CHAPTER 3 - YUG MEETS ITI
Dhruv – "Tara, what is happening in this house? First, Vidya aunty is speaking normal, Yug behaves abnormal after coming here. And here is blood."
Tara – "I too could not understand, Dhruv. But we have to do our work."
Dhruv – "How can we do like this? This seems like we are in a haunted place."
Tara – "Please Dhruv, for us Yug is important. We have to bear all this. Please look after Yug. I'll see what is happening here."
Reluctantly, Dhruv goes to downstairs. To Tara's surprise, the wooden rusted door turns normal door.
Tara – "Something is wrong in this room. But whose blood is this?"
Tara, Dhruv and Yug have their lunch with Vidya Devi. The food is delicious. Tara and Dhruv are surprised that she could cook deliciously like a typical mother. Tara and Dhruv appreciate her. After lunch, three kids come to the house. Vidya Devi greets the children and gave some sweets. They eat the sweets.
Vidya Devi says, "Tara, these children are my neighborhood children. Let Yug to play with them so that he can get comfortable."
Tara – "Vidya Devi, Yug could not play with these kids. He is intellectually challenged."
Vidya Devi – "Intellectually challenged. What is this, Tara? Let him play with kids. He would be alright."
Tara – "Vidya Devi, how could I make her understand?"
Dhruv whispers to Tara, "Let him go with these children. I think instead of staying in this weird bungalow, he could play with the boys."
Tara feels Dhruv is right though she is reluctant. She decides to let him go. She requests the children to take care of Yug as he is too new for this place. Yug smiles and leaves with those kids. The kids took Yug to a ground for playing cricket.
As they started playing, Yug starts enjoying it and he gets attached to them.
Suddenly an ice cream rickshaw comes there. The three kids leave to taste ice cream. Yug sits on ground. He refused to have ice-cream even after asked by the three kids.
Behind the cricket ground, there is a big lake. Captivated by its beauty, Yug moves there. Suddenly, a hand patted his shoulder.
As he turned back, an appearance becomes slowly visible from leg to face. She is a little girl of Yug's age. Yug recognized her instantly, "Iti, you're here."
Iti smiles at Yug, "I'm back."
Iti holds Yug's hands and looks at the river.
Iti – "Yug, do you remember this river? We have so many memories along with this river."
Yug – "Iti, I know only you. But I can't remember this river."
Iti – "Yug, that is really good. Thankfully you forgot the past. Otherwise.."
Yug – "What?"
Iti – "Nothing. Do you know when I lost my mother, I was mute for a year."
Yug remains silent. Yug and Iti lay on grass viewing the clouds.
Yug – "Then what happened, Iti?"
Iti – "Then, you visited my birthday party. My father bought me a cage of beautiful love birds as my gift. But you came there and in front of me, you released the cage. As I was mute, I couldn't say anything."
Iti laughs. Yug smiles at Iti.
Yug – "Iti, why did I release the cage? I am so mad. Then, your gift is spoiled."
Iti – "Yug, how can you talk like this? Birds could not be caged. Birds need freedom to fly anywhere. That is the beauty of the world. You're the one who taught me this lesson."
Yug looks at her confused. Iti's face becomes dull. Yug feels some headache inside. He feels the flashes in his mind of what Iti said.
Yug – "Iti, something is disturbing my mind."
Iti – "Thankfully, you're speaking something well. I achieved my first goal. soon, you'll be alright, Yug."
Iti vanishes from the place. Yug faints but after five minutes he wakes up with some glow. He continues playing with the boys.
Evening time,
Dhruv is checking the medicines prescribed for Vidya Devi. It is a capsule where the tablet is powdered inside. There are three bottles full of different capsule type tablets. For morning, two capsules to be consumed post breakfast and one in night post dinner. He felt something wrong in the prescription.
Dhruv thinks, "Aunty is normal even though she is mentally unstable, what is the need of giving these much tablets. It would be enough if they inject Diazepam twice."
Dhruv thinks, "Vidya aunty is sleeping. I already forgot to give medicines in the morning. At least I should give at night."
Dhruv goes to garden where Tara is relaxing.
***
In kitchen, a beautiful young lady who doesn't have a shadow and legs are standing in the air appears. She looks for some box. She opens the upper shelf and takes a box. Inside the box, there is sugar. She dumps the sugar into a mixie and grinds it. With her power, she muted the sound of the mixie. She grinds the sugar crystals and it is made into a powder. A man of mid-thirties comes into the kitchen. The young woman looks at him and smirks. He too smiled. The man too doesn't have any shadow nor his legs rest on the floor.
He asks, "Mamta, is everything going to accordingly to our plan?"
Mamta says, "Yes, Shivraj ji. Everything is going to according to our plan. Vidya Devi won't consume the tablets given by Dhruv or Tara."
Shivraj and Mamta laughs.
The capsule jar from Dhruv's room flies from there and reaches Mamta's hand. Mamta and Shivraj sit there comfortably. By their powers, the capsule opens into two and the powder falls into a small jar and sugar powder gets into the capsule and it closes. After doing the same for all capsule, the capsule jar moves back to Dhruv's room. Mamta looks at the bowl where the original medicine dust is present. Shivraj and Mamta touches the powder.
Shivraj- "Now, Vidya Devi will not consume the so-called medicine. Only sugar powder. We shall deposit this so-called medicine powder in Garden."
Mamta – "But Shivraj ji, Tara and Dhruv are in garden."
Shivraj – "No problem. Our magic will deposit the powder there."
Shivraj and Mamta recites magical words and the medicine powder is deposited on every plant and tree in the garden.
Mamta – "Tara and Dhruv did a big mistake by coming here. This place is very dangerous. I think they won't go outside with their life."
Mamta and Shivraj vanishes.
***
Yug returns home with other kids. Tara is overjoyed seeing Yug is smiling. Dhruv feels relieved.
Yug speaks in a stammering tone "Mom, I have a very great day with these children. Especially Iti is too friendly with me."
Tara cries in happiness and Dhruv eyes shine. Yug hugs Tara and Dhruv.
Dhruv – "He is improving, Dhruv. He is speaking something else apart from his name and rhymes."
Dhruv kissed his cheeks. Yug too kissed his cheeks.
Tara – "Vidya Devi is the reason for our son's happiness."
Tara hugs Vidya Devi. They had a very good dinner which is cooked by Tara and Dhruv together. Yug goes to sleep. Dhruv gives capsule tablet to Vidya Devi. She had the tablets.
Vidya Devi asks Dhruv and Tara to sit near her. She caressed their hair.
Vidya Devi – "You said that you broke all ties with your family."
Dhruv – "But Vidya Devi ji..."
Vidya Devi – "What?"
Dhruv – "Why shall we speak about this, Vidya Devi? You shall sleep now. We can speak whatever tomorrow."
Vidya frowns at him. Dhruv gets embarrassed while Tara hides her laugh.
Vidya Devi – "Tara, please take the small rectangular box upside the cupboard."
Tara takes the box and gives it to Vidya Devi. Vidya Devi gives it to Tara and Dhruv and asks them to open it. Inside the box, there is some pieces of Zig-Zig puzzle. Vidya Devi asks them to join the puzzle pieces and solve it. Dhruv and Tara use their mind to join the pieces. But they could not join the puzzle.
Dhruv – "Aunty, it is too tough to solve. Your son Sanjeev is seriously intelligent to have these puzzles."
Vidya Devi – "Try for some more time."
After trying several times, they could join some pieces in the puzzles. They found that there is lacking of puzzle pieces.
Tara – "Vidya aunty, it is too much. Many puzzle pieces are missing, then how could we join the puzzle?"
Dhruv nods his head in support for Tara.
Vidya Devi – "Look child, our family is also like these puzzle pieces. It is full of happiness, proud, shame, self-respect, responsibilities, joy, anger, motivation, fear, pleasure, adjustments, pranks and silly jokes. Also importantly, family is like a puzzle. We should understand the puzzle and then only we could solve it. Same like, we should understand our family and then should solve our problems."
Dhruv interrupts, "Our family has only negative puzzle pieces like shame, anger etc with contrast to this game."
Vidya Devi smiles, "You should search for the positive pieces. It won't be hidden anywhere but in your family like house."
Tara looks at the box. She noticed that a cloth is covered the bottom. She removed the box and finds rest of the pieces.
Vidya Devi – "Hope you solve this puzzle piece and your puzzled family."
Tara and Dhruv solved the puzzle. Vidya Devi smiles along with Dhruv and Tara. Vidya Devi greets them to have a good night.
Dhruv and Tara come out of Vidya Devi's room.
Tara – "Dhruv, we are full of ego. We should take at least a single step to sort out our problems."
Dhruv – "But we should stand in our own legs before that."
They go to sleep.
***
In the terrace, Iti, Mamta and Shivraj are sitting.
Shivraj – "Where is Vishwanath ji?"
Mamta – "Dad will be come soon. Wait Shivraj ji."
Vishwanath comes visible to them. His face is full of anger and pain.
Vishwanath – "Are you sure that Vidya Devi consumed only sugar powder?"
Shivraj nods.
Vishwanath – "There is no problem if my wife Vidya didn't recover. We should warn the couple to get out of this house."
Mamta – "What shall we do now?"
Iti – "I think those couple are caring Yug as their son."
Shivraj – "We shall wait for some days."
Suddenly, they see Tara is covering herself with a blanket and going to the place where she found blood there. Nearby there is a small room. She enters into it.
Shivraj goes near her and hears what Tara is going to do.
Tara murmurs, "I should find whose blood is that by sneaking into that room."
Shivraj looks confused.
Vishwanath – "I played a prank on her by pouring blood in her legs morning."
Iti – "I tried to enter the room but I couldn't even step near it."
Mamta – "It was just a drawing room before but now we spirits could not step inside. We should find what is the problem in this room."
Tara takes a fake key and opens the door.
Flashback: Tara met a man to make key for a lock and she gives some money for that.
To her surprise, the room has some stairs that leads to underground. After coming down, she finds a big dark hall. There she hears a weird noise of an animal shouting minimally for food. Tara shivers. To her knowledge, she guessed there is some ferocious animal eats man. She puts the torch down and leaves the room in a hurry. She locked the room and breathes heavily
Iti, Shivraj, Vishwanath and Mamta look at Tara's feared expression.
Mamta – "Whatever it is, this is not our problem. For us, just the revenge matters."
The four of them laughs louder. Tara shivers and gets into the bed.
***
The flash from the torch that Tara left in the drawing room reflects on a board written "MANEATER"
To be continued......
Edited by Sshesha - 2 years ago
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