Nandini

Not A Princess

Nandini opened her eyes but immediately closed them, it was being difficult for her to adjust in the light then after a moment she again opened her eyes. Her mother in law was still screaming, nandini gulped down her throat and honestly she has seen so much that nothing surprises her anymore.
She looked around the room, it was exactly like the moment when she entered here first with no sign of anything weird or paranormal. Even the painting of her Queen was also covered as if it was never touched and everything else there looked like it wasn’t touched by anyone with spider webs proving their chastity.
Nandini without even wasting a second stood in front of her the door and it immediately got opened. Her mother in law standing on the other side of the door. She was shocked at the look of nandini, no veil to cover her hair, with her hair in an untidy knot and scratches all over her body. She got a bit worried for her for the first time ever.
“Nandini what has happened to you? Why did you lock yourself Inside this room last night?”, her mother in law was continuously asking questions but the last question grabbed her attention.
Nandini stumbled with her words but somehow managed to form a sentence, “what d do yy. Y. Y you mean by last night I locked myself here”.
To which her mother in law stared at her and now nandini was just testing her patience which already had a very slight limit.
“nitya told me in the morning, that she saw you locking yourself inside the room, she even called you but you didn’t give her a response”, her mother in law told her with controlling all the anger.
Nandini nodded to whatever her mother in law was saying without even saying word and when she finished everything, nandini turned to move towards her room. No one stopped her and nor did they interrogated her further which was strange in itself given the basic instinct of interference of her in laws but she didn’t said anything and started moving.
Nandini stopped infront of her room as she was about to enter she felt a cold chilling breeze, she looked around and to her surprise the Queen was there smiling at her staring at her and with the blink of an eye she disappeared. The appearance of the Queen was more a reality check for nandini to make her remember everything that she saw and to make her realize that it wasn’t any sort of dream, it was all real, very much real like her actions in her past.
Nandini froze at her place, she knew everything, she knew exactly who was responsible and she knew that she couldn’t escape her destiny, her punishment for her actions.
Nandini sighed and pushed the door of her room, it was locked, she must’ve locked it last time when she left the room but the Keys weren’t with her so she started searching for it across the palace and when she was about to go to the room with the closed door from where it all started, she heard someone mumbling in the corridor. She turned to look or to have a clear hearing of what they were saying.
She hid herself behind the pillar of the corridor and tried to listen to what they were talking about. It was her mother in law and her sister in law and they were definitely talking about her and it wasn’t out of concern for sure.
“That room is cursed, it has a very tragic history. I don’t know the details but what I know is it’s cursed and is a spot of spirits in the entire palace and no one has ever been able to enter into that room. I wonder how did nandini was able to go there”, her mother in law said in an almost gossiping tone.
To which bindiya said, “she must have gone there to do black magic on us. She even looks like a witch always having essence and aroma in her surrounding”.
Nandini felt so angry at them, she wanted to destroy them at the spot and now she knew she was even capable of being so destructive but she almost controlled her and was about to leave when she heard her mother in law say, “ Pralat is supposed to come today itself and I’ve also written a letter to him telling him about the misbehaviour of his wife. Once he will come we will ask him to lock this nandini into a room and she will eventually die without any food or water and then we will get our son married again”.
Nandini heard it all too well, she didn’t even felt any sort of rage on hearing this, she just smirked at a thought that crossed her mind and mumbled to herself, “I’m not gonna let anyone else decide my destiny anymore, whatever I’m going to do will be entirely on me this time”.