Witch-craft

Prachi’s a big time beer aficionado. Though I never tasted it throughout my life, I’d known a lot about beer, thanks to her. The first time, I saw a highly delectable her at a friend’s party in the local bar. It was love at first sight. After the regular dilly dallying, she finally reciprocated my love.

With a few tufts of hair falling to the fore and captivating luscious features, she could even make a devil ogle her. She attributed her good looks and youthful features to beer. She strongly believes that drinking beer can actually make you look younger. I really don’t know if that’s true or some lame excuse to drink.

That particular night we were returning from B’lore to Hyderabad on NH7.

“Enough, you drank enough,” I screamed at her as I tried to snatch the bottle.

‘No dear, it’s just my second bottle,’ she mumbled as she clenched the long necked bottle like a kid clutching to her Barbie doll and gave me that inebriated look with a wide lipped smile and blinking eyelids.

And that’s when I try to distract her by narrating a horror story. Anything related to horror spooks her. I remember her watching “The Exorcist” when she screamed like hell for all those scenes of demonic possession and including the spider-walk of Regan.

‘No, please,” I heard her speak faintly.

“Not so far from Hyderabad,” I started narrating. “There’s this place called Shankerpally. It’s a hamlet, a normal village except for one house. The house was circum-fenced by thorny shrubs and other outgrowth, the most remarkable feature being the stone statues that stood behind the house. They looked like the grandeur of perfect human art. Yet nobody in the village was qualified to chisel with such intricate magnanimity. And nobody knew who brought them there.

But everybody opined that it must be the work of the stone-witch as the kids called the woman who lived in the hut. For ages, she lived in the same old hut and anybody who pays her a visit and stays over night is bound to become a statue, according to the local folklore,” I finished as she trembled under fright.

“Wwwa… wid… stone statues?” she stuttered.

“The witch in order to keep herself young snatched the souls of the trespassers and converted the soulless bodies to stones.”

“Your voice cut through my skin like ice and I can still feel the chill running down my spine,” her teeth chattered and she opened the bottle and gulped down some beer.

I had to take an alternate route through a relatively uninhabited zone to cut short on the time of journey. The entire stretch of the road was dark as the moon slipped slowly behind the prevailing clouds. The trees on the either side swayed perilously close to each other under the heavy gust of wind.

She was silent for a long time, and so were I, staring at the seemingly never ending road and still clutching onto the bottle.

And as if the devil had the last laugh on Prachi, the car came to a screeching halt. “Damn,” I said, as she peeped out of the window, “We have a flat tyre, in fact tyres”

As we stepped down and looked around, we found ourselves stuck in the middle of nowhere. I pointed to a flickering lamp at some distance and said, “Let’s move to that hut. It’s dangerous to stay in the open dark. Wild animals could be lurking around.”

Trampling over the high rise grass and stepping stones, we reached what seemed like a small hut. “Excuse me,” I spoke in the local dialect when a middle aged woman opened the door. I explained the situation and she welcomed us in.

She was a queer looking woman. She stooped a little cos’ of a hunch that’s too early for her age. But there was a charm in her face. Prachi stood at a distance and was suspiciously staring at our host. I crossed her looks and gestured not to embarrass the woman.

An unprecedented breakdown enforced no feasible option other than an overnight stay. Our host spread the bed as we prepared to rest for the night after a good square meal.

Prachi clasped my hand tightly. “Your description of the stone-witch fits her,” she exclaimed. I dint reply. Lost in those words, I slipped into a deep slumber. Not for long when an owl’s hoot brought me back to my senses. I looked to the side and saw Prachi in deep sleep. I heard a flapping sound, perhaps from the owl’s wings, followed by a gentle rustle of leaves when I walked to the window.

Through the opening, I saw our hunched host holding onto a lantern and walk across in a hurry. Where to?

I slowly stepped out of the house and started to follow, hiding from her view by crouching behind the high rise grasses. After following her for a few minutes, I realized that I was surrounded by stone statues double my height.

Too many thoughts crisscrossed my mind. After all, the story I narrated to Prachi was indeed a figment of my imagination. There was no stone-witch in reality. The stone statues were in a particular pattern, lined up, a few feet from the hut, imposing a hauntingly leering look that scared me beyond all reasons.

The wind was cold and I felt like my blood freeze in the veins. She never cared to look back.

I followed her for a hundred feet, atleast, before I saw her walk into a graveyard.

She sat cross legged infront of a grave. I couldn’t see what she was doing for I was behind her.

My heart was palpitating, say out of fright or excitement to know what she’s up to. Then she moved her hand aside and seemed to slash her wrist with a knife. Blood started to ooze from her slit wrist and she seemed to wet something on the ground with her blood.

What’s she up to? Some ritual? Or reviving the dead? Or...

As I watched with wide opened eyes, she suddenly started vibrating. All this was too much for me and I wanted to flee the place. But my legs couldn’t carry me anymore. I felt so lifeless as if a knife’s pierced through my spinal cord and my fingers were numb. That’s when I realized that I had been seized by a bout of paralysis.

She was shaking violently a few feet ahead of me and suddenly she turned back. In the faint glow of the burning ambers, I saw blood spurting from her eyes. Her facial skin blistered and she fell to the ground, painfully hollering.

I almost fell to the ground but with a conscious effort to save myself from some evil that has taken her down, I crawled drawing all the power to my hands. And...

Prachi, she’s all alone in the hut, my thoughts raced in that direction.

In the foggy darkness, I could faintly see a silhouette approaching me. The witch, I thought. No, it’s Prachi. She must have come searching for me. I could hardly speak and I was trying to grab her when she came close to me. She helped me stand on my feet as I tried to narrate the incident and we fled the place.

I was terribly shaken and so was she as we walked back to the car. The clouds cleared and the moon was back to the fore. The nightmare’s over, I heaved a sigh of relief, when something strange caught my eye.

“Even in this state of fear, you still clung to this bottle?” I stared at her with bloodshot eyes. The bottle was empty though and corked.

“Of course, I had to look young for my boy friend!” she replied.