Lips Touch: Three Times by Lips Touch; Three Times Page A

eyebrow at Pranjivan,
who smiled a thin smile and said, "There are none nearby just now."
    "Of course not. Look, I'll just be on my way. I don't have
time for your mythology today." James stepped around Pranjivan and
continued down the avenue.
    Pranjivan fell into step beside him. "Oh? Why is that? What
happens today?"
    James gave him a dark glance but didn't answer. In his pocket, his
hand curled around the little velvet box.
    "From what I hear," said Pranjivan, "she would be
devastated if she killed you. For her sake, I wish that not to happen."
    "How good of you."
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    "If you wish to protect her --"
    "I wish to marry her," said James, turning to
face him.
    "So marry her," said Pranjivan in a low, urgent voice.
"But believe. The world goes down deeper than you know, Englishman.
There are cobras under the rocks, and there are curses."
    The urgency in the Indian's voice perplexed James. He might be
mad, but he was certainly sincere. What was this all about? The strength of
James's certainty weakened just a little.
    Pranjivan went on. "She mustn't speak. Believe it. Believe
there is more to the world than what your own eyes have seen." Then he
nodded his head in a sharp farewell and crossed the avenue to a waiting
rickshaw. James watched him go. He saw him climb in, and he saw the rickshaw
men gather up their poles, but before they could start off, a spidery hand
reached out from within the shadows of the contraption and the men halted.
    The street was banded with shadows slung low and long by the
setting sun, and James couldn't make out the second figure in the rickshaw
until she sat forward. It seemed to cost her a great effort to move that little
bit, and when her face came into the light, James saw Estella. She looked very
ill. Her face was pinched and sallow, but her eyes burned with a fearsome
intensity. James felt a shiver pass through him as she looked straight at him.
    "What does she want?" he wondered. Uneasy, he started walking
toward her but he hadn't gone more than a few steps when the old bitch reached
her hand out of the rickshaw and, in a sudden startling motion, snatched
James's shadow away.
    He faltered and stared at his feet, then up at the rickshaw, then
back at his feet. What had he just seen? The old bitch had reached out one
frail hand, clutched it suddenly into a fist, and pulled -
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    and James's long thin shadow had gone taut before him, then
disengaged from his feet and scudded over the cobbles to disappear into the
shadowy rickshaw. He almost thought he had felt it pull free. A smile
quavered at the corners of his lips and he wanted to laugh at the absurdity of
it.
    But when a box-wallah paused beside him to reshoulder his burden
before crossing the street, James couldn't help but see the man's shadow
splayed out thick and dark over the cobbles and beside it... nothing. James
cast no shadow at all.
    The old bitch slumped wearily back in her seat and Pranjivan gave
James a long look before ordering the rickshaw runners to move off. An
incredulous laugh burst from James's lips as he thought of calling out,
"Stop! Thief!" He turned in a circle to see if anyone had been
watching, but the street sweepers and lamplighters were all going about their
own business, and the rickshaw soon faded into the gloom.
    James resumed his walk toward the Agent's Residence with a fervor
of thoughts clashing in his mind. He didn't believe in magic and demons.
He believed in day and night, endurance and fury, cold mud and loneliness and
the speed with which blood leaves the body. He also believed in miserable,
defiant hope and the way the shape of the girl you love can fill your arms like
an eidolon when you dream about dancing with her.
    But whether he believed it or not, his shadow was ... missing. With
each person he passed he was forced to acknowledge its absence in stark
contrast to the many quick shadows slipping by on the street. By the time he
reached the gates of the Residence, he had begun to feel as if a neat