya replied.
But even when she and Lola got into bed that night, Maya could not sleep. She was haunted by the lost look in Sanath’s beautiful eyes. By the gnawing fear that he would never find himself again.
CHAPTER 49
Maya and Lola woke up late the next morning.
A call came from Parampara Industries while they were eating fried eggs. Mr Purohit personally apologised to Maya’s father. His son Pratik had taken back all his allegations. In fact, Pratik was very ill and was imagining terrible things. ‘We will make it up to you. Please return today if you can,’ the industrialist said.
Mr Anand rushed to get dressed and left the house 10 minutes later. His shoulders were straight again. ‘I think we can plan a holiday in Japan during Diwali,’ he said, before waving jauntily and heading for the door.
Father D’Gama came to visit Maya and Lola and cleared up some of the lingering mysteries.
Father Furtado hadn’t ever told his nephew the entire story of the silver box. But when strange events started taking place at St Paul’s, he hinted at his fears. He also mentioned Professor Kekobad’s role in the saga.
‘When my uncle went missing, I started watching Professor Kekobad,’ Father D’Gama said. ‘It was the single clue I had. I’m sorry but I also started watching all of you. I felt somehow it was all connected. I misread your behaviour and thought you were … you were ... on the side of wrong.’
What Maya Saw Page 29