It was when I was sixteen that the first of the six men who had witnessed his birth disappeared. The man just vanished. Later that same year another of the six disappeared also. I asked my father about it, but he said that we could not hold Yaksha to blame. The boy was growing up well. But the next year, when another two of the men vanished, even my father began to have doubts. It was not long after that my father and I were the only ones left in the village who had been there that horrible night. But the fifth man did not just vanish. His body was found gored to death, as if by a wild animal. There was not a drop of blood left in his corpse. Who could doubt that the others had not ended up the same way?
I begged my father to speak up about what was happening, and Yaksha's part in it. By then Yaksha was ten and looked twenty, and if he was not the leader of the village, few people doubted that he would be in charge soon. But my father was softhearted. He had watched Yaksha grow up with pride, no doubt feeling personally responsible for the birth of this wonderful young man. And his sister was still Yaksha's stepmother. He told me not to say anything to the others, that he would ask Yaksha to leave the village quietly and not come back.
But it was my father who was not to come back, although Yaksha vanished as well. My father's body
was never found, except for a lock of his hair, down by the river, stained with blood. At the ceremony honoring his death I broke down and cried out the many things that had happened the night Yaksha had been born. But the majority of people believed I was consumed with grief and didn't listen. Still, a few heard me, the families of the other men who had vanished.
My grief over my lost father faded slowly. "Yet two years after his death and the disappearance of Yaksha, near my twentieth birthday, I met Rama, the son of a wandering merchant. My love for Rama was instantaneous. I saw him and knew I was supposed to be with him, and by the blessings of Lord Vishnu, he felt the same way. We were married under the full moon beside the river. The first night I slept with my husband I dreamed of Amba. She was as she had been when we had sung late at night together. Yet her words to me were dark. She told me to beware the blood of the dead, never to touch it. I woke up weeping and was only able to sleep by holding my husband tightly.
Soon I was with child, and before the first year of my marriage was over, we had a daughterLalita, she who plays. Then my joy was complete and my grief over my father faded. Yet I was to have that joy for only a year:
One moonless night I was awakened late by a sound. Beside me slept my husband, and on my other side our daughter. I do not know why the sound woke me; it was not loud. But it was peculiar, the sound of nails scraping over a blade. I got up and went outside my house and stood in the dark and looked around.
He came from behind me, as he often used to when we were friends. But I knew he was there before he spoke. I sensed his proximityhis inhuman being.
"Yaksha," I whispered.
"Sita." His voice was very soft.
I whirled around and started to shout, but he was on me before I could make a sound. For the first time I felt Yaksha's real strength, a thing he had kept hidden while he lived in our village. His hands, with their long nails, were like the paws of a tiger around my neck. A long sword banged against his knee. He choked off my air and leaned over and whispered in my ear. He had grown taller since I last saw him.
"You betrayed me, my love," he said. "If I let you speak, will you scream? If you scream you will die. Understood?"
I nodded and he loosened his grip, although he continued to keep me pinned. I had to cough before I could speak. "You betrayed me," I said bitterly. "You killed my father and those other men."
"You do not know that," he said.
"If you didn't kill them, then where are they?"
"They are with me, a few of them, in a special way."
"What are you talking about? You liethey are dead, my father's dead."
"Your father is dead, that is true, but only because he did not want to join me." He shook me roughly. "Do you wish to join me?"
It was so dark, I could see nothing of his face except in outline. But I did believe he was smiling at me. "No," I said.
"You do not know what I am offering you."
"You are evil."
He slapped me, hard. The blow almost took off my head. I tasted my own blood. "You do not know what I am," he said, angry, but proud as well.
"But I do. I was there that night. Didn't the others tell you before you killed them? I saw it all. It was I who named youYakshacursed son of a yakshini!"
"Keep your voice down,"
"I will do nothing you say!"
He gripped me tight again, and it was hard to breathe. "Then you will die, lovely Sita. After first watching your husband and child die. Yes, I know they are asleep in this house. I have watched you from afar for a while now."
"What do you want?" I gasped, bitter.
He let me go. His tone was light and jovial, which was cruel. "I have come to offer you two choices. You can come with me, be my wife, become like me. Or you and your family can die tonight. It is that simple."
There was something strange in his voice besides his cruelty. It was as if he were excited over an unexpected discovery. "What do you mean, become like you? I can never be like you. You are different from anybody else."
"My difference is my greatness. I am the first of my kind, but I can make others like me. I can make you like me if you will consent to our blood mixing."