#mcnsterlikeme

She wasn’t sure how to start. Not really, not when it was such a tangled web of events which had led them here to begin with. They were all at risk -- especially now that Will was in the trouble he was and there was little they could. “Nomi has booked us a flight to somewhere, but I don’t know where. The less we know the better. Talk to her, she knows more.”

He lurks in the back of her mind, creeping across her brain like the vegetable plants she remembers seeing in southern India as a child. She can feel the heat of his stare in those memories, too. She knows better-- however, knowing does not translate to doing, and one can know better without the hope of being better. (She wonders if he thinks about this, thinks about himself in relation to this idea, and finds herself wishing he wouldn’t. His deserving it is irrelevant.)

After the attack on Rajan’s father, Kala avoided going to the temple for a while. She knew that the attack wasn’t her fault and that she was perfectly safe, but she didn’t want to face the memories of the brutality again.

Of course, when she finally went to the temple again, the blood smeared across the third step in her memory had disappeared, as had the blood on her hands and her skirt been washed away. It was to be expected, and yet...

She took her flowers from one of the chatting vendors seated along the entrance to the temple and took in a deep breath before launching into her familiar ritual. Inside the temple itself, she felt peace gently falling around her shoulders, easing away her visceral worries as she struck the bell and cleared her mind with a prayer to Ganesha before kneeling before the idol. The smell of incense filled her senses for a moment before she found herself kneeling in a gloomy brick courtyard instead, the smell of rain fresh. Her skirt was quickly soaking up water from the damp surface. She knew where she was, and who had brought her there.