SUSPENSE STORY

                                          "THE GREEN HOUSE"

As children we travelled from the city to the village where my grandmother lived. We enjoyed the ride and each every moment is still cherished. Our ancestral house was situated a little away from the small town and each house stood in hectares of land unlike the ones we stayed in the city. Our village days began with early morning prayers. During the day Nandu and I along with the village children played a lot of “desi games” the ones which were found only in the villages, ate ghee sweets prepared by grandmother, enjoyed the milk from Nandini our cow, climbed trees, went hiking, etc. At night our grandmother made sure that we went early to bed.

We enjoyed each and every corner of the village. The village seemed to have something that the city lacked. But there was one such place that the elders prohibited us from visiting. And that was the little green house that stood in the corner of the lane. The house was quite pretty from outside. There was a beautiful garden with a path paved from the gate to the entrance of the house. Though the house looked quite old it looked beautiful. We kids wanted to explore the place. But we never ever were given a chance to. Stories revolved that the house was haunted by a lady who had been murdered. The ghost was seen by some elders in the village. The underlying mystery was unknown.

One Sunday evening with the permission of our grandmother, Nandu and I along with the village children visited the temple fair in our village. We promised our grandmother that we will be back before the dusk had set in. And as to our word Nandu and I walked back to our house while the other children returned to theirs.

The night had started to set in. The trees were creaky and the owls flew among them. We walked through the lane. The green house could be viewed at a distance.

Suddenly Nandu said, “ Didi can we go to the green house?’

“But Nandu granny will be furious with us.” I replied.

But Nandu had made up his mind. He was slowly pulling my hands and before I could make out we had entered the compound of the house. The house looked a little dirtier than we could we see from outside the compound. Dried leaves lay all along the ground. We moved one step at a time to the entrance of the house.

We pushed the doors of the house and it opened . Nandu and I walked through the dark passage of the house. The lights of the house were broken. Even if they were not electricity was out of question. But the courtyard brought in the silver moonlight into the house. The moonlight led us into a huge room with some broken old furniture.

“ Didi do you expect a ghost here?” asked Nandu.

“Shh….” I had to silence Nandu. I wondered if the ghost stories were true. We moved from room to room. The walls of the room were decorated with huge scary paintings.

“ Nandu lets go home. Granny will worry.” I said.

Nandu reluctantly agreed and soon we walked back to the front door. We tried to open the door but to our dismay the doors would not open. It had got locked from outside.

“ Didi what shall we do?” Nandu started to cry.

“ Nandu don’t cry let’s see if there is any other way out” I comforted him.

We moved through the house trying to find some rear entrance or openings. The rear doors were all locked from outside. I realized we were trapped.

We sat in the passage a little scared. The whole place looked very weird with cobwebs and large scary huge black poisonous spiders. The night passed and midnight arrived. Hoots of some wild animals, cry of cats and all sorts of frightening sounds filled the air. For once I felt that we had lost our lives to some ghosts. I could hear the rain falling heavily outside. I cried silently.

“Didi wake up.” I could feel Nandu’s small hands on my face.

I opened my eyes. The first rays of sunlight crept through the courtyard ceiling. In the daylight we saw a much prettier ghost house this time less scary than it appeared in the night. The courtyard had a glass ceiling and the sunlight was coming through them. The pictures which seemed scary the previous night looked beautiful and aristocratic. They looked like some modern art and pictures of gods. The house must have belonged to someone who had a deep interest in paintings.

“Nandu let’s see if we can get out of this place.  Granny would have filed a case at the village police station by now.”

We moved through the rooms to see if there were any openings we could not see because of the dark the previous night. The rooms looked much better though it was very dirty.

“Didi what is that?” Nandu pointed to a huge chest in the corner. It looked like a treasure chest. The metal on top of the box depicted a devilish face.

“Ghosts live in the dark” whispering these words to myself I opened the chest. We were surprised to see the chest full of antiques, gold, jewellery, precious and semi precious stones and what and all.

“Hey Didi look granny’s bronze elephant” Nandu shouted.

Granny had a bronze elephant with beautiful big tusks which had been stolen by some thieves some years back.

“Nandu this chest contains things stolen from the villagers” I replied.

We could hear noises outside and soon the front door opened. The village police had arrived to rescue us.

“Nandu , Lakshmi… …”Granny’s eyes were filled with tears.

“Granny see… your bronze elephant” Nandu was excited.

All of us walked out of the house into the village lane. There was a crowd outside but we children walked like heroes from some detective story who had helped the poor villagers to hunt their treasure. The air was filled with gossips of how we children had recovered the lost belongings. It seems there was no ghost that lived in the house and the thieves who had kept the stolen things had spread fear among the villagers. Anyway whatever the truth might be Nandu and I dare not to visit the green house again. That scary dark night ……….

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