Chapter 21 – Doppelganger
He dreamed that night…
He dreamed about Kashi and the mad man. It started just like it had been that afternoon; she raised her hand to the man's face. The man leaned into her palm and called her Lakshmi, but she didn't correct him this time. He was watching them and almost called out to tell her to tell the man that she wasn't Lakshmi, but he didn't. The mad man saw him, looked right at him in fact and said that word again.
"Shavathalam"
He saw Kashi turn to look at who the mad man was talking to, but she looked right through him without seeing him. He didn't try to call out to her as he knew that it would be futile. Only the mad man could see him, he knew that somehow.
The dream shifted before his eyes in the very next instant.
He was standing outside the woods, looking in. It seemed much larger and denser now than it had during the daytime. He was himself, as he was now, but only in mind. He body was that of his fourteen year old self. He didn't have time to marvel at why he had regressed when he heard the scream from inside the woods.
It was his sister's scream.
"Di!!!" he heard himself call out, his voice taking on that strangely hoarse tone of an adolescent's, stuck between a man and a boy's vocal chords. The woods seemed to close in on him as he tried to run in, looming large in front of him and preventing him entry. He tried again without luck. He heard his sister's scream again and ran around the periphery, trying to get in. He was frantic within a few moments, her screams growing hoarse and painful, while he was shut out of the mass of green that kept her in. When he finally found an opening that allowed him in, he found that he was too late. She was lying by the stone marker near the opening, her ankle bearing the double-bites where the fangs had struck her, her eyes rolled backwards and her body lifeless. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and saw the snake slither off.
He screamed so loud that he woke up; he didn't know whether the scream had actually been in his dream or out loud and when a few minutes passed and no one came to him, he gathered that he hadn't actually made a sound. He was covered in sweat and the jhubha was sticking to his body. He got off the bed and walked to the window to open the panels. He looked down into the direction of the woods and found a woman standing just by the trees. She appeared to have come fresh out of a bath, as there was a cloth wrapped around her breasts that extended all the way down past her knees. Her shoulders were bare and her long hair wet was pulled to the front. He looked at the clock on the wall and the time read 1:30 in the morning. Who would go for a bath at this time? Just as he thought that, the woman looked up to his window. She was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen and for a moment he was struck dumb as he held her gaze. Something about her seemed familiar, although he couldn't quite place it in just that moment.
He heard footsteps rushing to his door and turned around. Just as he crossed the room to get to the entrance, there was a knock.
He opened the door and found Kashi standing there. She walked in and shut the door behind her quickly before she leaned against it, panting.
"What the hell!" she said as she tried to catch her breath.
"What?" he asked, taking in the sight of her. Her hair was out of her braid now and she had pulled it to the front, and it was long indeed.
"What do you mean what? You were screaming bloody murder. I thought someone was trying to kill you!" she said in a hard whisper.
So, he hadn't screamed just in the dream!
"How did you hear if your sister and your father didn't?"
"My father sleeps on the other side of the house. My sister is temporarily sleeping in one of the rooms closer to him because he is still recovering from the back surgery that he had a few weeks ago. If he needed us and called out in the middle of the night, we wouldn't hear him from this side of the house. Although, with how you were screaming, I am surprised that they didn't hear. I was sure that the entire village and the next three after that heard you!"
He turned away from her, feeling a heat climb up his neck. He had turned into a veritable basket-case since coming to this infernal place. Snakes, Nightmares… what the hell was next?
"Who is that woman?" he asked her to distract her as he walked back to the window.
"What woman?" she asked as she walked to the window with him.
When he got there and looked down, he could see no one by the woods.
"She must have left. It was weird. She looked like she was coming from a bath. You have strange villagers here. Who goes to take a bath at 1:30 in the morning?"
When he didn't get an answer, he looked over at her and noticed that she was looking at him silently.
"What now?" he asked
"No one takes a shower at 1:30 in the morning." She told him.
"Yea, that's what I said. No one does. So, why the hell was this woman?" he looked back down at the place where he had last seen the woman.
"This is private property. The villagers don't walk through these premises at night, Raizada. And there is certainly no woman who would walk through our backyard after a bath after midnight."
"What are you saying?" he asked, looking at her.
For a moment, she was silent, but then she smiled a slow smile as she looked back down and then back up at him.
"Did she look like me?"
Well, now that she said it, he realized that that was what had been familiar about the woman. She looked like Kashi.
"Maybe a little…" he said non-committaly…
"Did she have my eyes?"
Yes, exactly the same eyes. But more than that, it was the same gaze.
"She was more beautiful." He said finally.
"Way more beautiful." She agreed.
Not that much more, he thought, but said nothing else.
She straightened away from the window as if a sudden thought struck her and she walked to the inlaid wooden armoire on one of the walls and pulled it open. She went through a few drawers before she pulled out a little wooden box and brought it to his bed. She stood there going through whatever was inside as he stood by the window watching her curiously.
"There it is!" she said before turning to walk back to him and he could see that she was carrying two photographs in her hand.
She gave them to him.
"Is that her?"
He looked down. They were two black and white photos. One was a woman looking straight out of the photo with a wide smile while the other was the same woman in what appeared to be a Bharatanatyam costume striking a pose, with an almost petulant expression on her face.
It was the same woman that he had seen just a few minutes ago.
Except these photos looked old. Quite old, in fact. And the woman looked like she hasn't age a bit. Not even a day in fact.
He felt his skin grow cold as he looked up at Kashi.
"Who is this?"
"You know who it is." She answered.
"I don't." He said, his voice taking on a stubborn edge.
Her smile disappeared as she moved closer to him.
Just as she took the photos back, she asked, "Are you afraid of ghosts, Mr. Raizada?"
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