SHANIWAAR WADA

chapter 10

no this can’t happen’ rashi uttered.
‘It has’  his voice had changed. ‘ what do you want just leave us we haven’t done anything to you, right?’ I said.
‘ you have,  you have done a big mistake by coming here. You all will have to die.’
‘ please spare us, we’ll do whatever you want. Just leave vaneet.’ rashi said crying.
‘ fine then, you know what you have to do. isn’t it Gitanjali Rao? Meet you on the day of Amavasya. Till that vaneet will stay here as a guarantee of your return.’
My friends were completely shocked. They had a lot of questions but weren’t able to ask. Even I wasn’t able to answer any of them neither I wanted to. Suddenly the door opened and we moved out. We reached the hotel in 5 minutes no one uttered even a single word. After reaching our room I thought to break the silence. ‘I am sorry guys, It’s all my fault, I should have told you about it’
‘yes, you should have but it’s not the time to regret we need to find a solution, don’t forgot tomorrow is amavasya’ Vini said.
‘ what do we have to do?’ Rashi asked.
‘ we need to find his dead body, which must be in the well and burn it.’ I said.
‘ isn’t that very risky’ abhi asked.
‘ yes it is even we can die in the attempt’
‘ but we’ll have to do it anyhow, and for that we need to consult that old women.’ Vini said.
‘ yes you are right, tomorrow morning we’ll go there again’ I said.
No one slept that night we were all laden with guilt. The next morning we woke up got ready and headed towards the shaniwaar wada. Who can even imagine the bitter truth that lies beyond it’s walls. we nearly searched the whole palace but couldn’t find her. Then we went to the residential areas and enquired about her but they said that there was no caretaker of the mansion.
‘then who was she?’ Rashi asked.
‘ A spirit?’ she asked.
Even I did not have an answer.
Finally it was 5:30 and we had to leave for the mansion. Again we got divided into groups I and vini then rashi and abhi. We had to burn the dead body whereas they took the charge of finding vaneet. Both of us started with our work I went to find the body and vini arranged the items required along with a lamp. ‘ I found it’ ‘lets not waste time and take it out’ vini said. ‘the well is very deep , we need to go inside it’ I said. ‘okay, I’ll go inside with the help of a rope and you hold it tightly, when I say throw just throw the materials’. Vini said. He was just going to step in, we heard rashi screaming. We had to go to see her. She was dead. Abhi had fainted. I didn’t know what to say or what to do. I was in tears.  I knew how vini was feeling at that moment but he was always practical. Coming back to the realistic ground he said. ‘we need to be fast’   and we headed towards the well. Suddenly we saw the women, and ran towards her. ‘ please help us , do something.’ She held my neck. Her eyes were pitch black. She was Anandibai. She took the lamp from my hand and threw it the fire was blown off. And she disappeared. ‘ no we cannot let this happen’ vini said. Suddenly a warm wind  started blowing and the lamp caught fire again. ‘thankyou rashi’ I whispered. We started with the work. Vini stepped in. I was holding the rope tightly. Suddenly I  saw Abhi coming towards me. I asked him to help. But he didn’t answer. He seemed a bit weird. Yes you are right he was possessed. I couldn’t take this anymore rashi had died abhi was possessed, vaneet was missing. I didn’t know how to tackle the situation. He was coming towards me. I had lost all my hopes and the rope slipped off my hand.