Chapter One
We sat on one of the lower roof edges watching the monks at their evening exercises. Father's feet tapping the clay shingles on the level below. The night smelled of snow and sandalwood incense. No more than a dozen were in the court yard smooth heads steaming as they danced their deadly forms. Others walked their shoes sometimes crushing the gray gravel underfoot or mutely slapping against the stone floors finishing evening errands.
I was resting my head in the crook of Father's arm and I felt him take a deep breath in and slowly sigh. "I have to return to our family." He whispered but my heart had already started to pound in my little chest. "We haven't been gone for so long, but it's never wise to go missing for to long."
For some reason, unexplained to me, Father had whisked me away from our home and every one we loved. Forty some odd years ago and I had never had the courage to ask why or when will we get to back. I missed Milk Mother and the honey flavored milk she offered me as a new born, and Dhumavati with her new found love and I even missed our Great Father in the smallest way.
"When do we leave?" I asked, afraid of sounding to eager.
"We don't you need to stay here, it will only be for two weeks, when I return you will know then if we both go back or stay."
"Why? I miss everyone?" I was embarrassed at not being able to hide the whining in my voice, when I knew it really hid the sorrow. "Sorry Father." I muttered. He lifted his arm from my shoulder and lay his hand and fingers across my forehead.
"Listen Jovina Succubare listen to me well, you must take care of yourself for the next two weeks." He rolled me into his chest. "These men have given us a place for almost half a century. They could expel us from here, or worst hunt, capture and torment us for as long as they are willing to remember. Don't destroy their world don't ruin it for us, we are but guest in there home and remember that every moment you are alone. Promise me that." His words rumbled against my eyelids and through my head.
"I promise to keep to myself." I swore against his soft beige tunic shirt made by immortal hands to be worn for centuries if the wearer was only willing. He pressed me into his hard chest and let me go.
"It's time." He extracted his dusty brown body from my futile grasp from around his wait and we stood. I watched as he faded from his extremities to core mirroring the sky behind him fading from daylight to dusk. I knew he was there even if he was already back at the Fortress. I followed Fathers lead and made my way to the dinning hall.
I liked living with the monk's it was similar to our family's Fortress who's stone walls in the basin of Death Valley homes the divine and lesser beings of the body yet all are welcome.
I carefully avoided the men as they walked carrying their plates and drinks to the tables around the hall. There were about a hundred clean shaven heads and faces. Chopsticks smooth black wood shining with mild depressions from centuries of meals tapped on beautiful porcelain bowls. Hushed voices floated around the tables and wove together to collect in the air and hovered warm caressing.
After dinner, everyone dispersed and I followed, a small group into one of three libraries's and curled up in a large chair off in a corner. They spoke of the T'ang dynasty the Mahayana Buddhism and scholar Padmasambhava's introduction of Tibetan Buddhism. A discussion I had heard many times over the decades and dozed off peacefully.
When I woke up the room was dark and suddenly I felt so alone an emptiness echoed in my bones and I fled. Through the closed doors down the empty hall, fear began to rise and I broke through the stone walls blinded and lost. I hit a wall of calm and fell to my knees. When I opened my eyes there was a monk about fifty sitting on a low bench completely covered in red pillows that overflowed and covered half the floor. There were two small iron lamps sitting on wall hooks, but the room held an innate illumination from him.
"Hello child." He said in low tones.
"Drapa, Please forgive this embarrassment." I was terrified. My father would kill me. I could had done nothing more disrespectful had if I had jumped up on the dinning room table naked for all to see and drenched us all in sensual obscenities, striped naked. This was where they communed with their "Great Father" Father explained. Even other monks didn't interrupt this prayer. I started to tremble ferociously and had to concentrate to make myself un-form.
I looked up because a small harsh light came from him it weaved back and forth across the room working its way to me. Then there were three and then maybe ten more, than I could count. It memorized me trying to keep track of all the movement. My vision swam and my head felt warped.
"I'm sorry, please stop, I will go." I meauled unable to take flight, my heart pounded in my warped skull so that I had to place both hands on the floor which scared me even more to have to touch one more thing in the room, tears and tiny sobs escaped.
