Free Realm of the Goddess by Sabina Khan Page A

were not exactly on the same page at the moment.
    We walked up the stairs together and then Shiv went into his room while I waited outside mine. He was back in a flash and handed me his laptop. I thanked him and went in, relieved to be on my own at last. I wanted to find some information before I talked to Shiv’s parents about my dream. I didn’t like being the only one in the room who had no clue about what was going on. I sat down on the bed and put the laptop in front of me. Opening the browser, I typed in “Kali’s sword” and hit search. A whole lot of results came up. I clicked on one that seemed to be informative and began to read. Most of what the article said was already familiar to me from my grandmother’s stories. I went back to the results page and clicked on another link. Still nothing new. I went through several links and had almost given up when something caught my eye. Priestesses of Kali. I’d never heard of that before. I continued to read.
    The Priestesses of Kali are part of a clandestine group of female devotees of the Goddess Kali. There is evidence to support that they have been around for thousands of years. Rumors of their powers have circulated for millennia. It is believed that the original priestesses were entrusted by Kali herself to safeguard her sword in the event of her failure to destroy Mahisha. Archeologists have tried for centuries, without success, to find where the Sword of Kali may have been hidden .
    The article went on to talk about possible locations of the sword, ranging from the jungles of Kolkata to caves buried in the snow-capped mountains of Mongolia. There were some who believed it had traveled to Greece during the invasion of India by Alexander the Great. I closed the webpage after a while. I would have to talk to Shiv’s parents in the morning and see if they knew anything more about the sword and its possible location. I couldn’t believe I was sitting here and contemplating the chances of getting my hand on a five-thousand-year-old sword that had once belonged to the Goddess of Destruction herself. Life was funny that way.
    I turned my attention to something else that had been nagging at me: the fact that my dad had come to me in my dream and actually talked to me was strange. And I knew all about strange dreams. But this was different. He had tried to communicate with me and it had seemed so real, not like any other dream I’d had before. It was as if he’d known I’d be frantic with worry about them and he needed to tell me what to do next. I sat up straight and typed “dream manipulation” in the search box. A bunch of results came up. How to Control your Dreams. Download an App for Dream Manipulation. So it was true. There really was an app for everything. I cleared the search box and typed in “Dream Manipulators, Hindu mythology.” Not a lot of results came up, but once again one of them caught my eye. Oneiric manipulation. I clicked on the link.
    Oneiric manipulators possess the power to enter someone’s dream and take control. They can influence thoughts and actions, even during waking hours, by planting the seed of an idea or thought in their minds. They are also able to communicate with a person but at great cost to themselves. A successful communication requires the manipulator to drain his own strength. As a result he is weakened and cannot repeat this activity until energy has been replenished.
    I stared at the screen for a while. Could my dad have such an ability? It was amazing how the realm of what was possible had expanded exponentially for me in the last couple of days. This seemed as good an explanation as any. How else would my dad know exactly what I was thinking and be able to tell me how to proceed? With a sigh I picked up the laptop and put it on the desk. I needed to get some sleep, even if it was only for a few hours. The clock on the nightstand said it was 3:30 a.m. I fell back on the bed and was asleep within minutes.
    I awoke