Dusky Moonlight

Chapter- 20(3)

The tweeting sound of birds mildly heard against her ears and the piercing sunshine dangles over her eyelids when Rathi finally able to open her eyes after a long sleep. It felt like so long since the room was so bright with the sunshine. When you're in a difficult situation of your life, even the time will act against you and move slowly, like that, the past three days felt like three years.

Rathi looked around the ambiance to find no one around her. The bedsheets were neatly folded in the place where Aadhiyan slept yesterday and her father in law's place is empty. She got up and adjusted her saree before walking out to find them.

"Where is he?" Rathi asked. Aadhavan is cleaning the lawn which is all covered by the leaves and mud which were carried here by the wind. He looked at Rathi in surprise; compared to yesterday he was fine now. Rathi wondered how could be?

"You woke up? Go and take bath, Rathi," he said.

"I asked where is he?"

"Ayya went to take bath in the pond," he answered.

"Is he still the same?"

"He is." He nodded making her dull. "Don't think about that, just go."

Aadhavan continued to sweep the floor, she doesn't know why he's acting like this all of a sudden. Yesterday she indeed saw how sad he is for the loss of his son but he forgot everything today and continuing his life. How can a person be so cruel? Or is he compelled to act like this? Rathi thought and headed inside.

Before taking bath she securely placed the necklace inside her saree. She sat down on the small stool before the tub of hot water. She felt like she had lost something important in her life; she couldn't bear this sadness.

He won't come back! She said looking at her baby bump. As days passing one after the other her stomach is getting big which is making her anxious.

"What we are going to do after this?" she asked heaving out a sigh.

"What he has done to me than dragging me into his cage, he has done nothing good to me," Rathi thought crying won't change her fate so she poured the water on her head to get rid of his thoughts. She came out covering herself in the saree and when she opened the door to the house, she was taken aback to see Aadhiyan.

"Go outside, I need to change?" she requested looking down as Rathi still remembers what he has done to her and what he will do to her if she fails to obey him. She isn't that strong to oppose an evil ghost who's in her husband's body and can do anything if she disobeys it.
"What?" "Why should I leave," he retorted annoyingly, lying on the mattress.

"I am your husband. Being shy doesn't go to work out here, you know I have seen you naked a lot of times, " he added looking at the ceiling.

"Don't say that again; you're not my husband," she got pissed off hearing that. "As you said, he's dead and he won't come back."

"You didn't marry him as you think. You know that I married you, I was inside him when you completed that last ritual in the temple." Rathi knew that and that's what bothering her ever since she came to know about Aadhiyan and the King connections. She's too stubborn to accept that fact she fairly married to this evil ghost.

"Whatever you say that doesn't matter to me anymore, please go out. I beg you," she huffed turning to the other side.

Aadhiyan got up and walked outside opening the door. She's quite surprised but it felt like a silence before a storm.