Dhampir of Kalika

৫(part-১). crows and cousins

We all are very grey.

****

Even though Khatra was green and beautiful, it wasn't particularly welcoming at night. It required guts for a man to be out at night after whatever was happening in Khatra. The village was famished and would swallow any being.

Everything was plunged into darkness. The pale yellow moon emanated a weak, tired glow from behind the grey clouds. The blood-curdling call of vixens could be heard from deep within the forest. They were eager for mating, but the scream of desire was answered by the bark of dogs, which could never stand the foxes. These two animals never went along well. Much like good and evil, much like the poor and the rich, much like the accepted and the forbidden.

Raktim had wanted to avoid this meeting. He didn't like the zamindar family. He wasn't fond of their lavish lifestyle and their family drama. Alas, as a doctor, it was his duty to answer the call of patients, especially powerful patients. And definitely when he owed them a thing or two for being alive.

Raktim pulled the bell outside and waited. Ram opened the door. "Raktim Babu?"

Raktim was dressed in the pale sky-blue tunic from before and a snowy dhoti. He carried a black doctor's bag in his hands. "I heard your Boro Babu is sick. I was asked to come and check on him."

"He is always sick. You know it wasn't the case before." Ram bit on his lower lip and flinched when he realised to whom he just uttered those words. "I am sorry, Raktim Babu. I didn't mean to offend you."

Raktim waved his hands dismissively. He opened his shoes and came inside.  "I don't scrub the words on my skin. They have ceased to hurt me. Yet you cannot help your Boro Babu. He must suffer for the loss his body has gone through."

Ram took him to Kalikacharan's room situated on the ground floor. The door was left ajar. Ram knocked on it. "Raktim Babu has come."

Mrinjay was inside too. He gestured to Ram to bring the doctor in. After Raktim came inside, Mrinjay closed the door. "Take a seat." He pushed forward a chair towards Raktim.

Raktim kept his bag on the floor and wiped the sweat off his forehead. He would always turn into something different in the presence of Kalikacharan. Something that wasn't himself. His veins turned tense, the green strands filled with blood visible on his fair skin. He couldn't lean against the chair and sit comfortably. Strangeness hung in the air and weighed on him.

"How has life been?" Mrinjay asked.

Raktim jerked out of his bubble. He put up a careworn smile. "It's going well."

"On the other hand, we are going through a rough patch. I lost a dear one to death. And it is so very shocking."

"It is. But I dare not think who did this. I am scared of facing that very entity."

Mrinjay's mirthless laugh made goosebumps rise on Raktim's arms. "You are a doctor. You witness death more than us and yet you are afraid of it?"

"Being a doctor doesn't change anything about me. I am still afraid to know who could kill Abhinoy Babu."

Mrinjay looked at his lap, shadows dancing in his eyes that veiled the truth. "You can sometimes come and watch the devadasis dance. It will bring some colour to your life."

Raktim fidgeted in his position. Mrinjay's eyes peered into his soul like a hawk surveying its prey, watching if it still breathed or not. "I am a very simple man. I don't need colours in my life. I am happy with the black and white." Though, it's rarely just black and white.