Read Online The Sea Is Ours by Jaymee Goh - Free Book Online

that had quenched his thirst, Prasert’s brown eyes gleamed at the rotating watermill. Held in a wood and metal brace, a hollow teak orb spun in the current that flowed from the waterfall. Inside the open frame, a hollow bamboo ball danced on the bubbling resurgence. Mist hovered over the rippling water, embracing the large green leaves that overhung the pool to escape dissipation by the sun.
    Prasert started and dropped the bamboo scoop as his servant pair staggered up to the pool. They weied first and deeply to Preecha before doing so to Prasert. On their knees they pleaded with nearly dry skin and bowed heads to drink. Preecha nodded to his acolyte and turned away. Cold water splashed on his ankles.
    Preecha turned off onto a faint side trail, used only by him. Between his toes squeezed mud, pebbles and grass. Behind him, Prasert stumbled and muttered about mud on his shoes.
    The trail ended in a clearing of bare rock. Wrapped in ochre, the light brown veins and sinews of a gargantuan Bodhi tree towered over to footprints left by the Lord Buddha when he had stopped to admire the giant staircase across the river. Preecha knelt and prayed before the sacred relics. Each mud-caked indentation left would have cradled his lean and graceful body.
    Prasert shuffled impatiently. “What is this?” he cracked like resin popping in burning pine.
    â€œCan you see nothing?”
    â€œI can see an ordained tree, one that has stood watch for years over two hollows that would be safe in anonymity if you hadn’t followed your curiosity up from the river to worship its spirits.”
    Hand-sized wasps burred up and settled on spots ringed in black pebbles around the footprint. Each cleaned a long, coiled drill with yellow and black front legs. Then the amber drills unwound and began to bore through the rock. First one way, building momentum with speed then changing direction, until all the potential energy had been used. A novice scrambled around, winding the airborne digging crew. With meticulous precision, not one of the painted bamboo legs touched the pebble ring. One rectangular hole was nearly ready, the wasp miners drilling at their maximum reach and snapping the final pieces free.
    Preecha wondered if Prasert was right: did he do this to bring honor to himself, or to the Lord Buddha? When he saw Prasert’s smug smile, he knew that his left hand had been flexing spread fingers as he always had when a boy and faced with a moral conundrum.
    Surely the skin that had sloughed off of the revered Buddha’s feet needed to be saved, as he had very slowly been doing each morning while the novice worked the wasps around him. Each curl had been reverently placed in a brass tube and taken to his cave for safekeeping. Preecha knelt and cleaned the hole of debris before he slipped a bumpy stone out of a waist pouch and placed it in the center of the freshly finished excavation.
    Prasert snorted loudly, a sound that he’d always made that combined a boar’s snort with a bull’s bellow. He knew that Preecha had reached a point of rationalization with himself.
    â€œI know why I’m here, but why are you here?” Preecha asked in a slow, low voice.
    â€œSince father died, Mother asked me to speak with you. With one son a doctor at the Rattanokosin court of his Majesty King Rama V, she wished to have her other son there as a monk, or as a courtier.” Prasert’s eyes slid to the side, and looked at the garlands on the tree behind Preecha’s bare shoulder.
    â€œA messenger would’ve been appropriate as well. Surely you’re needed at court.” Preecha resigned himself to having the truth about Prasert’s needs and wants evaded by inspecting the work of the wasps. Each hole was filled with a hundred others.
    â€œYour skills and knowledge of Issan herbs and healing has come to the Palace ears. The Abbott wishes you to teach skills to novices.” With a mulish pout of resentment