The crystal blue lake mirrored the sky above, filled with a billion stars. I looked up and wished for a simple thing— A fairytale. I wanted to live my life as a prince even if it was just for a short amount of time. I marvelled, as a shooting star crossed over my head right at the moment.
The next day was a hassle. Classes after classes. I sat down on one of the tables my friends were sitting, sipping a box of juice, and nagged at them about every single one of the teachers.
"Ah! We get it"
Ilira looked so done with me. I smiled and poked her cheek with a stick. She glared at me while Sobul and I laughed. Enin, the soft hearted one of the group joined us later. She was in the creative arts department. Da Vinci was her virtue and Picaso was her religion. For her, art was as lively as a human, one can make love with. The last was Abhay. I was his first friend when he first moved from India to America. He was the technician of the group.
"Tonight, I'm bout to ambush the library. Who's with me?"
I said with a smile on my face.
Life was all about inspirations and I say, they came from jumping into the mouth of the lion.
"You sure Samantha won't rip us to shreds"
Ilira asked. Samantha was the forty-year-old librarian. And let me tell you, she was vicious. I shrugged.
"I'm in"
Sobul said. Abhay agreed next and so did Enin.
"Ugh, fine!"
I hugged Ilira and she smiled.
It really was a ceremonial night, seeing as we all dressed up as something. I was in a spiderman suit, Sobul wore batman, Ilira was cat woman while Enin and Abhay were ninjas.
"Fuck! I thought I would be the only one"
I stuck my tongue out at Sobul and before we quarrelled like a brainless two-year olds, Ilira parted us. I smiled and dashed through my way to the back of the building from where we would climb up the pipes and toe-sized ledges to get to the third floor, where the library was. Ilira made a run for it like an monkey, not that she was one but like it, and reached first like a real cat woman. Apart from her degree in physical sciences, she had probs and street fighting as well in her resume. Abhay and I went next. The longest was taken by Enin. She kept on slipping nearly about to fall off if it hadn't for Sobul to catch her.
We climbed in after Ilira opened the lock with a pin. Immediately, the smell of books and dust clogged our nostrils. Some of us sneezed really hard. I hushed them.
For the cameras and the parading warden, Abhay was in charge. It was a sneeze for him to hack into stuffs, a really great repertoire. The rest of us looked for scripts for my thesis.
These books weren't allowed for the public eye and I really had to be done with my studies.
After an hour of search, I finally found the transcripts I was looking for.
The old spirits
Va -zu ali huar es
Galin nos ali huar es
The first page of the book read. It was an ancient folklore among the Serebanas— the old spirits were souls rejected by the God during creation and hence they walked in between the earth and the heavens, searching for a King, which the deities promised billions of years ago.
I collected all the transcripts and signalled for everyone to leave.
But of course, the warden had to patrol right then. We paused on our places and waited for her to leave. Once we got a thumbs up from Abhay, we climbed down and went to our dorms.
"Will it do?"
Abhay asked. I sighed and looked at the pile of transcripts and books at my side of the room, for which I was deeply apologetic. I shrugged, it really felt like something was missing. On the next nights, I asked him to join me again. Just us, this time.
"Leave the cameras to me. Good luck"
I nodded my head and went books after books after books, nothing.
"The Indus Valley Civilizations…"
The words went right out of my head like a fistful of water. I couldn't find the energy today to raise my hand every few seconds that the teacher wondered if I was sick or anything. I shook my head.
While going to the dorms, I watched the cherry blossoms fall along with a paper over my head. I caught it and my heart skipped a beat. I dashed my way through the hallways to Abhay.
"I got it!!"
He watched me jump up and down for long before finally asking about my excitement.
I simply showed him the paper. It made no sense to him but he looked at it and congratulated nonetheless.
Pages after pages, I went through the half-decoded transcripts by Fredrick Bell. Looking through each symbol and words, in a hundred days I decoded the sentences,
The long-awaited king,
Come, the spirits wait for the king.
In the next hundred days, I connected the dots from the formula given by Stuthgaro and Fredrick Bell with my own discoveries added, and found a location coordinate beneath the length of oracles and poetries.All I needed was some more pages of the lost script.
Right at the moment, I imagined myself among the archeologists in the hall of fame.I couldn't hide my excitement. But for that to happen, I had to meet with my brother.
"Stupid! Don't let an incident get the most out of you"
I smiled at Ilira. She was always the logical one. It was decided then, we were going to India. The story of my parents were of protests, curfews and lathi charges. My grandfather was a British governor and my grandmother was a Royal Indian. They got together when the independence happened. Then later on, my dad married twice, first with an american, hence my brother and second my mom, hence me.
But I still couldn't come to terms with him for the wound was years old but the pain remained young.
When we reached the lands, we were greeted by a band of people, bowing and giving us garlands. My brother was nowhere to be seen. A Mercedes came to pick us up.
"It surely is hot"
I couldn't agree more. I was grateful nobody asked about my brother. Once my luggages were kept, I found myself by the pool, overlooking the shadowy forest. Memories flooded me like the time when I got kidnapped by a cult in the middle of the woods, my brother's bloodied face, and the face of an old woman, with eyes like crystals prophesying my future.