Joseph Lewis: Chimera

“I don’t mean that!” Asha rubbed her eyes. “Even out here in the middle of nowhere, people should know better than to abuse a body. He should have known what would happen to his daughter’s ghost if he didn’t burn or bury her properly.”

“You come from the north, don’t you?”

Asha nodded.

“Well, here in the south ghosts are rare. They aren’t seen. They aren’t spoken of. At the monastery, I don’t believe I ever heard a single story about ghosts, but tales of the local spirits and gods were common enough.”

“The difference being that ghosts are real. So what happened when you met the girl?”

Priya sighed and her whole body shifted, tugging at the vines wrapped around her and shaking the leaves and blossoms. “She told me how she awoke here in this cave, in the dark, all alone. She didn’t understand that she was dead because she was lying on this altar, with the sunlight streaming down from the roof of the cavern. But when she sat up, she saw her own body lying cold and still on the stone. It terrified her, and she ran away, ran all the way down the tunnel. But when she came to the exit, the heat and the light of the sun began tugging apart the aether of her ghostly form. There was a brief moment when she stood on the threshold, staring down at the pale outline of her fingers as the midday breeze teased them apart like spider silk or smoke. And then she ran back inside, into the darkness.”

“Poor girl,” Asha said. “If she’d risen from a proper grave, she would have understood. And if she’d been placed where it was warm, she never would have risen at all.”

Priya nodded, the white blossoms in her hair glowing softly in the dark. “She was filled with rage at her father, and terror at what she had become. She didn’t understand what had happened at all. I’m not even sure if she truly understood that she was dead. Perhaps she thought she’d been cursed or transformed into a demon. But her soul sank down into the earth here, into the roots, and her madness spread to all the living things on this mountain. She made the trees drink up the river to punish her father. That’s why they grew so tall.”

Asha nodded. “And what about the creature that killed the men from the village?”

“There is no creature. Not really,” Priya said. “When the men came, the girl lashed out with the only thing at hand. These lotus blossoms. The roots are extensive, filling this chamber and the tunnel, and covering half the mountainside. She twisted the lotus roots as she twisted the trees, and the flowers choked the life from the men. The one who escaped was stabbed with a seed that grew inside his body, killing him slowly from within.”

Asha tugged her right earlobe. “I see. And the ghost told you all this?”

“No. I learned this later. When I first arrived, all I knew was that there was a soul in this cave, tormented and terrified. So I came inside and sat on this stone, and began to meditate.” Priya reached up to gently caress the vines embracing her body. “When I awoke the next morning, these were wrapped around me, holding me up and keeping me warm. They even feed me, somehow. In the days and weeks that followed, I came to know the girl and her pain, and the missing pieces of her story. In return, I taught her peace and contentment. Together, we returned balance to the mountain and let the river flow once more.”

Asha reached out to touch a leaf near her hand. “Amazing.”

“Actually, I don’t really understand how it all happened,” the nun said. “I’d never heard of a ghost controlling plants like this. I thought they couldn’t affect the living world after they had passed on.”

“Well, all living things have a soul, including plants and animals. This ghost of yours must have been so angry and frightened that she was able to control the souls of the trees and the lotuses,” Asha said. “Especially here, where the aether is thick.”

Priya leaned forward. “How can you be so certain that plants have souls?”

“Because I can hear them,” Asha said.

“You hear them?” The nun tilted her head slightly. “How?”

“I was born in the city of Yen, though you may know it better as Kathmandu,” Asha said. “It’s an ancient city far to the north in the shadows of four great mountains where snow covers the ground for most of the year and eight rivers flow between the districts. In some ways, it’s like any other city. Huge, crowded, and dirty. But Kathmandu is the crossroads of the gods. Every street corner in the city has a shrine, monument, statue, monastery, pagoda, stupa, or temple to someone’s god. Brahma, Lakshmi, Buddha, Shiva, Ganesh, Ahura Mazda, and on and on.

“My father was a goldsmith who served the house of the king, as well as the wealthy temples, by making jewelry and golden inlays for statues and furniture. We were not wealthy ourselves, but my father was well-known and respected and we lived better than our neighbors. I had three brothers, and my mother’s sister also lived with us. I remember that we ate very well.”

The nun nodded. The sounds of dripping water echoed all around them.

“One day, a strange little man came to visit my father. He said he was a doctor from the Ming Empire who had come to pay his respects to the king of Yen and to see our kingdom. He claimed to speak a hundred languages, to know the secrets of the dead and the living, and to possess a cure for leprosy. My father, of course, was not interested in the man’s stories. My father was an artist who cared only for his tools and his work and his reputation. Eventually, the doctor came to the point. He commissioned my father to create a ring made of gold, silver, and iron, three bands intertwined with a strange design carved into its face, almost like a signet. My father was not happy about having to work with silver and iron, but the doctor offered to pay any price and that overcame my father’s objections. By the end of the month, the ring was ready.”

“Did you see it? Was it beautiful?”

“No, it was hideous,” Asha said. “But it was exactly what the doctor wanted. I couldn’t understand why anyone would want such a thing, so I followed my father when he delivered it to the doctor, and after my father left, I stayed to watch through a window. And that’s when I first saw it.”

“What?”

“A dragon. A real dragon.” Asha gazed out over the black waters. “The doctor had a chest, and in the chest was a cage, and in the cage was a golden dragon no larger than a songbird. At first I thought it was a snake, but then I saw the tiny claws, the tall scales on its spine, and the long curling white whiskers around its mouth. The doctor slipped my father’s ring around the dragon’s neck and twisted the rings to tighten it about its throat. It was a collar to keep the dragon from eating too much and growing too large.”

“How terrible.” Priya lowered her head.

“I suppose it was,” Asha said. “At the time, though, I just stared at the dragon through the window and wondered what else was out there in the world. I went to the doctor’s door and asked to the see the dragon. He refused at first. But when I described it to him, he knew that I already knew his secret and he let me in. He placed the cage on the table and let me stand there and stare at it. After a while, I began asking him questions. Where did he get it? Why did he have it? How old was it? Were there more? Could I have one?” She smiled in the dark. “How arrogant was I then? To own a dragon?”

“You were a child.”

“I suppose.” Asha sighed. “I stayed at the doctor’s house all evening looking at the relics and creatures in his jars and boxes, but they were all common enough animals and plants. I came back to the dragon again and again to watch it pace around its cage. When it looked at me, I could swear it was about to speak, but it never did. The doctor practically had to throw me out that night, and I came back every day after that to stare at the dragon and hear the doctor’s stories about his travels all over the world.