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Payel/Payal/Nupur is an ornament Indian women wear in their feet, it dangles circling the ankle, some-times small bells are attached to it to create a musical sound when walking. There are people who use a lot of bells; there are people who use none.

Durga/Madurga: Mother Goddess Durga is the most popular deity of Bengalis.

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ONE

Crunch… crunch…

She could hear her own stealthy steps up the rickety stairs of that old tower. She could hear her own heartbeat and breathing too…

She turned back; her friends were waiting at a distance, huddled together.

Yesterday when they were walking past this guard tower, built in middle ages, she has complimented it and said the village could use it as a tourist attraction.

“There is a witch….that lives on the tower… she throws stones at everyone who passes by…” Chintu has told her.

“There is no such thing as a witch…” she has wrinkled her tiny nose.

“Oh yes?” he sneered.

“I have been stung by one… just the day before yesterday!” Rinku chimed in.

“I can go there… in the middle of the night…”

“You dare!”

“I don’t believe in witches…. I don’t…. I don’t….” she vehemently shouted.

“Tomorrow is Saturday… the most inauspicious day… we will come for you at eleven, sneak out of the house.”

She bitterly regretted the argument the moment she looked at the tower.

It was a dilapidated old watch tower, situated outside the old manor where a wicked king lived centuries ago… her father used to tell them that people dug up skeletons from the surrounding areas even when he was young…

“That manor is haunted…” her father used to scare them with dozens of ghost stories… ghosts he or persons he knows have witnessed.

“One night, I was returning from college, the bus dropped us past midnight. I had to walk past the manor….”

“I swear… I could hear someone following me… I could hear the sound of the small bells of her payel and her bangles all through the way… but every time I looked back I saw a black bitch following me at a distance…”

“Then….?” The kids used to ask in chorus.

TWO

“I fell sick that night….” the story teller continued grimly.

“Doctors could not analyze the cause of my fever, high fever. Grandma used to stay in my room all night.”

“That night she suddenly woke up feeling uneasy…. When she looked at my bed she swore she saw a woman sitting beside me. A very beautiful woman wearing the dresses of British Era notch girls… glittering lehenga (Indian long skirt), choli (top that comes with her), chunni (stole) and ornaments of pure gold studded with real gems!”

“Who is it?” she mumbled incoherently.

“She just vanished right in front of my eyes…..Grandma told later.

She said she felt like fainting but gathered her nerves and started to shriek. Grandpa came running from the next room… he on his turn swears that he saw a black bitch skulking out of the room, he chased it but could not find it after reaching the garden… the main door was open… and none takes the claim for leaving it open at middle of night…”

“At that time there was a famous sage in our town, who was capable of getting rid of evil spirits… Baba Yogeswara.”

“He was called in…”

“Your grandma used to say that it took him a whole day to get me rid of that black witch that has followed me home that night…. she used to come there every night disguised as a black bitch and sucked out the life force from me….”

“Ohhh!!!!” a chorus used to sound.

“I have been wearing it since then….” He displayed an amulet firmly embedded in his wristband. “I don’t open it even when I am taking my bath.”

Years have passed since then. Her father has passed away in a road accident. They were on a visit to her hometown. To settle some property matters.

Only her uncles and aunts lived here, in their ancestral home.

She was fifteen; lot has changed since childhood, she was a renowned tomboy in her huge circle of friends.

She has won bets by tying her scarf to the “most haunted” places of Kolkata in middle of night.

Her mother was a nurse, who was away from home most of the nights, so it was quite easy for her to hoodwink her old maternal grandmother and sneak out of home to play her games.

But this one was different….

It’s just the small town environment silly… she reprimanded herself… the darkness… the silence…

Three

The tower was high, higher than the third floor flat of their Kolkata housing. It was damp, the air was choking. The light of the flashlight was flickering on the floor, creating strange shadows, it was unsteady… her climbing and a little jittery hand was making it dance.

Turn back… a small voice inside her head implored…it’s so choking here… what if they are right?

Yeah sure! … another voice taunted… like Priya, when she told that her maternal uncle’s room was haunted and he was seen pacing up and down there every night…he just missed the night you sat there on vigil….

Like Mishtu when she told that the tamarind tree that stood over the oldest grave of the Christian graveyard near their home was haunted… no one returns alive from there if he dares to tie a rope on its branches on Friday at twelve a.m. …. your rope is still dangling from there…

This one is different… the first voice insisted… you can feel it too…

She really could! There was something really strange in here, even her young heart could feel it; it felt like someone was watching her from within the walls, as she fumbled her way up…

She silenced both the voices the scared and the brazen… she knew what will happen if she bolts… she will have to see the smirks on the faces of her new found friends for the rest of the month- twenty days in Toto…

Finally she reached the top.

There was an old wooden door, intact, covered with moss and cobwebs…

One thing was certain…

No one comes here.

Don’t open it! …. You don’t know what’s waiting in there…. The voice screamed inside her head.

Her hand was shaking badly…

She reached out and pushed the door…..

It did not open… it was jammed shut.

Leave it… the voice begged.

She pushed it with all her might it creaked open

That ominous sound made her heart jump so badly that it almost reached her throat.

The room was pitch-dark.

Her flashlight flickered and died.

Come on! She thumped it on her palm violently.

“Who is it?” she heard a voice…. A cold hollow voice of a woman …

The next thing she remembered was that she was screaming and fumbling her way down the stairs.

…. Followed by a pair of footsteps … small bells of payel chimed in them, bangles were tinkling….

FOUR

Her friends of-course, have bolted! There was no sign of them anywhere.

Once in the open ground under the starlit sky she started to run at her best speed. But the steady sound kept following her, she had a feeling that if she turns back she will see something evil floating a few feet after her.

She reached her home and started to bang on the door insanely.

Every light turned on and they opened the door.

She was lying there, unconscious.

Something scurried in the darkness… her uncle lifted his face to see… it was a black bitch, slowly slithering away in the darkness.

Everyone muttered under their breath “Durga Durga”

She was breathing feebly. Her forehead was burning with fever.

“Chandra, you will have to take her back to Kolkata tomorrow.” Her uncle told her mother. “That black bitch is a very bad omen.”

“I will go with you, drop you at home and return.” His manners said that the words were final.

They passed the night huddled around her bed.

Dawn broke but there was no sign of her opening her eyes.

An ambulance pulled in at five, Chandra and her brother in law climbed in with her.

They reached Kolkata a few hours later. Her uncle did not stay, even though Chandra insisted.

“I will have to go back and know what happened, I will inform you. In the meantime keep a watch on her, don’t leave her alone after dusk. Especially during the night! I will call every evening to know about her progress.” He climbed back in the ambulance, his face dark with worry.

Chandra returned to her daughter’s bedside. She was sleeping but her sleep was not peaceful. Various emotions were fluttering on that little face, starting from fear to stark horror.

Chandra was the last person to believe in the mumbo jumbo of witchcraft and ghosts; Jayanti has developed her rational mindset.

She reached out and placed her hand on Jayanti’s forehead, it was burning.

“Jibakda, it’s me, Chandra… can you come down to my home after chamber today? Its Jayanti, she is very sick and I don’t have any idea…” her voice choked.

FIVE

She took a fortnight’s leave; shifted her bed to her daughter’s room.

Jibak Mahapatra, was the owner of the nursing home where she worked as the matron. He was a child specialist, had degrees on child psychiatry too.

Jayanti was delivered in his nursing home. He has been standing beside her all the time, even though he was not an obstetrician. He sort of treated her like his own God daughter.

“This is bizarre, it can’t be anything but shock!” he remarked after hearing in detail about the happenings and the treatments given thereafter.

“If it was a normal fever it would have been gone by now.” He commented. “Give these medicines and let me run a few more tests.” He left with a deep frown on his face. He was not at all happy.

Chandra followed her brother in law’s instructions and stayed in her daughter’s room, to be surer about it she asked her mother to shift in there too.

So that there is always someone present with Jayanti.

She fell asleep changing the pads on Jayanti’s forehead, “Charu!” the familiar voice entered her sleeping ears. There was only one person in this world who called her Charu, her husband. “She is here.”

“Who?” she dreamt that she was standing in the middle of a vast field with Jayant; her dead husband… in the middle of a furious storm wind was hitting them from all directions. The howling wind was really scary.

“The black witch…. Krishnamayee…She followed Jaya from there… you remember the amulet? It snapped when I was hit in that accident, when my body was laid down on the floor it fell to the floor and was kicked under the old almirah it got stuck under its legs and is still there… bring it out… clean it up and tie it to Jaya’s arms… that’s the only way to save her… wake up Charu she is in the room right now…”

She jolted out of her sleep. Her eyes instantly went to her daughter, the room was dark, another power-cut it seemed; there were two eyes a few inches above the darkness of the silhouette of her daughter’s body created by the faint light seeping in from outside...

They were cruel, merciless eyes. She jumped up and grabbed the flashlight- its light bathed the bed and a black cat disappeared in the balcony in a single leap. She followed it but it was nowhere to be seen…she looked below the balcony and a faint scream escaped her lips. A woman was standing there, dressed in a black gown, looking up at her. The same pair of cruel, merciless eyes….

She stepped back involuntarily and closed the door.

Jayanti was breathing very laboriously.

She ran to the kitchen and grabbed a packet of candles; she lit each and every one of them up then rushed to her mother’s bed.

“Ma! Please wake up!” she gently touched the forehead of the old lady.

She instantly opened her eyes. “What?” her eyes were filled up with concern and fear.

“Nothing ma… please stay awake for a while.... No matter what don’t go out of this room before I return and please stay awake, keep an eye on her.”

The old lady nodded.

She entered the drawing room and flashed the light under the almirah- there it was- she pulled it out cautiously, washed it clean and tied it to her sleeping daughter’s arm.

“What is it?” her mother asked.

“Her father used to wear it.”

They both looked at the bed startled by a deep breath inhaled by Jayanti. A faint smile was lingering on her pale face. A divine change after watching horror and anguish flicker over that tiny face for all these days.

Sharmishtha Basu