Page 72 of Her Soul for a Crown
Boom.
A drumbeat sounded. A yak berayuh, a two-ended drum, sat between another masked woman’s crossed legs. Her handpounded out a slow rhythm. Anula swallowed, sweat beading on her brow.
The first woman tapped her foot to the beat, leaned into the sound with her hips. The bells chimed along her sari, and in a low voice she said, “Oh, great Yakka Calu, hear me now, I offer you these first fruits of the fields.”
Boom.
“Ohng Hreeng.” She chanted.
Boom.
“Ohng Hreeng.” It quaked in Anula’s chest.
Boom.
“Ohng Hreeng.” The sound of the Blood Yakka’s nightmare.
She stamped and twirled, jumped and spun, ever to the beating of the drum. She blurred around the circle, never pausing, never breaking, her chanting ceaseless. The music of her body rose up into the night. The candle smoke swirled, staining the air gray, its tendrils seeking out the edges of the circle. The light flickered. Once, twice—
The drum beat quicker. The chant hastened. The masked woman’s breath became low and ragged. The veil of smoke stung Anula’s eyes, burned her lungs. Her pulse hissed, quickening to the clatter of the drum, faster and faster. Her mind spun along with the woman’s sari, the bells catching her eyes, echoing in her ears, dizzying her senses.
A shadow lifted through the fog, thin and incorporeal with saffron eyes.
But these were diluted and sheer, as though a mere shade. The indention of a signet ring, not the ring itself.
“The mark of a Yakka’s curse,” Premala whispered, transfixed. “They wrap themselves around a person, like a blanket smothering them. We have to tear them off.”
“Tear?”
The masked woman danced faster, her chant rising higher and feet landing heavier. The words bellowed into the night, careening into the specter flowing from the man’s body, pulling it this way and that. A banner rippling in a monsoon.
The shadow wailed as its darkness leeched out, its edges twisting up to the sky.
The light snuffed out.
The drum hushed.
The woman fell silent.
An itch skittered up Anula’s marking. The candles abruptly flickered back to life, and the room awoke, smokeless. The man stood, tenderly touching his head.
“Bless you.” He embraced the masked woman. “Bless you, bless you.”
The curse was gone. His mind was sound.
What had they done?
The four people in the circle cried in celebration, thanking the woman, offering her food and palm wine. A place to stay the night. A place to stay forever.
Mouth dry, Anula turned to Premala, the urge to scratch her mehendhi building. It nagged at her to move, to return to Reeri and the others, but she had to know. “Who are you?”
“What do you know of the Kattadiya?” Premala asked in a low voice.
“The what?” Sweat gathered on Anula’s brow. The tether hummed, displeased.
“The who,” Premala corrected reverently. “The Kattadiya were chosen by the First Heavens to defend against the Yakkas of Lord Wessamony, ruler of the Second Heavens. The Kattadiya were given knowledge and power, a tradition to expel the Yakkas’ curses from humans. They were the only defense the people had, back when the Yakkas walked the Earth. They were the ones whoeventually called down Lord Wessamony, appealed for the banishment he finally gave in punishment for their wickedness.”
The Blood Yakka’s nightmare flashed. “They’re not in the stories of old.”
