Furious by Jeffrey Higgins (top 10 novels to read TXT) 📕

dreadful night, but I won’t let you sit in the room. Come with me.”

“I . . . I can’t.”

“You can. If you take a shower and get dressed, you’ll feel better. Let’s go to one tourist site and if you hate it, we can come back.”

“I don’t know,” I said.

My will to resist waned. Depression exhausted me. The constant emotional turmoil depleted my energy, but even the physical act of sitting in a room and crying ate away at my life force. I had grieved nonstop for six months, and the thought of spending the day inside the hotel room was too much, even though I deserved the pain for failing my daughter.

“If you don’t come, I won’t go either, but we’re about to spend thirty days in an enclosed space. Let’s not waste our last day on land by sitting around in a cramped hotel room.

“Last day? The weather improved?”

“The monsoon is moving fast. It’ll be far in front of us by the time we reach the Bay of Bengal. We leave at dawn.”

I perked up at the news. I would not have to stay in this hotel room, this purgatory, for much longer. Tomorrow, I would take a proactive step and attempt to snap out of my psychosis. It was time to confront my fears, to see if I had anything left worth saving.

Brad scrutinized me—cocking his head and raising his eyebrows—wanting an answer.

What the hell was I doing in Bali? What was I doing with my life? I was lost, uncertain. Was I making intelligent decisions or acting out of desperation?

 “Okay, give me thirty minutes.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Our taxi stopped on the road outside the Pura Goa Lawah temple. I wore shorts and a short-sleeved blouse, and Brad had on jeans and a tee shirt. Before we exited the car, I wrapped a kain kamben, a Balinese sarong, around my waist and draped a selendang, a temple scarf, over my shoulders. Brad slipped on similar garments, which we had purchased in the hotel gift shop. The concierge had insisted we cover ourselves before we entered the temple, and I had wondered if he lied to make a sale, but now I saw dozens of tourists wearing the coverings, and I doubted the whole Balinese population had conspired to scam tourists.

“This is it,” Brad said, beaming.

“It’s a beautiful setting.”

I had been miserable company, and I attempted to sound upbeat for him. Besides, the stone shrines fascinated me. I opened the door of our Bali Taxi, known as a Bluebird, because of its color and the winged emblem on top. A horde of aggressive hawkers descended on us, selling sarongs, Balinese calendars, and an array of trinkets. Women grabbed at my arms and one of them slipped a shell necklace over my head. I had not asked for it, but I gave her eighty thousand rupiah. It sounded like a lot of money, except the exchange rate was close to fifteen thousand rupiah to one dollar.

Brad paid our entrance fees, and they forced him to pay more for a guide. Nothing cost much, but I felt like a rube, there to be fleeced.

“I hired a guide, but the site is small, and I have a guidebook, so let’s explore it alone,” Brad said.

“Aye aye, captain.”

Brad read from the guidebook as we walked. “Goa Lawah is an early eleventh-century Hindi temple built to protect the Balinese from dark spirits invading from the sea. There are twenty-five stone shrines and pavilions on the grounds.”

I surveyed the area. “It looks like the set for an Indiana Jones movie.”

“It does, but it’s a significant holy site for the Balinese.”

The sprawling temple complex nestled against a jagged hill, with Mount Agung looming in the distance. A black sandy beach, bordering the Bali Sea, peeked between the trees behind us. The jungle surrounded the temple, poised to overtake the site the moment the groundskeepers turned their backs. Fig and bamboo trees dotted the grounds and two massive Banyan trees towered above the main temple. Wind rustled through the leaves and perfumed the air with a sweet fragrance.

“Why do they call these sites puras?” I asked, reading over Brad’s shoulder.

“The book says a pura is an open-air Balinese Hindi temple, with smaller shrines to various Hindu gods. The Goa Lawah complex is one of the six holiest worship sites on the island.”

Brad narrated as we moved inland toward the main shrine. We passed through a portal into the inner sanctum containing three primary shrines. Beyond it, long stone steps rose to traditional Balinese candi bentar gates, which bracketed an enormous entrance to a cave, like ornate stone bookends.

“According to legend, tunnels lead from the cave, all over the Island and to the Besakih Temple at the foot of Mount Agung. That cave is home to Basuki, the snake king. There’s a shrine somewhere on the grounds with a sculpture of the serpent.”

“There are worshipers here among the tourists,” I said.

Two dozen Balinese sat in front of the temple, with their feet tucked under their thighs and their palms pressed together. We watched the ceremony from a distance, and when it ended, we approached the elaborate shrine. We slipped off our shoes, mounted the steps, and stared past the gates into the mouth of the cave.

Shadows bathed the interior of the cave, and its walls vibrated and pulsed with tens of thousands of black bats.

“Goa Lawah literally means bat cave,” he said.

“Yuk. They’re disgusting.”

“Come on. They’re cute.”

I examined a bat near the edge of the cave. It slept inverted, hanging from the rock with its black wings folded and tucked against its body. I leaned in closer. Its head resembled a dog, with a pink nose, long snout, and brown fur. Its chest heaved with respirations.

“They’re creepy.”

“If we wait for nightfall, we can watch them fly out to feed.”

“I’ll take a hard pass.”

Brad hovered over my shoulder and craned his neck to see. “They look soft. Want to pet one.”

“Gross. They’re filthy and probably diseased.”

“That’s the