Whatever the old man was trying to channel there, I'm definitely not buying it. Who in the world talks about such things in front of a child? But considering his age, I thought it was best not to cause a commotion. The old man spent 80 years believing all that crap, I couldn't even make a dent even if I wanted to. Any debate here would have been frittering of important time that I could use getting my work here done. I just shrugged the old man off, like he had never said anything in the first place.
The man stood silent for quite a while looking at his old analogue watch occasionally. Probably waiting for the person, he had called earlier. He looked up at me again before he spoke again "You see" He paused abruptly "some thousands of years ago... when our ancestors first settled on this land, the forest was overtaken by a group of demons, they terrorised the town's little population and used to steal children for their rituals, that's when our ancestors prayed to the goddess for help, it is said that the goddess descended down to earth and fought the demons, trapping them in the core of the forest, and sat on the top of the hill to watch and make sure that they never come back, guarding the village, protecting us from the danger that lurks through those cursed woods... but... around this time of the year... the seal loosens, and they roam around freely in the bounds of the accursed... looking for children, to continue their wicked rituals"
This time, I just ignored his words. I did not believe in any word that came out of his mouth, nor did I care for what he was saying. After a moment, when he realised he was not getting any response from me, he let out a disappointed sigh as he walked back to his counter, grabbed his chair, and sat down, muttering something under his breath that I could not make out at the time.
A few moments later I spotted a vehicle approaching, it was white and was rushing towards us at an incredible speed, that's when I realized it was a Police jeep. The car came to a halt just a few meters away from where we were. Just then a man came out of the vehicle, The man looked just around my age and was almost as tall as me with a brown Chevron moustache and had a chunky figure. There were no stars on the shoulder of his uniform indicating the man was just a Constable which answers why he was the one driving the jeep and why was he alone
the man approached the old man and took his cap off as he bent slightly and touched his feet "Yes father... why would you call me at such an odd hour?" Hearing his words, I was quite shocked, I didn't expect for the old man to call a Constable just to help me get to the mansion. "Ah yes, this gentleman here is the son of one of my old friends who used to live here, he wants to visit their ancestral home towards the south of the village, towards Devi Chowk. It's called... 'Mehra bhavan' it would be towards the outskirts of the forest, make sure to grab the keys from the magistrate's office before you take him there"
Hearing him the man looked quite shocked "Devi Chowk? I see" After a moment of silence he looked at me "Ah so... you can sit in the back... or the front, wherever you like" he said pointing at his car. I nodded at him, normally I would not trust some random person in such a place but since he was a policeman I naturally trusted him and looked at Anu "Let's go"
Anu looked quite tired, I crouched down to her level, patting her on the head. I lifted her up in my arms and walked to the Jeep, carefully putting her in the backseat and doing her hair. I kissed her on the cheek before closing the door. I opened the door to the passenger's seat and sat inside as the man followed the same, we both tied the seatbelts as the man pushed to gear and started driving, he took a sharp U-turn through the somewhat crowded market and rushed down the road.
I would be lying if I said his driving did not make me kind of anxious, the car kept bumping on the uneven poorly made road. It was kind of fascinating to me how he could drive so confidently on such a bad road. Soon there was a three-way intersection upfront, and the market seemed to expand further down each lane, perhaps this town was not as empty as it looked from the outside, I could see a short hill in the distance from where we were. Throughout the way, we kept looking at each other awkwardly, in a quiet silence, which was eventually broken by the man "Hmm... I think we have not been really introduced to each other huh" he spoke with a smile "Umm yes, we were kind of lost as we have never really come in this part of the country let alone this town, so we were kind of asking aro-" He cut me off immediately "Karanveer Singh" he said in a sarcastic tone.
"What?"
"Karanveer Singh Rathore... that's my name... I am one of the constables in this fine town you have come in" he said brushing his fingers along his moustache.
"Ah yes... so uhm m-my bad, I am Vikram Mehra, I work as a Forest ranger up the North-west of the country," I said "A forest ranger? Well, that's interesting you will love this place, we have a huge forest almost engulfing this town if you could not tell," he said with a sarcastic chuckle. "So... what brings you to this town of ours? Are you planning to move back in your family's home or something?"
"Uhm no that's not it, my father used to live here as a kid, I am just here to fulfil his dying wishes," I said looking at my bag "he wanted his ashes to be dumped into the town river and his old house" the man looked at me for a second before getting his eyes back at the road "I see... well, I hope your father may find peace, though it would nice to have a forest ranger living around? You know," he said
Eventually, he stopped at the side of an intersection, there was the bed of the hill I saw earlier Karan closed his eyes, joined his palms together and bowed a bit facing the hill. The place was really crowded, there were women dressed in colourful sarees waiting to start hiking the trail to the top "Thats the town's ancestral goddess's shrine, on top of this hill, you should pray that your errands here may be completed soon" he said looking at me, I joint my hands and bowed a bit just like him in respect, after a few seconds I looked back at him "well... I cannot say I am religious if I am being honest"
He looked at me with a stern look for a second "Well that's fair too" he said before we drove off along the road. "Well... what was that... back there... like you know the crowd at the hill's trail?" I asked. "Oh! Yea, that... it's festival, people worship this town's goddess for a month acknowledging her love and care for her children, at the end of each week it is like a huge festival around here for 4 weeks"
I nodded as he spoke, it sounded like a fun little cultural thing, but I could not be here for long, I was just here for not more than a day, I was planning to stay a night here at maximum in case it took long to do everything I had to do. "Well, if you don't mind me asking, why does a policeman have time to drop some random person off around the town?"
He looked at me, raising his eyebrows "Well you see, this town is not really that big and the population is not that massive, there are not really many cases around the year, but well you see... in the coming month... it's the season" as he said that, I squinted my eyes looking at him, his words were really vague and weird to me and didn't make any sense "season? What do you mean season?" He looked at me with a smirk, "Well let's just say... this month, 'The month of the demons' as the townsfolks say, it is just chaos here... it's not really a desirable time to be here, that is also why I am telling you to finish your work here as soon as possible"
"I see... well... I was planning to stay in some sort of a hotel for like a couple of days you know, since we came all the way here, you get me?"
"No you DO NOT want to stay here, definitely not with a kid at that, the place gets dangerous around this time, as I told you, I don't believe in any of the crap these villagers believe in, but children do go missing here, and we can't do anything to find them, so it will only be for the good if you get your stuff here done and leave as soon as possible," He said, he looked serious, There was a weird look in his eyes, almost... anger. "Ok, if you say so, I will leave today that's also what your father told me back there, along with some weird folklore about demons or something," I said. He gave me a weird look after hearing that "He told you what? That damn old man... he tells that tale to everyone that talks to him around this time of the year, I am really sorry in his place, do not mind him, I know he can sometimes say some weird stuff "
"Well that's ok too, you do not need to apologize, I did not think of it much to be fair," I said.
After like 20 minutes of driving, we came to a considerably more remote part of the town, we were right near the outskirts of the forests and the houses were at a distance from each other, unlike rest of the town here the houses were big and were made of wood.
We had stopped near the only brick-made building in the area, it was massive, though it looked worn out and old, just like every other building in the town. Karan got out of the car and gestured for me to do the same, Anu was fast asleep in the back of the car, "we can leave her in there, it's ok this is the Magistrate's office, and she is in a police jeep, no one is coming to hurt her" Karan said. I nodded in agreement as we entered, the guard didn't stop us, maybe because he probably comes here a lot.
The inside of the office looked very different from the outside, it looked fancy and like an actual office of a high-ranking individual, there was a corridor right at the entrance and at the end I could see a huge hall, where was the receptionist's desk. The walls of the corridor were of an elegant white colour with blue carpet on the floor, and there were a few paintings of some historic figures related to the town hung by the walls. As we walked into the hall the receptionist immediately greeted us "Hello gentlemen, what business do you have here?" Karan coughed as he leaned on the desk "Uh... this here is Vikram Mehra; he wants to visit his family's home in the town", "Hello" I said, a bit awkward. "Yeah, so it would be nice if you could give us the keys, you know?" he continued.
The man sighed "And what house would it be? I would need a house number" he said. We both looked at each other for a moment before Karan leaned on my shoulder and whispered in my ears "What's the house number??", "I wouldn't know! I just came here for the first time in my life" I whispered back to him. He shook his head in embarrassment "We do not know the house number", "Then do you know the name? If it has any?" the receptionist said. "It's called Mehra Bhavan; it's around the south of the hill". The receptionist nodded "South... that will be around Devi Chowk, right?", "Yes" spoke Karan. The receptionist took out a book from his drawer, opened it and quickly turned the pages before stopping towards the end of the book "Ah yes, it will be house number 514" he said as he went to one of the cupboards on his left, opening a drawer and pulling out the keys, "Here you go, I hope you have a fine visit in our lovely, historic town" he said as he handed us the keys. "Thank you" I muttered under my breath as we rushed out of the building quickly jumping into the car.
As I watched the sun of the high noon slowly going down towards the horizon, I knew that I needed to get my stuff here done and leave, for the safety of Anu and myself, as Karan stepped on the gas and we left the area "how far do you think the place is?" I asked. He looked at me before accelerating further "Almost their... friend"
---------> To be continued...