The Trickster

by Vinaya Bhagat

  ‘Zorro!’ Diya called softly, so as not to wake anyone. ‘Zorro!’ She called again but there was no response.

  Zorro must have vanished in the night and gone to sleep with Sunny or Elizabeth. She was careful, but the front door creaked.

  ‘Who is that?’ Elizabeth called.

  ‘Grandma, it’s me, Diya. I am going for a morning walk. Is Zorro with you?’

  Elizabeth was lying in bed, huddled under a pile of blankets.

  ‘I heard him go out earlier. He must have gone out with Ronnie. I would have joined you but my old bones cannot stand the cold.’

  ‘We can go again when the sun is up.’

  The crisp morning air penetrated through Diya’s thin clothes. She was not worried; she would be warm in no time. There was no sign of Ronnie or Sunny; they must have gone up into the mountains. Diya hesitated. She did not feel brave enough to follow them into the mountains alone. She settled for running on the road opposite the house.

  The rhythmic sound of her sneakers on the wet tarmac together with the chirping of birds was music to Diya’s ears. Her body revelled in the rush of endorphins.

  Diya glanced back at the house to check if Ronnie or Sunny had returned. The grounds were deserted except for Mrs Bhat’s white-gloved hands clinging to the fence. Diya waved to her, but Mrs Bhat did not respond. Maybe she had not recognized Diya in the grey dawn.

  On her next round, Diya glanced back at the house. Mrs Bhat was still at her position. Diya slowed her pace and her eyes wandered to the garden in search of the object of the neighbour’s curiosity.

  A white bundle was lying on the ground near the tennis court. Maybe the wind had blown clothes off the line. Diya opened the gate and went to the yard.

  The bundle wasn’t clothes but Zorro lying on the wet ground, his fur matted with mud.

  ‘Zorro! Get up! I have to give you a bath now,’ Diya called.

  Zorro did not budge.

  Diya bent to pick him up and recoiled. Zorro’s snow-white fur was not matted with mud but with blood.

  Diya wanted to howl at the injustice; first it was her parents and now Zorro. She stepped back and averted her eyes, unable to look at her beloved Zorro. He would never bark again or play with her. He would never bring disgusting drool-covered balls for her to play with or beg to be at her side every moment. Her eyes blind with tears, Diya ran towards the house and straight into a muscular barrier.

  ‘Slow down,’ Ronnie said holding onto her shoulders.

  ‘I …’ she could not continue.

  ‘What’s the matter, Diya. Is everything Ok?’

  ‘Zorro …’ she finally managed to say through the sobs that filled her throat.

  ‘What about Zorro?’

  ‘He is in the garden. Something is wrong.’

  She knew Zorro was dead, but could not bring herself to say that aloud.

  Maybe she was wrong.

  Maybe this was just another nightmare and she would wake up any moment now.

  In a daze, Diya followed Ronnie back to the garden.

  Zorro’s tiny limbs were stiff. A flock of ravens circled overhead in anticipation.

  The ground around Zorro’s body was scuffed.

  ‘Maybe it was the same animal that killed the hens,’ Ronnie speculated. ‘I am going to look around to make sure …’

  ‘Make sure of what?’ Diya asked, but Ronnie did not respond.

  They followed a trail of mud across the tennis court.

  ‘I think these look like an animal’s footprints,’ Ronnie said.

  The muddy trail ended at the edge of the cement pathway that ran around the house. Clumps of wet mud were stuck to the bricks that separated the path from the ground, as if something had scraped mud off of its feet.

  The trail vanished; there was no mud on the path.

  ‘Whatever it was couldn’t have just flown away,’ Ronnie said.

  ‘Maybe the rain washed away the mud.’

  The sky was brighter now, and they could hear sounds from the house. In the breaking dawn, the scuffed mud and lack of a trail did not seem so ominous.

  ‘Let’s go around the house, just to make sure.’ Ronnie said.

  They turned a corner and came to a standstill at a crimson streak that bisected the path. More of the same red liquid was splashed on the wall.

  Diya stepped back in horror.

  ‘What the hell is this?’ Ronnie said looking up at the wall.

  Diya clung to him; an irrational fear slithered out of its dark hiding corner and coiled around her heart. The elongated splatter with the six projections looked like the footprints in the snow and the red mark on her white shirt.

  ‘Do you think it looks like the mark on my shirt?’ Diya tried to keep her voice neutral, but was unable to hide the tremor. She clenched her fists trying to push back the fear that was threatening to overpower reason.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe we should not have tossed that shirt in the fire so carelessly.’

  Ronnie took a picture of the giant blood stain with his phone.

  ‘Next time this happens, we will have something to compare it with.’

  ‘Next time it might be my blood that it steps into,’ Diya said.

  Her voice was shrill with fear.

  ‘Don’t say things like that.’ Ronnie gripped her shoulders. ‘I will not allow anyone to harm you.’

  ‘Haven’t you noticed that the footprint is right under my window?’

  ‘That’s just coincidence. Let’s not jump to conclusions. Let’s go inside and have some tea. The cold is beginning to make me numb.’

  Ronnie put his arm around Diya’s shoulder and they made their way back towards the house.

  Bile rose in Diya’s throat as she spied Zorro’s tiny body on the ground. She tried to pretend that he was peacefully asleep, but she knew that the side that faced away from her was drenched in blood. She felt the weight of misery drag her down, slowly draining out the buzz of endorphins from her run.

  Sunny was sitting on the porch reading the newspaper, unaware of the carnage in his garden.

  ‘Diya, good morning! Mother tells me you went jogging. I would have joined you but I just woke up, haven’t even had tea yet,’ Sunny laughed. ‘Come and sit with me. Ruth will have breakfast ready any minute now.’

  Diya took a seat and let Sunny prattle on. She did not have the heart to tell him about Zorro. Though she could not concentrate on what he was saying, the drone of his voice was soothing.

  She tried not to think about the angry crimson streak under her window. But the implied violence behind the spatter of blood, her Zorro’s blood, was branded into her memory.

  A cold breeze rustled through the trees behind them and Diya shivered. She felt exposed out here in the open. Could someone or something be hiding behind the dense wall of trees, waiting for the right opportunity to attack? She shook her head; she was reading too much into an arbitrary shape.

  Ronnie came out with a stack of old newspapers, probably to cover poor Zorro’s body.

  ‘Why don’t you wait here?’ Ronnie said.

  ‘No, I want to come.’ She did not want to admit that she was afraid.

  The ravens were still circling overhead, their shrill cries louder and closer.

  Diya focused on Ronnie, not wanting to look at Zorro. Ronnie was still dressed in his running clothes and sneakers. He must have run through a puddle somewhere. Splatters of mud raced up the back of his legs to his light green shirt. Even those muddy splatters reminded her of Zorro’s bloody fur.

  Ronnie hurriedly covered Zorro with sheets of newspaper and placed stones on the corners to stop the wind from blowing them away.

  Jaya Bhat was still in her garden with her gloved hands resting on the wall. Maybe she had seen something.

  Diya walked towards the fence hoping to find a rational answer that could explain Zorro’s death.

  ‘Mrs Bhat,’ she called, but the woman did not respond.

  Diya moved closer; there was no sign of
the woman but her gloves were still on the wall. Was she in the habit of keeping the gloves on the wall to make her neighbours think she was spying on them at all hours?

  Diya touched a glove, and contrary to her expectations, it was not empty. Maybe the woman stuffed them with something, to make them look real. She bent over to take a closer look.

  The gloves were white up until the elbow; above that they were a deep red. Ragged bloody stubs of Mrs Bhat’s arms poked out of the blood-soaked gloves. There was no sign of rest of her body.

  Diya peeked over the wall. The grassy land was dotted with torn and mutilated pieces of Mrs Bhat’s body, her legs and head separated from her torso. Ravens hopped on the grass in the middle of the carnage.

  This had to be a nightmare; she would wake up any moment now. The grass was too green, the blood, too red.

  A raven hopped onto Mrs Bhat’s head. Diya watched in horror as it flew away with a scrap of the old woman’s flesh hanging from its beak.

  Once again, Diya felt that someone was watching her. Death, painful, ugly, and undignified was crouching in the shadows, with its sight set on her.

  Someone was screaming. Diya’s heart pounded and she hoped the poor dead woman would stop screaming.

  ‘Diya! Diya!’

  Ronnie’s faint voice was coming from the end of a tunnel. Diya could barely hear him above the piercing, painful shrieks.

  Ronnie shook her shoulders.

  Mercifully, the screams stopped.

  ‘Are you OK? You were screaming.’

  ‘Ronnie, Mrs Bhat …’

  Ronnie looked over the wall and pulled Diya away from it.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Sunny was running across the yard. ‘Diya, Ronnie, are you hurt?’

  ‘Daddy, we need to call the police.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Someone has killed Zorro and Mrs Bhat.’

  ‘Don’t look!’ Ronnie shouted but he was too late.

  Sunny staggered back from the wall and vomited in the grass.

  Ronnie shepherded Diya and Sunny back to the house.

  ‘Maybe the old woman — God rest her soul — was right, and a pack of wild wolves is really roaming the mountains.’ Sunny sounded worried.

  He locked the iron grille door and for good measure fastened the padlock which was only put at night.

  ‘The beasts could still be around,’ he explained.

  ‘But you said there are no wolves in this part of the country.’

  ‘Maybe it was a leopard; they usually don’t come down but this year it hasn’t rained as much so ...’ Sunny shrugged.

  ‘Yes, you must be right. She must have heard or seen something unusual and came out to investigate when the beast ...’ Ronnie said.

  Diya was sure he too was thinking of the savagely torn and beheaded body. She breathed a sigh of relief hoping that they were right and a leopard or a pack of wolves was indeed responsible for the killings.

  Her relief was momentary until she remembered the bloody footprint under her window.

  Her mouth felt rancid with fear. She looked at Ronnie and realized that he too had stumbled upon the same problem.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said gripping her hand.

  Earlier, she would have laughed at fears of a mythical monster; something older kids would use to scare young children, something from tall spooky tales told on a cold winter night around a blazing fire.

  She was ready to put down the footprints in the snow and even the blood stain on her shirt to coincidence, but she found it difficult to believe that the massacre of her beloved Zorro and lonely old Mrs Bhat was just a coincidence.

  Diya’s blood ran cold as primal fear of someone or something aiming for her throat with razor-sharp claws and fangs gripped her heart.

  Could there be a possibility that a vengeful mythical creature existed?

  What if there was some truth to the old tale?

  SUBTERFUGE

  ‘I

  t’s a small subterfuge but it will protect Diya,’ Ronnie proposed.

  ‘It’s for the best,’ Sunny agreed.

  ‘If there is any connection between what happened today and your parents’ death, then I am sure someone is watching the house. They will think you have gone back home,’ Ronnie said.

  ‘Ok,’ Diya nodded, her heart numb with grief.

  They told the police that Ronnie had found the dog while coming back from his morning walk. When he went back to cover Zorro’s body with newspapers, he had noticed Mrs Bhat’s blood-soaked gloves and her mutilated body.

  The police did not interview anyone in the house except Ronnie and Sunny, assuming the family was asleep when the murders were discovered.

  By late afternoon, the police left with only two constables on guard outside Mrs Bhat’s house.

  As the news of the brutal killing spread, so did rumours that wild animals were on a killing spree. A persistent stream of gawkers eddied around Mrs Bhat’s house with morbid curiosity.

  Ronnie loaded Diya’s luggage in the car. The whole family gathered around to bid her goodbye.

  ‘Have a safe trip to America,’ Sunny boomed, louder than usual.

  What if her parents’ death was not accidental and whoever had killed them was now stalking her? After her parents’ death, she had stopped caring about life but now she was afraid to die.

  The crowd parted and moved to the side of the road as the car passed.

  Diya ducked her head, afraid to look out at the crowd, afraid that her stalker was hiding among the nameless faces.

  Zorro and Mrs Bhat were its unintended victims.

  Death was everyone’s unconquerable destiny. This was not death but its messenger, the killer, who was mocking her with the inevitability of her fate.

  More than herself, she was afraid for those around her. Afraid that, like Zorro and Mrs Bhat, her stalker would mow down those around her. She was afraid of collateral damage.

  DEALING WITH DEATH

  R

  onnie took a few detours before finally arriving at their true destination – Uncle Albert’s house. Once Diya was settled in, Ronnie and Rini returned home to reinforce the pretence that Diya had returned to America.

  ‘Do you mind sharing Shelby’s bedroom? The guest room is on the second floor but we have not cleaned it for a while,’ Mary said.

  ‘Not at all.’ She had no desire to be alone, away from the family.

  Everyone was subdued during dinner. Diya was sure they wanted to discuss Mrs Bhat’s death but refrained so as not to upset her. Soon after, Shelby and Diya went up to the room where a second bed had been arranged. The young girl was soon asleep as she had school the following day.

  Diya tried reading a book but the black and white pages only reminded her of Zorro’s black and white fur drenched in blood. She abandoned the book, switched off the table lamp and looked out at the dark night from a chink in the curtains. The street was empty. She had not expected a suspicious figure to hang out in front of the house. Maybe Ronnie’s plan had worked and she was safe for the time being. Diya flopped on the bed and resigned to nightmares. She tossed and turned, until her body relaxed and she fell into a fitful sleep.

  Something moved, a soft rustle like something creeping on the floor. Diya struggled to open her eyes. A dark shadow was standing in the middle of the room. She wished she had a weapon, even a stick, to defend herself but she had nothing except the extra pillow. Should she shout, raise an alarm, before the beast attacked? The shadow stepped forward. Diya clutched at the pillow and jumped out of bed.

  ‘Diya!’

  ‘Ronnie?’

  ‘I didn’t mean to scare you,’ he said.

  Diya did not look at his face but at his bare feet. They pointed in the right direction. ‘When did you come?’

  ‘Ten minutes ago.’

  ‘I did not hear you come in.’

  Shelby stirred.

  ‘Let’s talk outside,’ Ronnie suggested.

  Diya hesitated but knew it was
silly to be afraid of bugaboos. She felt foolish for buying into myths. Fear was a currency that led only to bankruptcy.

  ‘George knew I was coming. He let me in.’

  ‘Why did you come so late?’

  ‘I waited, just in case …’ Ronnie said.

  ‘You shouldn’t have taken the risk; I cannot bear the thought of anyone else getting hurt because of me. Mrs Bhat and Zorro died because of me …’

  ‘I knew you would have such stupid notions.’ Ronnie gripped her arm. ‘It’s not your fault!’

  ‘Death follows me and whoever comes in the way …’

  ‘Shhh!’ Ronnie placed a finger on Diya’s lips and pulled her close.

  Diya buried her face in his chest and let her grief flow. She had not allowed herself to cry after her parents’ death; there was no one to console her. Now the kindness of her father’s family and Ronnie’s strength gave her the courage to let go of her control. Maybe she could rely on them and let them take care of her, at least for the moment.

  Days passed and Diya got used to the routine. Mary and Shelby left for school at 7 a.m., Ronnie and George left by 8 a.m, and Albert went by 10 a.m. Diya stayed inside the house, only venturing out when Ronnie returned at noon. He left just before 3 p.m when Mary and Shelby returned. Sunny visited every evening accompanied by either Ruth or Rini. Elizabeth was too frail to travel so far, but she called every day.

  One national and two local newspapers were delivered daily, and Diya spent the mornings reading them. For the first week, the local newspapers were full of stories and speculations about Mrs Bhat’s death but soon more sensational stories replaced them. Albert was not as talkative as Sunny. Most mornings they sat in companionable silence broken only by the rustling of newspaper. Albert occasionally told her about interesting news stories she must read; they were mostly about gardening, science, or the elections in USA.

  Diya was grateful to the family for accommodating her and the burden of her grief. When they were around, she was able to keep gloom at bay, but once alone, the deaths of her parents, Zorro and Mrs Bhat haunted her. At first, she was afraid to come outside the house, scared that someone or something would see her and once again, she would be in the crosshairs of danger. This time, fear compounded her grief.