Martha woke up
at 2 a.m. with a jerk. She felt as if
there was someone in the room. She
caught a glimpse of the determined Myara, bravely climbing the steep steps to
that shrine. She was disguised like an
old lady. Juan’s mother! Excitedly, Martha threw away the bed-covers
and went to her desk. She didn’t want to
waste any time. Not when the character
of her story wasn’t!
She started
writing.
A fierce gust
of wind tried to blow away the brave Myara from the face of that precarious
cliff. Martha clutched her voluminous
robe tightly and tightened her grip on her staff that she had thoughtfully
brought along to ward off the hungry eagles.
As she looked up towards the sky she shuddered. So the gust of wind was in fact the impact of
scores of eagles circling her at that great height of several hundreds of meters
above the ground.
They looked
angry and vicious. Their pointed talons
plunged fear in her heart and their widespread wings encompassed a challenge to
her resilience. She waved about her
staff frantically as they ventured closer to her. She hurriedly scampered into a tiny crevice
in the huge rocks on the cliff’s face.
The huge birds would’ve got stuck if they’d tried to follow her in
there. They hovered around for several
minutes, their screeches filling the air and curdling her blood. She could feel the blood pounding in her
veins and her heart thudding sickeningly.
She thought that she would faint in panic. She closed her eyes and prayed silently to
the Almighty.
When she felt
calm, she relaxed and opened her eyes.
There wasn’t a sound outside.
There were no shadows on the steps outside. Probably the eagles had decided to leave her
alone. Then again, may be they were
quietly waiting to pounce on her the minute she ventured outside the
crevice. She decided to rest there for a
while. She ran her eyes around the
crevice and was surprised to note that she was in a medium-sized cave. Only its entrance was a crevice.
She saw that
the interior was damp and cool. Drops of
water fell in a staccato on to the rocky floor.
So, there was a water-body above it, she mused, that she hadn’t noticed
on her earlier recce. She decided to
explore further. To the right of the
cave, she noticed a tunnel.
As she took a
step into the tunnel, she felt the cold and damp air swishing around her. She shivered at the eeriness and debated
whether she could venture further inside.
What if she lost her way and was smothered there in its unknown
depths? A cold shiver ran up her
spine. She had heard about people losing
their way and wandering around in a labyrinth of underground tunnels only to
end up exhausted and dying there of asphyxiation, starvation and
dehydration. She had some food and
water, but still……
She was
adventurous but not reckless, so she spent quite some time debating about her
further course of action. Then curiosity
got the better of her. She said a small
prayer, crossed her heart and started going further inside that tunnel. She felt a thrill coursing through her. Then she felt instinctively that that tunnel
probably led to the shrine. May be those
inmates traveled through this tunnel.
No wonder, no one could be spotted going into or out of that
shrine.
Then she
shuddered as it struck her that she could be caught there by some inmate and
imprisoned for life. She took a deep
breath, steadied her nerves and decided to take any eventuality head-on. She had always been very daring and
adventurous. She giggled as she
remembered how she had jumped into a well in her childhood, without knowing to
swim! Fortunately, her cries had alerted
some palace guards who had jumped in to save her.
As she walked,
bent in double, she felt the walls around her.
The rocks were wet and black soil stuck to her hands. She rubbed her palms on her gown’s folds. Suddenly it was dark. Pitch dark!
She realized that she had rounded a bend and the daylight that had
filtered in through the crevice had faded.
She breathed heavily and felt suffocated. She felt like turning around and fleeing. But no, she wasn’t a coward and knew no
turning back. She hoped and prayed that
her hunch was right and she safely reached the shrine. She deliberately closed her mind to the fate
that awaited her inside the shrine. But
she was determined to talk to Juan. If
she could find him, recognize him in the first place!
Would he be
as handsome as when she had first set her sight on him and given her heart to
him? Or would he be like an ascetic and
unrecognizable. As she thought about
him, her pulses quickened and her throat felt parched. She reached out for her satchel that was hung
cross-wise across her shoulders. Her muscles felt stiff and sore with all that
crouching. She sat down with a thump. Thirstily, she gulped a mouthful of water;
then ate some oatmeal biscuits. As she
let out a loud yawn, the sound reverberated through the tunnel and she jumped
out of her skin. She felt sleepy and
exhausted but her mission propelled her onwards.
Now she decided
to crawl on all fours for some time.
She’d keep changing her position, she decided. She reached a huge puddle, hence got up and
again crouched to walk through it. To
her surprise, she noticed that her dress shimmered like molten gold. Was her imagination playing tricks with
her? So the oxygen deprivation had
really started affecting her and giving her delusions! But her dress was shimmering. She turned around and looked at the puddle
and was puzzled to see that it looked dull and brown like just any other normal
puddle. She was tempted to walk into it
again but decided against it. She didn’t
want to waste any time. She’d come back
another day and investigate that puddle again.
To be continued....
The copyright of this novel is with Mrs. Priya Ramesh Swaminathan.
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