Anindita Pal
Chapter 1: The Momo Plan
It was one of those sticky summer nights in Kolkata when the ceiling fans felt more like an insult than comfort. Power had just returned after a one-hour load shedding, and the five of them—Rik, Mou, Shaon, Neel, and Isha—were sprawled on the floor of Shaon’s living room, pretending to care about a movie none of them had chosen.
“Let’s go get momos,” said Mou, sitting up with the sudden clarity of someone struck by divine hunger. “Real ones. Spicy ones. From that stall near the Bata showroom.”
Neel raised an eyebrow. “At 10:20 PM?”
Shaon grinned. “That momo guy doesn’t sleep. I’ve seen him steaming dumplings at midnight once.”
Rik looked at his watch and shrugged. “What else are we doing? Let’s go. I’m bored to death.”
Isha, ever the cautious one, hesitated. “Are we seriously going out in this heat? Also… what if your mom wakes up?”
Shaon waved it off. “She’s taken her sleeping pill. She could sleep through a war.”
So, with sneakers hastily laced and wallets jammed into pockets, they slipped out of the apartment and into the night air of Gariahat—still humming with late-night shoppers, fruit vendors, honking autos, and the unmistakable scent of Kolkata’s streets: diesel, sweat, and street food.
They walked past the rows of saree shops, the aging neon signs of cosmetics stores, and the trams slowly dragging their bodies through the traffic. The momo stall, a modest tin-roofed setup between a pharmacy and a roadside betel shop, had its familiar queue even now.
Steam rose from bamboo baskets as the momo-wala—bald, rotund, and always frowning—ladled out chicken, paneer, and pork momos onto tin plates.
They stood in a circle, crouched on the pavement, scarfing down dumplings with red chili sauce that could burn a hole through the moon. Neel choked on his fourth one and gulped a Frooti to survive.
“I swear these momos are made by the devil himself,” he muttered.
“Devils have good taste,” Mou replied, licking her fingers.
Once their plates were empty and their mouths slightly numb, they began strolling, not in any particular direction. The lanes behind Gariahat Bazaar sprawled like veins, some wide, others no more than cracks between crumbling buildings.
That’s when Shaon paused. “Wait… have we ever gone this way?”
They stood before a narrow alley between a shut-down music shop and a locked tailoring unit. A wrought iron gate, rusty and open, led to a cobbled path lined with creepers. At the end of the path stood an old building—three-storeyed, colonial, its yellow paint faded to the color of old bones.
It had balconies with ornate railings, broken shutters, and a large wooden door that looked like it hadn’t moved in decades. Yet, there was a faint flicker of light in one window on the second floor.
“I’ve walked this route a hundred times,” said Rik slowly. “This building wasn’t here.”
“What do you mean ‘wasn’t here’? It’s a house. How can it not be?” Isha asked.
“No, seriously,” he said, brows furrowed. “That shutter used to lead to the back of a jewelry store. There was never a gate here.”
Neel pulled out his phone and opened Google Maps. The lane didn’t show the building. It simply ended in a wall.
“That’s not right,” he whispered.
The five of them stood still, the laughter and noise of Gariahat Bazaar now far behind them. The air felt heavier, as if something unseen was waiting, or watching.
“Let’s check it out,” Shaon said with a crooked smile. “Just a quick look.”
“Why?” asked Isha, already taking a step back.
“Because it’s there,” Mou answered, already walking toward the gate. “And because none of us will sleep wondering what was inside.”
Rik hesitated, but then followed. Neel cursed under his breath and jogged after them. Isha stood last, torn between sense and curiosity, then gave in.
As the five teenagers stepped past the rusted gate and down the cobbled path, the sounds of the city seemed to dissolve behind them.
They didn’t notice that the air had grown colder.
They didn’t hear the faint creak of the balcony railing.
And they certainly didn’t see the face peeking from the top window—watching.
Waiting.
Chapter 2: The Alley That Wasn’t There
The cobbled path crunched faintly beneath their sneakers as they moved forward, every step pulling them deeper into a silence that didn’t belong to Gariahat. No auto horns. No stray dogs barking. No sound of vegetable vendors calling out their final deals of the night.
It was as if this small stretch of Kolkata had forgotten how to breathe.
Rik slowed near the porch, running his hand along the moss-covered wall. “This brickwork… it’s old. Like pre-independence old.”
“And that lamp—” Mou pointed at a black lantern-style fixture still hanging above the door, gently swinging as if stirred by a wind none of them could feel.
Neel clicked a photo. The screen flashed for a moment before going dark. His phone buzzed and restarted. “Okay, that’s… weird.”
“Battery?” Shaon asked.
“Nope. It was full. Just… blacked out.”
“I’m going to try the door,” Mou announced, reaching for the brass handle shaped like a lion’s head.
“I don’t think we should—” Isha started, but it was too late. Mou gave the handle a twist.
It turned easily.
The door opened with a slow, groaning creak, revealing a dark hallway lined with worn red tiles and tall wooden doors.
The smell of damp wood, mothballs, and something faintly metallic wafted out.
“No spider webs,” Rik whispered, surprised. “No dust either.”
They stepped inside. The wooden floor didn’t creak. The air was heavy, still, and cool. The faint sound of a radio playing an old Hemanta Mukhopadhyay tune floated down the corridor, as though someone had left it on in a room far away.
“Ei poth jodi na shesh hoy…”
The hallway opened into a foyer with a wooden staircase that curled upwards in a grand sweep. An oil painting of a man with a trimmed mustache and white dhoti-kurta hung on the wall. His eyes seemed to follow them.
“Dadu vibes,” Shaon muttered.
Mou walked up to the portrait. “No name plaque. That’s odd.”
“Guys, why does it feel like… this place wants us to be here?” Neel asked.
“Or maybe we were expected,” Rik added.
The words hung uncomfortably in the air.
Suddenly, the radio static increased for a moment—then cut off. Total silence.
“Hello?” Shaon called out, half-joking. “Anyone home?”
No reply.
Neel tried to check the time. His phone was still restarting. Rik’s watch had stopped ticking.
Isha’s anxiety sharpened. “We should leave. Now.”
But then Mou spotted something—at the far end of the corridor, a soft, golden light spilling from underneath a door.
She moved towards it.
“Mou, don’t,” Rik said, stepping forward.
But Mou, as always, didn’t listen. She touched the doorknob.
It was warm.
She opened the door slowly.
Inside was a small drawing room. Vintage furniture—carved wooden sofa with faded upholstery, a teapoy with porcelain cups arranged neatly, and a gramophone sitting quietly in a corner.
There was a smell of jasmine and old paper.
And on the center table—a recent-looking copy of The Telegraph, dated 12th August, 1967.
“What the hell?” Shaon muttered, picking it up. The paper crinkled like new. The ink was fresh.
They all stood still, unsure of what world they had walked into.
That’s when Rik noticed it. Outside the drawing room window, instead of the modern Gariahat skyline, he saw tram tracks. Horse-drawn carriages. A man selling oranges from a wooden cart.
His lips parted in disbelief.
“Guys… either that’s a really elaborate stage set… or we’re looking into the past.”
The others rushed to the window, and their breath caught.
Shaon backed away. “No. No, this is—this isn’t possible.”
Mou stood still. “It’s like the city… never left. And this house is its memory.”
Rik whispered, “This isn’t just a building.”
Neel completed the thought. “It’s a door.”
A soft sound came from behind them.
The door to the hallway had quietly shut.
Chapter 3: Enter the Forgotten House
The door behind them clicked shut with a finality that made the air colder, heavier. Rik lunged forward and tried the handle. It didn’t budge.
“Locked?” Neel asked, voice tight.
“Stuck maybe,” Rik lied, though they all knew it wasn’t true.
Mou turned from the window, her expression unreadable. “What do we do now?”
“We keep calm,” said Isha. “We find another way out. Or someone inside. Someone has to be here.”
“But if this place really belongs to 1967 or whenever,” Shaon said quietly, “who would be alive in it to help us?”
That thought silenced them for a long moment.
They left the drawing room together and stepped back into the hallway. The light was dim, filtered through frosted glass sconces that hadn’t seen an electrician in decades. Yet everything worked.
“This is like one of those stories where the house remembers,” Mou said, her voice echoing slightly.
They passed a closed door to the left. Rik tried it. Locked.
A dining room lay ahead. The long mahogany table was set for a meal—plates with silver rims, fine bone china bowls, a centerpiece of dried roses.
Shaon walked past it, trying not to brush against the chairs. “Anyone else feel like we’re trespassing on time?”
Neel pointed to a small calendar hanging on the wall. The page said August 1967, with a circle around August 13th—a Sunday.
“That’s tomorrow,” Mou said softly.
“No,” Neel corrected her, “that’s today, if you go by this house.”
Their footsteps led them to a room with wooden shelves stacked with books. A study. A typewriter sat on a desk with a half-typed sheet still rolled into it.
Rik read aloud the last line.
“They said the house must be forgotten. That memory is the first ghost.”
Suddenly, the typewriter clicked.
Everyone jumped.
Isha let out a small gasp. A new letter appeared on the page. A “Y.” Then an “O.”
Y
O
U
The keys moved on their own.
A space. Then:
A
R
E
Another space. Then:
H
E
R
E
The sentence stared up at them. YOU ARE HERE.
“Okay. This is real,” Shaon said, backing away. “We’re in something real.”
“What kind of real are we talking about?” Mou whispered. “Like, time travel? A haunting? A memory loop?”
Rik closed his eyes for a moment. “I don’t think this is a haunting. Nothing’s trying to hurt us. Not yet.”
They decided to head upstairs.
The staircase groaned under their collective weight but didn’t crumble. As they reached the landing, they saw a long corridor with six doors—three on each side. All shut.
A chandelier above them flickered once.
Suddenly, a door on the far left creaked open slowly.
Just a few inches.
Isha froze. “Did anyone…?”
“Nope,” Neel said.
Rik stepped ahead, slow and cautious. The hallway seemed to narrow as he approached.
He pushed the door.
Inside was a child’s bedroom—wallpaper peeling, a rocking horse standing in one corner, a bed with pink sheets neatly folded.
But the strange part was the dollhouse.
A perfect replica of the house they were in.
He called the others inside. They stared at the miniature with growing disbelief.
In the tiny version, the lights inside the dining room and study were on. And on the top floor, a faint blue glow pulsed from a locked door.
Just like here.
“What if…” Mou said, pointing at the glowing miniature room, “that’s the key to getting out?”
Isha turned to leave—and let out a sharp cry.
Standing at the end of the corridor was a figure.
A little girl.
Hair in two braids, a pale blue dress, bare feet.
She was watching them.
And then, just as suddenly—she turned and walked through the wall.
Chapter 4: Snapshots in Dust
No one spoke for a full ten seconds after the girl vanished through the wall.
Neel was the first to find his voice. “Did… did she just walk through solid plaster?”
“Apparently,” Shaon replied, gripping the doorframe, his knuckles white. “Apparently, ghosts don’t care about physics.”
“She didn’t look scary,” Mou said, frowning. “She looked sad. Lonely, even.”
“She looked dead,” Isha whispered.
They returned to the hallway, every door now looking less like an entrance and more like a trap.
“Maybe we should go room by room,” Rik suggested. “See if there’s a clue or a map or… or a reason we’re here.”
The second room was a faded bedroom. Ivory curtains hung limp, and the bedspread smelled of lavender long since dried into memory. On the dressing table sat a cracked photo frame.
Rik picked it up. A sepia-toned family portrait stared back: a man with kind eyes, a woman with a pearl necklace, and a little girl in a blue dress between them.
“The girl,” Mou breathed.
Isha stepped closer. “This looks like it was taken in… 1965? Maybe?”
Behind the photograph, Rik found a yellowed letter tucked into the frame’s back. In elegant handwriting it read:
“13th August. We’re leaving tomorrow. I told her to pack her things, but she refuses to speak. Keeps saying the house won’t let her go. That her friend in the walls says it isn’t over yet.”
Neel stared at the words, shaken. “This is getting real dark, real fast.”
“Who’s ‘her friend in the walls’?” Shaon asked.
“Nope,” said Neel, backing toward the door. “I draw the line at wall-people.”
The next room was worse.
A sitting room. Everything covered in white cloth. But beneath the layers, the shape of a man—slumped in a chair.
They froze.
Mou stepped closer and yanked the sheet back.
It was a mannequin. Lifeless, wooden.
But someone had dressed it in a real suit and polished shoes. A dusty tag hung from the wrist: “Baba”
“That’s messed up,” Shaon whispered.
Rik’s voice was hoarse. “This house didn’t forget its people.”
They entered a side room that looked like it had once been a darkroom—blackened windows, red light bulb, trays for film developing. The smell of chemicals still lingered.
On the counter were dozens of photographs. Some still drying. Others in old albums.
Isha picked one up. “This… this is outside the house. That’s the Gariahat tramline.”
But instead of autos and shop signs, the street was lined with gas lamps and hand-pulled rickshaws.
“This can’t be recent,” she said.
Neel opened an album. The photos inside were all black and white. At first, they were ordinary—family portraits, school functions, a picnic at Victoria Memorial.
Then, the images got stranger.
One showed the drawing room, with the five of them standing in it.
Wearing what they had on now.
The next was the dining table—with half-eaten food.
The third was of Isha, standing alone in the upstairs hallway, looking directly into the camera—something she hadn’t done yet.
“These are… future photos?” she whispered.
Mou slowly turned a page.
The last image was of all five of them—sitting at the table with the mannequin labeled “Baba.”
No one said a word.
From somewhere upstairs, the radio turned on again. A voice crackled through.
“Shunte pachho?” Can you hear me?
Shaon whispered, “That wasn’t Hemanta. That was someone alive.”
They turned toward the staircase.
The locked room at the top—the one glowing faintly in the dollhouse—might not be locked anymore.
It was time to find out.
Chapter 5: Whispers and Shadows
The stairs leading to the attic-level door seemed steeper than before, each step groaning as though bearing not just their weight but memories too heavy for the house to hold alone.
Rik reached the top first. The door that had been tightly shut earlier now stood slightly ajar. A sliver of blue light seeped out, casting eerie shadows on the worn wooden floor.
“Guys,” he said without turning. “If we walk in there… there might not be any walking back.”
“Great motivational speech,” Shaon muttered, but climbed up anyway.
Mou pushed the door gently. It opened with a long, low creak.
The room inside was vast—unexpectedly so. The roof sloped gently, its beams visible overhead, and the walls were lined with shelves full of dusty books, jars of dried flowers, and old radio equipment. But what caught everyone’s eye was the massive wall at the far end, plastered from top to bottom with photographs.
Hundreds of them.
Isha stepped closer. “These… these are all of us.”
There were pictures of the five of them from earlier that evening—laughing outside Shaon’s flat, walking toward the momo stall, standing in front of the mysterious gate.
“How?” Neel asked, voice cracking.
Some photos were moments they hadn’t lived yet. One showed Mou screaming. Another showed Rik sitting alone on the attic floor, his head in his hands. And one—almost too faded to see—was of the group walking away from the house… but Isha wasn’t with them.
“There’s something seriously wrong here,” she whispered.
They turned sharply as a chair scraped behind them.
In the corner sat an old man in a rocking chair. Thin, nearly translucent skin. White kurta, eyes like dying stars. He hadn’t made a sound.
“Who—who are you?” Mou asked.
He smiled faintly, as though the effort of existing took too much out of him.
“You’ve come,” he said, as if continuing a conversation they never began. “She called you.”
“Who called us?” Rik asked.
The man looked up at the ceiling, then past them, as if seeing someone behind them.
“She waits. The house waits. Memory cannot die unless it is mourned.”
“Sir,” Isha said, stepping forward, “we’re just trying to leave. Please help us.”
He didn’t respond.
The rocking chair creaked again. Once. Twice. And then, it was empty.
Gone.
Shaon backed into a bookshelf and sent a few books tumbling. The moment they hit the ground, the radio equipment on the shelf lit up—dials flickered, and a sudden static filled the room.
From the static emerged whispers.
“Don’t forget us.”
“Don’t leave.”
“Stay.”
Rik clutched his head. “They’re in my ears!”
Isha grabbed his arm. “We have to shut it off!”
Neel twisted every dial he could. Mou yanked out cords, and the lights dimmed—but the whispers only got louder.
Then—
A piercing scream ripped through the room.
Mou turned pale. “That was a child.”
“The girl in blue,” Rik said. “She’s the one calling us. She’s trapped.”
The radio went silent.
A new photo slid out from behind the equipment and fluttered to the floor.
It showed the little girl, alone in the attic, hugging a doll, tears down her face. Scrawled in pencil across the bottom: “Tell them my name.”
“What name?” Isha asked.
They searched the shelves, the floor, the old books—until Mou found a storybook, its cover faded but intact.
Inside, on the front page, in childlike handwriting:
“This book belongs to Reena Bose.”
“Reena,” Mou whispered. “Her name was Reena.”
Just then, every photograph on the wall started fluttering, shaking. The attic wind, though there were no windows. One by one, the images began to peel off and fall.
And as they did, the house seemed to sigh.
Like something had been waiting to exhale for fifty years.
Chapter 6: A Room That Remembers
The attic room seemed to shift the moment the last photo hit the floor. It wasn’t loud—it was like a breath being drawn inward, slow and shuddering.
“I think… we did something,” Mou said, still holding the storybook with Reena Bose scribbled inside.
“She wanted us to say her name,” Rik said. “To acknowledge her. That she existed.”
The walls trembled faintly. A light bulb flickered and popped above them, plunging part of the attic into a shadow deeper than natural dark.
“We need to get out,” said Isha. “Now, before this place changes its mind.”
“Or before we forget ourselves,” added Neel.
They rushed out of the attic and down the steps, but the corridor didn’t look the same anymore. The walls were no longer cracked—they were clean, freshly painted in a soft beige. The chandelier above gleamed, and a faint scent of incense drifted through the air.
“Wait… this isn’t how it was before,” Shaon muttered.
“Time’s folding,” Rik said. “Or memory is.”
From the far room, a child’s laughter rang out. Not eerie, not ghostly—just a child’s laugh, light and quick and fleeting.
They walked to the room cautiously and found it completely changed.
The child’s bedroom, once coated in decay, was now bright with fresh curtains, toys arranged on shelves, a schoolbag hung on a peg.
In the center, a young girl sat cross-legged on the floor, braiding her doll’s hair. She looked up as they entered, smiled faintly, and said, “I knew you’d come.”
Mou knelt slowly. “Are you Reena?”
The girl nodded. “They wouldn’t listen before. They said I was making it up. That my friend in the wall was just pretend.”
“Who’s your friend?” Isha asked gently.
Reena tilted her head. “She used to live here before me. I found her voice in the crack behind the mirror. She never left.”
“The girl before you?”
Reena nodded again. “She cried a lot. Then she got quiet. I promised I’d help her. But then…” Her voice faded. “The fire happened.”
“Fire?” Rik stepped forward.
“I wasn’t supposed to be in the house. But I stayed back to find her. She didn’t want me to go. And then… everything went dark.”
Neel’s voice was dry. “You… you died in that fire.”
Reena didn’t answer. She picked up her doll and hugged it close. “But I remember. She remembers. The house does too.”
Suddenly the room dimmed again, flickering between the present and the past—the bright child’s room and the ruined one with peeling wallpaper.
“We’re slipping again,” Shaon said. “In and out of memory.”
“We have to anchor her,” Mou whispered. “Say her name. Keep saying her name. Keep her real.”
They stood in a circle and said together, “Reena Bose. Reena Bose. Reena Bose.”
The walls pulsed with each repetition, as if the house itself was beating with the sound.
A mirror on the far wall shattered with a quiet plink. Behind it—just like Reena had said—was a narrow cavity, and inside it, a second doll. Burned. Head tilted.
Reena walked to it, gently picked it up, and smiled. “She’s free now.”
As soon as she spoke those words, the room began to fade—not vanish, but dissolve into a golden haze.
The five of them were no longer standing in the room, but in the hallway outside.
The corridor was back to its ruined state. The paintings were gone. The house was empty.
And the front door—locked for so long—now stood open, swinging gently in the warm Kolkata air.
They looked at each other. No one spoke. They stepped out, one by one.
As soon as Isha’s foot crossed the threshold, the house let out one final creak.
They turned.
The building behind them had disappeared.
In its place was an empty lot covered in wild grass, broken bricks, and faded posters.
Like nothing had ever stood there.
Neel stared in silence. “How long were we in there?”
Rik checked his watch. The second hand was ticking again. “Four minutes.”
Shaon’s phone buzzed—missed calls, messages. The city had moved on. Time hadn’t noticed they were gone.
But they had.
And so had the house.
Chapter 7: The Door That Never Opens
Even after leaving the alley, none of them spoke much. They crossed the road to Gariahat More, where life throbbed on as usual—auto horns blaring, momo steam rising, paan stalls clinking with coins, a couple arguing over a saree price near the footpath.
Only moments ago, they had crossed a threshold that shouldn’t have existed. A house that had remembered them before they knew it existed.
“Four minutes,” Mou said softly, clutching the crumpled Telegraph photo she had stuffed into her pocket. “That’s what Rik’s watch said.”
“But we were inside for over an hour,” Isha whispered. “At least.”
“Maybe time bends around memory,” Shaon offered, voice dry. “Or maybe we’re insane.”
“Maybe both,” Neel said, trying to laugh, but it didn’t come out right.
They ended up back at Shaon’s house, too rattled to return home just yet. His mother slept on, unaware, while the five of them sat huddled in the living room.
Mou spread out the items they had unconsciously brought back:
- The faded letter from behind the photo frame
- Reena’s storybook
- A photograph showing the five of them inside the drawing room
And a strange fourth item none of them remembered picking up: a brass key with a ribbon tied around it.
Rik picked it up, frowning. “Where did this come from?”
Isha shrugged. “I swear I didn’t see it before.”
Mou looked at the ribbon. “That’s Reena’s. She had it in her hair.”
They stared at it in silence.
Shaon finally spoke. “There was one door we never opened.”
Rik turned to him. “What are you talking about?”
Shaon stood, walked to the window, and pointed down at the alley—now dark and empty. “The basement. There were stairs going down just before the dining room. We saw it. But none of us went.”
Rik’s eyes widened. “That’s right.”
“The basement door was locked,” Isha added.
Shaon turned. “What if this key… is for that door?”
“Nope,” Neel said, standing up. “I’m not going back. Forget it.”
But Mou didn’t say anything. She just picked up the key and held it tightly.
“We owe her,” she said. “Reena. If there’s more, if someone else is still trapped…”
“Mou, the house is gone,” Rik said gently.
“Is it?” she asked.
They looked at each other.
Later that night, Mou couldn’t sleep. Around 2:47 a.m., she got out of bed and sat by the window with the storybook. She flipped through the pages—childlike scribbles, crooked stars, “I hate arithmetic” scrawled on the margin of a page about multiplication.
But toward the back, there was something new.
Words that weren’t there before.
In childish, uneven handwriting:
“Basement. My friend still waits. Please.”
Mou’s hand trembled.
The house might have disappeared.
But its memory hadn’t.
And some doors remember.
Even if they never open.
Chapter 8: Time Doesn’t Leave Quietly
The next morning was uneventful, the kind that makes you doubt strange nights. Mou awoke to birds chirping, tea boiling in the kitchen, her father humming a Rabindrasangeet. But the storybook sat on her desk like a quiet truth, refusing to fade with sleep.
The scribbled message—“Basement. My friend still waits. Please.”—hadn’t vanished.
By noon, the group had gathered again. Nobody had slept well.
“I dreamt of a clock with no hands,” Neel muttered. “It kept ticking anyway.”
“I didn’t dream at all,” Isha said. “But when I woke up, my pillow smelled like old paper.”
Rik had brought the brass key. “I checked online. That plot of land? It did have a house once. Burned down in 1967. No survivors reported.”
“No survivors?” Shaon frowned. “Then where did Reena’s memory come from?”
“Maybe it wasn’t about survival,” Mou said. “Maybe she lived in memory longer than in life.”
That evening, they returned to the alley.
There was no gate anymore. Just a blank wall with political posters, a half-broken scooter, and a sleeping stray dog. But they walked toward it anyway, unsure if they were brave or simply bound by something beyond fear.
Shaon reached out and touched the wall.
And his hand passed through.
No resistance. No ripple. Just absence.
He yanked his hand back. “Holy—did anyone else see that?”
Mou stepped forward and reached out too. The bricks shimmered for a split second. Then, a soft gust of cold air pulled at her fingers.
“The house remembers us,” she said.
One by one, they stepped through.
And there it was.
The yellowed walls. The peeling paint. The front door swinging open again.
Like they had never left.
Inside, the house was silent but not empty. It felt expectant, like an old theatre before a final performance.
They didn’t stop in the drawing room or the attic. They walked straight past the dining hall, toward the narrow staircase that spiraled downward behind the kitchen.
The door to the basement stood at the bottom, its rusted lock exactly as they remembered.
Rik held out the key. Mou took it.
With a trembling hand, she inserted it into the lock.
It clicked.
The door creaked open, revealing steep stone steps descending into darkness.
They didn’t speak. Didn’t hesitate. One by one, they climbed down.
The air grew colder.
Musty.
Each step echoed like a memory repeating itself.
At the bottom was a vast room—larger than expected. Crates, broken furniture, old trunks.
And in the farthest corner: a rocking chair.
Occupied.
Not by a mannequin.
Not by a vision.
By a child.
Not Reena. Another girl. Her head bowed. Long uncombed hair falling over her face.
They approached slowly.
Shaon whispered, “Hello?”
The girl looked up.
Her eyes were wide and hollow. But not angry.
Just tired.
“I waited,” she said. Her voice echoed strangely—layered, as if spoken by more than one mouth.
Mou stepped closer. “What’s your name?”
The girl blinked. “I… I don’t remember.”
A sound, like a sigh through the walls. The floor trembled slightly.
“You were before Reena,” Rik said gently. “You spoke to her through the wall. She tried to help.”
The girl nodded slowly.
“But no one came. Until now.”
She reached out a hand. Mou took it.
And in that moment—
The basement filled with warmth. Light poured from nowhere.
The crates shimmered and dissolved.
The rocking chair fell still.
The girl smiled.
And vanished.
They stood in silence, the dust settling gently around them.
“Time doesn’t leave quietly,” Neel said, voice hoarse. “It lingers until someone lets it go.”
The basement was just a room now.
The house, no longer haunted.
Just remembered.
Chapter 9: The Ghosts Know Their Names
They exited the basement without a word. The moment the door creaked shut behind them, it melted back into the wall, as if it had never been there. A trick of architecture, or memory folding in on itself—none of them knew.
What they did know: something had changed.
The house no longer felt oppressive. The air no longer thickened around their footsteps. Instead, it felt like an exhale, long overdue. Like pages that had finally been turned.
“I think she’s gone,” Mou said softly. “Both of them.”
“Not gone,” Rik corrected, “just… at peace.”
They stood for a moment in the foyer, not rushing to leave. Shaon leaned against the staircase, looking up toward the attic. “Do you think there are more? Trapped here?”
“Maybe,” Neel said. “But they’re not angry. Just forgotten.”
They walked toward the exit, and that’s when it happened.
A voice. From nowhere and everywhere at once.
“Shaon.”
He froze.
They all turned.
“Mou.”
“Rik.”
“Isha.”
“Neel.”
The house was saying their names.
Softly. Gently. Almost fondly.
Rik swallowed. “Did the house just… remember us?”
“I think it did,” Isha said. “Because we remembered it.”
The chandelier above flickered. A momentary sparkle—like a farewell blink.
They stepped out into the alley. This time, the door behind them didn’t vanish. It simply closed. Quietly.
Shaon reached for his phone. The clock read 6:12 PM. They’d been gone for less than ten minutes. Again.
Gariahat was still alive around them. Horns, hawkers, tram bells, chai glasses clinking.
As they blended back into the crowd, something caught Mou’s eye.
A street artist, sketching portraits. His display board held faces he claimed were drawn from memory. She froze.
At the center was a pencil sketch of a girl with two braids and a gentle smile. Reena.
She walked over. “Who is this?”
The artist blinked. “She used to come here. Long ago. Sat right where you’re standing. Quiet girl. Loved momos.”
Mou’s hands trembled.
“She’s gone now?” the man asked.
“Yes,” Mou whispered. “She finally went home.”
As the sun dipped behind the rooftops, the five of them stood together, a little older in silence. Not because of age, but because of what they had carried and released.
The city kept moving.
But somewhere between memory and forgetting, a house in Gariahat had finally let go.
Chapter 10: To Leave, Forget
The next day, they went back. Just to check. Just to be sure.
But the alley was sealed. Not in the dramatic way—with vanishing gates or magical mist—but with a mundane, earthly finality.
A cement wall, fresh paint drying under the sun. No door. No path. No building.
Nothing.
Rik pressed his palm against the wall. “It’s real this time. Solid.”
Shaon knocked twice. The echo was dull.
“They say,” Isha murmured, “that places with trauma sometimes fold themselves away. Hide behind time. Maybe that’s all the house ever was. A folded place.”
Mou took out Reena’s storybook from her bag. She flipped through the pages again. The last message was gone. Only blank paper now.
She held the book out to Rik. “We should burn this.”
He looked at her. “Are you sure?”
Mou nodded. “Some stories need to be remembered. Others need to rest.”
They went to Shaon’s roof that night. Built a small clay chulha with dried leaves and old notebooks. Laid the storybook on the flame gently, like placing a child to sleep.
The pages curled inwards, smoke rising with the scent of something long gone.
When it was done, they didn’t say much.
They never did.
A week later, Rik passed the alley again on his way to tuition. Still a wall. He didn’t stop.
Neel began painting again—mostly faceless portraits, as if memory no longer needed names.
Isha started writing letters to herself. Dated. Diligent. Just in case time tried to rearrange things.
Shaon dreamt less. And when he did, it was of a yellow house with open windows and laughter behind doors.
And Mou—Mou would sometimes sit by the tramline near Gariahat, eating momos from the same tin plate. Every now and then, she’d feel a chill. Not a warning, not a presence—just a trace. Like a shadow of a memory passing by on its way elsewhere.
They never went back.
Not because they were afraid.
But because the house had taught them something.
Some doors must stay closed. Some names are meant to be whispered only once. And some ghosts don’t want to haunt.
They just want to be remembered long enough to say goodbye.
THE END
