Chapter 204

It is a busy three weeks that I am about to have and hence, if you do not see any regular updates, please don't panic. I will try my best to come next week but I cannot be certain. Hands full with college work. Despite being short of time to PM you all, I made sure I updated promptly the last two weeks. Read all your comments but do not have time to reply to each. But may I say, I loved them all, I am grateful for your dedication to this FF and also, I miss those who still are busy with their lives and have not found the time to come to Arhasia for a long time. Hope one day, we could all find time to be by ourselves so we can TOGETHER be there in the Inn to share and enjoy the chapters for a long stretch of time...

Chapter 287: The Mourning and The Missing

When Lord Arnav left for the forest, Fortune tagged along with him, as was expected of the unwelcome parrot who would habitually invite himself particularly for this scheme.

The annual Memorial Ceremony extended to three days during the time of which, you will remember, Lord Arnav was religiously accustomed to locking himself in his bed chamber, never venturing out of his room for a visit to the Industry or even for meals with his family. He had his trays brought to his room, meals that often returned untouched, and his demeanour was that of complete detachment.

Weighed by his moody silence, Kushi came to bed on the first night of the Ceremony, wishing he would not isolate himself so selflessly and mourn in solitude.

Wrapping her arms around his sleeping form, she silently offered herself as a refuge for him to incline his weeping heart against. Quite impulsively, as though sensing a mutual cord in her heart, he turned to her and drowned his face in the thick cascade of her dark hair.

The second night of the Ceremony, it was not Lord Arnav but Kushi who found herself to be distraught and disoriented by the doleful past.

Lord Arnav, who had fallen asleep early, did not hear the hour when the Ceremony for that night had been dispersed or when his wife had slipped noiselessly into the room. But in the late hour of the night, he was awoken by sound of her muffled sobs.

It happened so.

Ever since the Ceremony had begun and they were all mourning and remembering fondly the parents, specifically the mother, of Lady Anjali and Lord Arnav, Kushi had been tormented by thoughts of her real parents whose very identity or appearances were but a foggy dream to her.

She had lain herself to bed beside her sleeping husband when her anguished mind, in its first minutes of lethargy, became witness to a strange array of images.

She saw a woman try to catch a man who had fallen into the river, but just as the man had touched her hand, the force of the current caught hold of him and he was swept away, dragging along with him the woman whose screams for help were heard by none but the little girl running along the bank, helpless to save either of them.

Kushi felt trapped in the grieving spirits of the child. She stood at the bank, lost and alone, staring at the wild water that surged before her. All of a sudden, a hand, wet and strapped with sea weed, caught hold of her foot, alarming her and tripping her backwards.

She tried to scramble away but the powerful hand was pulling her towards the merciless water. With her free leg, the child tried to kick free of the strange apparition's hold on her ankle, but the hand suddenly grew claws like a fierce falcon's. The child's blood-curdling scream rent the air as the claws, digging into the young skin of her ankle, drew fresh blood that glistened dark in the murky weather.

Kushi felt the child's efforts wane and her strength ebb. With one horrid yank, the seaweed hand had tugged the child into the water, dragging her into the cold nadirs as the water burned in her nose and eyes, scorching as it filled her windpipes and throat and suffocated her slowly.

As her pale form sank lower and lower into the darkness of the ocean depths, she saw, floating above her, the lifeless forms of the woman and man she'd seen earlier, their insipid, dead faces turned down to look upon her being dragged to death.

Kushi shot up, gasping for breath, as her trembling fingers fumbled at her throat which felt sore as though from being under water. Wiping her hands across her face, she realized she was drenched in cold sweat.

Sliding her legs over the edge of the bed, she got to her feet and slowly sauntered to the balcony where the bitter wind waited to give her cold company. All at once, the grief that she had never encountered thrashed into her resolve and she fell to her weakened knees, breaking into tears.

Wanting not that any ear should hear her, she dug her face into her knees and curled helplessly on the floor, her fingers digging into the cold robe on her shoulders as she wept her heart out.

Almost instantly, warm fingers gripped her by her shoulders and her drowsy mind registered herself being towed towards a rigid chest that was warm and assuring.

Pressing her cold cheek to the burning skin of his chest, she drowned her sorrow in his presence, as their arms wrapped around each other, where they were huddled on the cold floor of the open balcony.

The curtains blew in the breeze as Lord Arnav caressed his wife's long torrent of dark hair.

A while later, when he sensed her relaxed and quietened, he looked down to get a glimpse of her face. Her eyes were shut but her breathing was unsteady, restless with the faint memories that anguished her.

The moon looked down on them from behind the clouds, showering her sympathetic shine over them as they, an hour later, lay stretched on the floor, their gazes drawn to the obscure sky.

They were both awake and far from sleep.

A prolonged silence later, Kushi spoke, "It's the first time, after so long, I thought about them."

Lord Arnav didn't respond immediately, but he knew who she was talking of.

"You were too young," he said, and then he turned his head to her with genuine interest, "Do you still remember them?"

Kushi sighed at the sky, "Not too well as I want to. I remember-" She broke off, noticing that he had shifted his whole frame in her direction, eager to be part of her story.

She smiled inwardly but spoke to the moon, in low tones, her mind grappling at the faded images and impressions left in her young memory, "I remember my mother. The sound of her bangles. My Amma doesn't wear bangles but my first Amma did. She wore them every time, I suppose, which is why I remember their sound so distinctly. The light clinking of their music when one bangle made contact with another. She wore so many on her arms. I suppose she loved their sound too, giving her company with their music while she went on with her day's work."

Lord Arnav's eyes moistened as he listened to his wife's rendering of her mother's beloved bangles, and was himself reminded of an incident where his mother, during a heated conversation with his father, had toppled her box of previous bangles, sending them careering across the floor, some breaking on impact at the merciless edges of the table legs.

"I remember the smell of her jasmines too," Kushi's voice beckoned his attention again, "I remember they used to be connected with something exciting. I suppose, she used to wear them when it was an auspicious day or when we were to go for a visit or stroll that would take us out of home."

"My mother loved roses," blurted Lord Arnav, unable to keep the memory of his mother at bay.

Kushi looked at him and saw that his expression was one of remorse. Turning on her side, she gazed at him, love filling her heart at the thought of him.

"Is that why you have the rosebush standing in your garden?"

Lord Arnav nodded, his tone teary, "That is why I wanted to make you mine among them. Because I wanted her to be there, to bless us."

Kushi inched closer to him and then, lifting her head to his, she kissed him gently on his lips, "I am certain she approves of us. She must have been a wonderful woman to bring up children as marvellous as you and Di."

"She was the best mother the world could be proud of," admitted Lord Arnav, and then his eyes turned cold, "But she couldn't be the best wife because no matter what she did, her husband was far from home."

"Your father, you mean," Kushi was alert, sensing that uncharted waters were rippling.

Lord Arnav scowled vacantly, "Yes, the man who called himself my father but was nothing close to being a real one." He looked at her, his eyes raging with ancient anger, "He hurt my mother, left her grieving and alone. He never spoke to her a kind word or gave her a look of regard."

"But he must have been a better father," Kushi tried to reason, "No man can abandon his own children."

"He didn't care for us naught when matters of business or certain other things occupied his mind."

"What other things?" Kushi asked in a faint voice.

Lord Arnav gritted his teeth, "He loved another."

Kushi sat up, "What are you talking about? He was married!"

"In spite of it!" Lord Arnav also sat up, his hands fisting with uncontrollable anger, "I hated him the day I found out and watched, every day, as my mother weakened because she had become nothing in his world."

"How can any man be so!" Kushi wanted to say, but she held herself. She remembered the General just then and realized how the circle had turned along the same path again. Would Di be able to bear the truth that the men in her life all be so unfaithful? First her father, then her husband... No wonder, Lord Arnav's anger towards the General is justifiably manifold.

Lying beside him, she reached forward and touched his fisted hands. They relaxed at her compassionate touch.

He looked at her, hot tears brimming in his dark eyes, "There is no man I hate as much as him, Kushi. And everything associated with him, I hate. I contempt him so much that, if I could, I would tear my veins apart and ooze out the blood that is his, retaining only my innocent mother's."

Such words of wrath and horror Kushi had never before heard from her husband's utterance. It shook her to the core that such abhorrence could exist and that such men, as his father, could do things so cruel and inhumane. To be without a husband while her husband lived, that was what his mother's life had been. And his to be without a father. What a tragic thing it must have been to lose them both in a night, be abruptly orphaned and left alone to appease a vulnerable sister whose marriage celebrations must cease. Poor Di. Her bridal dreams and her parental blessings torn from her in one savage turn of a night.

Kushi knew she was helpless to dissuade his bruised emotions, but she assured him of her affection, wrapping her arms around him and pressing her cheek to his. Closing his eyes, Lord Arnav accepted her understanding of him, and sliding his arms around her, infolded her to him.

When they returned back to bed, the biting cold of the outside got to them and Kushi wrapped the blanket around them before he cuddled her close to him. Their unbreakable embrace claimed they were loved and not alone, ultimately comforting them and prompting them to a deep, peaceful sleep.

Oddly, it cannot be a surprise to us, but it was astonishment indeed for the Raizada family, when, on the third day of the Ceremony, who should descend down the stairs to the primed living room but the sceptic son of the clan.

As he sat cross-legged in the circle, next to his wife, she glanced at him and he looked at her with truthful eyes.

Silently the family completed their rituals and prayers and all the while, though Lord Arnav sat detached, he remained unmoved, remaining there like a shadow that was neither part of the light nor could be removed from its illumined sphere.

At the culmination of the Ceremony, Lady Manorama who couldn't keep it to herself anymore was heard to murmur to her husband, "What is this I see? Rags becomes his wife and Arnavbitwa restyles his life!" She shook her head then, as though she would miss his atheist years, "Bye bye, scoffer, Hello hi, follower!"