Vasu, Day 17

The walk out of the house wasn't easy. Vishwa paid no attention to Ahalya and rained his never-ending questions on Vasu, who had kept his mouth shut. They ignored the whopping wind, barking dogs and even the rising discomfort among them.

Vasu was shivering as he led them. The image of Ahalya from the previous night was stuck in his head. No matter what he tried, it came back. Her white eyes. Her flying hair. After the doors of the old bedroom had shut, he almost pissed himself. Then, he ran to his room and slept with the door locked, waking up for every tiny noise. Was she possessed? Or was she paralysed? The paralysed people would seem similar; the eyes rolled backwards, the trembling body and the involuntary spasms and twitches, just like her head moved. But he saw her flying above the ground. Vasu attempted to be rational. It could be a trick of the light or a psychic effect of his fears. He had been imagining things, and he saw them.

But one thing he knew for sure: She was drawing.

They assembled in Vasu's room beside the shed. It was the same as how Ahalya had seen before. A cot. A window. The top shelf with a God's photo frame. A bag of clothes peeked from under the bed, a t-shirt hanging off the zipper.

The sketches were set before them. Ahalya sat on the floor, while Vishwa took the cot. Vasu leaned to the wall, which contained the sketches resembling a scene from a detective movie. The sun was absent, and the blueness made the sketches look fainter. That day, if the clouds could talk, they would've warned them to leave the village.

"Let's begin, shall we?" Vasu said.

Ahalya exchanged a glance with her fiancé, preparing herself for the radical view he would present. He stopped believing in God and that would apply to the devil too, she guessed.

The door was still open, and it played with Ahalya's hair. "Sure," she said.

"Let's go back to the beginning," he said, staring at the wall of papers. "When did you draw the first sketch?"

"On the night of my accident at the river. I woke up in Vishwa's old bedroom from a painful dream and found the surrounding papers."

Vishwa closed his mouth for a chortle. He was enjoying this playing detective and his loyal supporter.

"Good. Now, seen separately, these sketches are a mess. They aren't detailed either. But they have something. Timelines play an important role." He pointed to the side of the wall, which held the sketches of the garden. A Column of papers had been pasted top to bottom. "Ahalya drew a lot of images of our garden. I thought they were just that. Then I noticed they all have the same view."

Ahalya twisted her head. "It's a view from the right side of the house."

"Exactly," Vasu said, walking to the door. He twisted and faced them, pointing a finger outside. "It's a view from the gate in the compound wall."

Three of them peered at the narrow, wrought-iron gate that was swaying to the wind.

"On our next column," Vasu said, going back. "Here we have sketches of a family. A mother. A father. And a child. I guess the child's age is a year or two. Who are these people? The big mystery. I thought they are impossible without faces. But if you forget about who they are for a second and correctly arrange them, they are telling a story."

Vasu ran his finger down the sketches on the wall. "For example, take the father. He's been happy and healthy in the first sketches. As we go down, he's not smiling anymore. Thanks to your fine detailing Ahalya, we can identify he's become thinner too. Look at his face. His cheeks turned sharp and hollow. They used to be round. And the change is so sudden." Vasu kept tapping two simultaneous images, and Ahalya stared at them.

"Why the sudden change?" Vishwa asked.

Ahalya looked at him, wondering if he was just humouring them. Or was he actually interested?

Vaus shrugged. "It might be anything. Long underlying depression. An accident. Changes in medication. Or good old negligence of health."

"And the child," Vasu went on. He grabbed a measuring scale. "The changes are almost invisible, but thanks to Ahalya again, we could see them. I don't know the drawing measurements, but he's three centimetres taller in the latter sketches. And he's got two more strands of hair."

Ahalya could tell Vasu was enjoying this. He was struggling to breathe for the incessant talking, but god was he zealous.

"All right." Vishwa stood up, dusting his hands. "I've seen enough. Both of you come to me when you are ready to be grownups."

Vasu blocked his path. "Listen to me, this is important."

"She's drawing but has no memory of it. You are decoding them, but there's too much drama in it. I am bored."

"I saw her drawing, Vishwa," Vasu said.

Ahalya turned at Vasu so fast, her eyes searching the emotions on his face. What happened last night? Is that why you are ignoring me? Are you scared of me? She worked hard not to bombard him with questions.

"She's probably sleep-drawing," Vishwa said.

"It's not a condition, Vishwa. I checked."

Vishwa loomed over Vasu. "Then, what she needs is a doctor. She can hurt herself waking up in the nights like this."

"You got any other explanations?" Vasu asked. Ahalya could see him losing his patience.

"I don't know. Like someone else is drawing them and making a stage show out of it."

Ahalya stood up, too. "Are you drawing them?"

"What?" Vishwa scoffed. "Why would I do that?"

"Are you trying to portray me mad by staging this on me?"

"Do you hate me that much?"

Ahalya mumbled, "You did lie about the comment."

"You will never let me forget that, will you?"

Vasu slipped in between them and said, "You can fight later. But you need to hear this one out."

"I don't want to," Vishwa screamed, storming out. "Both of you have lost your minds."

"Let's say, you are right. Don't you want to know who's breaking into your house and planting these sketches around your fiancée?"

Vishwa turned back. His eyes were red, nostrils flaring. "I'll deal with it later. Now, I need to be away from you two."

"You can't do that," Vasu yelled back. "You can't postpone when people you love are hurting."

"Why? She doesn't bother about me. Why should I?"

"Because I had been the same with Bhanu," he said. Tears were his next words. They streamed down his face. "She called me the day she went missing. Three hours earlier. I didn't pick up. I was busy planning a ragging session to look cool." He fell on his knees and sobbed. "Now, she's gone and I can't find her. It's my entire fault. If I had lifted the call—"

The couple gathered, hugging from both sides.

"Hey, she's going to be fine. She's just somewhere else." Vishwa said. He stared at Ahalya's face and continued, "You're not alone. We'll be there for you."

A smile crept upon her lips. "We'll be there for you."

"I can't believe I'm saying this," Vishwa left him and leaned against a wall. "Let's continue making theories about the sketches."

"It's not just about the sketches," Vasu said. He hiccupped twice and raised his hand to the last sketch in the column. "The mother. She's from Aranyavaram."

Vishwa lost his frowning face and said, "What?"

"Observe every position of her from the beginning. If we say this is a photo, they are facing the camera. But in the later sketches, the view circled them," Vasu rose on his knees and hit a picture in the third column. "showing us their backs too. They are still playing with the kid, but see near her neck."

Vishwa froze, placing his hands on the wall. "The tattoo?"

"What tattoo?" Ahalya asked.

"See the wing-shaped tattoo that's exposed out of her blouse. Between the neck and the shoulder."

"Ha! Vishwa has a claw on one of his calves," Ahalya said. "That's coincidental?"

Vishwa nodded his head saying, "Yes. Years ago, we had this weird guy in the village. He used to sell birds and lived in the street opposite the temple. And he also had this recreational habit of tattooing people. But only birds. No names. No shapes. Just anything related to birds. It's not like that these days. He would use a sharp needle, dip it in something and it would hurt like hell."

"And it ends up green. My sister has one near her elbow. A swan." Vasu added.

"What's with the mass tattooing?"

"I don't know about others," Vishwa picked up. "When I used to come home for holidays, we used to hang in a group. Me, Indira, Bhanu, Varma, who's a constable now and two other guys; we'd meet up at the back of the temple. Once we were talking about some elders' tattoos and how good they were. Wings. Feathers. Beaks. Claws. And Varma boasted he could bear the pain of the tattoo. We all disagreed with him. Yet, he wanted to show off, and he took us to this tattoo guy. That idiot literally got one without a scream. So, I tried too. Then, Bhanu was next. Watching us scream, Indira had bailed. She said her father would kill her. Although, we knew she had been too much of a princess for that to happen."

"No parent objected to that?"

"Well, Varma got a thrashing from his father. Then, he screamed. Bhanu and I didn't show ours for a few days. However, when my mother found out, that weird guy had to leave the village."

"His life for your tattoo. Nice." Ahalya snapped.

"He had gone and settled in the next village. No big deal."

"And back to our topic," Vasu said. "The important question is if she's from here." He turned to see Ahalya. "How did you learn about this tattoo?"

Vishwa interrupted them. "Or whoever is drawing these are from here?"

But Vasu and Ahlaya passed to a different world, talking with their eyes. They were asking each other who was making her draw these sketches. What were they trying to tell? What was up with this drama?

"Is it a staring game?" Vishwa said. "Should I join?"

Ahalya broke the gaze and said, "So, wrapping this up in simple words. Garden View. Husband. Happy to sad. Child. Growing. Wife. Tattoo. Local."

"It makes no sense," Vishwa said.

The thought came rushing to Ahalya, and she swallowed. She needed to think. Be sure, before doubting someone.

Vasu sighed, sitting. "That I agree. But this entire thing helped me realize something."

The couple waited, not blinking. His mind already bewitched them. So smart. So lovely.

"What if my sister didn't disappear on that road?"

"What do you mean?" Vishwa asked, his voice stern.

"It's all about the timeline, right? If we assume the worst-case scenario, she went to the doctor, found out she's pregnant and returned home. Then, she met someone mysterious on the muddy road. But what if she came home? To Dwaraka? What if someone kidnapped her here? I mean, Yamuna hadn't come back until night from the temple."

"You mean the mysterious guy followed her here?" Vishwa asked.

After that, Ahalya crawled backwards from both of them, cancelling them out. The situation became a lot of hocus-pocus, and she started thinking in her demented way. The thoughts lined up, making sense. Or she lined them up to prove her theory. It was all based on chances and again, everything is.

Bhanu was pregnant when she disappeared from the house. Vishwa and she journeyed here after a few days for a vacation. She met Indira and Jagadeesh. The first time she spent time with Jagadeesh, she had an accident. After that, she had begun drawing these things. Kalyani committed suicide. The second time she had met Indira, someone was following them. Also, Indira admitted she got herself a tattoo on the ankle. But hadn't she been scared to get one? Or she'd been humiliated and got a similar wing tattoo after she grew up? They were the only couple with a child. A one-year-old named Ayaan.

If there's something or someone in the house, then Ahalya's huge, glittering question was: Why guide me towards this couple? What did they do?