'Joy, hurry up.' Mrs. Banerjee cried. 'You'll be late.'
'Coming, maa.' Joy replied from upstairs as he hurried down to the gate. Then he sat down beside the shoe rack to tie his laces, and said, 'I'll miss you, maa. It's not that I want to go away from you, not that I do not want to go, I'm just —'
'It's okay.' Mrs. Banerjee laughed and kissed her son's forehead. 'I didn't ask for explanations. Just make sure that you obey your teachers and don't do anything you aren't supposed to. Okay my son?'
Joy nodded and smiled back at his mother. 'And make sure that you do not face any ghosts. They may freak you out.'
'Oh shut up. Your mamma can take on twenty ghosts at a time.' Mrs. Banerjee chuckled as she flexed her bicep. 'Now set off, otherwise you'll be late.'
Joy walked a bit and turning towards her mother he waved at her for the final time before going out of sight. He was going for a school trip in Murshidabad. He was asked to reach the school by 4:30 p.m. and from there they'd take a bus to the station. The trip was supposed to be for three days. Mrs. Banerjee was concerned about her son for some genuine reasons. First of all, Joy was very new at this school, so being a mother she had some justifiable trust issues. In addition to that, her son, though being fifteen, was a very curious guy. He would never listen to anyone but her mum. Initially, Mrs. Banerjee didn't want him to go that far, but finally agreed when her husband insisted. Mr. Debashish Banerjee lived in Bangalore for his occupational purpose.
Though Joy makes fun of almost everything around him, he wasn't completely joking about ghosts to his mother. It had been a few months when they moved to the new apartment near Lake Gardens. They had to leave the previous one as they were unsatisfied with that society. People would drink in the colonies, some young boys would gather near the entrance gate in the evening and smoke. No girl would feel comfortable to walk past that gate alone. It was Mr. Banerjee, who decided that they should find a new accommodation. But when they came across the new apartment, they were astonished to hear the rent. It was so cheap that they thought the dealer was attempting some scam. Later they heard from the locals that this apartment was regarded as haunted. A family used to live there, and one day the girl killed her own parents, stabbed her only brother on the neck, and then hung herself from the ceiling fan. What was the reason? Well, that secret passed away with them. But after that day, neighbors started claiming that they would hear different types of screams. Sometimes a cat would cry, sometimes it would be a young woman, a baby boy, or an owl. After eight, no one would let their children go inside the ten-foot radius. Though, Mr. and Mrs. Banerjee discarded this claiming that these are bogus, and baseless. There is nothing like ghosts.
These educated people sometimes forget that there may not be ghosts, but there can surely be some other creatures; something unseen, and hidden from us. Maybe they also eat, sleep and breathe with us, who knows? Maybe they are right beside us at the moment, or maybe they are facing us, just that we cannot see. No one knows, isn't it?
When Joy left for his school trip, it was almost 3:30 p.m., and Mrs. Banerjee's hands were free of work. So she thought of going to the market as the vegetable basket needed to be refilled, and the granules of sugar could be counted from inside the sugar pot. She dressed up, locked the door, and went to the market. She took a woolen shawl with her as it was the peak of winter in India.
It was almost 6:30 in the evening when she finally came back home, with two buckets of groceries. There was no trace of daylight but gray mist which seemed to have covered every inch of the world. As both of her hands were full, it was kind of difficult for her to get the door keys out of her handbag. 'Ah! What a busy day.' She exclaimed as she let her buckets down and went into her bag in search of the keys. After getting the keys out, she inserted it into the door and then realized something. The door was already opened. But how could that be possible? The spare key was inside the locker, and the original one was in the palm of her hand at the moment. 'Does that mean that someone broke into my house lately?' She thought.
