I cupped her cheeks getting teary eyed and kissed her cheeks and forehead and nodded in negative at her and hugged her. ‘No baby no, you won’t die, who said you will die? You will live, mumma won’t ever let any evil shadow fall on you,’ I said calming her down. She broke the hug and ran away. ‘Maya aunty is also bad,’ she said to me. ‘I know she is bad, but I don’t think that grandma told you all this, so who told you all this? You know very well there is no such presence in our house.’
‘But mumma, if I tell you, promise me you won’t tell anyone,’ she said. ‘That doesn’t matters, whoever scared you like this won’t ever be spared by me, my hands are no less, they weigh of one kilo, tell me who told you all this?’ I asked her. ‘Maya aunty, she told me in the morning to tell you this poem, so that you get scared,’ she told me and I chuckled. ‘Aww, so stupid of her, who told you mumma will get scared? Joke of the century, stupid lady I say, I just got scared seeing my baby scared.’
‘But you got teary eyed,’ she said wiping the tear from my cheek and showed me. ‘So did you,’ I told her and wiped the tear from her cheek and showed her. She smiled and blew on my tear which was on her finger. I smiled and did the same. I kissed her and pulled her closer hugging her tightly. I got a message and I broke the hug and made her sit on bed. I opened the message and saw that there was an address written inside. ‘Deepika, you be with grandma OK, I will just come and go, bye.’
I said and went from there outside my house and sat in the car driving off to the address, I was wondering who would’ve sent it as it was an unknown number. As I arrived, I got down the car and rung the doorbell of the house, a man answered the door, I recognized him as Arjun Sharma. ‘Hi, Aarohi Raichand?’ he asked and I nodded. He moved back to let me in and I moved inside. He closed the door behind us. We sat on the couch. ‘So what can I get you? Tea? Coffee?’ He asked me.
‘Nothing, just some answers to my questions, did you got the photos I sent you?’ I asked. ‘Yes, so you met my wife Maya?’ he asked. ‘Yes I did but why you wrote she is in heaven? I mean she is alive so why she would be in heaven?’ I asked. ‘I don’t know how you met Maya because she is dead and I know she loved us a lot. She won’t fake her death,’ he said and sighed. ‘I was on one bike, Maya on another, Saanjh was on other bike, their cousin brothers Ayaan on one and Shubh on one,’ he told me.
‘We planned to have a race that day, and that the one who will win will be the one who will be the most successful in their lives, I regret it, so we all started riding and Maya was going the fastest, we all were cheering on the bike, she was so busy in racing in the ride that we saw the danger sign and we even kept shouting for her to stop but she thought of it as some kind of prank. Then came the slope area, we saw her going there, she winked at us turning around and her bike went down the slope, I got down my bike and ran to her.’
‘Then?’ I asked as tears start to drip from his eyes. ‘Then I caught hold of her hand, not able to bear the weight of her hand, I too fell with her and the slope was very deep, we kept rolling downwards while the others were shouting our names in agony, we ended up fallen in a jungle near a tree and I saw her wounded and her eyes were closed, I tried getting up but I too went unconscious.’
‘What a tragic incident,’ I said with a shivering voice. ‘Next thing I remember is waking up in a hospital, doctors told me that I am lucky that I for saved even after falling from such a high place, but I asked about Maya, they told me Maya is nowhere, I asked Saanjh too, she got quiet, I asked Ayaan, he was also quiet, Shubh told me her body was nowhere to be seen, they only found blood,’ he said wiping his tears. ‘Her mother became mentally disturbed, father is in a hope that she will come back some day.’
He sighed. ‘Saanjh lives in denial, she sees Maya everywhere, she talks to her, she has got tumor, it’s right between her optic nerve and vocal cord and on operation, she can become mute or blind, she doesn’t even remembers that incident, she’s living in her past life. A part of her brain is damaged, Ayaan seems so lost after seeing Maya’s body nowhere, Shubh just keeps saying to find Maya but what to do? He is a kid so we keep telling him that she is lost somewhere and will come soon, but now you said you see her, you even have a proof. Strange,’ he said.
‘You know what? The first time I saw her, she saw me and Deep dancing and she broke a glass on her hand but no blood came out, and on investigation I found that she is undead,’ I told him. ‘What? Maya is undead? What do you mean?’ he asked totally confused. ‘Only the body is of Maya and the soul is of someone else but don’t know of who, Maya is living with someone else’s soul,’ I told him. ‘That is why her body got lost, now that it is found, it is living dead.’