The Spectre’s Recompense
by Saurav Ranjan Datta
Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion
In the following days, a promotion in his office and the resulting increase in work pressure made him forget a lot of things from his past. His work kept him busy, and days passed away like the blink of an eye. Then came a summer when Neel finally got a leave for a few days. The best thing he did was to take his parents and travel to the hill station of Darjeeling. He needed a break.
Once there, they checked into a hotel with a nice view of the Himalayas. To his delight, Neel also found a bookshop close by. He went there as soon as he had changed and taken his meal. He knew that these hill station bookshops kept a large collection on one of his favourite subjects: mountains.
As he was paying for the books he hand-picked, Neel’s eyes inadvertently fell towards the bookstore’s wide door that gave way to the mall road. What he saw there made him numb again. She was there! His heart stopped for a moment. She was crossing the path in front of the store. Neel sprang up and came out of the shop like a flash of lightning. But the moment he stepped out, she was nowhere to be found. How fast could she move? She was just gone. He had lost her again. Neel still ran towards every thoroughfare and even asked a few bystanders. But that didn’t help at all. Just like the mountain peaks in the distance, her presence remained ethereal.
The next day came with another jolt. Some morning walkers, in the wee hours of the morning, found a dead body lying in front of the same bookshop. It was a lady. The cause of her demise was not known. The local police started their investigation and everybody hence waited its results. Quite expectedly, the small town buzzed with the incident.
As a result, it also came to Neel’s attention. He saw her photo soon on the local news channels and found that she was a local elderly resident. She seemed quite familiar, but again Neel didn’t dwell on it further. Nonetheless, a chill ran down his spine. Something, somewhere, was seriously amiss.
Neel felt a fear he had hitherto never experienced. This was something that he could not even discuss with his parents. He kept turning the matter over in his mind. There was nobody to confide in, and nobody would in any way believe the absurdity of the matter. Neel only kept asking himself: “What is happening? Is this for real?”
As things stood, his appetite for a nice and peaceful vacation evaporated as quickly as it had come. It was too macabre now for any comfort. Without much headway, the best thing he could do was to convince his parents to return, shortening their vacation, which he did, and they all came back to their home soon. But coming back home did not bring back any peace of mind. For many days after that, he thought and wondered about it again and again. Were the incidents related? Or was it just coincidences followed by tragedies? But answers never came, and as time would often heal everything, Neel got busy again with his everyday life.
* * *
As a few years went by, a time came when Neel finally got married to a girl found through a matrimonial site. It was arranged by making both families meet and agree to the match. Once Neel had settled down with his new bride, he found his life conforming to what others too followed in the same situation. His wife brought an equanimity and something to look forward to in his life that he had missed earlier. During certain long weekends, he would also visit his in-laws along with his wife. He liked visiting them.
On one of those visits, something happened which would have jolted even the most reasonable of humans. During one of their conversations, Neel’s mother-in-law spoke about her family at length, and to back that up, she showed him their family photo album. But that album turned everything upside down. Neel came across a photo there that not only made him dumbstruck, but he couldn’t even believe the very existence of it.
Out of a photo came the smiling face of the very lady who made Neel besotted on those bus journeys, and whose appearances later were marred by tragedies. It was the same lady, looking out from that black-and-white image. He summoned his mother-in-law immediately and pointed out the photo to her. “Who is this lady?”
“Oh, she? This is one of my aunties. She died very young in a bus accident. I was a teenager during those days. I never talked to her much because she was always very reserved and hardly talked to anybody. She was one of my father’s cousins. Why? Have you seen her photo before?”
He kept staring at the photo and then at his mother-in-law’s face without properly grasping her words. Had he lost his complete ability to decipher things? Maybe he was dwelling in a different dimension. He couldn’t utter a single word for some time. And an unknown fear also choked his voice.
In the meantime, his mother-in-law kept on narrating her tale. “I have heard from some of my family members that she had two very close friends. My aunt would always be seen with them. They were almost inseparable. As a result, many people even called them the Three Musketeers. I remember now one of them was originally from Darjeeling, and the other was from the northern part of this city.
“But the most unusual thing that happened was when my aunt passed away in that bus accident, not only did they not come to her funeral, they were nowhere to be seen. It was not only strange but even inhuman on their part, I could say. The reason, though, was simple enough. During those days, I would often hear my parents talking about her, about how that aunt used to support her friends, even with their finances. I guess that was the reason for their absence. With her demise, those two friends obviously saw the opportunity not to return the money that they had borrowed from her all those years back, and they fled the scene. If they had any decency, they would have returned the money to her immediate family.
“In the following days, nobody from our side ever heard or saw them again. Those were days before telephones and the Internet and, therefore, it was cumbersome to track down anybody. In any case, with the passing of my aunt, they were quickly forgotten. Since you have asked about her now, I suddenly remembered them. I hope they are well and keeping fine.”
His mother-in-law went away to the kitchen after finishing her narrative. But Neel sat transfixed without even blinking his eyes. Nothing could move him now from that stupor. He kept thinking and wondering about the absurdity of it all and his role in this entire conundrum. What was it? Suddenly a foreboding thought came to this mind.
“I hope my in-laws, my wife’s parents, have not kept any money owed to that aunt.” He then laughed at himself at this ridiculous fear. “Oh no, what am I even thinking?”
Nevertheless, he was jolted out of his wits to make any sense of it at that moment. After returning home that evening, Neel had a sleepless night. He kept tossing left and right, much to the annoyance of his wife, who was wakened a few times by his distress.
The next day, Neel boarded that same 5:40 bus again, for the first time in a long time. He had no idea why he boarded it; everything was too confusing at the moment. Quite expectedly, there was no one from his past. He took a window seat and started enjoying the ride. The outside breeze made his eyelids heavy, and soon he fell into a slumber.
And then it all came back to him. What was kept quite hidden in his subconscious all these days came to the forefront during that nap. The echo of his thoughts went back many years, when he found himself a little kid in standard four at his school. The physical training teacher at that time was a lady from a hill station, who was especially cruel to him. Neel couldn’t count the number of days when he was beaten black and blue by her for not being able to follow her instructions.
Then his mind went forward to a time when he was a teenager. He remembered subscribing to a national scholarship test. If he had passed that exam, he would have received invitations from Ivy League universities. But the lady who took his application was especially cruel to him without any reason. She was from this very city, but she was cantankerous and rude. When Neel faced the interview, it felt like abuse, such were her demeanour and manners. As a result, Neel failed the test and was left quite high and dry at that moment.
Everything came back to him now. It was always there, but Neel’s own mind had not allowed him to recognise the truth in all that time. His vengeance was full and complete. The mystery woman had indeed returned his love, albeit in an unexpected, macabre way.
Copyright © 2025 by Saurav Ranjan Datta
