Free The Cult of Loving Kindness by Paul Park, Cory, Catska Ench Page A

looked at the wet bones of a dozen animals half buried in the sand, each one sucked clean, and perhaps a few rags of tattered flesh or feathers.
    Now if he concentrated, he could see exactly where the creature was. But its shape and form were still indefinite. Appearing always in the twilight, it seemed covered in a skin of shadow. Sometimes he could see it better from the corner of his eye.
    Once, after it had made its kill, he had seen it creep down to the pool to drink. Then he had climbed down to the opposite bank. He had hoped to catch a glimpse of its reflection. But the surface of the pool was too disturbed. He had gone down on his belly, not twenty feet away from it, and he had stared at it across the pool, and listened to the gentle sucking sound it made. Then it had raised its head. For the first time he had seen the glint of its sour eyes and felt a whispering in his mind. “Who are you?” it had asked. “Who are you, that you see so clearly?”
    The next day he had waited for it and had watched it feed. Seven small peccaries had come down to the water. And as the strange, amorphous darkness formed in back of one of them, coming down from the jungle on its track of slime, none of the others seemed to notice. None of the others seemed to notice the drop in temperature, the new cold wind. They grunted cheerfully upon the beach. And even the intended victim, turning at last to face its attacker, never made a sound. It stood fascinated, with its head low to the earth. Even when Rael threw a stone to panic all the other animals, still that one stood.
    Once Rael had accompanied a novice from the village, who had come up looking for an intact sheet of glass. When the moment came, Rael had seized him by the arm and pointed out across the pool, but the man saw nothing. Only he was concerned that Rael had touched him; with a wry smile on his bony alien face, he had pulled his arm away.
    In the weeks that followed, Rael had gathered weapons, a spear of heartwood and a steel spike. On the evening of the day that Mr. Sarnath had spent meditating on the Song of Angkhdt, at the moment when Cassia stood by the banyan tree, her skirt pulled up around her hips, Rael raised his head off of the boulder. The sun had sunk below the hilltops, and the basin of the pool had filled with shadow. A scarlet ibis and its somber mate were wading near the beach.
     
    *
Cassia untucked her skirt and it fell down around her legs. She squatted to pick up the gourd of water, which she had carried in her arms up the steep slope. She worked her bare feet down into the dirt. Squeezing the fat gourd between her palms, she lifted it in one clean rush and settled it upon a ring of wicker on her head. Then, supporting it with one hand, she rose up slowly, the other arm outstretched for balance, her tongue protruding from the middle of her lips.
     
    Mr. Sarnath watched her make her way across the clearing toward his house. He had been the master’s favorite pupil when he was a boy, and the master had taught him to be careful always, even in the midst of speculation, to appreciate the offerings of his senses. Mr. Sarnath, though his mind was at that moment full of blank misgivings, allowed his heart to be lifted when he saw her. He moved the dry pads of his fingers over the incisions in the skull. A fly was buzzing on the steps. The garbage pile behind the house exuded a sweet smell. Cassia’s hair was black, her lips were wide. As she got closer he examined her more closely—the sweat around her mouth, the spot upon her chin—with a minute appreciation that included not the slightest spark of sensuality.
    She stood beside the steps that led to the veranda. Curling the fingers of her left hand under the lip of the gourd, she twisted herself out from underneath it, so that it fell straight down to earth. It made a glug, and slopped some water on her hand.
    Mr. Sarnath had risen from his chair. He stood on the top step. Cassia stripped the wicker basket