The Bride and other short stories

The Other Girl

She was the little girl who was very quiet. 

The spacious, somewhat decrepit, haveli* that they resided in had housed many secrets in it's more than hundred years of existence. Many that her old ears had heard being whispered among the haveli's many servants. 

But never so sinister as the little girl's secret.

She had a penchant for destruction, a blood lust, which was hidden under the placid countenance.

Amma's arthritic joints creaked and groaned as she heavily leaned on her cane. The stairs of the grand haveli were murder on her knees, but she made a trip up and down twice, once in the morning and once in the night. The first one to wake up her grand daughter and the other girl for school. The last trip was to wish them good night as they tucked themselves in bed.

Two school girls, both twelve years of age, though Amma was only related by blood to one of them. Her darling grand-daughter Sharada. The other girl, Vibha, looked like she could be Sharada's twin, except that she wasn't. 

Sharada's twin sister Saraswati had drowned when she was seven.

Amma's grief-stricken son Ravi, God bless his soul, had adopted the other girl, Vibha, from an orphanage. For the first time in his life, he had disregarded his own mother's vehement protestations. They didn't need another girl, Amma had argued. Ravi had been too stubborn though, and he went ahead with the adoption.

He could have at least adopted a boy.

He paid the price for his stubbornness soon after. God took him away from them, yet another omen that adopting the other girl was a terrible idea.

Amma hobbled down the stairs as Malati, the girl's nanny, started getting the children ready for school. Amma went to the breakfast room where the cook had prepared parathas for everyone.

Lata, her daughter-in-law, was already at the table. She was dressed in a sari, she had taken over managing the family estates in Ravi's place, and would go out for work soon. Which was a blessing, though Amma still pretended that she disapproved of her widowed daughter-in-law stepping out in the world and talking to other men.

"Amma, you need to stop taking the stairs," Lata admonished as she came to her and touched her feet. She helped Amma get into a chair and served her breakfast, before going back to her seat and picking up the newspaper.

The kids hadn't come down yet and the cook wasn't within earshot, so Amma ventured to express her concern to her daughter-in-law. "I think we should talk."

Lata sighed as she put away the newspaper. She was still a young woman and trying very hard to shoulder their responsibility and run the haveli and their surrounding estates.

"What has Vibha done now?"

Amma scoffed, Lata never believed any of the things that Amma had seen the other girl do. But she wasn't home as much and nothing really missed Amma's shrewd gaze.

"They found Kala. She was strung by her neck on the oak tree in the fields."

Amma paused for effect and had the satisfaction of seeing Lata's eyes widen. She rubbed her temple before speaking, "The girls will miss her."

"I think we all know who was responsible." She didn't like to say Vibha's name any more than it was necessary.

Lata sighed again, "Really, why would any of the girls strangle a cat that lived with us? Simply absurd! Maybe someone from the surrounding village hates cats or some of the boys took their joke too far."

It was Amma's turn to cluck her irritation. "How can you be so blind? I know it was her, Vibha! Ever since you moved her into the house, I've seen nothing but death and destruction! First it was the birds in the fields, now it's the cat-"