Lurking shadows- 5

Read part 4 - here

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Mita’s questions might as well have been inaudible just as she had begun to grow invisible to Anek.

‘Did you know her, the girl who lived here before us?’ she’d asked him innumerable times but Anek’s reply never reached, much like the questions that poured out of her like a thinning whisper. He scared her.

Mita’s index finger had a diagonal cut that though not deep was still quite painful and it had happened in the morning while she was preparing breakfast or at least trying to. She never claimed to be a cook and didn’t much know how to properly hold a knife let alone handle one but she was trying and then out of nowhere Anek on probably knowing her handicap had surprised her with a put-on smile, making it look all was right between them when he wished her ‘a very pleasant morning’ while she was still bent over the chopping board, startling her so hard she’d cut her finger. 

He’d then pretended to not have noticed and left for work and Mita was left in excruciating agony as she watched blood ooze out of the thick cut.

It throbbed with pain and her stained nightshirt went on to acquire another stigma.

Pink was standing on the couch purring at the handprint on the wall and Mita didn’t dare approach him.

She’d begun shutting herself inside a room each time she heard his meow.

Everything in that house had begun to menace her.

The damp odour which clung to her like skin followed her like a ghost upon her shoulders, the increasingly ugly damp stain which looked to be alive and moved about the wall mocked her. It was growing in size, getting mouldier each day and it helped that the rains stubbornly refused to diffuse each time Mita let out a weeping scream only she could hear.

Something no one would tell her, sinister in colour, hideous and ugly much like her house was lurking about her. A dreadful foreboding seized her each time she noticed the handprint growing darker in unison with the damp stain on the wall. 

There was something Anek knew and was a part of and somehow it involved Mita too. Was it or was she uselessly letting herself gain importance in matters in which she was nothing but a sideshow?

A girl had disappeared, her boyfriend had known her once upon a time. Maybe they’d been lovers. It must have meant something or why else would Liyah still have that photograph and why didn’t Liyah take it with her?

The answer to this she knew already because she’d disappeared. But the landlord said she’d moved out, which means she left behind Anek and his memories and why did Anek move here? 

Each question had a definite answer but she’d have to dwell on that later because Mita was still in the process of setting up her kitchen after unpacking.

She looked at her sorry collection of broken utensils and wondered why she’d never gotten rid of them.

She watched her mother look around the house before settling eyes on Mita.

‘I’ve been thinking of you often mother’ Mita tried recreating a smile she didn’t remember when she’d last produced but the effects were lost on her mother who stared around the house. 

She wanted to apologize for the tattered curtains and broken cups in which she’d offered her mother water but her mother had implausibly smiled back.

She’d generated an approving look by nodding her head. ‘It’s a lovely house’ she’d finally spoken after staring at the walls.

Mita didn’t understand whether it was sarcasm or genuine praise. ‘It smells a bit’ she replied poorly. 

‘nonsense’ her mother's voice boomed. ‘it’s just this rainy season. It’ll get better’ her mother smiled again. 

Mita started at her stained nightshirt and felt embarrassed at having forgotten to change in what must have been a week. She didn’t remember how long she’d been in this house.

‘Do you believe in ghosts mother?’

Mita startled herself at having asked this question. How could she even think of such a thing and where did it come from this thought about ghosts? 

Before she could retract or make up some other follow up sentence to diminish the stupidity of her question her mother replied ‘yes’ and looked grave.

‘Mother..I’ Mita struggled to find the right words.

Mita’s mother suddenly brought forth a chilling voice ‘Are you haunted, child?’ 

‘No..yes’ I don’t know. ‘I have no memories and there’s something following me and there’s a cat who sees things and I..’ she began crying. ‘I’m lost’ 

‘You aren’t lost’ her mother’s voice softened. ‘You’ve only to find yourself. Things often get misplaced and confuse us. We have to ask the right questions and find the right answers’ She looked on lovingly at her daughter. ‘Pretty cup’ she said looking at Mita’s chipped cup.

Was everyone lying to her or was she truly lost?

Mita was crying. 

‘Why do you always have to be like this?’ her mother asked her looking annoyed before leaving Mita alone in her crumbling house.

Are you haunted? her mother’s voice rang in her ears.

‘Yes’ Mita screamed and Pink let out a low blood-chilling growl. ‘I know you can see her, Pink’ Mita looked at the angry cat. ‘She knows you, doesn’t she?’ 

The cut she’d sustained on her finger that morning hurt her. Mita ripped out the bandaid and howled in pain.

Everything somehow connected to Anek. Why would she even be here in this rotting house if not for him? 

The photograph! she remembered having seen Anek in it but never noticed Liyah. She had to be sure it was her in that photo holding his hand.

A pillow covered her face. She tried to push it away but it was held tight between two strong hands. They were Anek’s.

Pink was purring somewhere in the vicinity.

‘help’ she groaned. Gasping for breath Mita sputtered. ‘I know everything you did. I know you killed her. Liyah is in this house. She is trying to talk to me’ her voice came out in broken rasps but it was too late. 

The pillow stifled her with preternatural force. Mita gurgled and lost consciousness.

--

Cont..

Lurking shadows- 4

Read part 3 - here

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The mirror was chipped on the top right corner. A pity too because it was the only mirror in her house.

Mita tried combing her hair but the effort exceeded her will and somewhere between detangling the knots and astonishment at the amount of hair that shed through her hairbrush Mita gave up.

She had since opened the windows and lit up some incense to drive out the squalid stench that once again made itself known. She continued to stare at the visage that mocked her. 

Of course, Anek wouldn’t love her, not when she looked like this. Her stained nightshirt, the musty smell, the unkempt house and tatters for curtains that lay on the couch with a dirty handprint in the background was one of the many reasons why perhaps her boyfriend was avoiding her.

A menagerie of all things wretched and Mita a locus point of misery.

Anek hadn’t spoken to her, except for wishing her that morning.

Her dreams materialized into a long visual and she remembered getting suffocated under his large hands. But that wasn’t true. Anek loved her.

Mita opened the cupboard to find herself something nice to wear. Nicer that is, because almost everything she owned looked like it had never known better days more so because she’d thrown everything in a thick lump of a shoddy pile and now struggled to pull out one sleeve of a tired shirt which she flung back to look for something prettier and eventually settled on a lacklustre blue dress. 

She yanked out the dress from under the disturbing pile of clothes which would have to live another day before getting folded and stacked when she remembered something the policeman had told her.

‘Please let us know if you find something’ they’d said and Mita had indeed found something.

Tossing aside her latest blue find she dived back in the cupboard to find the handbag that stayed hanging behind the fabric hill.

She’d not explored its contents yet.

What might she find? There were several zips and pockets around the bag and she fiddled to find the clasp to open it.

A blood-curdling scream erupted from outside Mita’s bedroom.

She ran out to see Pink growling with a bizarre look in his eyes. His body was contorted into a hair raising stance and his long tail was thicker than she’d ever seen before and he menacingly growled at Mita.

It was happening again. ‘Don’t do this, Pink’  Mita bleated inaudibly, her face blanching.

The hair on her arms stood on ends and fear crawled back into her spine lodging itself in Mita’s skull, it spread to her chest making it hard for her to breathe. Her heartbeat with an annoying acknowledgement of something positively uncanny around her.

With troublesome clarity, Mita saw the damp stain on the corner of the wall breeding thick spores of mould, its dank odour crawling on her body and the handprint behind the couch looked to have gotten darker.

‘Pink!’ Mita tried to order the cat and stretched out her hand she’d often seen Anek do like a friendly gesture.

The long strap of the handbag was braided on her arm and Pink let out a chilling distressing moan upon seeing it. He threateningly walked towards her and Mita stepped back cautiously before sprinting into her bedroom and banging the door to keep the cat out.

She felt debilitated with fear breaking into a fit of cough. Her throat was parched and she felt too weak to stand, letting herself slowly slide to the floor.

Feeling the coolness of the tiles against her cheeks Mita thought of the day she came to this house and the last time she spoke to her mother.

Where was her mother? She’d stopped talking to Mita before she moved into this house. 

‘I should probably call her’ Mita spoke to the thick dust crusting her floor. She blew on it and momentarily it fluttered away.

The cat was quiet now and Mita dared not go outside to inspect.

She lay still on the floor, looking at a blue wad of clothing flung carelessly on the side.

I was about to get dressed she thought and realized that a handbag still clung to her arm.

The policeman had told her that the earlier tenant was called ‘Liyah’ and how strange it was tit hat he thought she’d know her.

Mita opened the bag and it was filled with papers, mostly receipts, restaurant bills, grocery bills, tickets to the zoo, real estate flyers, photostat copies of her rental documents.

Almost every pocket which she unzipped held similar trash. Faded, yellowing papers and even some post it notes with random numbers and an old ball pen refill that had somehow leaked inside the bag and stained the pockets.

It was a lot of useless papers but still amusing for Mita who sat absorbed in opening and carefully reading the receipts and checking the groceries that were bought.

Several packets of instant noodles and chips, something similar to Mita’s own eating habits. Dry cleaning bills for shawls and a heavy jacket, several tickets to the aquarium and zoo on different dates through the year, expired subway and bus cards and a receipt for buying five two-litre bottles of coke.

These would make such an engrossing scrap file, Mita mused, for someone who was interested in such things because clearly Liyah didn’t much care or why else would she just stuff them in her bag and forget about it.

Finally, Mita unzipped every pocket and inverted the bag to let everything fall. A few heavy-handed shakes later the frayed handbag was drained of its contents and everything spilt on the floor.

Mita carefully spread each out each piece of paper including a very crumpled photograph that was stuck under the torn lining of the handbag.

With great caution she smoothed out the photograph which looked to have been faded and stained with the blue ink from the cartridge on the corners.

It looked like an old photograph of a group of people which on some inspection revealed to be kids, probably teens and she held the picture close to her face, squinting through the yellow of age and blue of stain to get a better understanding of perhaps who and what Liyah looked like but it was the boy standing close to her holding her hand whom she immediately recognised.

It was a very young and scrawny looking Anek.

——

cont..

Lurking shadows- 3

Read part 2 - here 

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The rains were reduced to a soft drizzle. The clouds were too spent to keep pouring and the humidity was clawing.

Mita kept thinking about the handprint on the wall.

It looked like someone had carelessly slapped the wall with a dirty hand and left the infuriating evidence to be celebrated.

That stain wasn’t on the wall when she’d seen the house first and now for it to suddenly reappear after Pink’s strange behaviour was abnormal. And what about the damp patch that was continuously moulding? It came out of nowhere too, didn’t it?

Mita shook her head to dislodge her thoughts. I’m not thinking straight.

She felt herself drifting to sleep yet her mind was too alert to the recent happenings in the house and it kept her limbs from completely relaxing.

Her calves were tense and the shoulders felt stiff. Her mind kept reverting back to the vision of the odd handprint on the wall.

She knew for a fact it didn’t exist until that moment.. until that stupid cat didn’t start staring at it.

‘There is something odd in this house isn’t it Pink?’ Mita whispered to the cat who sat with a patronizing air between a snoring Anek and herself.

Mita got up with a jerk. ‘I know what has to be done’ she declared to the humid air, the infuriating drizzle as her witness that night.

Walking out of the bedroom she grabbed a wad of makeup wipes from her bedside drawer and rubbed out the handprint.

The finger stains were replaced by an ugly blotch since the alcohol-infused wipes had sloughed off the paint on the wall and Mita was irrationally frantic in her endeavours as she realized once the yellowish paint began staining the damp wipe.

Well, at least the ghostly print is gone.

Mita felt content as she got back in bed and crawled back into a near sleep but that wasn’t meant to be. 

She woke up because Anek was touching her face.

It was a part of history the last time Mita felt any intimacy between them.

Ever since they moved into the new house, she’d stopped feeling him around her. They hardly exchanged words except acknowledging each others presence with a simple nod and Mita did not remember when last they’d kissed.

He tickled her cheek, brushing the tips of his finger on her mouth. Mita sighed and woke up to find the cat sitting close to her face, his fur sweeping her mouth.

‘Pink!’ she croaked sleepily and turned over to find Anek hovering over her face witlessly grinning, he licked his lips. ‘Good morning’ he said.

The pink coffee mug Mita found in the house sat silently on the table next morning.

Mita stood in a half frozen stance as one hand extended to pick up the mug but was interrupted because the owner of that arm yielded a piercing scream. Mita stood staring at the blotch on the wall through which peeked a handprint. Her mind raced trying to rationalize and reason.

‘l..l..last night I’d cleaned it. But maybe..uh..maybe I didn’t because it was dark I couldn’t see. But it should have been erased. Erased, erased if the paint came out’ Mita muttered in a frenzy half dazed trying to convince herself. She tried to make sense out of it but nothing stacked together like the boxes she’d recently unpacked.

A box labelled trash lay on the side. It was full of pots, cups, pans and bedsheets. Why was it labelled trash? 

Last night, yes, she remembered last night. Anek was staring at her face. What was he doing? 

She had woken up sweating, wanting to scream. Pinned on her bed she had been held down and someone was grabbing her throat.

This had happened before.

Mita raised her fingers to feel her neck and almost felt relieved to find it in place. It didn’t hurt as much as it did this morning. It was a dream. Anek had left for work and the fingerprint was back on the wall.

Pink was nowhere to be seen.

Mita picked up the coffee mug and sipped cold tea. She smiled and reasoned. ‘Of course, it was too dark last night and I didn’t wipe it properly.’ she spoke into the coffee mug. 

I’ll do it now, once I’ve unpacked.

She sat on the floor pulling out shiny brass pans and skillets out of the box. glossy cups, beautiful gossamer curtains with shimmering trimmings had been brutally clumped into a crumpled ball of fabric. White lacy runners and satin sheets were entwined in a messy knot.

‘What on earth is going on? was I about to throw all my lovely things?’ Mita raised a concerned eyebrow and kept pulling out one thing after another like a magician pulling out rabbits out of a hat. Important things had been scratched to trash on this cardboard box and she wondered why.

She had forgotten about the handprint on the wall, the humid stench was a prosaic routine and complaining about it felt counter productive now and didn’t seem as bothersome and the damp stain on the wall that collected mould was just there. 

What could be done about it? She was engrossed in unpacking once again.

Mita heard a distant mewing of the cat. Pink was somewhere around the house and the bell rang.

This was the first time in probably a week since she moved here that she heard the doorbell.

Mita realized she still wore the stained unwashed nightshirt which she had apparently thrown into the washer yesterday as she got up to open the door. 

Two serious looking men with an unsmiling but well meaning face stood at the door.

A sudden breath of fresh air outside the house made her realize the dank fug she’d been breathing. It troubled her to know that an oppressing stench enveloped her and felt embarrassed to think that she was probably stinking of it.

That she emanated the same mouldy stench wasn’t something the men’s expressions betrayed and slowly an understanding dawned upon Mita that the two men dressed in similar uniforms might be policeman.

The shorter of the two men was waving an ID at her, while trying to generate a pleasing smile.

Mita wasn’t averse in social graces which involved greeting policemen and so she just stood looking blank-faced.

The two policemen probably used to similar receptions didn’t much waste time before coming right to the point.

‘How long since you moved here?’ asked the shorter policeman now pocketing his ID.

‘About a week’ Mita’s trembling voice barely made it to their ears.

This time the taller policeman spoke, understanding Mita’s consternation. ‘ma’am please do not be alarmed. We are here to ask some questions regarding the previous tenant.’ he ended the sentence with a bland smile.

‘Oh,’ Mita blinked. ‘I’m afraid I do not know the previous tenant.’ she mumbled. ‘I..uh..I just moved in a week ago’ 

The policemen looked to be already appraised of the information. The shorted one nodded. ‘Yes,’ he interjected calmly. ‘we’ve already had a word with your landlord. He told us about your moving in. Just that sometimes renters know each other, specifically women. Often times they refer houses to their friends .’ he paused to exhale. ‘Your landlord doesn’t know much about her either, the previous renter I mean.’ He produced a small photograph out of his pocket. ‘Her name is Liyah’ the policeman gave the photo over to Mita for inspection. 

Her uninformed expression upon glancing at the picture was closely scrutinized by the two men. ‘Seems she has disappeared’ he said at length, taking back the photograph from her.

‘Disappeared?’ Mita looked puzzled.

The taller policeman shifted weight on his leg to observe the living room behind the pale woman who by all appearances looked like she had been dragged through life.

Her clothes needed a wash as did she. He caught a brief glimpse of the house behind her and it looked almost as dilapidated as its occupant.

‘yes’ his friend was still talking. 

The taller policeman who at this point was trying to conjure a personality profile of the woman stepped back at the sudden smell of soggy wind that seemed to blow out of the house.

How was his friend tolerating it?

‘She had paid her rent and moved out by all accounts’ the shorter policeman was talking ‘but her mother recently lodged a missing persons report.’ he inhaled sharply and invisibly recoiled at the musty stink coming from the house but betrayed no expressions of revulsion.

Mita was far too confused to express worry but her tone enunciated concern. ‘Oh!’ she said again. ‘I do not know anything about it whatsoever’ she sounded sincere.

The policemen were nodding in unison. ‘well..um.. you’ve just moved in and if there’s anything you find, anything that you think could be of help, please do let us know.’ the taller policeman unassumingly observed everything he saw inside the house while his colleague fished out a card from his pocket.

‘Please call us if you know anything’ he said bringing up a smile through the now very obvious fetid damp odour. 

MIta nodded and shut the door.

‘Phew,’ the two men audibly exhaled. ‘What was that?’ they were asking each other. ‘It smelled like the house is rotting’ said the taller one laughing. ‘Not sure it’s only the house.’ the shorter one concluded. 

Mita’s cheeks burned with tears as she listened to the two men make fun of her through the door. 

--

cont.

Lurking shadows - 2

Read part 1 - here

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Pink was his usual unfriendly self and Mita realized she preferred it that way.

‘Did I even sleep last night?’ she asked Pink who sat ignoring her some distance away. Judging by the weariness that clung to her all morning it didn’t seem like she’d slept any but she remembered nothing of the night which means she probably had.

Mita’s nightshirt smelled of the musty bed and the sheets needed changing but somehow she didn’t feel up to it.

The smell of damp now hung about the whole house and a small wet patch which she’d never seen before manufactured itself on the top corner of a wall.

Small spots that could have been green were they not as black manifested themselves as she stared and they seemed to be growing in size.

This, of course, wasn’t true. That damp patch had always been there, she’d just never noticed it, neither had Anek.

The rains continued to scream and Mita stared at the boxes that piled up to the ceiling.

Where did I keep all these things in my last home?

‘Where was home? Is this home?’

Anek hadn't’ spoken to her all morning after Mita narrated last night’s incident.

‘I’m not saying you attacked me’ she clarified ‘it just felt like it. It must have been a dream.’

Of course, it was a dream. Why would Anek try to kill her, but hadn’t he started acting strange ever since they moved into this house?

Mita asked herself these questions when in fact she should have addressed her concerns with Anek. 

She began unpacking the boxes while convincing herself that everything from last night was a dream.

The walls had seemed white when she’d first seen the house with Anek but today, as she sat sprawled on the floor pulling out timeworn tableware from a threadbare box labelled ‘important items’ the walls were a lacklustre yellow.

Important items?

What was so important about a rusting old skillet and a crippled wok? and why did she even have these things?

Why had she brought these near mutilated pieces of equipment into a new house that had suddenly begun smelling of damp and mould?

Mita sat staring at a cracked cup. She had six of those and none were part of a complete set. They were all different, each cracked.

Bent forks, dull spoons, ladles with broken handles, pots without handles, pans with burnt bottoms.

She pulled out one busted appliance after another damaged equipment followed by threadbare tablecloths, moth-eaten curtains, tattered shawls and dirty socks. Everything had to go. 

‘they all have to go!’ she addressed the air that stood heavy above her head. The stench of damp had morphed into a spicy discomfort.

She scratched out the label ‘important things’, renamed it ‘trash’ and piled in all the dilapidated items scattered around her on the floor.

The few things she could salvage were so few that she wondered why in the first place had she packed so many boxes.

It was strange and Mita couldn’t understand all the trouble she must have gone through to actually pack and move so many pointless boxes.

She looked down at her nightshirt that suddenly resembled the damp spot on the wall. 

How many days had she been wearing it now? It looked dirty and stained.

Pink was grooming himself somewhere in the distance and perhaps that was a sign to take a shower?

Who knew? Mita didn’t believe in signs nor did she understand them.

As she stacked the few items of wearable clothes in the closet, she saw for the first time since she moved here, a ladies handbag hanging in the back of the cupboard. She’d never seen it before, maybe because she never really fully opened the twin doored closet. It was easier to just fling everything on a chair instead.

It wasn’t a new handbag, neither an expensive one, In fact, the plausible reason it was left there, hanging about in a pinewood prison was probably that it was old, shopworn and just as tattered as most of the clothes Mita owned.

First the night lamp and now a handbag.

Mita wondered what all had been left behind to be found.

Before the day was over Mita had discovered a t-shirt and a set of blue and pink coffee mugs that had the words ‘his’ and ‘hers’ printed on them in an obscure font.

The t-shirt was old and torn which made it an ideal candidate for being cast away because what else might she do with a t-shirt that didn’t even belong to her? but the coffee mugs could be useful.

They weren’t cracked, didn’t look as aged and perhaps she could drink coffee out of them.

Coffee! this word felt new. She’d not had one in a while. Maybe she’d make some.

But where was coffee?

Wasn’t Anek drinking it this morning?

Pink sat on the couch explicitly ignoring Mita’s friendly advances and she understood he didn’t wish to be interrupted.

She sat quietly beside him, clutching the pink coffee mug while trying hard to not stare at the damp patch on the wall which looked to have grown.

The musty stench ate at her. She’d have to remedy this sorry situation soon and she would have given it some more thought had there not been a sudden movement in the corner of her right eye.

Pink was at it again.

He’d become alert with startling suddenness and stared at the pink coffee mug.

There was a somewhat curious question in his eyes as he stared at Mita’s hand, that steadily shook with unease.

‘What is it, sweetie?’ she gathered her guts to ask the engrossed cat who now began to slowly walk towards Mita.

The old couch which came with the house that was distinctly large in regards to the size of the living room had now shrunk as Pink closed the distance between himself and the anxious woman in two long strides.

He purred looking at the cup.

The usual loving purr that he’d emanate on seeing Anek.

He purred again and craned his neck to be petted and looked distinctly pleased. he wasn’t looking at Mita at all. She held her breath and couldn’t smell the musty stink anymore.

The coffee mug absorbed her trepidation and convulsed with the shudder that crawled along Mita’s spine.

‘Please stop it Pink’ her beseeching murmurs fell on deaf ears because Pink continued to purr.

He loved being petted.

Her heart which had until now not let itself felt pounded against her chest. She could see the stains on her shirt vibrate.

‘Stop it Pink’ her icy voice fell out in disjointed words of broken rambles but Pink continued to purr, increasing the intensity as if trying to drown her petitions.

The pink mug now sloshed its contents out on the floor. Mita wanted to fling that mug at the awful cat and run out of the house screaming without looking back, but she was in too deep right now.

Pink was inches away from her beating heart, staring at someone standing next to her, getting petted, her coffee mug convulsed, the tongue was paralyzed and tears streamed down her cheeks wetting the stains on her nightshirt making them look ghastlier.

‘there’s nothing.’ she muttered.

Pink wasn’t listening.

Her words came out in a soft gurgle ‘there’s nothing here Pink. Please don’t do this.’ She begged.

Pink was purring contently.

Mita found her feet. ‘I am going to stand now.’ she still held the coffee mug and the cat finally heard her voice which was much louder this time. He pricked his ears a brief second before ignoring her again and jumping down from the couch.

The damp came screaming in her nostrils, she felt her lungs collecting mildew and in one big swoop Mita stood up, spilling all her coffee on the floor and swung back her cup to let it hit something. She wasn’t sure what she was aiming for.

Her left arm sliced through the damp air.

Mita cheered ‘there’s nothing!’ She laughed and howled. 

‘silly cat, you silly silly cat’ Mita was jumping. Screaming with happiness she spread her hands to address the empty house, claiming her victory over whatever there was and saw behind her on the wall a handprint which wasn’t there before.

--

Cont.