Copyright © 2008 Sunanda Chatterjee. All rights reserved.

One Sunday, she was peeping from her living-room window when we walked out of our house. She waved her little hands at us through the metal window grill and said, "Wait for me!"

We waited, for her mother was my sister’s English Teacher. She skipped out of her house in a frilly baby-blue dress and said, "I’ve been waiting by the window for an hour!"

We set out for our daily jaunt. Three blocks away from our house, off of 19^th street, was a large stretch of grassy land which served as grazing grounds for the nearby village cows. Numerous narrow walkways had come into existence from the daily trips of colorfully-clothed cleaning ladies who frequented the neighborhood to work in the officers’ colony of our steel town. Some areas of the land were overgrown with grass and wild shrubs, while others had tall eucalyptus trees, the sparse shades of which were welcome in the hot Indian summer evenings.

We walked half a mile into the grounds, picking wild flowers and catching insects. We put the colorful butterflies and beetles in a red plastic basket to show off to our big brother later. In the thicket of shrubs under a growth of eucalyptus trees, I was focusing on a particularly bright yellow dragonfly with my right thumb and index finger extended, ready to grab it in a pincer-like grip, when my sister interrupted me with, "What’s this?"

My dragonfly flew off, much to my disappointment, but what my sister was pointing at was interesting enough. It was a large cemented flat platform with some protrusions and erect slabs. Some had metal handles, with illegible engraving. Near the platform lay clusters of numerous seeds, which I knew to be from the eucalyptus trees.

Natasha said breathlessly, "What do you think this is?"

My sister said, "I’m not sure, but it doesn’t look good." She climbed on the platform and we followed.

Suddenly, my sister froze in her tracks. "Wait a minute! We saw this same gravestone half-a mile away yesterday. Under those banyan trees." She pointed to a nearby mini-forest, her eyes wide with fear.

I began, "But-"

"Shh," said my sister, "Listen!"

The gentle rustling of the evening breeze blew a few more eucalyptus seeds down our way.

Picking up some of the seeds, my sister said in a husky whisper, "I saw these markers by the grave over there. The grave has moved! It belonged to an unhappy king many years ago. When the steel plant was built, his kingdom was taken away. He killed himself and his queen. They are buried in these graves!"

"But-" I said.

"I heard that on certain summer evenings," continued my sister, "the spirit of the Queen visits the grave and tries to enter the body of a living person. To take revenge on the people who now work in the steel plant."

Around here, everyone’s parents worked in the plant, our neighborhood being the officers’ colony for steel plant employees.

Natasha said, "I’m scared."

"Me too," said my sister. If it was something scary enough for my big sister, I’d better watch out too.

Natasha said, "What’s that smell?"

"It’s the euca-" I began.

"It’s the smell of Unfulfilled Desire," said my sister.

"The desire of the Queen to live on. They say the smell is the strongest when she has found the person she wants to take over. And look over there!" she said, pointing to a narrow walk-way, where a village lass, wearing a red saree was coming our way. A maid in one of the houses, no doubt.

"It’s her," said my sister. "The Queen. I think we’d better run!"

My sister is a fast runner. I ran right behind her with my stubby legs, more out of fear than of inherent athleticism, while poor Natasha was left behind, running as fast as her six-year old legs could carry her.

When I caught up with my sister near our house, I was most surprised to hear her laughing!

"What are you laughing about?" I asked her, between shallow terrified breaths.

"Did you see the look on Natasha’s face? Now she’ll never want to tag along with us!"

"You made it all up!" I accused her.

"You didn’t know?" asked my sister, incredulously.

"I did!" I said. "Of course, I did." I couldn’t bear for my intelligence to be equated with a six year old’s.

"We saw the underground water-tank there yesterday, remember?" asked my sister.

"I remember. I knew it hadn’t moved! There’s no grave, right? Just a water-tank?" I asked.

My sister didn’t reply, because soon Natasha caught up with us. She was crying.

"You left me! I’m going home," she said, disappearing into her front yard.

When we reached home, a small pang of regret, and I admit, shame, were biting into my heart. My sister was beaming. My mother asked us what the matter was, probably thinking my big sister had been bullying me.

"Nothing," said my sister, but a second too late, because I’d already started saying, "We scared Natasha."

"How?" asked my mother.

Amid tears of laughter, my sister related the whole story to my mother. She said I’d been cooperative and gone along with the story, although the whole thing was unplanned and a spur-of-the-moment thing. I thought she’s say I had been scared too, but cheered up when she said I deserved a medal for acting.

Much to our surprise, my mother said we had to go to Natasha’s house and apologize to her. In front of her mother, the English Teacher!

We couldn’t believe it. Apparently, it was very mean of us to have behaved in that fashion with a younger kid. She’d be terrified to go out.

My mother took us to Natasha’s house. We walked up the slope on the front-porch with trepidation, my sister more than I, because after all, Natasha’s mother was her teacher, not mine. The English Teacher opened the door.

My mother said, "My girls have something to say to Natasha."

The English Teacher said, "Hasn’t enough been said already?"

"Not enough. Can you please call her out?"

Natasha came out, biting her nails. Tears had left wet glistening marks on her unusually dusty cheeks. Her eyes were still red and her nose a tad puffy. Although I had been scared of the Queen’s spirit myself, I decided it was better to be thought of as a bully than a ninny, so I joined in the apology. We said we were sorry to pick on her and scare her like that.

Natasha said, "But what about the smell? Of the s-s -spirit’s desire?"

"Oh, that!" said my sister. "It’s eucalyptus seeds."

"But I still smell it," said Natasha.

"That’s because I put some seeds in your pocket when you weren’t looking," said my ingenious sister, yanking out some seeds from a pocket in Natasha’s lovely dress.

Natasha’s big brother Vipin, who was not so innocent himself, bullying me every opportunity he got, came out of his room, burning with curiosity. He always called me ‘Baby!’ and I resented that.

I didn’t want to talk to him, so, hurriedly, I said,

"Anyway, we’re sorry,"

My mother said, "Mrs. Jain, tell me what I should do with these two girls."

"You must punish them," said Vipin.

"How?" asked my mother.

"Ask Natasha," said the English teacher.

"You can carry my backpack to school for a week," said Natasha. For someone who’d been scared out of her wits just moments ago, there was surprisingly little hesitation in her sentencing.

I don’t know if I’ve told you before that in my days, backpacks were notoriously heavy. We had to carry all our textbooks and subject-wise notebooks everyday. Natasha was smarter than I gave her credit for.

My mother said, "Hmm. Fair enough. Carrying a heavy backpack will teach them not to bully young kids."

With this, she turned on her heel and left, with us sisters following her, heads hanging purportedly in shame.

From the window, I heard Vipin saying, "What did they do to you, anyway?"

I lingered a bit longer in my garden, eavesdropping. Did Natasha have an inkling of my fear of the spirit? Would she tell Vipin and give him more ammunition to make fun of me?

Natasha just said, "They scared me about a grave of a king and queen. The Queen’s spirit comes looking for a person’s body to take revenge."

"Where was it?"

"In the grounds off 19^th street."

"Oh! That grave? Don’t you know? The story is real. And they say that if you are scared of the grave, the spirit won’t touch you. But if you are not, it’ll certainly come for you."

At this, he looked out of the window and winked at me.

I didn’t know what I was more relieved about, that I’d been scared or that the secret was safe with me.