Ghost Leopard by Lars Guignard

Author:Lars Guignard [Guignard, Lars]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Action & Adventure, Animals, Boys, Children, Fantasy, Magic, Mystery, Young Adult
ISBN: 9780987775351
Publisher: Fantastic Press
Published: 2012-07-15T04:00:00+00:00

13

THE GIFT OF THE ELEPHANT'S TEAR

Zak and I hiked up the trail, soaked to the skin. The rain beat down so hard, that I knew we weren’t dealing with normal rain. The rain was much heavier than that. This rain was like standing under a garden hose.

“Holy India,” Zak said. “They should have another name for rain like this.”

“They do,” I said. “It’s called a monsoon.”

“Mon whatever. It’s crazy!”

“Kind of like Mukta floating in midair?” I said.

“That was nuts too.”

“What’s really starting to get me is this reincarnation stuff. All this rebirth. As in the maiden being reborn all those different times, first as a soldier, then as a sailor, then as a tailor. That’s freaky.”

“That’s karma,” Zak said. “Everybody knows that. What comes around goes around. If you’re not nice to people in this life you could be reborn as a bug or something in the next life and someone will squish you.”

“Bugs aren’t all bad,” I said. “I wouldn’t mind being reborn as a ladybug.”

“How about a slug?”

“How about a Ghost Leopard with a crazy Monkey Man shooting arrows at you?”

“I guess the Leopard just got really unlucky. The whole karma idea is that you need to be nice now because you don’t know what you’ll be reborn as later.”

“I know,” I said. “That’s why it’s so freaky. It’s like our every move is being watched by the karma police.”

“It’s not that freaky,” Zak said. “My mom goes on these Buddhist retreats. She tells me about this rebirth stuff all the time.”

“Really? It’s not that freaky? There’s an old man that looks like he’s wearing a diaper following us around on a magic carpet. You’re telling me you don’t you find that just a little bit strange?”

“Well, yeah, that part is a little weird.”

“No, come on, you’ve got to give me more than that,” I said. “Some of the stuff that has been happening to us is downright nuts.”

“Let’s dry off and we can talk about it later,” Zak said.

I wiped the raindrops from my face. “How do you want to dry off? Should we do a reverse rain dance and wait for a giant umbrella to descend magically from the clouds?”

“Or we could just go inside,” Zak said.

“Yeah. Great idea. Like I said, how do you plan on doing that?”

“I was thinking we’d open the door.”

Zak pointed down the path. Stupid me, I hadn’t seen it. A building was visible through the mist. It looked like it was hanging off the canyon wall. I picked up the pace as we got closer. The building looked like it had a roof and, for that moment, that was all that I cared about. When we got nearer, it was clear to me that the building was a temple. The outside walls were made of wood and covered in strange carvings that looked a lot like the gods in Mukta's steamy brass pot. Cobbled stones led to the rough hewn wooden door. I paused for a moment outside in the rain.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.