Sun Moon & Stars Volume II Call Of The Skull Men

CHAPTER 31

Madhumita drew a huge diagram of lunar phases stating that they had time until the next amāvásyā. If they didn't manage to find Purnima by then, nobody will be able to stop the skull-men.

Bougunvillaea had turned into a laboratory overnight. The large mansion's unoccupied rooms was proving quiet useful. Bored with just three inhabitants and daily house helps Bougunvillaea was suddenly bustling. 

Girish had brought all the required materials from Gorkel's records. While Kallolini offered to help him with arranging them sequentially, Malini and Vyjayanthi had tranformed the entire ball room into a workshop with notes pinned over large boards that hung from the ceiling covering almost all portraits of proud Sanyals and glass vessels, microscopes, and medium sized tables lined up across the marble floor. It was their way of sorting out necessary data from the piles of too many information. 

"Can some one please throw this hour glass out!" Malini complained almost knocking off the wooden item from the table. It was annoying to be reminded that the clock was ticking; every passing second they were running out of time.

Very cautiously, keeping in mind Oishi's age and vulnerable state, Madhumita spoke with her in a small corner of the ball room. She had managed to befriend the little girl, though afraid her mind cannot process too much information at the same time. Therefore she had to approach her with sharing only the relevant data. 

Kallolini was exhausted after trying to arrange information then help the others decode certain messages in a loop. It was proving challenging for her, since she was out of practice. She hated to admit it but staying away from the core team and passing on information from far without delving into the real research work she had some how lost her touch. Her juniors were very helpful. They didn't complain rather helped her to start with new enthusiasm. 

With her mother occupied and mostly tired, Geeta offered to see over the household duties. The house-helps were all dismissed due to the secrecy of the information being discussed, so it was up to her to check Bougunvillaea's daily work, which had of course increased with the arrival of extra guests.

In a span of twenty-four hours, Geeta had suddenly aged. From a cautious teenager, she had become the lady of the house. She took care of everyone's necessities, as for a Sanyal, guests were equivalent to God, her mother had taught.

However, Manik didn't approve, he didn't want his daughter to grow up so fast, but what she had seen, what she had gone through had transformed her. He cannot deny that Geeta was always educated in a way to handle both professional and personal life with balance, but he wasn't willing to see her take over so soon.

He wanted her daughter to be carefree, to be ignorant and not responsible and duty-bound like his mother and wife. But here she was, a spitting image of her grandmother, who put duty before anything else, a replica of her mother who spent half of her life being perfect. Manik wanted to scream at Madhumita and Kallolini, ask them to stop their social services, but looking at the three Malakar sisters one of whom was of Geeta's age, he couldn't protest. With a grunt he retreated back to his home office which was a secluded room at the end of the first floor. 

Finding out the right spice containers seemed difficult than Geomatics to Geeta. She was having a tough time deciding how many spoons of salt or sugar to add to the curry. "Three teaspoons of salt would be enough!" John said from the back. He had offered to help her prepare lunch for everyone. Although Geeta had politely declined, John volunteered saying cooking was his passion.