They returned to Dohariya on the last bus, arriving at the village in that particular darkness of rural UP where the sky has more stars than the earth has lights and you navigate by moonlight and memory and the occasional panicked barking of a dog that's heard something you haven't.
Satish was silent for most of the journey. He'd heard the recording of Kamla Devi's account — Nidhi had played it for him on the bus, sharing one earbud, their heads close together like conspirators. He'd listened without interrupting, which for Satish was the equivalent of a standing ovation.
"Tantra," he said finally. "Agar yeh sab sach hai — agar woh vidhi real hai — to hum kya kar rahe hain wahan?"
"Documentary bana rahe hain."
"Documentary nahi, bhai. Yeh horror film ka script hai. Aur hum extras hain."
"Satish, I'm a journalist. I deal in facts. Kamla Devi told us a story — a family narrative passed down over sixty years. It's fascinating folklore. But it's not evidence."
"The bangle is evidence."
"The bangle is an old bangle I found on my bed. It could have been placed there by anyone — the pradhan's wife, a child from the neighbourhood, someone playing a prank on the city girl."
"And the singing? At 3 AM? From the Pandey house?"
"Acoustic anomaly. Wind through old windows. The village is quiet enough at night that any sound travels. I've recorded it — the waveform shows a human-range frequency, but without visual confirmation, I can't prove the source."
Satish looked at her with the expression of a man watching someone build a house on sand and argue that the foundation is solid.
"Aap rational hain. Main samajhta hoon. Lekin kuch cheezein rational nahi hoti. Kuch cheezein sirf hoti hain."
They reached the village at 10 PM. The pradhan's house was lit. Most other houses were dark. The Pandey house was a silhouette — and tonight, every window was closed. All of them. Shuttered tight.
Every window except one.
The jharokha window on the upper right floor was wide open. No gap this time — fully open, the shutters pushed flat against the exterior wall, the interior dark and visible like a mouth.
And in the window, illuminated by moonlight and something else — something from inside the room that cast a faint, reddish glow — stood a figure.
Nidhi saw it. Satish saw it. They both stopped on the path, thirty metres from the compound wall, and looked at the figure in the window.
