Untouchable Read online

  Lilith nodded. She took a final glance at the man and saw that his eyes were closed but she doubted he slept peacefully. After a few sips that would change.

  There was nothing left for her to do, but she found herself reluctant to leave him. It was probably irrational. For a moment she felt as if her presence had meant something to him.

  “I will do everything I can, but remember I’m no surgeon,” Sister Peter warned. “I can’t promise anything.”

  “I know you will do your best. That is all he can ask for. He is lucky that he has you in such a place. And if something should go wrong, you carry no guilt for your effort.”

  Despite her words, Lilith felt a quiet confidence that the nun would succeed. Not only was her faith in Sister Peter unquestionable, but the man’s strength and determination was also a force to be reckoned with. Together she was sure they could beat back the infection and defeat the invasive fever.

  Sensing that she had lingered too long already, Lilith pulled her attention away from the bed.

  “If I am not needed anymore, I will head back to the village.”

  “Tenzig will walk you,” Punab said. “Once again we are grateful to our sister. Our Sangha is lucky to have such a unique person in our midst.”

  Lilith bowed her head in response.

  His words only served to remind her how unusual this small piece of earth was and how grateful she was to have found this place. There were very few communities that would be grateful to have someone like her in their midst. Like a leper, she was an outcast.

  Unwanted.

  Feared.

  Tossed out like garbage, first by her mother’s family, then by her father.

  Lilith tried to forgive those who didn’t understand. More, she attempted to see the decision through their eyes. There had been a reason why she had been rejected by her people and ultimately evicted from her home.

  She was an agent of death.

  Chapter 2

  “H ow is he?” Lilith called out to her friend.

  It had been almost a week since her midnight summons to the monastery and every day she thought about the warrior.

  Sister Peter had spent the first two days and nights at the stranger’s bedside doing everything she could to save his leg as well as his life. After a pitched battle with the raging fever it was finally acknowledged that the man was too stubborn to die. At least that was what Sister Peter told Lilith when she eventually returned to the village. She declared that not only would he live, but he would also keep the leg.

  Stubborn, just as Lilith had suspected.

  Since then the dedicated nun had visited him daily to monitor his progress. Lilith wasn’t sure if Sister Peter was merely doing her due diligence or if secretly she was taking satisfaction in a job well done. Hard work and success weren’t praised by the other nuns.

  It was expected.

  Today she had gone again to check up on him and Lilith waited for her at the bottom of the hill as she had every day to hear news of his condition. She couldn’t say why she would not go to the monastery to see him herself. She told Sister Peter it was because she did not want to risk another incident like the one that night, but now that the fever was gone she imagined she could avoid his touch without any explanation. Lilith’s condition wasn’t something she shared with passing strangers.

  Each day she thought about it. Each day she waited for Sister Peter to deliver the news instead.

  Slowly Sister Peter descended the steep path that led away from the monastery. Lilith could see the weariness on her face from the extra burden of his care, but mingled with the fatigue was the serenity that came from doing what she believed she’d been born to do.

  Lilith almost envied her.

  “He’s doing better than yesterday,” Sister Peter said. “Actually walking on the leg a little. Remarkable given his condition a week ago.”

  “No danger at all, then, that he will lose the leg?”

  The sister stopped and shook her head, a faint smile on her face. “Not now, no. He’s lucky I found that fragment of bullet left in the wound. Time should tell whether or not there’s any lingering damage to the muscle, but he’s young and strong. No reason to think he shouldn’t be perfectly fine in a few weeks. I’m sure I’m imagining it, but I think the brothers were particularly grateful I didn’t cut up their warrior. I can’t tell if they fear him or revere him.”

  A warrior. That was what Punab had called him. However, they had also let him into their sanctuary. They let him stay to search for whatever it was he’d come looking for. There must be some trust there.

  “That is good news,” Lilith said. “Once again I do not know what we would do without your skills.”

  “I was thinking the same thing about you.”

  “Mine is not so much a skill, I think. However, I am grateful I did not kill him.”

  Sister Peter raised a single eyebrow, a trick that fascinated Lilith. “You seem awfully concerned with our new patient. You did hear me when I said I pulled a bullet fragment from his leg.”

  “I heard you. And I know how the wound was caused. I am not concerned for him. I am just…”

  Lilith had no answer for how she felt. He was a strong man. A handsome man, too. She supposed if she had to be honest with her friend she would say that he attracted her on some level. Which was strange. She wouldn’t have imagined that she could ever feel such an elemental connection with another person.

  Attraction was useless to her. It had no hope.

  It was one of the reasons she knew that although she studied with the monks on the path to enlightenment she could never consider herself a Buddhist nun. To do so would mean practicing celibacy, one of the five precepts. For those on the path this meant sacrifice. For Lilith it meant survival.

  Not that such a thing mattered. The title of nun had been lost to her long ago when she had broken the first precept: do no harm. She’d broken that precept many times.

  Sister Peter often tried to convince Lilith that what she did to end suffering or what she did by accident could not be considered a sin. But dead was still dead to those she touched. Maybe it wasn’t intentional, but it was a result of her actions. For that she knew she could never fully walk the path to true enlightenment. At least not in this lifetime.

  There was, however, always the next.

  “I am merely glad he lived,” Lilith insisted. “That neither one of us was responsible for killing him.”

  Sister Peter smiled. “Amen.”

  A noise penetrated their conversation, forcing Lilith’s head upward. She instantly identified the sound of machine rather than animal.

  “Sounds like we are going to have more visitors.”

  “Hmm. It’s been a while since she’s been here,” Sister Peter noted as she also studied the sky, waiting for the helicopter to catch up with the sound. “Several months. I thought maybe she was gone for good.”

  Lilith took in the sister’s worrisome expression. “That sounds more like wishful thinking on your part. Do you not like our benefactress?”

  Sister Peter folded her arms over her chest and frowned. “It seems petty, doesn’t it? After all, without her money we wouldn’t be able to afford the multiple-drug therapy that’s worked so well for those infected. Especially the children. But…”

  “But?”

  “There’s something about her, Lilith. Don’t you think it’s odd the way she seems to be so fascinated by you?”

  Lilith shrugged. She hadn’t really considered it. It was clear to any newcomer that she was set apart from all the other groups. Not a nun or a monk or a villager. She imagined it was natural to be curious as to who she was, what role she served.

  “I believe she thinks I am some kind of tribal healer. Of course, she does not understand how I make the medicine that I dispense.”

  “Doesn’t she? The way she follows your every step when she’s here. The questions she’s always asking the sisters and the villagers about you. For a woman who is simp
ly supposed to be doing good works with her money as she claims to be, her actions feel very…deliberate.”

  “She never stays for long,” Lilith pointed out. “She will come and go and we will have that much more money as a result of her visit.”

  Together Lilith and Sister Peter headed back to the village. The incoming helicopter caused the uproar it normally did. The children, desperate for distraction from their monotonous days, ran to the clearing that had been carved out for supply drops.

  Supplies and Jacquelyn Webb’s helicopter.

  A woman with apparently unlimited resources, Jackie owned the helicopter that flew her from Bomdila, the nearest city, into the heart of the jungle. A self-proclaimed philanthropist, she heard about the leper colony during a plea from the Franciscan nuns at her local church. Urged to act, she set up funds that allowed for a continual flow of the necessary medicines to treat leprosy in the tiny village. One day she decided that sending money wasn’t enough. She needed to come and meet the people infected with the horrible disease in order to determine how else she could help.

  That was the story she told Lilith on her first visit. At the time Lilith saw no reason to question the older woman’s sincerity. However, now that Sister Peter had brought it to her attention she had to admit that Jackie very rarely showed any interest in the sick or even in the progress her money had made possible.

  Instead her interest was in Lilith. How she’d come to be here. Why she’d chosen to stay. How she prepared the medicine that so many of those infected said took away the pain.

  It was impossible to keep Lilith’s condition from those she lived with; too many precautions were needed. Although the sisters had often tried to convince her to find medical treatment for what they called her disease, they never pressed the issue or discussed it with outsiders.

  Despite her financial contributions, Jackie was an outsider.

  When Jackie asked about her strange garb, Lilith played it off as a uniform chosen by some women practicing Buddhism. When Jackie offered to take her out of the village, to see some of the other sights of India, Lilith simply declined without explanation.

  By the time they reached the landing site the children were crowded together to watch the show. As the helicopter began its descent into the thick foliage that threatened daily to overtake the man-made landing pod, they waved and danced about. Blades rotated so quickly it was nearly impossible to see them.

  The helicopter’s wheels touched down and Lilith saw that the pilot was the only passenger. Jackie hadn’t come, but her helicopter had.

  The pilot emerged from the machine. On his shoulder he carried a satchel, and after maneuvering his way through the children who were all pleading for rides, he spotted Lilith. He paused for a second to study her.

  Finally he walked directly to her. “You’re Lilith?”

  Lilith took a step back. She didn’t recognize his accent, but he wasn’t Indian.

  “I am.”

  “This is yours.” He slipped the satchel’s strap off his shoulder and lowered it carefully to the dirt in front of her feet. Then he stepped away and once again threaded his way through the clamoring children. He got back in the chopper and almost instantly he was lifting off from the jungle floor.

  “What was that about?” Sister Peter asked as she came up behind Lilith.

  “I have no idea.” Kneeling, Lilith inspected the satchel. She flipped open a flap and pulled out another smaller black bag. Inside that she found a thin black square that she recognized. Jackie used to bring it with her every time she traveled. She said it was so she could stay connected to the outside world.

  She showed it to Sister Peter.

  “A laptop? She sent you her computer.”

  Lilith shrugged and then reached into the satchel again. This time she pulled out a small box and an envelope. She opened the box and pulled back when she saw a fat gold spider sitting on black velvet. Shaped like a black widow, it was incredibly detailed. Small head, thin, wiry legs and a two-inch-long round bottom. Despite it being a replica, Lilith could almost feel its deadly aura. Her fingers trembled as she touched it.

  “Not exactly my taste in jewelry,” Sister Peter noted. “Even if I hadn’t taken a vow of poverty.”

  Lilith pulled it from the box and saw that the spider was attached to a gold chain. She looked at it quizzically.

  “Do you think it was intended to be a gift?”

  “Do you have a penchant for spiders?”

  Lilith shuddered. “No. But it is heavy. If it is gold, it could be worth a great deal. Why would she send such a thing? I have no need of personal money or possessions. Only donations that can be used for the village. Do you think she wants me to sell it? I cannot imagine such a thing would be easy.” She didn’t want to verbalize it, but the necklace was very ugly.

  “Read the letter.” Sister Peter pointed to the envelope in Lilith’s hand.

  Having almost forgotten it, Lilith set the necklace back in its case and tore into the envelope. It was written in English, but Lilith had command of the written language as much as she did the spoken one.

  The key is in the spider. Use it wisely.

  Welcome to your new life.

  Jackie (A)

  “Welcome to your new life….” Sister Peter read over Lilith’s shoulder. “What does she mean by that?”

  “I do not know. The key is in the spider….”

  Lilith scooped up the box and stood. She pulled out the spider and studied it from all sides. Turning it on its back, she spotted a seam in the gold. Using her thumb, she pushed and pulled until the back slid open. Inside was a small silver rectangular device that Lilith didn’t recognize.

  “I know what that is,” Sister Peter said. “It’s a memory stick.”

  Lilith shook her head. “I do not know….”

  “A flash drive. You insert this into the back of the computer in one of the USB ports. It stores files. Like a floppy disk or a CD only smaller and with more space. It means there is information on it. Information you can view if you plug it into the computer.”

  “I do not understand. Why would she send me computer files? Here? And the letter A next to her name. I thought her last name was Webb. None of this makes any sense.”

  “Then make sense of it. Read what’s on the files. You’ve probably got a few hours of battery life on this laptop. That should give you enough time to sort through whatever it is she wanted you to have.”

  Lilith took the memory stick from Sister Peter and put it back into the spider’s belly.

  “I was supposed to go to the monastery for study this afternoon,” she said absently. She had also thought that maybe today she would overcome whatever was holding her back and stop in to check on the visitor’s condition. She’d wanted to see for herself that he was doing well and that his leg was getting better.

  And if she were honest with herself, she wanted to talk to him without him being delirious this time. Given his improving condition, it seemed likely he would be leaving soon. This could be her last chance.

  “I have to go back up in a few hours to check on your friend’s bandages and to make sure he isn’t pushing himself too hard. I’ll let them know you’ve been detained.”

  “I feel anxious, though. Reading what is on this computer. What if it is private? What if this is a mistake and Jackie simply sent this ahead of her arrival?”

  “If it was a mistake she wouldn’t have written the note. And if it was that private she wouldn’t have sent it to you at all.”

  “I know one thing for certain. I do not want a new life,” Lilith said adamantly, referring to Jackie’s message. “This is my life. I cannot imagine why she would write such a thing.”

  Sister Peter shook her head and smiled sadly. “Oh, Lilith, this isn’t a life. This is an escape. Trust me, I know.”

  “That is not true.” Lilith was stunned by the sister’s words. “I am needed here. I contribute. I belong here.”

  “Of course you contrib
ute. And yes, you are welcomed here. I didn’t mean to imply that you weren’t. Only that…Well, you didn’t get to choose this place. It was chosen for you. You didn’t get to decide what you wanted to do with your life. It was decided for you.”

  “Not decided,” Lilith corrected her. “Dictated. Dictated by my condition. You have seen what I can do. I have no other choice.”

  “Yes, I’ve seen what you can do,” she allowed. “But you don’t know if your condition can be treated. You have never tried to leave this place to find out. Accept the truth. You were sent here as a punishment by your family. A punishment you didn’t deserve because you couldn’t possibly help what happened.”

  “I have never spoken of what happened,” Lilith said quietly. “You do not know what I did.”

  “I know it must have been bad for your father to do what he did, but I also know you were a child. Barely thirteen when you were abandoned here. You stay in this place to punish yourself for this wrong you feel you’ve committed. That’s not living life. That’s suffering in purgatory.”

  Lilith recognized the word from Sister Joseph’s many sermons. Purgatory was a place you went after death to atone for your sins before moving on to heaven.

  Glancing around the village, she saw the small huts and so many of the thin, suffering bodies that filled them. There were good days here, but she couldn’t deny that most of them were filled with pain. Pain she could only ease for a little while.

  Maybe Sister Peter was right. Maybe this was purgatory.

  But that didn’t mean that Lilith didn’t belong here.

  Chapter 3

  T he screen turned black as she continued to press her finger down on the power button. Lilith wasn’t sure if it was the proper way to stop the computer but it was the only thing she could think of to make the words go away. And she so desperately needed to make them go away.

  If you’re reading this I’m dead….

  The awful part was that Jackie being dead was the least disturbing piece of information in her files.

  Genetic experiments. A new breed of powerful women. My offspring. My daughters.