Chapter 16: Kelsey's Dream
We have officially reached the halfway point in the book!
But we're on chapter sixteen out of twenty-four. So, two-thirds of the chapters only take up half the book, which seems like some wonky pacing to me.
Let's take a look at what's happened so far:
1. Kelsey meets a tiger at a circus
2. Kelsey goes to India with the tiger
3. It turns out the tiger is an Indian prince who was cursed to be a tiger and the only way to save him is to get all the pieces of the Matt Damon Amulet
4. Kelsey is the chosen one
5. They get a lead on how to fulfill the prophecy from an ancient temple
6. They meetRen's younger brother the second leg of the love triangle
This is the only plot-relevant stuff that's happened over the last 273 pages. Except it took eighty pages to get to India in the first place, so it's more like 190 pages.
A book can't be all plot, however. There's character interaction, too! But we don't really know anything about any of the characters yet!
We know the most about Kelsey, because she's our viewpoint character and it's narrated in first person. She's supposed to be confident and empathetic and smart, but all of these traits are literally told to her by her two love interests. The only way that these are shown is that Kesley agreed to help Ren out despite knowing nothing about him (which, sure, empathetic, but also kind of a crazy decision) and that she likes to read poetry and Shakespeare. I'd argue that she's not even all that confident, because she spends a lot of time thinking about how she's not good enough for Ren, and even got into an argument with him because she came up with a terrible excuse for not wanting to kiss him when she actually felt that he was too good for her.
Ren is supposed to be seen as a caring gentleman who wants to protect Kelsey because he just loves her so much, you guys. At least, that's how the narration paints him. He's actually possessive, manipulative, and hot. Yeah, being hot isn't a character trait, but he doesn't have a whole lot else to work with, so I'm feeling generous. He fights his brother almost to the death for daring to touch Kelsey, who had just rejected him. He views Kelsey as a possession to be won, and thinks that even if she's not all that into him, she's still his possession.
Kelsey and Ren have had a couple of cute interactions, but most of it is still weird because 1) he's over three hundred years older than her, 2) even ignoring the time he's spent as a tiger, she literally just turned 18, and 3) they'd barely had any chance to even talk before Ren was all over her. I've backed off of that last point in recent chapters because they've actually had time to get to know each other by this point. But their relationship has barely changed from when they first met, aside from the rather forced argument that they just had at the waterfall. It's weird.
Mr. Kadam is a complete non-entity. We know so much about him but he's only on screen to explain history or mythology, and hasn't really had any personal conversations with Kelsey that didn't involve explaining how something works.
Kishan's shown the most amount of personality so far! He's only been in the story for one chapter, but he actually has more than one layer of characterization! He puts off an air of bravado (and sleaziness) but he's been out in the jungle by himself as a self-imposed punishment because he feels bad about betraying his brother! Like, that's actually interesting! Too bad he kind of sucks, though. He's kind of a huge jerk.
So, uh, not a terribly eventful first half. From what I remember is coming up, the only important thing left is Hampi. Unlike Kanheri Cave, we actually spend a few chapters there, so more happens (well, more pages happen, at least).
Let's get going.
Chapter Sixteen: Kelsey's Dream
As dream sequences go, it's not terrible. Completely different scenes flow together decently, and it definitely feels like a dream. So, there's something nice!
It's also very Melodramatic.
I turned a corner, entered a large room, and saw a dark, villainous man dressed in rich amethyst robes. He was standing over another man tied to a large table. I watched from a dark corner as he raised a sharp, curved knife into the air. The man chanted softly in a language I didn't understand.
KALI MAAAAA!
Ah, glad to see that tension between characters can be solved overnight with no attempt to talk about what caused the argument in the first place. No communication necessary! Also hard to write, I guess, so they're just buds again.
They pack up their camp and start to head back to Mr. Kadam. Continuing with the theme of "communication isn't necessary" Kelsey tells Ren about some of the things she spoke about with Kishan, but very intentionally doesn't bring up Yesubai. This is explicitly because she doesn't want Ren to think about her. I guess because Kelsey is jealous of a girl who's been dead for three hundred years and Ren didn't love in the first place?
She does bring up that she watched him and Kishan hunt, though, and Ren isn't thrilled about that. He's angry that Kishan dragged her out to see the horrors of nature and that he let her walk back to camp all by herself. At that, Ren is literally described as "beyond angry" which is incredibly worrying considering that this honestly wasn't a huge deal. Then he says that she's never leaving his sight again.
Hey, here's an idea, idiot. Instead of keeping Kelsey's safety entirely dependent on you, why don't you teach her basic camping and survival skills? Most things in a jungle aren't going to mess with something as big as a human. Especially when there's not one but two tigers roaming around in the territory, even if they aren't specifically in that spot all the time.
Kelsey says that it was fine because Kishan knew that he'd need help hunting because he hadn't been able to for three hundred years. She asks him what exactly happened to him, which is a crazy place to ask this question, because if it was me in that situation, that would have been one of the first questions I would have asked.
But anyway. Ren says that he didn't exactly blend in very well to hunt, so he would steal goats or sheep from villages when he couldn't catch wild game. But he was seen too often, since he was a white tiger, and he was eventually caught by some poachers. They sold him to a rich collector, and eventually Ren was sold to a Russian circus. I'm not sure why it's specifically a Russian circus, but whatever.
So...there goes my theory that Mr. Kadam was involved in using circuses as a way to expose Ren to the most amount of people who could potentially break the curse. Which begs the question, how do people know what his name is?
Seriously! He was billed as "Dhiren" at Circus Mario! He was captured as a tiger and found his way to America by being sold between circuses!
Mr. Kadam was apparently involved at some point after he was able to track Ren down, but for some reason he was never able to purchase Ren for himself. Something always went wrong with a sale if he tried to buy Ren from a circus. This was apparently because of the curse. So, to recap, this curse:
1. Turns people into tigers
2. Makes them immortal
3. Makes them able to heal any injury
4. Makes it so that yourmanservant employee parents' military advisor can't buy you from a circus
Who wrote this curse? Why is it so specific?
They find out through curse-lawyering (a.k.a., trial and error until something works) that Mr. Kadam can push people Ren's way to buy him, but only if Mr. Kadam has no intention of buying Ren himself. He visited as often as he could to check up on Ren and tell him about any progress in trying to break the curse.
Okay, another thing. Apparently before Ren got captured, he could turn into a man for the twenty-four minute time limit, but after he got captured, he couldn't anymore until Kelsey came along. Why? I guess so that he couldn't escape from the circus, so that Kelsey could meet him at a circus. Which is quite a tautology if you think about it.
So, my whole question about why Kelsey had to spend the first five chapters at a circus? It's so she could meet Ren at a circus.
Kelsey asks why Kishan didn't help try to help Ren escape. Before he answers, he helps her over a log by holding her to his chest, "which made [Kelsey] stop breathing entirely." Because Kelsey's constantly thirsty, I guess. Ren is fully aware of what he's doing, and grins at her.
And just like that, we're back at square one in their relationship, any character development caused by their argument completely gone. Let us weep for what could have been: character growth.
Ren answers that by the time Kishan figured out what had happened it was too late to do anything. But, "for some reason," only Kelsey was able to wish him free. I love "for some reason." It takes away any explanation that would actually be useful to know and says that things happen just "because."
Apparently, Ren was able to convince Matthew (remember Matthew? the kid from the circus? son of Matt's dad?) that someone mugged him and show him how to use a phone to call Mr. Kadam. Wouldn't this have been something that Matthew would have told people?
"Hey, Kelsey! The craziest thing happened to me last night. This really hot guy wearing really weird clothes came up to me and said that someone had mugged him! He asked to call someone, and he didn't even know how to use a phone! And then he placed a call all the way to India! How weird is that?"
Like, I feel like Matt would have told people, is all I'm saying.
They walk some more (which is most of this dang book so far) and then Kishan shows up! Ren immediately gets all hot and bothered about Kishan leaving her alone in the jungle while they went hunting. Kishan asks if she liked watching the hunt.
"Umm, it was--"
"She had nightmares," Ren spat at his brother.
I mean, her nightmares had absolutely nothing to do with watching the hunt and more with...prophetic foreshadowing for stuff that's not even going to happen in this book.
Kishan says that Ren needed his help with the hunt because he couldn't catch anything on his own (which, true) and then Ren hits him. It's described really weirdly:
I heard the punch before I saw it. It was a hard, teeth-rattling punch, the kind I though only happened in the movies. Ren had moved me deftly to the side and then socked his brother.
You...just described the punch happening. You don't need to do it again a sentence later! You already showed us what happened! You don't need to tell us again, we can figure out what happened!
Kishan stepped away while rubbing his jaw, but he stood up to face Ren with a smile.
So, wait, did he fall over and then stand up? Or not, because it says that he "stepped away"? I have no idea what just happened.
Ren grabs Kelsey and starts walking away, but Kishan catches up and says he has something to say to Kelsey. He pulls off his Matt Damon Amulet and hands it to Kelsey so that it will protect her the same way that Ren's protects Mr. Kadam. He flirts shamelessly some more.
I hugged him briefly and turned my cheek toward him for a kiss. At the last second, Kishan altered his stance and pecked me quickly on the lips.
I sputtered with shock, "You wily scoundrel!" Then I laughed and punched him lightly on the arm.
He just laughed and winked at me.
WAH WAH COMEDY
I'm trying to think about a time that I would unironically call someone a "wily scoundrel" but I can't think of anything.
Changing into a white tiger again, he led me through the jungle for another half hour until, with relief, I saw we'd finally reached the highway.
Thanks for specifying what color tiger he turned into. I forgot after reading three hundred pages of you describing him being a white tiger.
They find Mr. Kadam, and the chapter ends before he can talk, which I'm grateful for because it'll be boring.
Closing Thoughts
Uhh, so the only thing that happened this chapter is that Kishan gave Kelsey his Matt Damon Amulet. Which has been the entire point of the last three chapters. Oh, I guess Kelsey finally realized that Ren loved her, but that was so obvious from the beginning I'm not counting it as new information.
I have no idea how we're three hundred pages in when so little has happened.
Next time, Chapter Seventeen: A Beginning! It's really short, but Ren and Kelsey kiss!!!! It's the only thing that happens.
But we're on chapter sixteen out of twenty-four. So, two-thirds of the chapters only take up half the book, which seems like some wonky pacing to me.
Let's take a look at what's happened so far:
1. Kelsey meets a tiger at a circus
2. Kelsey goes to India with the tiger
3. It turns out the tiger is an Indian prince who was cursed to be a tiger and the only way to save him is to get all the pieces of the Matt Damon Amulet
4. Kelsey is the chosen one
5. They get a lead on how to fulfill the prophecy from an ancient temple
6. They meet
This is the only plot-relevant stuff that's happened over the last 273 pages. Except it took eighty pages to get to India in the first place, so it's more like 190 pages.
A book can't be all plot, however. There's character interaction, too! But we don't really know anything about any of the characters yet!
We know the most about Kelsey, because she's our viewpoint character and it's narrated in first person. She's supposed to be confident and empathetic and smart, but all of these traits are literally told to her by her two love interests. The only way that these are shown is that Kesley agreed to help Ren out despite knowing nothing about him (which, sure, empathetic, but also kind of a crazy decision) and that she likes to read poetry and Shakespeare. I'd argue that she's not even all that confident, because she spends a lot of time thinking about how she's not good enough for Ren, and even got into an argument with him because she came up with a terrible excuse for not wanting to kiss him when she actually felt that he was too good for her.
Ren is supposed to be seen as a caring gentleman who wants to protect Kelsey because he just loves her so much, you guys. At least, that's how the narration paints him. He's actually possessive, manipulative, and hot. Yeah, being hot isn't a character trait, but he doesn't have a whole lot else to work with, so I'm feeling generous. He fights his brother almost to the death for daring to touch Kelsey, who had just rejected him. He views Kelsey as a possession to be won, and thinks that even if she's not all that into him, she's still his possession.
Kelsey and Ren have had a couple of cute interactions, but most of it is still weird because 1) he's over three hundred years older than her, 2) even ignoring the time he's spent as a tiger, she literally just turned 18, and 3) they'd barely had any chance to even talk before Ren was all over her. I've backed off of that last point in recent chapters because they've actually had time to get to know each other by this point. But their relationship has barely changed from when they first met, aside from the rather forced argument that they just had at the waterfall. It's weird.
Mr. Kadam is a complete non-entity. We know so much about him but he's only on screen to explain history or mythology, and hasn't really had any personal conversations with Kelsey that didn't involve explaining how something works.
Kishan's shown the most amount of personality so far! He's only been in the story for one chapter, but he actually has more than one layer of characterization! He puts off an air of bravado (and sleaziness) but he's been out in the jungle by himself as a self-imposed punishment because he feels bad about betraying his brother! Like, that's actually interesting! Too bad he kind of sucks, though. He's kind of a huge jerk.
So, uh, not a terribly eventful first half. From what I remember is coming up, the only important thing left is Hampi. Unlike Kanheri Cave, we actually spend a few chapters there, so more happens (well, more pages happen, at least).
Let's get going.
Chapter Sixteen: Kelsey's Dream
As dream sequences go, it's not terrible. Completely different scenes flow together decently, and it definitely feels like a dream. So, there's something nice!
It's also very Melodramatic.
I turned a corner, entered a large room, and saw a dark, villainous man dressed in rich amethyst robes. He was standing over another man tied to a large table. I watched from a dark corner as he raised a sharp, curved knife into the air. The man chanted softly in a language I didn't understand.
KALI MAAAAA!
Oh look, more Temple of Doom!
Shockingly, the man on the table is Ren! Well, shockingly to Kelsey. It's not very shocking to us.
Oh, also, a second appearance of the antagonist of the story, I guess. Except 1) it's a dream so he's not actually doing anything, 2) he's not named again, and 3) Kelsey has no idea who this is.
She launches herself at him, though, and her hand starts glowing and sparking. Ren tells her to stop.
"Kells . . . get out of here! Save yourself! I'm doing this so he can't find you!"
Which, again, is foreshadowing, but not to anything that happens in the first book. This'll show up again in the second book, but the only reason I can recognize this now is because I've spent way too long reading the first couple of books of this series.
Ren asks Durga to do something, and then the guy stabs him and he's bleeding everywhere and then he dies.
Ren's death was unbearable. If he was dead, then so was I. I was drowning in sorrow; I couldn't breathe. I didn't have any will left to drive me. There was no incentive, no voice urging me to fight back, to kick to the surface, to rise above the pain. Nothing could make me breathe or make me live again.
Holy shit! That's really unhealthy!
Also, to quote a bit from the last chapter that Kelsey told Kishan that I'm pretty sure I quoted last time:
I put my hand over his and gently asked, "Kishan, don't you want a future for yourself or a family? I know what it feels like when someone you love dies. It's lonely. You feel broken, like you can never be whole again. You feel like they took a piece of you when they left.
"But you are not alone. There are people you can care for and who will care for you. People who will give you lots of reasons to go on living. Mr. Kadam, your brother, and me. There could even be someone else to love. Please come with us to Hampi."
Consistency! Yeah, that sounds like something the same character would say. Although I guess it could mean that Kelsey was just bullshitting in order to get Kishan to go with them.
It's also weird to have a really introspective paragraph in the middle of a dream sequence. Everything else is suitable dreamlike where things just happen without Kelsey really analyzing them, except for this paragraph.
The dream fades to black and comes back to a scene where she's wearing a fancy gold dress. Ren's standing in front of her and she reaches out to him, but Kishan grabs her hand instead. Ren and Kishan...stare angrily at each other and Ren turns into a tiger and runs off into into a jungle (which appears out of nowhere, since they were inside, but it's suitably dreamlike and I actually like how it just shows up).
Kelsey runs after him, and lightning strikes all around her as she runs through the jungle. A "thunderbolt" (??) hits a tree, which explodes and traps Kelsey, because even in her dreams nature is out to get her. She wriggles out and eventually finds Ren after another few paragraphs of running through a jungle (riveting!), and it looks like he got struck by lightning.
The lightning guided me to Ren. I found him lying on the ground. Large burn marks scorched his white fur where lightning bolts had repeatedly struck him. Somehow, I knew I had done it. I was the one responsible for his pain.
So, uh, telling him that he wasn't spontaneous enough when he asked to kiss you was enough to kill him? This is what this is about, remember! He was mad at her because she told him she didn't like how he asked to kiss her!
He tells her that this happened because she lost faith in him and left him. Then he says it's too late to come back, and then he dies again.
(I think this is also foreshadowing to the second book, but it's honestly been a while since I've read the ending. I'll have to revisit it when I get there, eventually.)
Crying, Kelsey closes her eyes, and when she opens them again, it's not just Ren but also her parents, grandparents, and Mr. Kadam lying there dead. No mention of Sarah and Mike, her foster parents who have been raising her for the past year.
She cradles Ren's dead body as a storm rages around her, and then it starts to feel like someone else is holding her. She wakes up and it's Ren! He snuck into her tent and held her because she was having a bad dream!
The dream made me realize how alone I really felt. Since my parents had died, no one had held me like this. Of course, I hugged my foster parents and their kids, but no one had managed to break through my defenses--nor had I let anyone pull this depth of emotion from me in a long while.
That was the moment I knew Ren loved me.
The Romance. The Drama. And how did she not realize this up until this point, seriously. He's been very up-front with his intentions the entire time he's known you.
She lets him stay in the tent out of the rain, kisses his cheek (we must remain chaste even though Ren just died very graphically twice), and falls back asleep.
The next morning, Ren says that they're heading back out to meet Mr. Kadam (who's been camping near the road a few miles away).
"But what about Kishan? There is no way you can convince him to come with us?"
My notes about this question are literally just the words "BEEP BOOP HUMAN" which is my terrible brain's way of saying that people don't talk like this.
He says that there isn't any way to convince him, and when Kelsey tries to argue, he says "no buts" and that's that. He walks up and pulls her braid, though, because Ren is a child. He does kiss her on the forehead, though.
What passed between us during the storm had repaired the emotional rift that had put us at odds, and I was happy that he was my friend again.
Ah, glad to see that tension between characters can be solved overnight with no attempt to talk about what caused the argument in the first place. No communication necessary! Also hard to write, I guess, so they're just buds again.
They pack up their camp and start to head back to Mr. Kadam. Continuing with the theme of "communication isn't necessary" Kelsey tells Ren about some of the things she spoke about with Kishan, but very intentionally doesn't bring up Yesubai. This is explicitly because she doesn't want Ren to think about her. I guess because Kelsey is jealous of a girl who's been dead for three hundred years and Ren didn't love in the first place?
She does bring up that she watched him and Kishan hunt, though, and Ren isn't thrilled about that. He's angry that Kishan dragged her out to see the horrors of nature and that he let her walk back to camp all by herself. At that, Ren is literally described as "beyond angry" which is incredibly worrying considering that this honestly wasn't a huge deal. Then he says that she's never leaving his sight again.
Hey, here's an idea, idiot. Instead of keeping Kelsey's safety entirely dependent on you, why don't you teach her basic camping and survival skills? Most things in a jungle aren't going to mess with something as big as a human. Especially when there's not one but two tigers roaming around in the territory, even if they aren't specifically in that spot all the time.
Kelsey says that it was fine because Kishan knew that he'd need help hunting because he hadn't been able to for three hundred years. She asks him what exactly happened to him, which is a crazy place to ask this question, because if it was me in that situation, that would have been one of the first questions I would have asked.
But anyway. Ren says that he didn't exactly blend in very well to hunt, so he would steal goats or sheep from villages when he couldn't catch wild game. But he was seen too often, since he was a white tiger, and he was eventually caught by some poachers. They sold him to a rich collector, and eventually Ren was sold to a Russian circus. I'm not sure why it's specifically a Russian circus, but whatever.
So...there goes my theory that Mr. Kadam was involved in using circuses as a way to expose Ren to the most amount of people who could potentially break the curse. Which begs the question, how do people know what his name is?
Seriously! He was billed as "Dhiren" at Circus Mario! He was captured as a tiger and found his way to America by being sold between circuses!
Mr. Kadam was apparently involved at some point after he was able to track Ren down, but for some reason he was never able to purchase Ren for himself. Something always went wrong with a sale if he tried to buy Ren from a circus. This was apparently because of the curse. So, to recap, this curse:
1. Turns people into tigers
2. Makes them immortal
3. Makes them able to heal any injury
4. Makes it so that your
Who wrote this curse? Why is it so specific?
They find out through curse-lawyering (a.k.a., trial and error until something works) that Mr. Kadam can push people Ren's way to buy him, but only if Mr. Kadam has no intention of buying Ren himself. He visited as often as he could to check up on Ren and tell him about any progress in trying to break the curse.
Okay, another thing. Apparently before Ren got captured, he could turn into a man for the twenty-four minute time limit, but after he got captured, he couldn't anymore until Kelsey came along. Why? I guess so that he couldn't escape from the circus, so that Kelsey could meet him at a circus. Which is quite a tautology if you think about it.
So, my whole question about why Kelsey had to spend the first five chapters at a circus? It's so she could meet Ren at a circus.
Kelsey asks why Kishan didn't help try to help Ren escape. Before he answers, he helps her over a log by holding her to his chest, "which made [Kelsey] stop breathing entirely." Because Kelsey's constantly thirsty, I guess. Ren is fully aware of what he's doing, and grins at her.
And just like that, we're back at square one in their relationship, any character development caused by their argument completely gone. Let us weep for what could have been: character growth.
Ren answers that by the time Kishan figured out what had happened it was too late to do anything. But, "for some reason," only Kelsey was able to wish him free. I love "for some reason." It takes away any explanation that would actually be useful to know and says that things happen just "because."
Apparently, Ren was able to convince Matthew (remember Matthew? the kid from the circus? son of Matt's dad?) that someone mugged him and show him how to use a phone to call Mr. Kadam. Wouldn't this have been something that Matthew would have told people?
"Hey, Kelsey! The craziest thing happened to me last night. This really hot guy wearing really weird clothes came up to me and said that someone had mugged him! He asked to call someone, and he didn't even know how to use a phone! And then he placed a call all the way to India! How weird is that?"
Like, I feel like Matt would have told people, is all I'm saying.
They walk some more (which is most of this dang book so far) and then Kishan shows up! Ren immediately gets all hot and bothered about Kishan leaving her alone in the jungle while they went hunting. Kishan asks if she liked watching the hunt.
"Umm, it was--"
"She had nightmares," Ren spat at his brother.
I mean, her nightmares had absolutely nothing to do with watching the hunt and more with...prophetic foreshadowing for stuff that's not even going to happen in this book.
Kishan says that Ren needed his help with the hunt because he couldn't catch anything on his own (which, true) and then Ren hits him. It's described really weirdly:
I heard the punch before I saw it. It was a hard, teeth-rattling punch, the kind I though only happened in the movies. Ren had moved me deftly to the side and then socked his brother.
You...just described the punch happening. You don't need to do it again a sentence later! You already showed us what happened! You don't need to tell us again, we can figure out what happened!
Kishan stepped away while rubbing his jaw, but he stood up to face Ren with a smile.
So, wait, did he fall over and then stand up? Or not, because it says that he "stepped away"? I have no idea what just happened.
Ren grabs Kelsey and starts walking away, but Kishan catches up and says he has something to say to Kelsey. He pulls off his Matt Damon Amulet and hands it to Kelsey so that it will protect her the same way that Ren's protects Mr. Kadam. He flirts shamelessly some more.
I hugged him briefly and turned my cheek toward him for a kiss. At the last second, Kishan altered his stance and pecked me quickly on the lips.
I sputtered with shock, "You wily scoundrel!" Then I laughed and punched him lightly on the arm.
He just laughed and winked at me.
WAH WAH COMEDY
I'm trying to think about a time that I would unironically call someone a "wily scoundrel" but I can't think of anything.
Changing into a white tiger again, he led me through the jungle for another half hour until, with relief, I saw we'd finally reached the highway.
Thanks for specifying what color tiger he turned into. I forgot after reading three hundred pages of you describing him being a white tiger.
They find Mr. Kadam, and the chapter ends before he can talk, which I'm grateful for because it'll be boring.
Closing Thoughts
Uhh, so the only thing that happened this chapter is that Kishan gave Kelsey his Matt Damon Amulet. Which has been the entire point of the last three chapters. Oh, I guess Kelsey finally realized that Ren loved her, but that was so obvious from the beginning I'm not counting it as new information.
I have no idea how we're three hundred pages in when so little has happened.
Next time, Chapter Seventeen: A Beginning! It's really short, but Ren and Kelsey kiss!!!! It's the only thing that happens.
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