Haunting Memories

Chapter 7

Ritika woke up in the morning to the realization that she was not in her own room, and last night’s events flashed through her mind. All residues of sleep vanished, and she bolted up in bed. She looked around to find Anjana gone, and felt a pang of disappointment, which was followed by embarrassment and anger at her own childish fears and clinging nature. She looked at the bright sunlight streamed in from the window, and it calmed her. It was morning, the birds were chirping, the house was filled with activity and the ghosts of the night were gone for the time being. She was pulling the blanket off herself when her sister entered the room with a tray of tea, a frown framed on her face. She placed the tray on the table at one corner of the room, and sank into the accompanying chair.

“A huge mansion with no room service sucks!” she complained, then looked at Ritika disapprovingly.

“Umm.. yeah,” Ritika mumbled, feeling her face go hot as she tried to explain, “I don’t like them coming up early in the morning and knocking on my door. It spooks me out.”

“So you’ve prohibited any of the servants from coming to the first floor?” asked Anjana, incredulous, “That’s ridiculous!”

“They will come up in the afternoon to clean up!” protested Ritika, “I haven’t prohibited their entry, just restricted it. Not after sundown, not before nine in the morning.”

“That’s just weird.”

Anjana poured out the tea, picked up her cup and went to her suitcase to pick clothes for the day. She went through her belongings quietly.

Ritika walked to the table and picked up her cup. Watching the steam rise, she tried to remember the day she had spoken to her servants on this matter. In the beginning, when the strange activity had begun, she had wanted them all to stay away because... well, because she had thought it was Aarav, and she didn’t want to scare him away. If he wanted to say something, she wanted to hear it. But then she had realized over the course of the next few days that the events were more on the violent side than the ‘pass-on-a-message’ type, and she’d given up that hope. But she hadn’t changed the orders, it had seemed the ‘attack’ was for her, and she didn’t want anyone else hurt.

“I guess it is a little weird,” she said eventually, “But we’re almost leaving anyway.”

In the bright sunlight, the shadows of the night had vanished, and sitting in the room, with fresh air streaming in the large window, hot tea in her hands and her sister next to her, she found it hard to imagine the fear she had felt. Again, she found the idea of leaving repulsive and the last words that escaped her lips left her heartbroken. She could tell that Anjana was gauging her, so she tried to keep her face impassive. She added more sugar to her tea - Aarav would have remembered how much she took. A stab of pain and longing so profound pulsed through her that she had to stand still for a second to let it pass before she could put the spoon back down. Oh, Aarav.

She left the room before the tears could spill over in front of an audience.