The Voice Read Free Page B

afternoon, convinced that two girls from a small village would come to no harm despite the cacophony of sights and sounds. And no harm would come to us, because the white-robed Shamans walked the crowded streets. Their pace steady, their faces serene, they walked among the buyers and sellers, sometimes stopping to accept a slice of fruit or a cup of cool water. They seldom spoke to the people around them, but when they smiled and said “Travel lightly,” it always sounded like a blessing.
    So on the afternoon that changed so many things, Tahnee was cheerfully haggling with the son of a merchant, more to have a reason to remain close to the handsome boy than because she was seriously interested in whatever she had found to haggle over that day. I wandered down the row of booths just for something to do while I waited. Then I saw a flash of white disappearing between two booths. No, more than that. In a place that was crowded and where every merchant jealously guarded his allotted space down to the last finger length, there shouldn’t have been a space that would have easily fit four booths.
    That was the moment I realized I had passed that gap in the booths more than once each day without really seeing it—or wondering about it.
    I stepped into that gap and saw something else that had eluded my eye during those first two days.
    The bazaar backed up against a white wall. The gap in the booths matched the width of the archway leading into . . . The streets, gardens, courtyards, and buildings might have been another world. For all I know, they were. The place was white and clean, and with every breath I breathed in peace. And with every step I took, a pain grew inside me, as if a Black Pustule had formed deep within my body and was festering.
    Still within sight of the archway, I stopped moving. Then I looked up and something shivered through me, as if I were a bell that had been struck and somehow retuned to match the resonance of the building in front of me.
    T HE T EMPLE OF S ORROW.
    I walked up the steps and pulled the rope beside the door. Heard the bell calling, calling.
    A Shaman opened the door. His hair was grizzled, his face unlined. I have never seen anything before or since that matched the beauty of his eyes.
    He smiled and stood aside to let me enter.
    “Is this your first visit?” he asked.
    I just nodded, struck dumb by the odd sensation of feeling too gaudy and too plain at the same time. It was my first experience with having a crush on a man, and I didn’t know what to do or say.
    Then I remembered I was wifely plump rather than maidenly sleek, and there was something festering inside me.
    “I see,” he said softly, and I was terrified that, somehow, he had. Then he said, “This way,” and led me to a pair of doors on the left side of the building.
    He opened the doors and the sound . . . “No,” I gasped. “No. I can’t. That is—” Obscene. A violation.
    Something that sang in my limbs.
    He closed the doors. “That is sorrow.” His voice was quiet, gentle. “That is why this temple is here. To give it voice. To set it free. Sorrow should not be swallowed. It will linger in the body, cleave to the flesh, long after the mind and heart have forgotten the cause.”
    Each word was a delicate blow, a butterfly tap that reverberated through my heart.
    “What do I do?” I asked.
    He opened the doors again and we stepped into the room.
    It sounded like the entire city was in that room, but in truth, there was no more than a double handful of people, and the room could have held twice that many. Some were wearing a hooded robe that had a veil over the face, which allowed them to see and breathe but obscured their identity. Others sat with their faces exposed to the world.
    The sound in the room rose and fell, sometimes barely a hum and other times crescendoing to be the voice of sky and earth and all living things.
    In one of the quieter moments, the Shaman whispered, “The gongs provide a