ANIKAA & THE ESCAPE- BOOK 2 OF ANIKAA SERIES

THE HUNTED ONE

There was no point in asking Raymond to leave because everybody knew the answer. And so Eshin, Honark and Anikaa along with Raymond dispersed in the museum in different directions. However Honark didn't leave Raymond unprotected.

"Though there is no fear if you're with Anikaa. Still, Eshin it will be advisable if you tie one of your beads in Raymond's hands."

And so, though it was perceptible that Eshin abhorred the idea, he still tied one of his beads in Raymond's hands and chanted something inaudibly.

"It will work only for the time assigned, after that it will be useless," he said in response to Raymond's suspicious stare.

"But what are we looking for?" asked Raymond.

"A wisp, a smoke, a shadow, a sound, a click, something your core tells you isn't natural. You'd know when you're near him. But yes, remember, not to leave your partner," said Honark looking meaningfully at Anikaa.

Anikaa got his point and for a moment thought of holding Raymond's hand but something inside her held her back.

It wasn't a grand museum but in darkness, the grandeur of the place was magnified out of its ordinary proportions. The banyan tree standing in the centre of the museum looked gargantuan and the owls residing in its hollow, used to the casual silence were mesmerised to hear noises at this hour of the night. The old great horned owl was surrounded by more than twelve owls now and they irked him more than the extraordinary group of people who were walking through the dark, silent corridors for he wanted to be a silent spectator whereas others were making noise. Sometimes they were flurried with the unusual scraping noise that Raymond was making everytime he came across a switch, trying his best to put the lights on and sometimes they released tiniest hoot in response to the little click on the door which was the only sound that Eshin made whenever he examined a room. One touch of his spear and the door opened by itself. Honark didn't make any sound; he simply walked in and out of the door like a ghost. It was so quiet and yet it took great alertness to focus not on the miscellaneous sounds but the sound of haunt. The rooms were marked by the numbers and some of them had labels plastered across it. The doors were locked but whenever Anikaa touched them, they opened without damaging the lock. She was about to enter the- HISTORICAL RUINS when she heard Honark's voice in her head, loud and clear- "Don't bother Anikaa. He'll only go to the room where there is even a pinch of moonlight coming through. To finish what he started, he needs moonlight."

"We've to skip the dark ones," said Anikaa and Raymond without asking any questions, nodded.

They skipped the storage rooms- 1 and 2 which Anikaa from her previous rendezvous in the museum remembered had no windows and ventured into the room labelled- DISPLAY AREA where all the sculptures and several masks and armours, used by the Indian Maharajas to British dignitaries were kept. The room was full of moonlight as there was a vast window. The casket of Indian Maharani, the blue-faced man sculpture, the eagle with a sword carved on its breast standing tall belonging to a long-lost sailor recovered from a shipwreck of 18th century, a crouched boy sitting alone, covering his ears with both his hands was a piecework of a famous sculpturist, a golden watch which was not made of gold but gave intense complex to the clocks around the world in terms of intricacy and delicate system which showed nautical time to the correct- t even after a hundred and seventeen years of its existence, the ivory elephant, half-broken, half-mended at places resting on a table with a sign that said- MIND THE TABLE- IT IS ALSO ANTIQUE and several other sculptures that were placed in the room suddenly appeared to have come to life watching as silent observers of the unconventional happenings of the night.

Raymond could have sworn he saw movement between the two stuffed birds that looked like badger but he kept his mouth shut putting all his trust on Anikaa's instincts and not his guesswork. Anikaa walking close with Raymond reached the middle of the room and looked around but there was nothing out of place she could put her finger on. Anikaa walked to the windows and looked out of them, the roads were still deserted but the sky had changed. Out of nowhere, dark clouds had gathered and soon Anikaa could tell, they were going to shroud the moon.