Maya's Aura: Goa to Nepal

by Smith, Skye

  "They are still following us," he told Maya when he caught her up. "By now the van will be on its way back to the hotel to pick up Marique’s things, and then get out of town."

  "If they are following, then we should increase our pace to make sure they don't catch up to me until we are at the cave. There is no phone coverage there. By then it will be almost dark, if they make it that far. They will be forced to spend the night, no matter what else they do."

  "I still fear that they will beat me for my part in this," the boy said.

  "They won't even know it was you. Once we are close to the cave, you can give me Marique's cloak and then go back to the hotel, unseen. It's a good plan. Even your father liked it."

  "I just hope that neither of them gives up, or slips off the path and over the cliff. We need for them to reach the cave. Do you think they will hurt you when they can't find Marique?"

  "I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself. Besides, I can always tell them that Marique gave up and went back."

  At this the boy laughed. The officers were staying at his hotel, and they treated everyone at the hotel like their personal slaves. He was joyous to be putting one over on them.

  They did not stop at the mill for freedom fries, but kept on walking towards the cave. When they reached the entrance to the last valley, where the path made a sharp turn, the boy removed the white cloak and stuffed it into Maya's pack, and said his farewells. He would double back using a farmers track higher up the slope and stay the night at the mill.

  After a full day of trudging up and down thousands of vertical feet Maya was starting to be careless with her footing, and not lifting her foot high enough for each new rough step. Twice she almost tripped, which on these high narrow trails could be disastrous. The second time she took a good look behind her. There was no sight of the detectives, so she sat and had a rest.

  From her seat on the porter's bench she could just see the end of the valley where the cave was. There were three large tents there now, that had not been there two days ago. Tourist pilgrim season must have begun, she reasoned.

  She was right. The valley bottom at the foot of the last climb to the cave was now populated by about twenty pilgrims of assorted religions, and at least ten porters. It was hard to count the porters because, after walking all day under eighty- pound loads, they were rushing about making camp and cooking dinner.

  Maya pulled her hood up and tight around her face and marched past the encampment and directly into the cave.

  "You cannot be walking into a temple with your shoes on," she was admonished in the sing song voice of a pilgrim tourist. She suddenly realized that it was spoken in standard Hindu, or perhaps Urdu, and not English. She paused long enough to undo her shoe laces and pull off her shoes and socks and then continued inside.

  The eternal flame had eight pilgrims bowed in front of it. She walked past them and around the hot pool and put her pack down in the small area behind the pool where last time she had slept. She looked around for Vidu, but could not see him.

  "That area is not permitted to pilgrims," called out the same sing song voice. In response, she assumed a meditational position and ignored him. Once thought to be meditating, not even the officious twits would interrupt her. There was one problem. Her legs did not want to cooperate, not after hiking all day. They screamed at her to lay down.

  She couldn't lay down. She would fall asleep. She must stay awake until the detectives arrived. She tried. She knew she couldn't. Instead she pulled the sleeping mat and a sleeping bag out from Vidu's cache, shaped them like a body and threw Marique’s white cape over the bundle. Then she lay down beside it and went to sleep.

  Who knows how much later, she heard Vidu's voice through a haze of sleepiness. "They are visiting holy women," he was explaining to someone in Hindu. "I have been giving them permission to sleep there. Please be not concerning yourself."

  A while later, who knows how much, again she heard Vidu's voice. "Your badges are not erasing good manners. You will let them sleep. They are tired. If you need a bed then ask the porters in the encampment. They are most accommodating to overnight visitors."

  Sometime in the middle of the night she had a start. The bundle under the white cloak beside her stretched their legs and moved closer to her for warmth. She woke immediately and pulled back the hood. It was Vidu. She blew in his ear and kissed him on the neck and asked, "Where are the detectives?"

  "In one of the big tents. Come, I will take you and your friend up to the high cave." They both rose, and bundled up a mat and a sleeping bag, and with both of them in white cloaks they climbed a steep trail beyond the cave entrance. It was already early morning twilight so they could see well enough, and the two thousand steps up kept them warm.

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  MAYA'S AURA - Goa to Nepal by Skye Smith

  Chapter 16 - The High Cave

  Providence has its appointed hour for everything. We cannot command results, we can only strive. - Mahatma Gandhi

  At the top of the trail there was a second cave, a tiny cave just below the snow line and with no hot pool inside it. She sat on a stone bench, winded from the climb, and looked out over the spectacular view of the Himalaya peaks.

  The old man sat down beside her, pulling at the widow's cloak. "I have not worn girl's clothes since I was a toddler. My parents dressed us both as baby girls to protect us from evil spirits."

  "Well you can take it off now. Do you think this sleeping bag will keep me warm enough tonight?"

  "You plan on spending the whole night here?"

  "Will asked me to keep the detectives out of cell phone range for two days. He hoped to be across the border in one day, but he was worried about the road conditions. You can go down anytime. Make sure the detectives know that both ferengi women came up here to see the view."

  "Give me a few moments to rest. That is a long climb for one my age."

  "It's a long climb for one my age," she giggled and hugged his arm into her breast.

  "I haven't been up here yet this season. The rains and the ice have not done much damage to the trail. Last year I worked hard for a month to rebuild it. Come, I will show you the cave."

  Together they pulled away the planks that braced a heavy door in place. The old man produced a plastic bottle and squeezed some oil into the latch and onto the hinges. The door opened with a screech that sent shivers up her spine.

  She started to walk into the cave but he grabbed her arm and pulled her back. "Careful. There could be poison gas. Let it clear first." the old man told her, then put the oil bottle back in his bag and pulled out a candle and a plastic lighter.

  Once the air had been moving in the cave for a few minutes, he lit the candle and held it far in front of him into the cave. He reached low with it, then high. There was no explosion, and the candle stayed lit. It was a good sign, so he walked further in and repeated the candle motion.

  Maya could now see into the cave. Eyes stared back at her, and she gasped. She flicked on her mini light and darted the beam of light across the floor and then the walls. The cave was only a dozen feet deep, and carved out of the back wall was a very rough statue of Buddha. It had shiny eyes that gleamed at her.

  Along the right side of the cave, the side with the lowest ceiling, there was a long rectangular metalled trunk. It was painted army green and had black letters stenciled on the side. The old man was opening the two padlocks that held it closed. He handed the key to her. "Lock the box again when you come down."

  She looked inside the box with her light as he opened the lid. The first thing he pulled out was a foam mattress. "Put this on the lid and you have a bed to lie on. If a thunder storm comes, it is safer to sleep inside the trunk. There is some emergency gear inside. An alcohol stove, some water, some medical supplies, a few cans of beans, a wool blanket. Not much, but just enough. Pull it all out and the mattress will fit inside."

  "Ewww," she complained. "It would be like sleeping in a coffin. No
thank you." She went to explore the statue. It had been carved in place, because the back was joined to the back of the cave. She pointed her light at the eyes. They glowed. She rubbed the dust off them. They were the ends of two crystals, maybe quartz, maybe something else.

  The old man was taking off the cloak and folding it up. Underneath he wore just a loin cloth. "I must go now. I have pilgrims below. I must make sure they do not steal anything, or blow out the flame. See you tomorrow." He walked out of the cave and she followed him to the ledge and watched him until he was out of sight beneath the curve of the hillside.

  She was suddenly very alone.

  She ignored her solitude by tidying the cave and setting up the bed, and the candles that she would eventually need. She then took a short whisk broom to the statue and to the floor. It took a few minutes for the dust to settle, and afterwards she wondered if any of the dust had made it out the door, or whether it had just resettled in different places inside the cave.

  The late morning sun was now streaming into the cave and she used the light to explore the hither-to dark reaches. It was very small, with no surprises, other than the ancient statue and the even more ancient spectacular view.

  The yellow sunlight made the life-size statue glisten. She had wiped off months of dust and it was now proudly showing off its skin of gold leaf. The gold leaf must have been smeared onto the stone by centuries of pilgrims because there was nowhere not covered, and some places were thick with the leaf. The eyes were crystals, but not quartz. However the so- called third eye was the end of a quartz crystal.

  There was a rickety stool near the entrance and she dragged it through the opening and set it up so she could sit in the morning sun and stay warm. With her tiny seven power monocular she could see the tent encampment a thousand feet below. She found the two detectives by their city clothing. They too were warming themselves in the sun.

  Now what? What would she tell the detectives tomorrow when she went down to the camp? Would they allow her to stay here and learn more from Vidu, or would they take her into custody. If she was in custody would it be in Dharamsala, where she could search for information about auras in the Sanskrit library. Had she even learned enough Sanskrit from Vidu.

  At some time she had to re-connect with Marique and catch their flight from Mumbai back to Brussels. Decisions, decisions. Alone on the mountain side her mind kept replaying her life's decisions over and over again. What to do. What to do.

  As the sun rose higher, so did its heat. She decided to have an air bath, and get some sun on her skin, so she shucked her clothes. With the rising heat, snow on the peaks turned into fluffy white clouds, until the peaks disappeared, and then slowly the fluffy white clouds turned grey and then black.

  She watched, mesmerized by the boiling clouds bringing spring rain storms sweeping towards her down the mountain sides. They boiled and thundered, and occasionally flashed.

  She drew further and further into the cave out of the wind, until her little sun patch disappeared. Eventually she had her back against the gold leafed statue. She felt a strange tickling on her skin, and at first assumed it was goose pimples and shivered. A glance at her arm showed no goose pimples, but every hair on her arm was standing straight up.

  She looked down between her legs. The hair was bristling. She put a hand to her head. Her hair was all puffed up and her scalp felt like it was crawling with bugs. She put a hand on Buddha's knee to help her to stand up so she could retrieve her clothes, but as soon as she did so, a shock ran through her entire body and through her feet, making them spasm painfully.

  As best she could, she ignored the continuous shocks and spasms in her feet. She reached wildly, in a panic, to put both hands on Buddha' knee so she could push herself up off the floor and into his lap. The shocks stopped and her feet started to behave themselves, but her hair still stood on end.

  There was no longer any yellow light outside the cave and an icy damp wind was blowing in through the entrance. Her clothes on the floor by the door were in danger of getting wet, or worse, blowing away. She had to retrieve them.

  Despite being early afternoon, It was now dark enough in the cave to need a light. In the dim light she could see tiny blue lines of sparks, almost like a shifting spider web of blue sparks, moving around her skin. The sensuousness of the feelings running through her skin and her body, were exquisite.

  For just a moment she wondered if the statue had some magic power, some connection to the gods perhaps. Then the world lit up in a flash of brilliance that wasn't her aura, and seconds later she was deafened by rolling thunder. Lightning.

  Her brain raced. The blue sparks, the shocks to her feet. This gold covered statue was acting like a lightning rod. She looked down to the platform of the statue, the part that wasn't covered in gold. Sparks were dancing from the statue to the floor.

  She was trapped, sitting naked in the lap of a lightning rod Buddha. The sparks were now so powerful that if she touched her foot down to the floor, she would risk electrocution. She looked at the blue webbing of sparks crossing her body, and became consumed with fear.

  She had to get off this Buddha. She had one chance. She had to leap as far away from it as she could so that she would never touch both the floor and the statue at the same time. She wriggled her feet. They were working again. She crouched on them and sprang.

  She landed while still moving forward but couldn't keep her balance and rolled once on the stone floor. She caught her breath. She was still alive. Buddha's base was now crackling and sparking and popping like some science experiment out of an old Frankenstein movie. In one racing swoop she grabbed her clothes, and made it to the old military trunk.

  In total frustration she fought with the foam mattress, trying to stuff it into the trunk, thinking that at any second she would be sizzled by a flash of Buddha sparks. At last it folded and fit in and she jumped in on top of it and shut the lid. Not Frankenstein after all, but Dracula, she thought for her metal box truly was like a coffin.

  Outside the thunderstorm raged for an hour. The time between the flashes and the thunder became shorter and shorter until there was no time between. The inside of the coffin lit up with each flash because someone had drilled air holes in the trunk. The air smelled strange, like charred dust. Air holes, that meant that others had experienced this before her.

  Strangely enough, lying there in her coffin, her mind cleared and decisions were easy to make. The best of her options was to escape the detectives and follow Marique to Nepal. There she could use her credit card to fly them back to Europe without going through India. If Will was going to rescue more kids from slavery, then she would help him. If evil men crossed her path, she would use her aura to stop them dead.

  She didn't need Sanskrit to do all this. She didn't need Dharamsala, or the library, or even Vidu. All she needed was a plan to get away from the detectives, and to find transport to the Nepal border.

  Each crack of thunder was now many seconds late. She pushed the lid of the trunk up with her head and looked at the statue. The sparks running over the base between the gold of the statue and the floor of the cave, were now intermittent. On this side of the base they had fully disappeared.

  After climbing out of the trunk and stepping down gingerly on the floor, she summoned her courage and walked to the cave entrance to look out at the sky. The storm was leaving the valley, and behind it was blue sky. Her first thought was to get the hell off this mountainside, but the storm had left hail and ice on the narrow path. To slip on that path would mean her doom, dashed on the rocks below.

  Cautiously she approached the statue holding one hand out to it and watching the hair on that arm to see if it stood on end. Just a little. Enough that she didn't want to touch any of the gold.

  The cave was brightening as the clouds moved away. She could now see that some scraps of her paper had been blown up against he back of the statue base so she stooped to retrieve them. The sparks had done some damage there to the plaster that covered
the base. It was now cracked and crumbling.

  That was strange. The statue and base were carved out of the back of the cave. Why was there plaster here? The sparks must have run behind the plaster and caused it to crack. She pulled out her tiny Swiss army knife and used the nail file to scratch at the plaster along its crack. It crumbled to the floor. There was a brick behind it.

  It took her less than five minutes to clean away the cracked and crumbling plaster and reveal and loosen the brick. She pulled at it with her fingernails, and levered it with her knife, and it moved, and moved, and moved, and then tipped down to the floor. It wasn't a full brick, but a brick tile. Behind it was a dark open space.

  With her tiny LED light she lit up the cavity. The hole contained a wooden box. She pulled it out. It was very old. Her mind rushed to visions of treasure, rubies perhaps, long ago hidden here. "Oh," was all she could say when she learned the truth. It wasn't a box at all. It was a wooden book. A book with pages made from what looked like flattened bamboo.

  It was a picture book with but a few words in an ancient script on each of the twenty or so pages. A letter fell out of the middle of it. The book was ancient, but the letter much more modern though she could not read the script. It was written in Tibetan with a date over four hundred years into the future, so the date must have been based on the life of Buddha, not Christ. She guessed at sometime in the 1950's.

  To an ordinary person flipping through the book, it would look like pictures of a saint wandering amongst people and being saintly. The saint was in poses of meditation, and prayer, and blessings, and healing, and calming people and beasts. In each picture there were golden halos spreading from the saint.

  The pictures took Maya's breath away. They were pictures of a man using a strong aura. She scanned every page, and then went back to the first and concentrated on it. She quickly became frustrated.