by John Harker
Chapter 12
Later that night
After an adventurous evening, the Dutta family returned to Varma’s palace in Tripunithura. However, upon returning from that haunted mansion, the Varmas deliberately avoided talking about it. Neither were the Duttas in that state of mind to talk about it, so they came back to the accommodation arranged for them .
Gopi had already made delicious Malayalee sadhya for dinner. He had no idea that the Duttas would be too exhausted to enjoy the delicacies, as he did not have any idea about their misadventure. Shiuli hardly tasted anything apart from the rice and payasam. She went off to sleep early. Pakhi followed her to bed.
‘Mishti, how did you reach that place?’ Pakhi asked.
‘I do not want to talk about it. Let me sleep, I am tired.’ Shiuli resisted.
‘Come on.’
‘Why? You will not believe it anyway.’ Shiuli said as she burrowed under the blanket.
‘The fisherman told me that the only way to go to the other side was the ferry which had been closed down before you left. So, how did you get there if you did not take the ferry? You cannot swim, I know that.’ Shiuli deduced with the instincts of an experienced journalist.
Shiuli yawned and then uttered, ‘I was taken…’ She gazed at her aunt’s expression and continued, ‘…by sparks of light.’
‘By what?’ Pakhi exclaimed in disbelief. ‘Good night Pishi, this topic is over. You will not believe me. Sweet dreams.’ Shiuli said and pulled the blanket over her face.
Pakhi left the room.
Parosh came back after an hour. Shiuli was fast asleep. She had slept holding Mr. Clifford close to her chest. Parosh kissed on her forehead and went back to his bed. Parosh and Pakhi had a short discussion over the evening’s happening and few minutes later all the lights inside the room were turned off. They were all asleep.
Chapter 13
It was dark and the walls of the room transformed into formless clouds of grey, blue and white. A magical light appeared in front of Shiuli who was lying on her bed amidst the newly appeared clouds. She looked around, confused was she. She saw clouds everywhere and beyond those clouds was a suffocating ooccupation of nothingness.
The magical light took form of a human figure – a beautiful white female with the wings of a fairy clipped to her bare back. Shiuli could never forget that face; the face of her beloved mother. It was an apparition of her past. The apparition put forth her right hand and gestured with her fingers to come to her. Shiuli smiled. All of a sudden, it started getting darker and the warm pleasantness on the apparition’s face turned into an unpleasant gloom. The darkness started weakening the bright angelic apparition. Her mother cried for help before being completely consumed by the greyish darkness. The shriek hurt Shiuli.
Shiuli woke up from the nightmare. Her little heart was beating faster than bubbles bursting in boiling water. She looked around with sleepy eyes. It was dark and there were no clouds. It was the room where she was put to sleep by her father. Parosh and Pakhi were fast asleep in two corners of the room on separate beds. She was relieved to see her father and aunt. She was about to close her eyes again when she realized that something was missing.
Mr. Clifford was gone!
She quickly looked under the blanket, but in vain. Mr. Clifford was nowhere on the bed. She must have dropped him on the floor. Crawling under the bed at night was the scariest thing to do for her. There was that fear of finding a monster under the bed, but Shiuli loved Mr. Clifford so much that she put aside all her fears. She looked under the bed. It was dark so she could not see anything. Suddenly she heard a jingling sound behind her. She quickly turned around; there were the same sparks of light. Those that had lit up the mansion for her earlier that evening. They moved outside into the corridor through the open door. Shiuli got up quickly and followed the sparks. The swarm of sparks was enough to illuminate the corridor for Shiuli. They took a turn to the right and went up the stairs that led to the terrace of the palace. The terrace door opened on its own, the swarm panned the terrace and so did Shiuli. The swarm of sparks lured her towards the southwest corner of the terrace. She spotted Mr. Clifford, lying on the floor in the corner of the terrace where the southern and the western walls met. The swarm span around Mr. Clifford and raised him up in the air.
Shiuli feared that the swarm of light particles would drop her beloved teddy bear down three floors below. She marched across and grabbed Mr. Clifford from the air. The swarm of light quickly gathered around the girl and raised her off the floor. She was fascinated to see each light particle from point zero.
They were fireflies.
A swarm of fireflies. In her amusement she forgot the fact that she was well over five feet above the terrace floor. The swarm slowly carried her over the parapet and off it carried the girl into the distant sky over the sleeping town.
She held Mr. Clifford tightly in her arms. Shiuli was flying over the city.
Chapter 14
The magical fireflies carried Shiuli over bus stops, bridges, statues and numerous buildings of historical importance. The city of Cochin looked enchanting at night from above the world so high. She underwent quite a few emotions during her flight; however, fear was not one of them. The lightness in her stomach made her lose her breath a couple of times but she kept herself steady. They were coming to the edge of the land. She saw the most fascinating visual – of land meeting sea and the rippling waters of the Arabian Sea gently hitting itself against the edge of the sandy shore. She noticed a bright white spot at one place, immediately looked up. It was the lunar masterpiece; the full moon. She looked down and saw her shadow passing over the moon’s reflection on the water’s surface. Then there was land again beyond a sparse jungle of tropical palms that ended at the edge of a cliff. The cliff that housed the colossal mansion. Shiuli was right above the mansion. The fireflies took a downward dip and Shiuli felt an up thrust surging from her intestine that gave a tickling sensation in her tummy. She was about to crash land right in front of the mansion’s majestic door. However, with increasing velocity the fireflies carried the girl forward right before her feet touched the ground. She would have knocked herself right on the door, but the door opened on its own and let her pass through like a miniature jet. The fireflies accelerated and carried her through the long halfway without knocking down any antiquities or cobwebs en route.
At last they slowed down and stopped in the dining room, right in front of the EnglishmanEnglishmanEnglishman’s life sized portrait. This was exactly how she was transported to the mansion earlier in the evening; by the magical fireflies.
The magical fireflies detached themselves from Shiuli’s aura and swiveled into the portrait. Once again, they covered the portrait. The light sparks imaged into the thick fabric of the canvas and then there was a bright illumination.
Shiuli wiped off the strand of cobweb, which had stuck to her tenderly sharp upper lip. The girl looked around in wonder. Beyond the glow emerged a figure so bright and lustrous that even the darkest of insulations would timidly reflect the glorious image. The fireflies detached from the canvas and gently pulled the projection of the EnglishmanEnglishmanEnglishman out of it. They formed an aura around the projection’s head.
She stood face to face with the ghost.
The ghost of the EnglishmanEnglishmanEnglishman.
The gentleman who visited the mansion; perhaps the one they called That Frequent Visitor.
Chapter 15
The brown eyes of Shiuli were perfectly round and they stared wide open at the magical projection of the man in the portrait. Was this some kind of a miracle or another dream from which she had to awaken herself, she wondered.
The ghost prepared his dried up throat to commence an interrogatory conversation ‘Who are you, little girl?’ he asked in the most pleasant baritone she had ever heard.
She looked at him, from toe to head, and she asked, ‘Why don’t you tell me who you are?’
‘You trespass into my property
and ask about me? How dare you, little girl?’
‘Are you a ghost?’ she asked curiously.
‘What do you think I am? I just came out of this picture on the wall.’ He pointed to the canvas behind him without turning, ‘Of course, I am a ghost!’
Shiuli was fascinated by the confirmation. She had indeed come face to face with a ghost. Something she had always wanted to do after watching the Casper movie. She took a step towards the ghost with a growing hope of touching the supernatural. She dug her fingers into the teddy bear that she was holding in her left hand and stopped suddenly. She looked up at the ghost and asked, ‘What do I call you, Mr. Ghost?’
The ghost EnglishmanEnglishmanwas taken aback by her innocent question; he groaned steeply, ‘I think you do not understand the meaning of a ghost. Do you?’
‘Yes, I do. Ghosts are dead people.’
‘Then why are not you…’ he bent and plucked out his eyes off their sockets and screamed, ‘… afraid of me?’
A hot stinking smell blew out of the ghost’s mouth and Shiuli grimaced in disgust.
‘Cut it out, dude. You look so ugly this way.’ She requested covering her nostrils with her fingers of the right hand.
The ghost closed his mouth, and put back his eyeballs into their sockets.
‘That is much better. You look handsome again.’ She applauded, ‘You look like Benedict Cumberbach, dude.’
‘So, you are not afraid of me? Are you pretending not to be?’
‘Why should I be afraid of you? People are afraid of ghosts because they are unknown to them.’ She tried to explain what her aunt had told her few nights ago.
‘But you do not know me, young child.’
‘I would like to know you, if you allow me to do so, Mr. Ghost.’
‘That explains why I did not see fear in your angelic brown eyes earlier in the evening. People come to my mansion and run for their lives upon encountering me. Some run straight off the cliff and fall into the great sea and then they say that the ghost killed them. Blame it on the poor old ghost!’ he sighed.
‘The thieves ran away too.’
‘Yes, they did. I can smell that idiotic scoundrel’s loo here on the floor.’
Shiuli chuckled, ‘You saved me from those thieves, so you cannot be bad. I know that.’
‘I do not like intruders. I do not exactly remember the reason behind that, but I just do not like them.’ The ghost said scratching his head, trying to recollect from dusty chambers of memory inside his brain.
‘Nobody likes thieves. They are bad people. So, why are you a ghost, Mr. Ghost?’
‘What do you mean by that, young lady?’
‘My Pishi says…’
The ghost interrupted Shiuli immediately, ‘Pishi? Do you belong to the great province of Bengal?’ The ghost’s face had lit up.
‘Province? Dude, where are you from, the ice age? And yes, my parents are from Kolkata.’ She revealed.
‘My dear, I am from Calcutta too.’ The ghost said joyfully. He felt elated upon learning that this young lady was also from the land of the mishti doi.
‘But you look like a foreigner to me.’ Shiuli doubted.
‘So do you!’ The ghost accused.
‘My mother was an Anglo-Indian.’
‘Was? What is she now? Did she change colors?’ He joked.
The question brought back the old gloom over Shiuli’s angelic face. She looked down at the floor and her eyes filled up with tears again. She sulked, ‘She is not with us anymore. Jesus called her back.’
The ghost felt sorry for her. Immediately he kneeled down and rested the walking stick down on the floor and with the same hand raised the girl’s chin. He saw her shedding drops of tears.
‘There, my little angel. Your mother would never want to see you cry like this from up there.’ He consoled her and wiped off her tears. The moment his transcendental fingers made contact with the moist skin of Shiuli, there was a soft light of friction that worked like a healing balm over the wet tears.
‘How do you know that she is watching me?’
‘Because people become stars after they die.’ The ghost explained.
‘I knew it, but Pishi would never agree.’ She said sulkily.
‘Oh dear! What else did your Pishi tell you about dead people?’
‘She said that,’ Shiuli sulked a final drop of tear and continued, ‘that only those dead people became ghosts who could not fulfill their purpose at the time of death. Is that so?’
‘I am afraid that is correct.’
‘What was the purpose that you could not fulfill?’ Shiuli asked.
Once again the ghost went brain-searching, ‘I do not remember exactly.’
‘But why?’
‘I do not know, child.’ He replied in a helpless tone. He looked beyond the girl; the moon’s light illuminated the doorstep.
‘Don’t you remember anything at all? How you died, what were you when you lived?’ the girl was intrigued by the apparition, ‘What is your name?’
‘Yes, I do remember a few things until my death but it has been a long while ago.’
‘I think you should start recollecting from the beginning. Maybe you will gradually remember everything towards the end and also find that incomplete purpose of your life.’ Shiuli jumped in excitement. ‘Then we can fulfill that purpose, set you free and you can join the other stars.’
‘It might take a long time.’ The ghost tried to evade the girl’s suggestion.
‘Every ghost has a story to tell…’
‘Who said that? Your Pishi?’
‘Hari Kumar! He’s my favorite writer, you see. So, what’s your story?’
The ghost picked up his walking stick from the floor. Once again he put his hand into the breast pocket of his blazer. It was followed by an expression of childish disappointment on his face. He brought out an empty hand.
‘What is it?’ Shiuli asked reading the expression on the ghost’s face, ‘I saw you doing this earlier. What is it that you have or had in your pocket?’
‘My tiebreaker. It is not there anymore.’ The ghost revealed.
‘Tie breaker?’
‘A rare silver coin from 1945,’ the ghost stared ahead and then said, ‘We should narrate my story over a cup of tea.’ He suggested.
‘I don’t drink tea. Pishi says tea is for bad girls.’
‘Oh bollocks!’ He swore.
‘What’s that, Mr. Ghost?’ she enquired.
‘Err… I meant bullocks.’ He feigned with embarrassment, ‘I shall get some tea for myself.’
‘That’s great and Mr. Ghost, my name is Shiuli Dutta.’ She introduced herself with a pleasant smile.
‘Ahaan! What a graceful name for a charming angel. The name reminds me of someone dear to me, I do not remember who it was very well, though.’ His eyes shot to the teddy bear in her left hand, ‘and what may be the furry gentleman’s name?’
‘Oh! This is Mr. Clifford, my mother presented him to me when before she left.’
‘The name sounds very familiar. Anyway child, I am going to take you on a journey back in time… This is my story, the story of,’ in a charade of a second, the ghost got up on his shining feet mightily claiming, ‘Baxter… Richard BaxterBaxter. The one they think is…’ he prepared his throat roared, ‘… that Frequent Visitor.’
COMING SOON on RED OLYFAUNT Paperbacks
Book 2
The Ghost’s Story
Chapter 16
25th July 1942
Eden Gardens, Calcutta
It was an ensemble of aristocratic white folk with the sparse elite of the native brown folk at the pavilion of the most magnificent cricket stadium in Asia. They had all gathered for a quirky one-sided game of cricket between the Queen’s men (that was of course us) and the finest athletes representing the native province of Bengal. It was more of a tea party for the women and an occasion to swap partners for the infidels during the game hours. I was neither one of them, no dear, nor was I a
mong the spectators. I was one of the queen’s men, more specifically, the skipper of the eleven playing on the damp turf of Eden Gardens; the temporary captain of a temporary English cricket team.
Cricket was my life and here I was, leading my country for the first time in a game against the domestic side. And what made this even more special was the fact that I was celebrating my twenty-fourth birthday that day. I was born in this same old city where every day was nothing less than a vivid celebration of life; the city of joy – Calcutta.
The match was totally poised in our favor, however, we had been a wee bit over confident the day before and that had cost us few precious wickets. Well, we had been dominating the game for three days after putting the local boys to bat first on a pitch that would make batsmen succumb to their demons. We dismissed them for a shameful 53 runs in the second innings and on the fourth day we needed a meager 157 runs to conquer the charity game. We were raising funds for our soldiers who were fighting it out against the Germans in the Second World War. However, at stake was the pride of the English. We could not lose to a pinching local side of a slave colony. There were not many good players in the Bengal side, but those who were there had been bribed handsomely so that they would not perform. The English always wanted to win, by hook or crook. Nevertheless, here was a disappointing scenario for the English crowd to see their men lose out to the Bangla tigers. We had lost our top order in the first over itself. Maybe it was lack of practice as the game of cricket had been called off since the World War began in 1939. Whatever the reason, I had to stay on as the anchor of a sinking English vessel and I did that. Having arrived at three down for five in the second over, I teamed with the next five batsmen adding a hundred and fifty runs before the penultimate man was out bowled by the spin king of the Bangla cricket team.
