For children: A stolen antique, a wrongly accused boy, and a haunted bungalow full of secrets

There was something not quite right about the place.

Only a moment’s strangeness, but it thudded through Rishi as soon as he got out of the car, taking him by the scruff of his neck and knocking him off his feet. The phone fell from his hand, and he would have fallen too, flat on his face on the gravel, had he not grabbed the door in time. He peeked at his mother to see whether she had felt it too, but she was on the other side, talking to the driver.

Just as quickly, the feeling passed. Probably dizziness, he thought, taking a cautious step, or leg cramps. He had been hunched up in the car for far too long. All the way from the airport and then up, up, up the twisting mountain roads. Staying in one position for too long, that had to be it. Something to do with blood circulation, he had read in a book. That’s what had brought on the spell of dizziness.

He picked up his phone and pressed the big centre button. The screen blinked back with its usual light, and there were no cracks, so that was good. His legs were behaving themselves now. Just to check, he jerked his hands up and down as if he were shaking off invisible drops of water. Nothing. All normal. As if he had dreamed it all.

“What’s the matter, Rishi?” asked his mother. “All okay? What a lovely old bungalow! Why aren’t the lights on?”

Night had fallen, so Rishi couldn’t see much. Besides, what was there to see? Yet another old bungalow on top of a hill, left over from British times.

In any case, he was hungry, so he only said, “Yes”.

Ma laughed. “Hungry already? Don’t worry, they were told to have dinner ready for us. Let’s go in.”

They followed the driver up the shallow steps. “Bindaram!” hollered the man, putting down their suitcases. Rishi jumped, and as if by magic, the lights in the bungalow came on. Not one or two, but all at once, so that Rishi had to throw up his hand to shield his eyes.

A man shuffled out of the house, also as if by magic.

“Hello, good evening!” Ma called at once. “Are you the chowkidar?”

The man tottered up to them. He was old and stooped and all muffled up in many, many layers of clothing. A thick shawl wrapped over a khaki sweater, under which Rishi noticed a faded shirt and an equally faded pair of trousers. The trousers were short, showing bony ankles before his feet disappeared into wrinkled socks and old leather sandals.

“Memsa’ab, sorry, memsa’ab,” the chowkidar touched a gloved hand to his woolly cap. “Me … I am chowkidar. All ready for you. Magister sahab sent a message. Dinner also ready.”

“Thank you, Bindaram,” said Ma. “We were worried when we saw everything was in darkness.” She looked at her watch. “Shall we say dinner at about seven? That’s in about an hour?”

“Seven o’clock dinner. Yes, okay, memsa’ab,” nodded Bindaram. He picked up their suitcases
and shuffled away.

“He seems very unsteady on his feet,” said Ma to the driver. “Is he unwell? Will he be able to do the work?”

“Bindaram, very good caretaker, madam,” the driver declared at once. “Age no problem. Strong as ten men. Always he do everything – caretaking, cooking, gardening. But now—”

“Now?”

The driver leaned forward. “Now, after the trouble,” he whispered, “he become like broken-down man.”

“What trouble?”

“Aah,” the driver shook his head sadly, “too much trouble.” He looked up and stopped. “Bindaram has brought your tea, madam, and I will come tomorrow morning, nine-thirty sharp.” He saluted smartly and left.

The bungalow was an hour’s drive from the nearest town, which itself was three hours from the nearest airport. Ma had a string of meetings scheduled in town with the district magistrate and other important officials, but she had not wanted to stay there. “Too noisy,” she had said. “We should get a little peace, Rishi, don’t you think?”

So she had been very pleased when offered the bungalow on top of the hill. A squat little one-storeyed structure raised on a moderately high plinth, with lawns front and back. The front steps opened onto a broad verandah, which led directly into a hall that served as both dining and drawing room. A set of tall double doors with heavy brass handles guarded the main entrance, solid wood for the most part with coloured glass panes at the top. Over the threshold, they could see Bindaram hovering with a tray that he placed carefully on a tea table in front of the fireplace, midway down the hall to their left.

“You drink tea, memsa’ab,” said Bindaram. “Then I show you rooms and bungalow and everything.”

Before they entered, Rishi had been sure he would sneeze. Bungalows like these were always full of dust and mustiness, like old, locked away, unused places. He wasn’t prepared for the dazzling lights, the freshness and the sparkling cleanliness overall. He looked at Bindaram, who was arranging the tea things. How did he manage to keep this place so clean? And what was the trouble that had made him so anxious and doddery?

The tea tray looked as old as the bungalow itself. It was intricately wrought in heavy silver, with matching cutlery, equally old but beautifully polished and sparkling. “Oh look!” Ma exclaimed in delight even before she sat down. “Tea napkins! I don’t know anyone who uses tea napkins any more!” Little fussy squares of lace, starched, ironed, folded and placed between each cup and saucer. To soak up spills, said Ma. Rishi had never seen such things before. Even the tea set itself was of such fine porcelain that he was afraid the handle would snap off as soon as he lifted the cup. Why couldn’t they just use mugs and tissues like normal people?

When they had finished their tea and biscuits, Bindaram showed them around. Not that there was a lot to see, but everything was different, as if it belonged in another forgotten world. To the right of the main door was a little nook with ornate bookshelves and display cases and a curved window. There was a matching window on the left with a round marble-top table for meals and a silver candelabrum with six white candles. Midway through the bungalow was the fireplace with its cosy chairs and tea table, and opposite that were two sets of double doors leading to two bedrooms, side by side.

Proudly, Bindaram led them to the master bedroom where he had already turned on the lights. Like the drawing room, the bedroom was clean and sweet-smelling, and the doors, like the front door, were made of solid wood but louvred, so that the light filtered through the slats.

The master bedroom was HUGE. Large, much larger than any room Rishi had ever seen, with a ceiling reaching high up, higher than their ceilings at home, higher than ceilings anywhere. Rishi got a crick in his neck just by looking all the way up to the top. There was a crisscross pattern of broad iron beams with the occasional wooden beam in between. In the centre, an old-fashioned four-bladed fan hung from a long iron rod. Underneath it was a four-poster bed, the wood gleaming with age, the canopy worn but still intact. The room was stuffed with furniture. The dark, heavy kind seen in sepia-toned pictures and heritage homestays, things that would never be part of any normal person’s life nowadays, certainly not Rishi’s. Like the dressing table in the corner at the far end, facing the bathroom door. Spindly legs, tiny, fussy drawers that could be jiggled open till they fell into your hand and a mirror, split into three, that folded into itself like a triptych.

“Lovely,” said Ma. Everything in this old dreaming place of the past was making her sigh with delight. “Now, let’s see.” She went into the bathroom. The sound of splashing water followed, and his mother came back beaming. “Everything works just fine. I really must take a shower before we eat.” She grabbed her clothes and went back in, humming.

Rishi amused himself by fiddling with the drawers and peeping into the mirror to see if his mother had finished. When at last he saw a figure emerge from the bathroom, he turned to say, “Ma, look—”

But the bathroom door was still shut, and his mother was still inside. He could hear the sound of running water and her continuous tuneless humming.

Then who had come out of the bathroom just now?

“Ma!” he called, suddenly feeling cold. “Ma! Ma!”

Excerpted with permission from The Curse of the Khukri, Madhurima Vidyarthi, illustrated by Shemeel Ahammad, Puffin India.

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• horror
• children's fiction