Ghost Leopard (A Zoe & Zak Adventure #1)

by Lars Guignard

  “Happy?” I asked Zak. “Can we go home now?”

  “Patience.”

  The howling started again, but listening closely this time, I could hear a click. It sounded like a toe nail clipper.

  “Nails,” I said. “Maybe he’s cutting his toe nails, not his toes.”

  I hoped he was anyhow. But if that’s what he was doing, he sure was making a lot of fuss. I could only imagine the screaming if someone had wanted to wash his hair.

  Zak ate a sunflower seed and pulled the money box from the plastic bag. He dumped the money into the bag and filled the muddy box with the rest of his sunflower seeds. Then he knocked again. It was embarrassing that he insisted on knocking a second time, but there was no stopping Zak once he got started. He was persistent, I had to give him that. We waited a moment and the door creaked open again. This time, Mukta stared at the open money tin with a smile on his face.

  “Sunflower seed?” Zak asked.

  “I beware of freaks bearing gifts,” Mukta said. “But I very much enjoy a good seed. Please. Come in.”

  Zak entered the hut first, me about a mile behind him.

  I was right about it being warm and dry inside. Score one for the howling hut. Looking around, it took me a minute to take it all in. The place was just so different from anywhere I'd ever been before. For one thing, statues of the Hindu gods I had only seen in pictures were everywhere. There were gods with ten arms and gods with elephant heads. There were very mean-looking gods sitting on golden tigers and go-lucky gods smiling happily with their legs crossed and birds chirping on their multiple arms. Each of the gods was carved from stone and each had lots of candles lighting them up. I recognized the super important ones: Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma. I saw Hanuman and Ganesha too. But I couldn’t even begin to guess the names of most of them. All I could say for certain was that they sure had a lot of arms.

  A fire burnt in a clay oven in the corner of the hut, its flames flickering off the walls. Burning incense gave the air a sweet, spicy scent, little wisps of smoke curling up through the firelight. There was a beautiful rectangular carpet covered in colorful geometric designs in the center of the place. The strangest things, though, were all of the pictures tacked up on the stone walls. Right there along with the statues of the gods and incense were charcoal drawings of people in more and more twisted yoga positions. The pictures looked like a collection of human pretzels. I guessed that when Mukta wasn’t cutting off his toes, he liked to draw.

  Mukta popped a sunflower seed into his mouth and then looked down, focusing my attention on the leash he held in his left hand. I had missed it in my fascination with the hut, but Mukta held not one, but five large lizards on the leash. The lizards were green with brown spots on their backs and feet. All at once, the lizards lunged at me. I jumped back, Mukta holding the lizards at bay. This was going to be a very interesting night. Mukta gestured to the carpet on the floor.

  “Sit!” Mukta said.

  On cue, the lizards sat one by one, Mukta pointing each out in turn.

  “Please meet my yoga helpers: Lotus, Half Moon, Cow Face, Royal Pigeon, and Lord of the Fishes.”

  I couldn’t believe it. I went to yoga pretty regularly with my mom, so I knew what Mukta was talking about, but had he actually named each of his lizards after a yoga pose?

  “Where’s Downward-Facing Dog?” Zak asked.

  Yoga was pretty popular back home, so it didn’t surprise me that Zak knew about Downward-Facing Dog. That’s the yoga position where you arch your back way up and put your butt in the air. What I wasn’t so sure of though, was if Zak was being smart or if he was genuinely curious as to why Downward-Facing Dog had been left out? It was really hard to tell with him. Mukta must have wondered too because he stared Zak down suspiciously.

  “I’m just saying, the other lizards would probably enjoy her company,” Zak said.

  “Downward-Facing Dog is yet to come,” Mukta replied.

  Mukta smiled revealing his gold and silver teeth. Then he sat on a stool and picked up the rusty pair of hedge pruners. I squinted. I’m kind of squeamish when it comes down to it and I really wasn’t looking forward to seeing Mukta cut his toes off. But thankfully, instead of his toe, he positioned the pruner around his crusty brown toenail. I let out a little sigh of relief. The nails he was cutting were twisted and thick and at least eight inches long. They were the kind of nails that got a guy into the Guinness Book of World Records.

  “One moment please.”

  Mukta adjusted the position of the pruner and howled. Then he squeezed down. The nail snapped off his toe with a satisfying click. He looked relieved.

  “Chai?” Mukta asked with a smile.

  Mukta got up and poured us tea into the same clay cups that I recognized from the railroad station. The thick milky tea came out of a blackened steel kettle piping hot. I knew that it wasn’t the Starbucks kind, but real homemade Indian chai. Mukta handed me a cup and I drank. It was sweet and milky and filled me with such warmth that for a moment I forgot about our strange circumstances.

  “The chai is good, yes? Now, in which way can we help you?” Mukta asked.

  Zak spoke first. “We’re looking for —”

  I cut him off. “The airport,” I said.

  “— the Leopard,” Zak responded, finishing his sentence.

  Mukta looked like he’d been slapped. He dropped the lizard leash and all five reptiles sprang at me.

  “Back,” Mukta screamed in Hindi.

  Mukta slammed his foot down on the leash, his manner grave. Great. Now things were going closer to the way I imagined they would. After all, you didn’t just show up unannounced at a weird person’s house in the middle of the night. Nobody did that, especially not twelve-year-olds a million miles from home.

  “Who sent you?” Mukta said.

  “Amala,” Zak said.

  “Amala? Who is this Amala?”

  “Amala, the pretty butterfly lady who rides in rickshaws.”

  Mukta relaxed a little. He studied our mud-caked bodies as if suddenly much more interested in us. Then, Mukta took my hand in his. He held my hand there and wiped away the mud with his thumb, revealing the five brown spots that made up my birthmark. I wasn’t used to people paying any attention to my birthmark, so I was a little taken aback that it was practically the first thing he looked at.

  “Ah, yes. Amala said she would send the Mud Devils to protect the Leopard. Mud. I see no mud.”

  Zak shook himself out, dropping mud all over the stone floor.

  “OK. There is some mud,” Mukta said.

  Mukta continued to hold my hand as he stared at my birthmark. I smiled nervously. I was starting to wish that he’d let go. Almost as soon as I thought it, Mukta did let go, allowing my hand to fall back down at my side. It was strange. Up until this point in my life, I hadn’t given my weird birthmark that much thought. Now, though, seeing how Mukta had reacted to it, I was beginning to wonder if it was something interesting. Something I should ask my mother about. My thought was cut short by Mukta's raspy voice.

  “You need pajama,” Mukta said.

  Mukta bent down and opened a wooden trunk. From the trunk he took two pairs of pressed, striped, blue and white pajamas. Mukta rubbed a little more mud off of my face, studying me intently.

  “Strange that you have the mark. I think the great lord Shiva would have been better to mark King Arthur.” Mukta laughed at his own joke. “You know, King Arthur? The Englishman who pulled the big knife from the rock?”

  I put a hand on Zak's shoulder and backed him toward the door. Things were starting to get a little too bizarre for me.

  “Please, sit,” Mukta said. “If you are the one, you must learn the way.”

  “Thanks, but we can get directions outside.”

  “I am talking of the Yogi Way.”

  “What’s the Yogi Way?” Zak asked.

  “A yogi is one who practices yoga to unveil the secrets of the universe. Some are born yogis. Others will w
ork all of their lives and never become one. Following the yogi path is called the Yogi Way.”

  “Is it like stretching and then having a nice fruit drink?” Zak asked.

  “No. It is not like this. One need not wear stretching clothes. There is no membership to buy. The Yogi Way is refining your body, and your mind, and your senses until you see all.” Mukta set his two hands together as if he was praying and bowed his head. “Please,” he said. “Do not be afraid. Sit. There is a history I must tell.”

  I looked to Zak. The door was right there. We could get out if it if we had to. But Zak's eyes were as wide as saucers. I had seen that look before in the short time we had been together. He was starting to really like the place. The lizards, the incense, the statues, it all added up to Zak's idea of an adventure. We had come this far, so I decided to give Mukta the benefit of the doubt. For now. Besides, it was really raining hard. A short sit-down wouldn’t hurt anyone.

  “Please,” Mukta said, indicating a cushion on the floor.

  I sat cross-legged, Zak doing the same. We watched as Mukta shook his head and shoulders out, loosening up as if preparing for a performance. Once he was limber he picked up a pipe from the floor. It looked like the kind of instrument a snake charmer would use. But I didn’t believe that people still charmed snakes. I mean, I know they used to, but not anymore. Once Mukta had the pipe in hand he pushed a large ornately decorated brass pot into the middle of the hut, removing its lid.

  Zak leaned forward to look inside the pot. Then he leaned back. I glanced at Zak. He was biting his lower lip like he was nervous or something. I leaned forward to look into the pot myself. Up close I could see that the intricately cast pot was dark inside. There was something in the bottom of it that looked like water or oil. But there was also something else, something lining the interior. Whatever was inside, it shimmered as if it was moving. My heart skipped a beat. Then I moved slowly backward. Now I knew what was in the pot and it wasn’t water. It was a snake: not the tame pinkish, translucent variety either. It was a king cobra, one of the most dangerous, most venomous, snakes alive. As I returned to my cross-legged position, the shimmering black cobra peered out of the pot at me. I felt a hole grow in my stomach as the cobra stared at me with its flared hood and piercing yellow eyes, its flickering forked tongue tasting the air.

  8

  THE MONKEY MAN'S TALE

  My heart caught in my throat, but I refused to panic. Even though I really hated snakes, I didn’t have to let the cobra know that. There was, however, no shame in inching backward a little closer to the door. If we had to get out of there, we’d be that much nearer to freedom. Mukta blew on the snake charmer’s pipe and a reedy tune echoed through the hut, the big black cobra rising out of the pot as the pipe swayed back and forth. I remembered reading that the cobras responded not to the music, but to the movement of the pipe. If that was the case, then this snake would be moving twice as fast, because it wasn’t just the pipe that was moving, it was Mukta. His whole body danced with the flickering flames as he played. After blowing a long reedy tune, Mukta spoke.

  “Many moons ago was the time of the Vanaras,” Mukta said. “The Vanaras were the size of men, but the shape of monkeys. They lived in the forest among their own kind. Most Vanaras were brave and strong and loyal, but some were not.”

  The king cobra undulated back and forth with Mukta’s body, its hood flared. It was weird sitting there, so close to the snake, but what was weirder was the oily residue in the bottom of the pot. The oily stuff seemed to have crept up the edges of the pot so that it now filled it to the brim. Looking into the pot from where I sat, I saw the flames of the fire and the smoke of the incense reflected on its surface. But I also saw something else. What looked like a jungle appeared in the oily reflection. In the jungle, a man-sized monkey with enormous yellow fangs leapt from tree to tree as flames erupted from a burning lake.

  The reedy tune faded out as Mukta spoke again. “One very evil Vanara we will call the Monkey Man. The Monkey Man was different from the other Vanaras. He had great power. His tail was very strong. He could move earthly things with his mind. He could make fire rain down from the sky.”

  The reflection of the jungle inside the brass pot washed away to reveal a new reflection of a beautiful woman bathing in a dark lagoon. The woman had long dark hair, but I couldn’t see her face. She wore a blue sari. A spotted blue butterfly fluttered above the lagoon.

  “What the Monkey Man wanted, he took. What the Monkey Man saw, he wanted.”

  Leering at the woman from the undergrowth was the half-human, half-animal Monkey Man. If that’s what a Vanara looked like, I didn’t want to meet one. The Monkey Man’s eyes glowed red and he looked mean — nastier than anything I had ever seen. I felt the need to interrupt, Mukta. It was a habit I had. When something came to mind, I just had to say it, and I thought I knew who this Monkey Man was. It was the god drawn in mosaic on the bottom of the swimming pool back at the hotel. He was in the chapter of the India book I had skimmed over.

  “Are you talking about Hanuman, the monkey god?” I asked.

  Mukta stopped dancing. He didn’t say anything for a long moment and I was pretty sure he hadn’t liked the question.

  “No, Mud Devil. I am not discussing Hanuman here,” Mukta said. “Hanuman is a great god who was born of a Vanara mother. That is where the similarity ends.” Mukta lowered his voice. “The Monkey Man is a great embarrassment to Hanuman and all Vanaras. Most Vanaras wish the Monkey Man had never been born. But he was born and his followers have grown to many. That is why you must listen to my story. The story will answer your questions.”

  The shimmering reflection in the brass pot faded out yet again to be replaced by a bright sunny day inside an old-fashioned courtyard. Spotted blue butterflies fluttered in the sunlight. The Monkey Man was hunched down on one knee, his shoulders bent, offering a shining silver collar to the maiden. Once again, the maiden’s face was hidden. Instead of taking the collar, she ran. Good for her. I wouldn’t have married him either, especially if he gave me a collar. That was just creepy.

  “One day,” Mukta said, “the Monkey Man happened upon a maiden whom he could not have. And she whom the Monkey Man could not have, he grew to hate.”

  The flames returned to the shimmering reflection as the Monkey Man pursued the maiden on horseback, sword held high in his long tail.

  “So he ended her life,” Mukta said.

  The Monkey Man thrust his sword down.

  I turned my eyes from the pot and rose, the black cobra still undulating back and forth. I was careful not to startle the snake or the lizards, but I was determined. Enough was enough. I didn’t want to see anymore. I grabbed Zak by the arm.

  “End of story. Thank you, Mukta. We have a plane to catch,” I said.

  “No. It is not the end of the story,” Mukta said. “This story takes place in India where troubles do not end at the grave.”

  Zak and I looked at each other. We both knew things were getting weird. Did I say weird? I should have said, super weird. Even Zak looked like he could use a time-out. But we were curious again, too curious to simply get up and leave without finding out what had happened. We turned our eyes back to the oily black pot.

  “The maiden was reincarnated as a soldier,” Mukta said.

  In the pot, a group of men with swords, led by a fearless looking woman, battled the Vanara army. Flames flickered through the forest. Just like before, the woman’s face was hidden. The Monkey Man approached her from behind.

  “Then a sailor.”

  The oily image changed again to show a maiden swabbing the decks of an ancient ship. The Monkey Man approached from behind, now wearing a captain’s hat.

  “A tailor.”

  The oily surface rippled to reveal a maiden sewing a suit for an individual who looked exactly like the Monkey Man.

  “A prisoner.”

  Bars appeared in the black pot. Behind the prison bars the maiden was approached by the Monkey Ma
n, his long yellow claws extended. I noted that the Monkey Man was nothing, if not persistent. The oil in the black pot caught fire, flames licking the air above. The cobra continued to undulate, seemingly unconcerned by the flame.

  “The Monkey Man followed her through each life, destroying she who would not be his.”

  Zak and I watched the black pot as a gleaming dagger slashed through the fire. Then a rope tightened. Scissors stabbed. Yellow claws struck.

  “This bloodshed went on until even the gods grew weary.”

  “So why didn't she come back as a radioactive monster or something?” Zak said. “That would have shown the Monkey Man.”

  “Because radioactive monsters are from Japan. This is India. The gods had a better plan.”

  We looked back into the pot. The flames disappeared and a mist rose from the pot. Then the cobra slithered slowly out of the pot and wrapped itself around the outside of it. I couldn’t help but feel just a little less comfortable than I had been. There were complicated patterns of leopards and elephants and monkeys cast into the surface of the brass pot. The snake seemed to massage itself on them as it wrapped its muscular body around the pot and rose. Zak and I both shuffled back, closer to the door, just in case.

  The mist continued to rise like a fog from the pot, tumbling from its brim and into the hut until we were surrounded by it. I looked down, but I couldn’t even see below my own waist, which really freaked me out as far as the snake was concerned. A moment later, I saw something strange. A mountaintop seemed to pop out of the mist. Hindu gods appeared, sitting around the mountaintop like miniature people on a cloud. It was like an invasion of the little people. The gods had lots of arms and blue skin, and one even had the head of an elephant like Ganesha in the swimming pool, but what was strange was that unlike the scene we had just seen unfold in the reflection in the oil, these gods seemed real — like three-dimensional little people.

  “The gods decided that for her ninth life the maiden would be reincarnated as the Ghost Leopard.”

  “Whoa, a ghost?” Zak said.