It Keeps Count

Ten months in the old Deshmukh wada, and Nandini still doesn't know what's behind most of its twelve doors.

Sharada Bai says to ignore the marbles that roll out of empty rooms, the laughter with no source, the someone who isn't supposed to be there. The neighbors don't go near the gate after dark, and they never say why. Nandini used to think it was superstition.

Now she's starting to wonder what the house has been counting toward, and whether her ten months were ever really an accident.