Read Online Before We Visit the Goddess by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni - Free Book Online

sweetness of remembering Leena. The nightmare that terrified her and the way she handled it. The gauzy, stippled dragonflies she keeps seeing everywhere, which remind her of him. There’s so much she wants to ask him, too. What happened in the car. What happened to her father afterward.
    â€œYou can come with me,” the magician says, spreading his arms like wings. His robe falls open and his body gleams like polished metal. Something dark and tidal rises inside Bela. But then she remembers Sabitri and Bijan, their faces bending to kiss her good night. She begins to back up toward the house, its solid, square predictability. The magician makes no move to stop her.
    â€œIs that what you really want?” he asks in his kind, reasonable voice. “They have the baby. They will not miss you much. They might even be happier with you gone. After all, you ruined everything for them.”
    His voice echoes in her head, and her eyes fill with blinding spots as though she has gazed too long at something bright and burning. “No,” she whispers, but she is not sure which part of his statement she is refuting. When his fingers part her lips, she holds her mouth open for the globules he is placing on her tongue. One, two, three . . . A tingling opens up the top of her skull.
    The magician shakes out his headband and brings it to her face. “It is forbidden to see the way,” he tells her. Obediently she begins to close her eyes. Then she remembers. Last night, when she woke from the nightmare with her heart smashing against her ribs, she went to the baby’s crib and lifted him out, grabbing him awkwardly around the middle like a package. He didn’t even awaken. She brought him to her bed and lay down and held him. His head fit perfectly under her chin. Harsha, she whispered, saying his name for the first time. Harsha. She fell asleep listening to his breath—he snored a little, he had a cold—and the dream did not return.
    â€œNo,” she cries, but already the ground is tilting up to meet her.

    The room is full of papery whispers, and there are more floating around outside the door. Snippets of moments flash by Bela. She was in an ambulance, strapped onto a stretcher, escorted by sirens. They carried her to this room, this bed. Fingers examined her, pulling back the lids of her closed eyes. Heatstroke, someone said. Dehydration. IV. Someone else pushed a needle into the hollow of her elbow, not caring that it hurt.
    â€œI think she’s waking up!” Bela hears Sabitri exclaim. Her mother’s face looms large over the bed, alarming as an out-of-orbit moon, fading in and out of focus. In a hushed, sickroom voice, she adds, “Bela, sweetie? Can you see me? Do you know who I am?”
    Beyond Sabitri, servants crowd the room, muttering among themselves. At the foot of the bed, a white-coated man stands, garlanded by a stethoscope. It takes Bela a few moments to recognize him as the company doctor who treated her when she had the fever. Beyond him, by the hospital window, stands her father, tieless and crumpled, gesturing at a man in a police uniform.
    â€œTalk to me, baby!” Sabitri’s voice cracks. “Can you talk?”
    Bela wants to reassure her, but her head hurts. It’s too much of an effort to speak, and even to keep her eyes open. The light from the window burns them. On the other side of her closed lids, she hears her mother begin to weep.
    â€œMadam, please calm down,” the doctor says in his slow country voice. “Your daughter is conscious, and that is a good sign. We should clear the room. I need to check her again to make sure she does not have a concussion.” He holds Bela’s wrist between cool fingers. “Her pulse has normalized, though I suspect her reflexes are still slow. Clearly, she needs to rest.”
    â€œBut what about the man she was rambling about? Do you think he could have given her drugs? She said