Breakwater Harbor Books
Presents:
Under A Million Stars
A Collection of Short Stories
By
Mindy Haig
Copyright © 2015 by Mindy Haig
This amazing cover photo was downloaded from WikiMedia Commons, and is public
domain created by NASA and ESA. The material was created for NASA by
Space Telescope Science Institute under Contract NAS5-26555, or for ESA by the Hubble
European Space Agency Information Centre.
Attribution: {{ESA-Hubble}}
Link: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:30_Doradus,_Tarantula_Nebula.jpg
Cover Art by Delaney and Mindy Haig
All Rights Reserved
License Notes:
Breakwater Harbor Books, Inc.
Scott J. Toney and Cara Goldthorpe, Co-Founders
https://www.breakwaterharborbooks.com/
Table of Contents:
1. Prologue:
2. Kama Vatsya
3. Shades
4. The Phoenix and The Serpent
5. After Five
6. THE DARKNESS
7. Cybilla
8. Mare da Sogno
9. Beloved Disciple
Prologue:
“What are you thinking about?” I asked.
“The stars. Look at all the stars.”
“They’re beautiful.”
“There are so many of them. What if they are just a million possibilities of this exact moment? What if we are in this exact spot at this exact time but a million different scenarios are being played out? Right here, we are lovers, but there we could be meeting for the first time. Over there we could be breaking up. We could be best friends, enemies or just strangers passing in the night. We could be sharing a first kiss or you could be brutally beating me. We could be dying somewhere even as I lie here listening to your heart beat.”
“Why are you thinking those thoughts? What’s wrong?”
“What if it never works out for us?”
“I don’t believe that. I won’t believe that.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you. You are the other half of me. When we lie here, when we touch, I feel whole and when we’re apart all I can think about is getting back here, having you back in my arms. If every star in the night sky is part of our story, then I think each one is a time we found each other. They are every love story ever written. We were Isis and Osiris, Samson and Delilah, Cleopatra and Mark Antony, even Romeo and Juliet
“They all ended tragically!”
“Doesn’t every story of true love end tragically?”
“Of course not! Sometimes they live happily ever after.”
“Says the girl who just thought I might be brutally attacking her in some version of our story.”
“That was just one possibility,” she laughed.
“I’d rather be your lover,” I grinned.
“Well, that is a much better option. But must it be tragic? Couldn’t we be Grace Kelly and
Prince Ranier? Couldn’t we have that Cinderella story with the magical ending?”
“We could, but that isn’t the ending, it’s only the beginning. So yes, they lived, they loved, they grew old together, but eventually mortality will still separate the two hearts. It’s still tragic. Even a life with one hundred perfect years of true and undying love eventually will end.”
“That’s sad. It makes the journey seem so futile.”
“But it’s not! That’s what I’m trying very to tell you. You don’t get just one chance and it’s all over. Every star in the sky is you and I together, starting this journey somewhere in the past and the future. Our souls are joined. We go on forever.”
“How do you know?”
“That’s love. That’s fate. That’s what we have, it’s what we are.”
“Tell me the stories of what we have been. Tell me everything I have ever meant to you. Tell me what you are to me.”
“Okay. If you will come back here tomorrow, I will tell you a story.”
“I’ll come back,” she smiled, then she kissed me goodnight.
* * *
Kama Vatsya
1.0.0: Responsibilities of The Man
1.0.1: On Words
The women spoke loudly against me.
They did not care if I heard their words.
“You should keep a good distance from him, Sidra,” the first warned.
“He looks at you with thoughts that are impure,” the other added.
“You are above his station, but he sees you as Nayika, a woman he can use without sin. He will cause you many difficulties,” the first continued.
“The other men and families will shun you if they think he has taken your virtue,” the second interjected. “Beauty is not enough to secure a fortuitous marriage.”
“I think you mistake his interest. He is a scholar,” my Sidra said as she took her eyes from mine.
“You think the learned have only pure thoughts? You know what he studies!” the first sneered.
“Of course I know his work! But he is a man of words. He is well respected. What harm can there be in speaking to him?”
They shook their heads. “Words can be the most dangerous of weapons, Sidra. Words can ruin people, lives, worlds.”
And I knew they spoke truly. Their words pierced me like razor sharp daggers. I ached and I bled. I should have walked away, but from the moment I saw her, I needed her.
Sidra knew her women spoke truths as well, but her eyes met mine again and she saw within me something the others did not see.
I burned.
1.0.2: On Artha
She was all of my thoughts, every waking moment and even as I took my rest she came to my dreams.
My Sidra.
Her family was well respected though not wealthy.
Conversely, I had achieved Artha, material success, but my means of reaching that success were openly questioned. That is to say my work was openly spoken about as being scandalous. And what was yet to come was even more controversial, but in my mind I was writing verses every time my eyes saw Sidra.
I knew in my heart that my success could not be complete if I could not make her mine. I would never achieve Dharma, a virtuous life, without this woman who was as a beautiful as the lotus flower and as pure as the waters of the cocoa nut.
Though as the waters could ferment into a strong elixir, so could she become something so potent that she would weaken my mind with her touch and the scent of her perfumed skin would rule me for all of time.
I knew those truths, and still I pursued her.
I would find a way to make her my wife.
But it was obvious that I could not approach her ladies in support of my intention.
My only hope was to make her feel affection for me.
I had to speak to her alone, and still publicly, because her ladies were correct, if we met in private, the world would believe that I stole her virtue.
1.0.3: On Winning Affection
But as is the custom when a girl comes of a marriageable age, Sidra was dressed and publicly flaunted. Many men looked at her. So many. I felt anger when they judged her like wares at the market. Her value was not at all based upon the fortunes of her family. No. It was the look in her eyes. It was the way her breast rose and fell with every breath. It was the nimble grace with which she moved. She was art in motion.
They did not see her as I saw her.
She was Kama, my desire.
And I wished to be Kama to her as well.
Each day I began to bring her small gifts.
I brought her a garland of woven y
ellow Amaranth.
She played her part well, pushing my gift away so I would have to beg her acceptance before her ladies.
Oh, but I was prepared to beg. “I offer the immortal flower, to such a beauty as will never fade. I make this offer in the purest love, which shall bloom and be prosperous forever.”
Her eyes lit.
My heart pounded.
Her ladies approved at last and Sidra touched my hand for just the smallest breath of a moment as she accepted my gift.
The second day I offered to her a bouquet of Ashok. The bright crimson flowers seemed to teem with life in her hand. But she dutifully pushed them back to me even as her eyes looked into mine with what must have been love because no woman had ever looked at me in such a way before.
Again, I dropped to my knees before her and gave her my words along with my gift. “My lady, I offer you Ashok to symbolize a life without grief. I wish that there should be beauty wherever you walk.”
One of her ladies nodded approvingly, while the other shook her head and frowned.
But my Sidra held up her graceful hand and stopped the latter from voicing her opinions, then she accepted my gift and turned away from me.
I did not know what to think, for she did not look pleased.
The women were but a few steps away when the contrary one began to scold.
I did not like to see it. I felt anger and the overwhelming need to protect her, to defend her.
“You must stop encouraging him! Accepting his gifts is deterring the other men...”
Again my Sidra held up her hand in dismissal. “Has it not occurred to you that I have no wish to discourage Vatsya?”
“But he is...”
“Learned. Handsome. Passionate. What woman would not want such traits in a man?”
“His reputation...”
“Shall make women envy me for all of time.”
“You will throw away your chance at a life of luxury.”
“I have never known luxury, but I would rather have the look that is in his eyes than all the jewels upon Devi Parvati’s head.”
Sidra’s words were spoken loud enough for me to hear, so I was encouraged even as I tried to look hopeless and abandoned.
The third day I came meekly to her. I kept my eyes lowered as I offered my gift.
She gasped when she opened the wrapping and saw Neel Kamal, the rare blue lotus, symbol of Krishna.
“Sidra, if you wished for one hundred of these, I would search the worlds as Rama did to get his blessing from Devi Durga. If you wish me to stop my bid for your affection...”
“I don’t wish that at all,” she said quickly before a single word could be uttered by her ladies. “I accept your gift. Perhaps you would come visit at my home and we could sit and speak in the garden.”
“It would be my greatest pleasure to sit and speak with you,” I said humbly.
Sidra smiled. “You needn’t search the world as Rama did. Come tomorrow, in the afternoon when the sun is low in the sky.”
“As you wish,” I answered and I watched her walk away, but my heart did pound in my chest. The time could not move quickly enough.
2.0.0: Proposing Marriage
2.0.1: On Protocol
Life is full of such strange twistings and turnings.
That I should have written the verses on how such things as marriage should be properly arranged and the expected course of action of each of the cast of characters when I was not of a position to meet any such requirements was a great irony.
But never had I expected to find such a woman that I should wish to marry even though I was of the opinion that the custom was a man’s duty.
And to say that there were not other women of her making would be as true as to say no two stars in the night sky shown with equal brightness. There was but one Sirius and there was but one Sidra.
She was the one woman who captured in me that which I thought wild and unworthy.
And my work made knowledge of women one thing at which I was certainly an expert.
So when I say that she stood above all others, I say it factually, knowledgeably.
I came as she asked, to her home.
Having a deceased father and a mother who was second wife to another man, I did not have family to make this all important connection for me.
I had many friends.
Being a man who had achieved Artha, my wealth kept many close in my acquaintance, but they were not necessarily of the caste that would make a good impression for me. No blue birds flew above my shoulder. There was no great alignment in my astrological chart. But nor did any black cats or widows cross my path. Gaining her hand seemed an impossible task, doomed to failure unless Sidra should fall completely in love with me and I could offer her father enough coins that it would help him find his son a bride of a higher caste.
Yet, though it seemed I came to them with little hope, my heart still felt some surety that Sidra knew what was inside me and that we would be together.
I brought with me generous offerings. Perfume made from the Yuthika flower, mangoes and dates, and Betel nuts. I was received warmly, if somewhat warily. Perhaps warily was not the correct word. Her mother seemed a bit scandalized while her father was more confounded. He addressed me as Vatsyayana, which was very formal and did pain me to hear.
It seemed clear they knew my work.
The lady of the house dutifully went to call forth Sidra.
Her father bid me to sit.
He asked but one question: ‘Why Sidra?’
And that was a very good question indeed. One I did not think I had a good answer for. But my spirit seemed to answer of its own will.
“It is traditionally believed that marriage is not just one lifetime, but seven. Never in my years have I had any wish to marry, until the moment my eyes met Sidra’s. My soul has known hers before. My heart can love only her. I don’t know if this is our second incarnation or our last, I only know that she is my queen.”
She heard my words as she stood in the entry and she pressed her hands to her heart.
If only she could have come to my arms and I could have held her pressed to me.
This was but a first meeting.
Such intimacies necessarily had to wait.
Oh patience, you are such a difficult virtue to master.
2.0.2: On Written Words
So it was that we were permitted to walk out into the garden.
Well tended it was, and blooming in a vast fortune of colors and scents that might have been most pleasing to the senses, but the beauty was dull in comparison to she who walked at my side and seemed to bloom into a woman before my eyes.
And though I wrote the protocol, I still did not know what words to speak to gage her affection for me. She knew my position. I was quite painfully clear that I wanted only her.
But it was she that spoke first.
“I have read all of your work, Vatsya.”
Her simple words caused flames to burn my cheeks and I felt shame, so unexpectedly, and yet so great that I failed to answer.
“You are displeased? I thought you were of the opinion that all women should know those facts before they are given into marriage,” she said softly.
“All women but you,” I whispered.
“Why should that be? Why should you want a wife who is blind in the duties...”
“Because I wish you did not know what I have done for research. I wish you could look upon me as a good man, a worthy man.”
She laughed. “I knew who you were before I read your words. I did not discourage you.”
“Your women spoke firmly against me. Do you know that they are right to do so?”
“Yes, I know. I have had every conversation, every argument already within my own mind, Vatsya. But it is not your written words that keep me rapt; it is the things your eyes say when you look upon me. It is the feelings within me that your look brings to life. Perhaps they are right
to speak against you, but I know inside that even if you ruined me I would not regret it. And I know if you should abandon your wish to have me as your wife, I would not find happiness with another man because no other looks at me as you do.”
“I meant the words I said to your father, Sidra.”
“And when you ask, I shall agree. So tell me, will you teach me those things that a women should know?” she smiled.
“Which things do you speak of?” I asked timidly. There were answers I wished to hear, though they would make the blood rush in my veins.
She tilted her head and looked into my eyes. I could not look away from her. She was not shy in her private words, but well spoken, and skilled at making simple words have complex meanings.
“There are verses upon verses that I would learn, some clearly say they take much practice.”
“And some say they cause pain.”
“To further the cause of pleasure.”
“Pleasure is not love and it can be found in many ways. Passion is satisfying for a short time only, even intense passion can be satisfied in a single act. Pain lingers. I do not wish to show you those acts meant to cause pain, Sidra.”
“And if it is not the acts of passion that I am speaking of?” she said lightly as her eyes looked deep beyond my flesh to the bared soul within me. “Would you teach me those skills upon the list of sixty-four arts?”
“Which do you wish to learn?” I asked as I sat captive.
She laughed again. “Why I would wish to learn Magic, Sorcery, so I might cast an unbreakable spell upon you that you will love only me.”
“Oh but I do think you have already mastered that art.”
2.0.3: On Love
I came to her home a second time and a third.
We sat upon a tapestry laid out upon the ground as the afternoon sun began its race toward the horizon. And I thought to myself how wonderful it would be to lie in the moonlight in a pressing embrace with this woman for whom my heart felt the deepest love.