“I know this. It’s Rakshana.”
“It belongs also to the Order,” I say.
“Do you know what it means?” he asks, moving closer to it.
I nod, blushing. “It is the symbol for love.”
He smiles. “Yes, I remember now. The hands inside a circle. You see? The hands are protected by the circle, the symbol of eternity.”
“Eternity?”
“Because there is no telling where it begins or ends, nor does it matter.”
He traces the pattern with his fingers.
I clear my throat faintly. “They say you can see each other’s dreams if you place your hands inside the circle.”
“Is that so?” He lets his palm rest just outside it.
“Yes,” I say.
Wind blows through the caves and they sigh. The stones speak. This is a place of dreams for those who are willing to see. Place your hands inside the circle and dream.
I put my hands inside the circle and wait. He doesn’t look at me and he doesn’t move. He will not do it. I know him. My heart sinks with the knowledge.
He shifts his hand inside, near my own. Our fingers and thumbs reach toward each other but do not quite touch, our hands two countries separated by the narrowest of oceans. And then his fingers nudge mine. The stones fade away. A bright white light forces me to close my eyes. My body falls away and I am inside a dream.
My arms shine with golden bangles that catch the light. My hands and feet have been painted in ornate patterns, like a bride’s. I wear a sari the deep purple of an orchid. When I move, the folds of the fabric change color, glistening from orange to red, from indigo to silver.
A celebration is taking place. Girls in bright yellow saris dance barefoot on a blanket of lotus blossoms. Smiling warmly, they dip their hands into large clay bowls, scooping up rose petals, which they throw high into the air. The colorful rain falls slowly, the petals settling in my hair and on my bare arms. The scent reminds me of my mother, but I am not sad. It is too joyful a day.
The girls clear a path for me. They run, tossing flowers until the way ahead is a fluttering spectacle of red and white. I follow them toward blue sky. I am at the mouth of a mighty stone temple as ancient as days. Above me, Shiva, the god of destruction and rebirth, sits meditating, his third eye seeing all. Below me are perhaps one hundred steps. I take my first step and everything vanishes—the temple, the girls, the flowers, everything. I am alone on desert sand, the only blot of color for miles. There is nothing in any direction but sky. Hours feel like seconds; seconds are hours, for time is a dream.
A warm wind rushes past, the grains of sand brushing gently at my cheeks. And then I see him. He’s no more than a speck coming toward me from the distance, but I know it’s him, and suddenly, he’s before me. He rides a painted horse, and his clothes are black and fine. A garland hangs from his neck. In the center of his forehead is a red mark made with turmeric, like an Indian bridegroom’s.
“Hello,” he says. He smiles, and it is brighter than the sun. He reaches down; I take his hand; and the world falls away again. We stand in a garden made fragrant by lotus blossoms as large as beds.
“Where are we?” I ask. My voice sounds strange in my ears.
“We’re here,” he says, as if that answers everything, and in a sense, it does.
He takes his knife and draws a ring around me in the dirt.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“This circle symbolizes the joining of our souls,” he answers. He circles me seven times, stepping into the enclosure on the seventh. We stand facing each other. He presses his palms to mine.
I do not know if I am dreaming.
He slips his hand behind my neck, pulling me gently toward him. His hands twine in my hair and he rubs the strands between his fingers like a fine silk he longs to purchase. And then his mouth is on mine, hungry, searching, overpowering.
This is a new world, and I will travel it.
I don’t know what I should like him to say: I love you. You are beautiful. Never leave me. It seems I hear all of this and yet he says only one word, my name, and I realize I have never heard him say it this way before: as if I am known. The skin of his chest is smooth under the weight of my fingers. When my lips brush against the hollow of his throat, he makes a sound that is a bit like a sigh and a growl.
“Gemma…”
His lips are on me in a fever of kissing. My mouth. My jaw. My neck. The insides of my arms. He places his hands at the small of my back and kisses my stomach through the rough fabric of my dress, sending sparks through my veins. He lifts my hair and warms the back of my neck with his mouth, trailing kisses down my spine while his hands cup my br**sts gently. The laces of my corset are loosened. I’m able to breathe him in now. Kartik has shed his shirt. I don’t recall when it happened, and for some reason, I forget to be shamed by it. I only note his beauty: the smooth brown of his skin, the breadth of his shoulders, the muscles of his arms, so very different from my own. The rose-strewn ground is soft and yielding under my body. Kartik presses against me, and I feel as if I could sink right through the giving earth. Instead, I push against him, feeling warm, till I think I could die from it.