A Mosaic of Wings

by Kimberly Duffy

  She strode toward the pot of watery yogurt that fermented in the shade of an acacia tree. She filled a tin bowl, wrinkling her nose at the tangy scent. She’d not yet developed a taste for it, but Pallavi had insisted it would help settle the ill men’s stomachs. She carried it into Mr. Taylor’s tent and set it on the metal table beside his cot. Whey sloshed out, and he turned bleary eyes toward her.

  “I’m so very sorry.” His normally placid expression was twisted into one of misery. Sweat beaded his hairline, and his skin had taken on the pallor of someone who had released all body fluids in a short amount of time.

  The poor man. He was the bedrock of their team. Reliable and unflappable. Always willing to share his findings with her and listen to the bits of things she’d gleaned on her lonely excursions into the shola. He raised a trembling hand for his cup, and Nora easily fell into her much-practiced role as nursemaid.

  She slipped her arm behind him and tipped the bowl against his lips. When yogurt dribbled down his chin, she wiped it with the handkerchief tucked into her waistband. She snugged his blanket around him, made sure the bowl was within reach, and left him with the handkerchief, then stepped back into the sunshine.

  Pallavi sat on her heels near the ever-lit fire, pounding a rainbow of spices together against a smooth rock. Her limp braid gently swung against her back as she dumped a small pot of coriander seeds atop the already ground cumin and pepper. Nora’s mouth watered. Pallavi prepared some of the most flavorful food she’d ever tasted.

  And she was Sita’s aunt.

  Nora strode toward her, kicking up dust in her haste to ferret out the truth. To understand the motive.

  Pallavi glanced up at her approach, continuing to grind the pestle as she stared at Nora, censure in her expression. “You should not let Sita come.”

  Nora ignored the comment and knelt beside her. “That smells lovely. You are a wonderful cook. Much better than our housemaid at home.” Certainly a little flattery wouldn’t hurt.

  Pallavi narrowed her eyes. “Sita is to stay away.”

  Nora drew in a slow, steadying breath. Then she smiled. She’d been told on a few occasions that she had a nice smile—straight white teeth and pretty lips. She’d never attempted to use her smile, or any other part of her person, to get what she wanted, but she knew most women did. Rose did so without pretense or thought. Bitsy, with her languid stretches and sideways glances, knew exactly what she was about.

  By the tight line of Pallavi’s mouth and the way she rolled her shoulders inward, Nora could tell her attempts had fallen flat.

  She was being ridiculous. And completely uncharacteristic. Directness had never failed anyone. “Is it true that Sita was dedicated to a goddess and will be prostituted?”

  Pallavi stopped pounding the spices. Her fingers twitched against the smooth acacia pestle, and the line of her shoulders went rigid. “It is the custom.”

  “She is a child.”

  “She won’t work until she bleeds, so she will be a woman.”

  “But it will still be against her will.”

  Pallavi’s head snapped up, and her eyes flashed. “How many things are in our will? We are women. We do nothing we want.” Her sneer dripped with disdain. “You do nothing you want, even though you are a foreign woman. You are white, but you have breasts.” She shrugged as though she’d just diagnosed all the world’s injustice. “And if Yellamma smiles on Sita, a rich man will make her his own.”

  “He will marry her?”

  “No, but he will take care of her, and it will honor her family.” Pallavi turned back to her spices and began singing in her high, warbling voice. Nora didn’t know any Tamil, but she knew a love song when she heard one. In any language, they sounded of yearning and desire.

  And helplessness.

  Chapter

  Fourteen

  All that afternoon and into early evening when the rest of the men returned, Nora scuttled back and forth between William’s tent and Mr. Taylor’s. She tipped cups of cool water toward their mouths and wiped their brows. She told Mr. Taylor everything she knew about North American leeches and watched over William as he rested.

  She sat there now, beside his bed, waving a sheaf of papers at her face to disrupt the still air.

  “What is it about Sita that has you pouring so much into her?” William’s voice didn’t show an inkling of his typical exuberance.

  She dropped the papers into her lap, and her eyes fell to the writing—William’s notes on a beetle he’d observed just before falling ill. She wondered how to answer. How much to share.

  He reached for her hand, and his skin burned as hot as his eyes. The fever battered his body, and she didn’t know if he’d even remember anything of their conversation. Plus, she needed to talk about it. To work things out with someone who might understand. Or at least explain.

  “My father died when I was fifteen. In front of me.”

  William made a murmur of sympathy. He struggled to push himself up, and sweat beaded along his temple.

  “No, don’t get up. I’m not telling you this for any reason other than to say that I identify with Sita. She’s stubborn and hardened, but really she’s just scared. Lonely.”

  “Has her father died too?”

  “No, but he’s abandoned her just the same.” She tilted her head and worried her lip. Maybe she could ask him. It would be improper to speak with him about such things. Not done. But maybe he could explain it.

  “Sita is to be sent into prostitution.”

  His eyes slid closed. “Temple prostitution or British?”

  She shook her head. “What’s the difference? It’s awful either way.”

  “It is, but it’s a little less awful for Sita if she becomes a temple prostitute. At least then she’ll be provided for and respected. She won’t be abused, and any children she has will be considered legitimate. She’ll be able to own property. If she is sent to stay in a British chakla, her life will be one of dehumanizing drudgery.” He opened his eyes, and even in their fevered state, she saw compassion.

  Her head whirled with the information. “It’s temple prostitution. Her father dedicated her to a deity called Yellamma.”

  “She’s not worshiped here in Tamil Nadu, but I’m familiar with the practice. There’s a temple not far from Hubli, where my parents have worked, that many devotees pilgrimage to.”

  “Sita’s family is from Trinomalee originally. Her father promised the goddess a daughter if he was given a son.”

  “And he got a son?”

  Nora nodded. “And after they moved here, Sita attended the mission school and became a Christian. She can’t be dedicated to a Hindu goddess.”

  “That is a problem.”

  “Yes.” She lifted his cup from the crude little table near his cot. She held it to his lips, letting him take a small sip before she set it down. “I’m determined to help her.”

  “That might be a bigger problem.”

  Nora lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Being a problem comes easily to me.”

  Later that night, when the moon, as round and gleaming as the silver ball studding Sita’s nostril, rose above Kodaikanal, Nora joined Owen near the trees fringing the camp. The air smelled as spicy as the eggplant she’d eaten for dinner.

  Owen held up two kerosene lanterns, and Nora reached for one. She lifted it to shoulder height, and the flame caught the cadmium eyes of a spotted owl peering at her from its hollow in a tree.

  “Let’s go,” Owen whispered.

  The lamps gave off enough light to surround them in a glow, and she followed Owen as he led her to the location of the caterpillar. They didn’t walk far before they ducked beneath branches heavy with ripe mangos, and she moved her lamp in a wide arc.

  A small creek traversed the spot. Scattered boulders covered in lichen appeared to have been dropped by a giant. The trees arched over them, the canopy making a living roof, and everything was hushed. Only the sound of moving water interrupted the peace. On the ot
her side of the creek, the land rose, spindly trees clinging to its gentle slope. They were cut off. Alone.

  “Is this safe?” she asked.

  He lifted his lamp, and the light cast eerie shadows over his face, painting half of it in a dark mask. “Are you afraid of the wild animals or me?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Hardly you. I don’t think you’re capable of hurting anyone.”

  “I wrestled all four years of college.”

  “Not sure that will help us if a tiger decides we’ll make a good midnight snack.”

  His laugh was a Christmas fire. It was the quilt her mother had tucked around her every night as a child. It was her father’s hands, warm and comforting, on her shoulders.

  Owen was a man worth knowing. A decent man.

  A man who would never harm a woman, much less a child.

  Ensconced in their private bower, Nora released the air that had been stuck between her breasts and ribs since her conversation with Sita, and it whooshed from her lungs, catching a sob as it escaped. She pinned the next cry between pinched lips, shuddering against the strength of her grief.

  Owen lowered his lamp and peered into her face. “Are you all right, Peculiar? It sounds like you’re about to cry.”

  She pulled away from the lamp. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m fine. Where’s this caterpillar you were talking about?”

  He stared at her and scratched at his jaw, his nails scraping against the prickly hairs on his chin. But he didn’t push her. He took measured steps toward a bushy shrub. “Frederic said this is a jujube.”

  Nora followed him, picking her way across the uneven ground. Taking time to collect herself. To pull all thoughts of Sita back in. When she reached the bush, she followed Owen’s example and held her lamp aloft.

  “There it is,” he said, pointing to a leafy branch.

  At the base of a large leaf, just where it met the stem, three large red ants crawled over a caterpillar. Nora brought her lamp closer.

  “It looks like they’re eating, doesn’t it?” Owen asked.

  “I think they are. When you went back out this afternoon, I found a mention in one of the books of the Cigaritis lohita. Mr. Alford has the adult in his collection—it’s the butterfly that has false antennae on its hind wings. The pupa releases a sweet secretion that the ants ‘milk.’ In turn, the ants provide protection from birds and carnivorous insects.”

  “It’s a symbiotic relationship. Fascinating. This one looks about to molt. There were a couple others on the plant, but Frederic took them back to camp.”

  Nora frowned and lifted her lamp to see his face. “Why didn’t you tell me that? We could have just looked at those instead of tromping out here.”

  He gave her a sheepish smile. “I wanted to spend some time with you alone.”

  “Owen!” She laughed. “I’m taking a risk, coming out here with you alone. It’s the kind of thing that could ruin my reputation.”

  “No one will know. I just want more time with you. Frederic hasn’t made that easy, forcing you to stay at camp while we work.”

  “I wish he’d let me go with you.” Her smile turned sardonic. “And for more reason than just to be with you. There’s so much to see and discover here. I’m afraid I’m going to return home with nothing to show for it. It feels unfair to be judged incompetent because of my sex. And I don’t even have it as bad as some. I don’t have it as bad as Sita.”

  “What’s happening with Sita?” His forehead furrowed, and Nora wanted to run her thumbs over his uncivilized brows, the wrinkles between them, the hard edges of his cheekbones, the soft peaks and valleys of his lips. . . .

  Her cheeks warmed. She tore her gaze from him and stared up at the arthritic-looking branches above them, inhaling deeply and counting to ten. When her heart once again rested between beats and the heat left her body, she returned her attention to him, this time careful not to focus too intently on his face.

  “She has been given over to a goddess, where she’ll become a . . .” This was harder to discuss with Owen than it had been with William, and Nora didn’t want to explore why.

  “Become a what?” he asked. “Dancer? I’ve seen girls dancing in front of the idols we pass on the way to town.”

  She shook her head and forced herself to meet his eyes. “She will be prostituted to the men who come to worship Yellamma.”

  His eyes darkened, and the color in his face, deepened already by time spent beneath the burning sun, drained. “What . . . how is that . . . why would they?”

  His halting words, spoken in a soft whisper, spilled healing into her bruised heart. She took his free hand into hers and worried her lower lip. “I need your assistance.”

  “Anything.”

  “Will you help me talk with Mr. Alford? Maybe he can do something. Intervene.”

  He dropped his eyes to their hands, and she saw a tremor run over his shoulders. When he looked up at her, his jaw had grown slack. He swallowed hard and nodded.

  But Nora knew, even before then, that he would help. Because the expression in his eyes told her that Owen Epps might be willing to do just about anything for her.

  Unfortunately, Mr. Alford didn’t seem as enraptured by Nora as Owen was.

  “We stay out of local matters.” He shifted in his camp chair beside the fire the following evening. He raised a cup to his lips and grimaced. “I abhor this stuff. Why ruin a perfectly good cup of tea with all manner of spices that don’t belong in it?” He dumped the remains of his drink onto the ground.

  “But Sita is only a child. Surely the local missionaries can help.” Nora pressed her hands together, hoping to soften him with a supplicant demeanor.

  “I forbid you,” he said. “You will only hurt our work, which, need I remind you, is to collect, catalogue, study, and illustrate local butterflies.”

  He forbade her? Nora dropped her hands and clenched them at her sides. She took a step toward him, preparing a speech that would leave him entirely befuddled.

  Owen stopped her with a light touch on her arm. “Frederic, Sita has become something of a camp pet. She’s here all the time—”

  “Of which I disapprove, as you both well know.” He leveled a glare in Nora’s direction.

  Owen sighed. “But it has happened. She is a talented child who needs protection. Surely it is our Christian duty to offer it?”

  Mr. Alford stood and tossed his empty cup into the bucket four feet away. “We are not here at the bequest of the Church, but the Crown. And the Crown wants us to study butterflies, not spend our time rescuing Indian children from Indian customs.”

  Nora bit back the words clawing at her throat. The words that made the whole situation worse but probably wouldn’t change Mr. Alford’s mind.

  Sita is a Christian. She can’t serve an Indian god.

  She didn’t trust Mr. Alford to keep that information private, though. He might tell Pallavi, and Sita would be put in danger. But Nora didn’t have to follow Mr. Alford’s directive either. Maybe he held sway over her in the camp, but when she stepped onto the road just beyond, she could make her own decisions.

  Chapter

  Fifteen

  Within a week of arriving in India, Owen had set up a nursery, having collected larvae and meticulously arranged them each in a glass jar topped with netting. Lining a two-tier shelf, shielded from the elements by a sheet of canvas held aloft by poles, the containers housed caterpillars and pupae. Beside the shelf, Owen had driven stakes into the ground and draped it with the stitched-together bags of half a dozen nets, creating a makeshift enclosure for butterflies. He’d amassed quite a collection over the last couple months.

  Nora had managed to build a nice collection of her own from the insects she found on her walks with Sita. After sketching each one into her journal, she dictated notes to Sita, then mounted it into one of the paste boxes she’d fitted with paper-wrapped cork. But her project took much less time and attention than Owen’s, mostly because his insects were alive, while hers we
re killed right away for illustration purposes.

  She hadn’t realized how diligent a scientist he was until she witnessed him, a week after her conversation about Sita’s unhappy plight, gently brushing frass—caterpillar excrement—from the jars, one at a time, with a small paintbrush. At school, he’d seemed dismissive of work. Easily outscoring their classmates, he never appreciated the effort the rest of them had to put into their studies. But here, across the world, Owen had come into himself, throwing every bit of energy into his work.

  As the sun rose and burnt off the morning dew, she approached him, two cups of tea in hand, and waited while he slid a caterpillar back into a jar and selected a few twigs of jujube from the ground near his feet. He arranged the branches, placed the slip of net over the jar’s mouth, and secured it with a rubber band.

  Before he could begin his ministrations on the next jar, Nora cleared her throat and held out one of the cups. Through the drink’s rising steam, she saw him straighten and smile at her.

  “Good morning.” He took the cup and raised it to his lips, his eyes closing at the first taste. He groaned with pleasure. “I don’t understand Frederic’s distaste of this. It’s delicious. I’ll be spoiled off regular tea forever.” He winked at her. “I’ll have our cook running all over New York, looking for the proper spices. I wonder if you can get cardamom at home.”

  “You can take some back with you.”

  “Good idea. I’ll travel home loaded down like a spice merchant.”

  He turned to examine his insect crèche, and Nora’s gaze roamed the expanse of his linen-clad back. No jacket or cravat, he stood with his hands on his narrow hips and his head bent in study, his shirt stretched across his shoulders. The sun had browned his neck, and Nora thought she felt the heat of it on her own neck. It grew hotter the longer she looked at him. She forced her eyes off him and onto the unattractive larva.