Colin dozed in the sanctuary of the quiet train compartment, empty save for him.

His mouth was parted a little from the corner of his mouth, from which drool dribbled down his chin and onto the shirt he was wearing. A half-open journal with a thick ribbed pen inside it lay on his lap. The scanty light of the moon that entered through the open windows of the train illuminated the scrawls of his hand on the paper.

Silence prevailed everywhere around him. Other than the repetitive whoosh-whoosh of the train, the night was quiet. It was rather humid as well. Not a lead moved. As if they waited with bated breath. Waited for something to happen. Something momentous.

The sleeping Colin realised none of it. He was tucked in a safe space of his mind where he could retreat whenever he went to sleep. He slept like a corpse. Nightmares had no place in Colin Silverthorne's nocturnal schedule. At least not yet.

Thus, even as the train slowed down, he did not notice. Lost to the clutches of Hypnos, he was sprawled on the hard, uncomfortable seat of the train. He might have been born into a privileged house, but that did not mean he did not have his fair share of nights spent on the attic floor. The train seat was heaven compared to the cold floor. And oh, there weren't any rats.

It took two sharp raps on the door of his compartment from a conductor to wake him up.

"Babu?"

Colin jolted upright. With swollen eyelids and unkempt hair, he looked at the one who woke him up. In a disgruntled voice he said;

"Ye-s?"

"You have reached your destination." The conductor said. "We are soon going to stop at Nishikantopur station."

Colin frowned in the dark. For a moment, he was lost. His mind could not place where he was or why he was there. Then, like the glimmer of the buttons on the conductor's coat, the memories of the past few days returned to him. With the back of his palm, he wiped away the drool on his face, gathered the journal and the pen, and put it in his trunk.

"Thank you so much for waking me," he smiled whilst heaving the trunk in his seat after he got up from it. "Otherwise, I would have missed my stop."

"That happens quite a lot." the conductor grinned as he and Colin emerged out of the compartment. "But if the babu does not mind me asking, what are you going to do at Nishikantopur?"

Colin pursed his lips, confused at how much was he going to reveal to this unknown man. "I have some…work there. Why do you ask?"

"No Babu," the conductor shook his head. "I was only curious. It is that few people come to these parts of the country. Especially babus like you."

Colin went silent. At that very moment, the train came to a halt. By that time, they were at the door of the train. As the vehicle ceased all movements, Colin climbed down onto the platform. He was the sole passenger to do so. Because as soon as he was done, the train whisked behind him, leaving behind a puff of smoke.

The silence of the night bore upon him with full force.

Yet the first thing Colin noticed was not the silence, but the cold. His skin stung from it. It went beneath his muscles and crawled around his bones. His teeth chattered. How he wished to have brought something a little warmer to Nishikantopur. But how could he know it was so different from Calcutta?

He rubbed his fingers before lifting his trunk off the platform. His eyes darted around the platform. There was no one there, not a single soul. It was pitch black, and he could only make out the outlines of the objects in the dark. A low mist hung over the place.

Suddenly, Colin felt wide awake. His pulse raced. Fear poked at his empty stomach, making acidic bile rise in his throat. However, he could not think about bad breath at that moment. He was afraid. Afraid that the train had dropped him at the wrong station and now he had nowhere to go. What would he do then? He did not know. It was just like being a child when his father would lock him up in the attic for the night.

"You are ten, for heaven's sake, Colin! Ten! Why can't you be like boys your age and stop with your tall tales?"

He shivered as the memories of his father's rebuke replayed in his mind. This station was so much like that attic that he couldn't unsee the similarities; the infinite blackness with long shadows of things he could not see and a lurking suspicion that something was out there. Something that could grab him at any moment.

"Are you the babu who masaheb wanted me to ferry across the river?"

That was it. Colin jumped, lost his balance, and fell down on the hard concrete. As he dusted himself off the ground, he noticed the glow of a lantern rapidly making its way towards him. With a firm hand on his trunk, he got back up on his feet.

"Yes," Colin nodded. "Yes, I think so. This is Nishikantopur, right?"

The lantern light revealed a gaunt dark skinned man in his mind sixties. "Yes, babu. You are in Nishikantopur. And I am Harihar. I am the lone ferryman who can take you in and out of the village." His smile revealed a neat set of betel blackened teeth.

"Oh yes. We have to cross the river." Colin scratched his head. "How long will it take?"

"An hour, depending on the tides." Harihar said. "But let us not waste time. It is not a good thing to be outside in the dark for so long."

Colin frowned despite himself. "Why?"

"There are pisachs who roam the outskirts of our hamlet. You do not want to attract their attention lest you want to die." The ferryman's eyes gleamed like a cat's in the yellow light of the swaying lantern. "Now come on, babu. Follow me."

Colin did as instructed. This tiny man, who did not even reach up to his chest, had given him a lot of food for thought. He looked at the dark and deserted station for one last time before following the thud of Harihar's footsteps that led them outside the station.

Nishikantopur had given him quite a welcome.

***

"Place some lamps there," Priyamvada instructed a sleepy group of maids. "We do not want the house to remain dark while welcoming a guest. It is a bad omen."

Kumudini laughed while sitting on the stool which Lalita had occupied in the morning. "We are welcoming Lalita's groom to Nishikantopur and not a mere investigator."

"Why do you always have to say such things, Kumudini?" Priyamvada asked with a disgruntled frown on her forehead. "Your bold jests sometimes scare me."

"Ah!" Kumudini sighed. "That is the problem. You are just too scared, Priyamvada. So much so that you could not get out of it even after all this time."

Priyamvada said nothing. Instead, she focused on the task at hand. The frown on her forehead grew deeper. She took a few lit earthen lamps from the maids and placed them around the courtyard. Not that she was without love for Kumudini. No, she would even give up her life for her. But sometimes she spoke truths too hard to bear.

Dawn was just about to break at the horizon of the sky. The sky was a soft cerulean blue with wafts of sapphire clouds floating here and there. Only sounds were of the crows and hustles of the maids' footsteps in the zamindar house, as they prepared to welcome Colin Silverthorne among them.

"Priyam?" Kumudini called, swinging her feet back and forth from the stool. "What are we planning to feed our new guest?"

Priyamvada craned her neck to meet Kumudini's gaze. "I am not sure, but I wanted to make some luchi for him. Lalita would know better, though."

"Honestly, do you think a man like him would like luchi?" Kumudini scrunched her face. "No, Priyamvada. We ought to make something that he used to eat back at home. Maybe something with meat—"

"Oh, my goodness!" Priyamvada put both her hands on her ears. "It is Tuesday, Kumudini. You know we do not have meat today."

The merry tinkle of Kumudini's laughter echoed in the courtyard. "Don't get so flustered! It was only a joke."

"A bad one."

Priyamvada muttered under her breath. She could not believe that she fell for Kumudini's words. That woman knew how to twist and turn words and derive new meanings out of it. And ever since the night before, she had become even more sarcastic. The investigator's arrival seemed to have quite an impact on Kumudini. Her jests had grown somewhat crueller.

The thud of Sarder's footsteps, the head of the lathiyals of Lalita, broke her chain of thoughts. She put down the last lamp on the floor before turning around to face him.

"The babu will be here in another half an hour," Sardar said with his head lowered. "I came here to tell that to masaheb."

Priyamvada sucked in a deep breath. "Alright. I will inform her about it myself. You may go now, Sardar."

The man bowed and tapped his wooden rod once upon the ground before leaving the courtyard. Priyamvada gathered the pleats of her saree and rushed towards Kumudini with one leg upon another. Much of her thighs was exposed, her red clad feet and bejewelled anklets making her look like the dark goddess herself.

"Kumud!" she exclaimed with widened eyes. "You heard what Sardar said. The investigator will be here any time now! This is how you will behave in front of him?"

Priyamvada pointed towards the exposed flesh of her friend. But that did not faze the latter. She smiled a smile so beguiling that for a moment Priyamvada lost the track of her words. Her teeth were so perfect, not unlike jasmine. Long, white and sharp, they complemented her full lips really well. Kumudini could rip out hearts of men with that smile of hers; a fact that they both knew all too well.

"I am going to call Lalita. Stay here, alright?" Priyamvada mumbled.

Her voice was only just discernible. She took a few steps back and rushed into the interiors of the zamindar house. Her cheeks had suddenly grown warm. The sound of her anklets tinkled with each step she took, its sound melancholic like that of a wind chime in an abandoned room.

Kumudini sat where she was with her thighs exposed. It did not matter here. The rules of men held no value in this hamlet Nishikantopur was their domain. They could enjoy freedom to every extent imaginable.

Of course, no one dared to look at her with anything less than respect. All the maids kept their gazes lowered, their focus only on the lamps they had lit. It was then in the courtyard's silence that Kumudini closed her eyes and twirling a lock of her hair, humming a song as dear to her as life itself.

"The silent night sleeps at your feet,
dark like a maiden's hair…"

***