The table is filled different food dishes and each with it's own unique smell, there was fried fish and masala brinjal and lamb curry with roti and tikka chicken with yogurt, we all Instagram dig in trying to taste everything. Aunty Fayzah warns us to eat slow but it goes straight past our ears.
"And perhaps later tonight or maybe tomorrow more we can go out into town." Aunty Fatima, Uncle Yunus's wife, adds to the conversation joyously.
I glance down over at Imran whom was seated next to Zayaan in front of me, I bite down a laugh looking at Imran trying to gulp down his water while just barely handling the spice, Zayaan beside him was doing just a tiny bit better than him, his ears is tinted pink and his face is slightly red. I nudge Aisha and she turns to look at the boys and she snorts while laughing getting a laugh out of me as well.
"Girls-" aunty Fayzah scolds but than she stares at the boys and chuckles. "Men." She says grinning.
"Hey-" Uncle Muhammad complains, Aunty Fayzah merely shrugs and the whole table is laughing with us. Aunty Fayzah pours water for the boys and ruffles their hairs.
"By the end of the month they'll be used to this type of spice level." Dadi declares and grabs the plate of pakoras, despite both the boys' denials, and piles on their plates a couple more.
Aisha and I can barely catch a full breath from all the laughing.
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We had finish eating and helping clear the table despite them insisting that we're guests, by now Imran didn't need a glare from me to get his plate out of the table, I was actually proud of him, I smile to myself.
"Do you want to rest or do something?" Aisha asks laying down on the other bed next to mines, there's a thin curtain separating our beds.
I think on her question. "We should go explore the place." I decide and she cheers and sits up.
We decide not to bother with changing clothes today and settled for our normal jeans and shirt.
When we get out we almost instantly bump into a girl not older than us, she could easily pass as Aisha's sister with her facial features, Maryam, I remember her from lunch. She smiles at us. "I would have thought you would want some rest." She smiles.
Aisha shakes her head. "We want to explore this place."
Maryam grins, her brown eyes light up. "Well than you have found the right person."
"Aisha!" Zayaan sudden calls our getting our attentions from down the hall and as expected behind him walks Imran, they walk up to us and Zayaan acknowledges us with a smile, I see the color flood Maryam's cheeks and she averts her gaze to the wall, something inside me hurts and squeezes but I push it away. "What are you up to?" Zayaan asks intrigued.
"Can we join?" Imran asks.
"We're going on a tour with Maryam and sure, I don't see why not." Aisha replies with a shrug and hooks her elbow through mines than she turns to Maryam still smiling. "We are ready for the tour."
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"And that's most of the rooms here. My personal favourite is definitely the terrace, you have easy access to the mango trees and they also give amazing shade." Maryam says with a giggle, she's gotten more open with us during the tour and in some ways I most definitely do not mind, Aisha and I could do with another girl in our group.
"Could we eat mangoes after this tour, I haven't eaten one in ages?" Imran asks with a groan.
The boys have been walking behind us girls the entire tour and they pitch in the conversation here and there but they've mostly kept quiet.
"As soon as I finish showing you what I have been dying to get to the entire tour." Maryam says grinning and we turn into another hallway, we are deeper in the house, it's clear that barely anyone comes here.
The hallway just passed the arch has a red string across it. "And what is in there?" Zayaan asks curiously as he stands on the other side of Aisha.
"That is the haunted part if our house." Maryam explains, Imran and Zayaan laugh in disbelief.
"Now that's just bullshit." Imran mocks.
"You guys haven't even heard the story." Maryam says with a frown.
"Okay okay, we'll hear the story and than we'll decide if it's actually haunted." Zayaan says with a smirk that has Maryam smiling shyly as she looks away from him. I pull back the glare taking a deep breath and take my attention to the dark hallway that spreads in front of us, mentally scolding myself for being so childish.
"Okay so you guys have to get really close because we can't go in there, no one ever does." Maryam instructs and we get right on the corner of the arch, all of us trying to squeeze to see. Maryam points at a slightly ajar door, technically the only door in the hallway. "The people who owned this place, their son had killed himself in that room, they didn't know why but since than everyone who went there would mysteriously faint." By now we were all invested and the air was suddenly much heavier.
"How old was the kid?" Imran asks.
"18." Maryam replies. "And than these occurrences started happening outside the room, sometimes just down the hall and they started getting more frequent which is why they sold it to someone in our family. When our great grandparents and their family moved in, everything was going well until one of the cleaners went in the room to clean, they heard a loud scream from another cleaner, when they rushed in the room they found the man hanging in the air, his eyes black and an evil smile and with voice like thunder the thing said "beware for I will be leave this family, your generations will know my name and they will all feel my wrath" and than the cleaner's neck was snapped like a twig."
The silence between us was heavy as we all kept our stare at the room.
"But it's alright now." Maryam says back to her cheery self and we all quickly step back from the arch. "After that day, a sheikh came here and he sealed the hallway and warned not to send anyone in there."
"And no one has gone in there since than?" Aisha asks.
Maryam shrugs walking away and we quickly push each other trying not to be left alone, Maryam closes the door and turns to us. "Nope, no one. But it's all gone now, come on, let's go eat mangoes." She says grabbing mine's and Aisha' hands dragging us with her.
We turn in the one hallway and bump into someone which gets a scream from all of us.
YOU ARE READING
Everything I Am
RomanceNyra is invited to her best friend's wedding. She promises herself not to get involved in anything with romance, especially when her mother is already getting her married to someone else but what about the best friend's brother.
