Rishabh Malhotra
The train wound its way up from Siliguri like a slow-breathing animal, dragging itself through tunnels and ridges until the landscape turned from dust and plains into green shadows and mist. Aanya pressed her forehead against the glass of the narrow window and felt the chill bite through. The air smelled different here—pine, wet earth, smoke rising from unseen chimneys. She had always imagined Darjeeling to be painted in postcards: toy train whistles, Kanchenjunga glowing in the distance, laughter of tourists around Mall Road. But this time, she wasn’t here for postcards or tourist guides. She was here to write a piece for her magazine, one that would carry weight. The decline of colonial lodges in India—heritage slipping into ruin. Misty Pines was the one she had chosen. Her editor had been skeptical, muttering about ghost stories the locals spread. But Aanya believed there was always something deeper buried in myths, something about memory and loss that made a good story.
When the porter pointed out the lodge, half-hidden in thick pines, she felt a strange tug inside her chest. Misty Pines looked older than time. Its sloping roof of weather-beaten tiles, its windows framed by moss, its walls carrying the weight of monsoon after monsoon. The iron gate creaked as though it hadn’t moved in years. The caretaker, an old man named Dutta, stood waiting by the entrance, his hands folded inside a shawl. His eyes scanned her suitcase, then her face, then drifted toward the forest as if making sure no one had followed.
“You’ll be staying in Room 3,” he said quietly, his voice rough like gravel. “Meals in the dining hall at seven. No noise after ten. And…” He paused, looking almost reluctant to continue. “Never go near Room 6. And if you pass the hall mirror after midnight, don’t look inside it. It shows more than you need to see.”
Aanya almost laughed. Superstition had its way of clinging to places like this. She nodded politely, promising nothing, and followed him into the hall. The wooden floor creaked beneath her boots. On the walls hung old photographs in black and white: women in gowns, men with pipes, smiling couples on horseback. But the glass was smudged, the smiles faded. She felt as though they were watching her with cloudy eyes.
Her room smelled faintly of damp wood and old books. A heavy bed stood in the corner, its canopy cloth stained by age. The window opened to a view of the mist crawling like a slow beast between the pines. She sat at the desk, placed her leather notebook in front of her, and began to write her first lines: Misty Pines, Darjeeling. A lodge that once heard the laughter of British tea planters and honeymooners now sits in silence, holding its breath.
At dinner, she was alone. Dutta served her rice, dal, and steaming chicken curry. The dining hall was cavernous, lit by two dim lamps. A grand piano stood in the corner, its keys yellow, its silence louder than music. She wondered who had last played it. “Does anyone else stay here?” she asked. Dutta shook his head. “Not in many years. Some came. They didn’t stay long. Some didn’t leave at all.” He caught her startled look and added, “Darjeeling has many stories, madam. You’ll hear them in the wind.”
That night, the wind sang through the cracks of her window. She woke to faint strains of music—an old waltz, rising and falling like breath. She thought at first it was a dream, but when she held her breath, she could hear it more clearly. It came from the courtyard. Against her better sense, she rose, draped a shawl, and opened her door. The corridor was empty, shadows dancing on the walls. The music seemed to draw her, step by step, until she stood at the top of the staircase that led down to the courtyard.
Through the mist, she saw shapes. Men in dark suits, women in flowing dresses, moving slowly in pairs across the mossy stones. Their bodies seemed pale, blurred at the edges, as though the mist itself was shaping them. The music floated from nowhere, filling the night air. She clutched the railing, unable to breathe, unable to look away. One of the dancers, a tall woman with gloved hands, turned her face up toward Aanya. Her eyes were hollow, white as smoke. And yet they seemed to see her.
Aanya stumbled back, heart racing. She slammed her door and pressed her back against it. The music stopped instantly. Silence wrapped around her like a noose. She spent the rest of the night awake, her notebook open on her lap, her pen trembling in her hand. When she tried to write, her words came out differently. She wrote about the waltz, about the dancers, about the eyes of the woman that had followed her into her dreams. And at the bottom of the page, she found a sentence she had not written: The dance is never over.
Her hand froze. The ink was still wet.
The next morning, the sun lit the peaks, and the mist thinned. Everything looked ordinary again—the pines swaying, the crows cawing, the courtyard empty. At breakfast, Aanya asked Dutta if anyone had been playing music last night. His expression hardened. “You heard it, didn’t you? They’ve noticed you already.”
“Who?” she whispered.
He looked toward the tall mirror hanging on the hallway wall, its surface draped faintly in dust. “The ones who never left.”
The morning sun did little to chase away the unease that clung to Aanya. The courtyard, so haunted in the night, now looked like an ordinary square of moss and cracked stones, the only movement a crow hopping about with its head bent toward the ground. She told herself the music had been a dream. But when she glanced at her notebook on the desk, she found the sentence still there, in thick black strokes: The dance is never over. She hadn’t dreamt that. She had written, or something had written through her.
Trying to push it out of her mind, she set out for Mall Road. The town was alive with the slow rhythms of hill life—women selling oranges, children chasing each other, tourists bargaining over woollen shawls. She ducked into a tea stall, eager for conversation that would ground her. The owner, a wiry man with deep lines across his forehead, poured her a steaming cup of first-flush. When she mentioned she was staying at Misty Pines, the cup almost slipped from his hand.
“People don’t go there anymore,” he muttered, lowering his voice. “That lodge is cursed. Haven’t you heard? Room 6 is never to be opened. They say it eats people.”
A man at the next table, gray-bearded and sharp-eyed, leaned closer. “Not just Room 6. The whole place. Many years ago, a British sahib disappeared there, the night before Independence. Then a honeymoon couple, gone without a trace. A schoolteacher in the sixties, a painter in the seventies. And a reporter like you, madam, in the seventies too. All vanished. The police never found bodies. Only belongings. The mist keeps them.”
Aanya felt a chill despite the hot tea. “But why Room 6?” she asked.
The bearded man shrugged. “That room has no shadow. Stand outside it at night and you’ll hear dancing inside. Not of the living.”
Back at the lodge, she found herself slowing down as she passed the corridor where the numbered doors lined up. Rooms 1 through 5 looked ordinary enough—old, locked, silent. Room 6 was different. Its door was heavier, carved with an old brass numberplate dulled by years. She stood before it, holding her breath. From within came the faintest rustle, like fabric swaying in a draft, or footsteps muffled by carpet. Her pulse quickened. She pressed her ear closer. Nothing. Just when she thought she had imagined it, the door shuddered once, as if something inside had brushed against it. She stumbled back.
Her eyes flicked to the hallway mirror. Dusty, streaked, leaning against the wall like a sleeping sentinel. For a second, she thought she saw movement in it—herself, yes, but not standing where she was. In the reflection, she stood in the courtyard among dancers, holding the gloved hand of a faceless partner. She blinked and it was gone, only her own pale face staring back.
That night, she tried to focus on her notes, filling pages with descriptions of architecture, history, and fading grandeur. But the ink seemed to change under her eyes. Her tidy sentences warped into lines she hadn’t meant to write: We are waiting. We see you. We dance in silence. She tore the page out, crumpled it, shoved it into her bag.
The wind howled louder, making the walls groan. At midnight, she heard whispers—not from the courtyard this time, but from the forest outside. She opened her window. The pines stood tall and endless, their branches swaying like arms in lament. Between them, the mist thickened into shapes. She thought she saw faces, drifting between trunks, mouthing words she couldn’t hear. Then the sound came clearer: a susurration of voices layered over one another, a choir of murmurs. They called her name.
“Aanya…”
She slammed the window shut, her breath sharp, her heart knocking against her ribs. The notebook lay open on the desk again, though she was sure she had closed it. Across the blank page, new words had appeared in a handwriting that wasn’t hers: Room 6 is waiting.
The next morning, when she confronted Dutta at breakfast, his hands shook as he poured her tea. “Madam,” he said, his voice almost pleading, “do not listen to them. The forest carries many voices. The lodge remembers too much. Don’t wander in places you shouldn’t.”
“Then tell me what’s in Room 6,” she pressed.
His eyes hardened, shutting like a door. “It is better you never know.” He left the dining hall without another word, his footsteps fading into silence.
But Aanya knew herself too well. Curiosity had brought her this far, and it was curiosity that would lead her closer still. She had come to write about forgotten places, but Misty Pines wasn’t forgotten. It was alive, whispering, luring. And she was already tangled in its story.
That night, when she passed the hallway again, her eyes lingered on Room 6. The air around it seemed colder. The mirror glimmered faintly, though no light fell upon it. She thought she heard, faintly, the beginning of that waltz again—the first notes curling through the silence like smoke.
And this time, instead of fleeing, she stayed to listen.
Rain came down in a thin silver veil that morning, coating the pines in sheen and washing the lodge walls darker. Aanya sat by the dining hall window with her notebook, but she could not write about architecture or heritage anymore. Her mind kept circling the voices, the mirror, the warning scrawled across her pages. She needed evidence, something to tether her story to fact, something she could show her editor that wasn’t just mist and paranoia.
The lodge had a study, Dutta had mentioned in passing—a room filled with old books and files left by owners long gone. After breakfast, when Dutta was busy in the kitchen, she slipped inside. The study smelled of mildew and forgotten paper. Stacks of ledgers lay slumped against walls. Shelves sagged with moth-eaten volumes. Dust rose in clouds each time she touched a spine.
On the desk lay a thick leather-bound register. Its cover was cracked, its pages yellow and fragile. She opened it carefully. At first, it seemed like an ordinary guestbook. Names written in looping hands, addresses scribbled in fading ink. Couples from Calcutta, planters from London, missionaries, honeymooners, government clerks. The earliest entries were from the 1920s, each with neat check-in and check-out dates.
But as she turned the pages, something changed. Around the mid-1940s, the check-out columns began to vanish. Guests signed their names, noted their rooms, but left no departure. Page after page—no one seemed to leave. The last entry froze her. August 14, 1947. Name: Henry Alcott. Room: 6. No check-out. The line ended there, the ink smeared as though the pen had been snatched mid-word.
She turned back a few pages. 1946, Room 3, newlyweds from Lucknow. No exit. 1945, an artist from Bombay. No exit. She flipped faster. Teachers, businessmen, travelers, all gone into blank space. Her throat went dry.
She ran her fingers across the last name, Henry Alcott. Something about the letters felt wrong—pressed too deep into the paper, as if carved instead of written. She shut the book with a snap. The air in the study grew colder. The silence thickened, heavy as water. Then, faintly, she heard the scrape of a chair across the floor. But she was alone. The hair on her neck bristled.
She left the room quickly, the guestbook still clutched under her arm.
That evening, while rain battered the glass, she sat in her room with the book open before her. She copied names into her notebook, hoping to trace them later in old records. But halfway through, the phonograph in the dining hall began to play. Aanya froze. She hadn’t seen anyone wind it. The tune was the same waltz, the same hollow music she’d heard in the courtyard.
She stepped into the corridor. The sound was louder there, echoing strangely. When she reached the dining hall, the phonograph’s needle scratched over the record by itself, the crank unmoving. The music didn’t falter. It flowed like blood from a vein. She reached to stop it, but her hand hovered midair, paralyzed by an unseen force.
And then the mirror in the hallway caught her eye. Its dusty surface shimmered, alive with light. She turned unwillingly. Inside, the hall was no longer empty. Couples twirled in grand attire, gowns rustling, shoes clicking. Their mouths were open in silent laughter, but no voices came. A masked man raised his hand to her, as though inviting her in.
Her body leaned forward without her consent. She felt the pull, like gravity, like drowning. At the last second, she tore her gaze away, stumbling back against the wall. The reflection vanished. The music stopped. The phonograph needle lifted and fell silent.
Her chest heaved. She looked down at her notebook. New words sprawled across the page she had left blank: You’re already on the list.
The next morning, she showed the guestbook to Dutta. His hands trembled as he touched the pages. “You should not have opened this,” he whispered.
“These names,” she demanded. “What happened to them? Where are they?”
He shook his head. “They are still here.”
“In the lodge?” she pressed.
He looked toward the courtyard, where mist curled even under bright sunlight. “Everywhere. Nowhere. They belong to the dance.”
His words struck her like a blow. She felt the ground tilt beneath her, as if the lodge itself were moving closer, drawing her deeper into its lungs.
That night, she dreamed of Room 6. She was standing at its threshold, the door slightly ajar. From within came light, music, laughter. She pushed it open and saw the ballroom alive—crystal chandeliers blazing, champagne glasses raised, couples swaying. At the center stood Henry Alcott, tall, gaunt, his eyes like hollow wells. He extended his hand to her, and when she tried to scream, no sound came.
She woke drenched in sweat. Her notebook lay open again, a new line etched across it: You’ve already accepted the invitation.
The sky over Darjeeling wore a veil of smoke-colored clouds that afternoon, and the air pressed against the windows like damp cloth. Aanya tried to distract herself by drafting the article her editor expected: dry sentences about architecture, colonial legacies, the erosion of heritage. But her pen had a will of its own. Every line curved back to the guestbook, the music, the hollow eyes. She threw the pen aside and stared at the ceiling, its beams warped with dampness, its plaster freckled with mold. The silence of the lodge was too complete, as though the walls themselves were listening.
When dusk fell, she walked to the corridor with slow steps, compelled more by instinct than decision. The mirror stood at the far end, tall and brooding, its surface dim. She told herself she wouldn’t look. Yet when her eyes slid past it, the reflection rippled. She froze. Inside the mirror, the corridor wasn’t empty. Chandeliers glittered overhead, the wooden floor gleamed freshly waxed, and the air shimmered with light.
And there they were—the dancers.
This time it wasn’t shadows or glimpses. It was clear, vivid, overwhelming. Men in crisp tuxedos, women in gowns that glittered with sequins, masks hiding pale faces. A masquerade ball in full swing, music swelling though the phonograph was silent. Aanya’s reflection was no longer her own. She stood within the ballroom, her hair swept up, a white gown heavy around her. A gloved hand rested in hers, leading her into the waltz.
“No,” she whispered, pressing her palm against the mirror’s frame. Her actual hand shook, clammy with sweat. But in the reflection, her mirrored self was smiling, moving gracefully among the guests. The partner she danced with wore a white suit, his mask shaped like a bird’s beak, his eyes dark pits. He leaned close, and though his mouth didn’t move, his voice filled her head.
Aanya.
She gasped and stumbled back. The ballroom shimmered, its light flaring, and for a heartbeat she smelled champagne, perfume, candle wax. Then it all flickered and died. She was alone in the corridor again. Only her pale reflection stared back, her eyes wide, her hair tangled, her shawl slipping from her shoulders.
She ran to her room, bolted the door, and collapsed onto the bed. Her notebook lay open on the desk, though she hadn’t touched it. Across the blank page stretched a single line: One step, one turn, one dance closer.
The storm outside deepened. The wind roared through the pines, and shutters banged like angry fists. Aanya pressed her hands to her ears, but even through the thunder, she heard it: the waltz again, faint, relentless, threading through her skull.
She barely slept. When she finally dozed, the dream came swift. She was in the ballroom again, chandeliers blazing, music crashing around her. She tried to scream, but her mouth only smiled. Her partner in the white suit twirled her across the floor. Around her, dancers’ faces melted like wax, features dripping away to reveal hollow sockets, grinning teeth, eyeless stares. She stumbled, but their hands pressed against her, pulling her back into rhythm. The waltz never faltered.
At the far end of the room stood Henry Alcott. She recognized him from a photograph she had once seen in a history book—angular face, slicked hair, proud shoulders. Only now his skin was gray, his lips bloodless. He raised a glass toward her, and though the music thundered, she heard his whisper as clear as a knife: Welcome home.
She woke at dawn, drenched in sweat, frost coating her fingers as though she had been holding ice. Her breath came in shallow bursts. She stumbled to the desk, desperate to write it down, but when she opened the notebook, the words were already there, neat and final: The masquerade has begun.
At breakfast, Dutta noticed her trembling hands. He said nothing for a long time, then sighed. “They’ve chosen you,” he murmured, almost to himself.
“What do you mean?” she demanded.
He looked at her with pity, his eyes weary. “The lodge picks. Once in a generation. The chosen hear the music, see the mirror. They cannot resist long. Soon, you will join the others. And there will be no leaving.”
Her stomach turned. “There must be a way to stop it.”
Dutta shook his head. “I tried once. Long ago. The lodge always wins.”
The rain lifted by afternoon, but the mist never left. It curled around the lodge like a living thing, seeping into every crack. Aanya wandered the courtyard, restless, her eyes darting to the forest where shadows swayed between trees. She thought she saw figures watching her from between the trunks, their outlines thin and white as bone.
That night, when the music returned, she did not rise from bed. She pressed her pillow against her ears and whispered to herself until her voice broke. But the mirror in the hallway glowed faintly, its light spilling beneath her door, dancing along the cracks like invitation.
And though she shut her eyes, in her mind she was already dancing.
The lodge felt heavier with each passing day, as though its walls thickened with the weight of every secret she unearthed. Aanya tried to convince herself she could still leave. She could take the next train back to Siliguri, write a bland article, and bury these visions under deadlines. But the truth was already woven into her, stitched by every note of that cursed waltz. And curiosity, that most dangerous hunger, kept her tethered.
In the town library, she sought distraction, combing through old newspapers. Dust clung to her fingers, and the air smelled of ink gone stale. She scanned headlines about tea prices, floods, political campaigns. Then her eyes froze on a small column from 1973. Young journalist missing—last seen at Misty Pines Lodge. Her heart hammered. The name leapt at her: Meera Sharma, age 27, reporter for The Statesman.
Aanya read the article twice. Meera had come to Darjeeling for research, checked into Misty Pines, and vanished after three nights. Her belongings were found neatly in her room—clothes folded, typewriter on the desk, a notebook half-written. But she herself was gone. The police had searched the lodge and the forest for weeks. No signs. Locals whispered it was the curse of Room 6.
Hands trembling, Aanya requested the reel of photographs. The grainy black-and-white image of Meera appeared: sharp-eyed, determined, her hair pinned back. Aanya felt a shiver of kinship. A fellow seeker of stories, swallowed whole by the same hunger.
Back at the lodge, she confronted Dutta again, slamming the newspaper against the dining hall table. “You knew about this. Why didn’t you tell me?”
His face remained expressionless, but his voice cracked faintly. “What would you have done if I had? Run? No one runs far once the lodge notices them.”
“She was a journalist,” Aanya snapped. “Like me. She disappeared here. Did you see her? Did you hear her?”
Dutta’s eyes flicked to the mirror in the hall. “I still hear her.”
The words chilled her more than silence.
That night, Aanya dreamed of Meera. She saw her sitting at a desk in a white gown, her typewriter clacking without pause. But the keys weren’t striking paper—they were carving letters into thin air, each word shimmering before dissolving into mist. Meera turned her head. Her eyes were vacant, her mouth smiling too wide. “The story writes itself,” she whispered. “Now it writes you.”
Aanya woke with a strangled cry. The notebook on her desk was filled with pages she didn’t remember writing. Accounts of Meera’s disappearance, descriptions of her dreams, lines of dialogue she had never spoken. The words The story writes itself repeated over and over, trailing into illegible loops.
She ripped out the pages, her nails biting the paper, and stuffed them into the drawer. But when she looked back, the notebook was open again, new lines etched across the fresh sheet: You will take her place. The dance must have its witness.
Shaking, she lit the candle by her bed and forced herself to breathe. But the shadows the flame cast against the walls seemed to move, elongating, twisting into silhouettes of dancers. Their hands reached toward her, fingers long and pale, beckoning her to join. She shut her eyes, but the waltz throbbed behind her eyelids, relentless.
The following morning, determined to anchor herself, she explored the upstairs hallway. Room 6 loomed darker than before, as though the wood of its door had soaked up the night. She pressed her palm against it. Ice shot through her hand. She jerked back, gasping. Something inside stirred, brushing against the door like breath against skin.
She turned to leave, but the mirror caught her. In its surface, the corridor was crowded with figures. Dozens of them. Men, women, children, all dressed in clothing from decades past. She recognized Meera instantly, standing near the front, her typewriter still cradled in her arms. Her lips curved in a smile, but her eyes were black voids.
“No,” Aanya whispered, stepping back.
Meera lifted her hand, fingers curling in a slow beckon. Behind her, the dancers began to waltz again. The music rose faintly from nowhere, trembling through the floorboards.
Aanya tore her gaze away, but the sound followed her into her room, into her sleep, into her breath.
That evening, she wrote to her editor, trying to describe the beauty of Darjeeling, the fading heritage, the loneliness of colonial ruins. But when she read the letter back, every sentence had twisted: The masquerade awaits. Meera dances still. And Aanya will join.
She burned the page in the candle flame, watching the words curl into ash. But deep inside she knew—the lodge had already claimed her, just as it had claimed Meera.
The dance was patient. And it never ended.
By the sixth night, the lodge no longer felt like a place she had entered. It felt like a mouth that had swallowed her. The walls breathed, the corridors shifted with the weight of footsteps unseen, and the air smelled always of candle wax and old perfume, though no flame burned. Aanya stopped trying to rationalize. She knew now that she was living inside something alive, something ancient, something that wanted her.
That evening, the waltz began earlier, just as the sky dimmed into violet. She sat at her desk, pen in hand, trying to resist. But her notebook fluttered open by itself, pages riffling in the draftless air. Ink bloomed across the paper, her pen moving without her fingers. It is midnight. Time to dance.
Her body rose, as though pulled by invisible strings. She walked to the corridor, her legs not her own. The mirror shimmered with light, spilling across the floor like water. In its surface, the ballroom blazed. Music thundered. Chandeliers dripped crystal fire. Guests swayed, masks gleaming. She reached out, and the glass softened, rippling like liquid. A hand shot out—a white glove, cold and firm—grasping hers.
Before she could scream, she was pulled through.
The shock was like plunging into icy water. She stumbled, and when she lifted her head, she was inside the ballroom. Her plain nightdress had transformed into a flowing gown of silk, heavy and suffocating. Her hair was pinned up, jeweled combs sparkling. A mask clung to her face, though she hadn’t put it on. She tried to rip it off, but her fingers slid uselessly against it.
Around her, the dancers moved with eerie precision. Step, turn, dip. Their faces behind masks were smooth and pale, eyes empty. Yet when they passed her, their heads turned in unison, watching. The music grew louder, vibrating in her ribs. She tried to back away, but her partner tightened his grip. He was the man in the white suit, tall and skeletal, his bird-like mask hiding everything but his hollow eyes.
“Let me go!” she cried, though her voice was thin, swallowed by the music.
He leaned closer. His lips did not move, but the words seeped into her skull. You are one of us now.
Her body betrayed her. Her feet slid into rhythm, step by step, perfectly timed with the music. She twirled across the floor, caught in the pattern, her breath ragged. Every time she tried to stop, her legs yanked her forward again, a puppet on strings. The other dancers pressed closer, their gowns brushing against her, their gloved hands grazing her skin. When she looked into their faces, she saw only endless hollows where eyes should be.
In a flash, she recognized some of them. The artist from Bombay. The honeymoon couple from Lucknow. Meera Sharma, still in her journalist’s blouse beneath a glittering skirt, her typewriter strapped like a necklace around her neck. Their movements were mechanical, endless, eternal.
“No!” Aanya screamed. “I won’t join you!”
The music surged, drowning her words. The chandeliers shook. The floor vibrated. She felt the cold seep into her veins, slowing her heartbeat to the rhythm of the waltz. Her vision blurred, colors fading into monochrome. She was slipping. She was becoming one of them.
With desperate strength, she tore her hand free of her partner’s grip. The dancers froze mid-step, their heads snapping toward her in unison. Silence fell. The music cut off. Aanya’s breath thundered in her ears.
Then, slowly, they began to move again—not to dance, but to advance. Dozens of them, masks blank, faces pale, encircling her. Meera stepped forward, her smile too wide. “It’s easier if you don’t fight,” she whispered. Her voice was layered, hundreds of voices speaking through one mouth.
Aanya stumbled backward. Her hand brushed against something cold. A door. The ballroom had no doors, yet here one stood behind her. She clawed it open and tumbled through—
And crashed onto the corridor floor of the lodge.
The mirror behind her shivered once and went dark. The gown vanished. She was in her nightdress again, drenched in sweat. Her breath came in sobs.
But her notebook was open in her room, filled with pages of writing. She picked it up, hands shaking. It wasn’t her handwriting. It was neat, looping, British script. The entries described her entire night, in detail she hadn’t written: She joined us. She danced. She is ours.
Her stomach lurched. She slammed the book shut, but she knew it was useless. The lodge was writing her story now.
At breakfast, Dutta’s eyes lingered on her pale face. He didn’t ask, didn’t need to. “You crossed over,” he said quietly.
She nodded numbly.
“Then it has begun. You cannot undo it.” His voice was flat, resigned. “The ball of the dead has claimed you.”
Aanya clutched her notebook to her chest. Her story was no longer about heritage or history. It was about survival. And she was running out of time.
The lodge grew restless after that night, as if it knew she had touched its heart and tried to pull away. The air in the corridors thickened, shadows stretched longer than they should, and every board creaked under invisible weight. Aanya stopped trying to sleep. She kept candles lit in her room, her notebook open beside her, but the words still appeared in a hand not her own. Soon. Soon. Soon.
She knew there was no avoiding it. Room 6 had waited long enough.
One evening, as mist swelled thick around the courtyard and the forest whispered with unseen voices, Aanya stood before the heavy door. The brass number gleamed faintly despite years of tarnish. The handle was colder than ice when she touched it. She half expected it to resist her, but it turned easily, as though the lock had been waiting.
The door creaked open.
Inside, the air was frozen, biting into her skin. The room was bare but for a cracked wardrobe, a broken chair, and in the far corner, covered with a moth-eaten sheet, something tall. A mirror.
Her throat tightened. The warnings, the whispers, the shifting reflections—all of it led here. She stepped closer, each footfall loud in the silence. The sheet stirred as if in a breeze, though the air was still. She reached out, fingers trembling, and pulled it away.
The mirror glared back at her. Its surface was warped, fissured with cracks that spidered across the glass. But in it she did not see her own face. She saw herself already inside the ballroom, twirling gracefully, her eyes hollow, her mouth smiling in eerie bliss. Her reflection raised a gloved hand, beckoning.
“No…” she whispered, pressing her palm to the frame. Her real body shuddered, but the reflection glided closer, pressing its own hand against the inside of the glass. For an instant she felt its chill seep into her skin, like frost eating her bones.
The door slammed shut behind her with a violent thud. She spun around, heart pounding, but no one was there. When she turned back, the mirror’s surface rippled like water. The ballroom burned bright within it, chandeliers blazing, dancers frozen mid-step, their faces turned toward her. Henry Alcott stood at the center, glass raised, lips curling into a smile.
Her reflection moved independent of her now. It spun, it bowed, it took Henry’s hand. The sight wrenched a scream from her chest.
“Stop!” she cried, slamming her fist against the glass. Cracks deepened, spreading like veins of lightning. For a heartbeat, she thought the mirror would shatter. But instead, laughter spilled from it—cold, layered, hundreds of voices at once.
The floor shook beneath her feet. Dust rained from the ceiling. She staggered, clutching the bedpost, as the mirror’s glow expanded, flooding the room with icy light. The laughter grew louder, merging with the waltz, drowning her breath.
Then, from behind her, a voice whispered.
“You should not have come here.”
She whirled. Dutta stood in the doorway, his face shadowed, his shawl drawn tightly around him. His eyes were sunken, almost lifeless. “This room,” he said hoarsely, “is the heart. It is where they bleed into us. Once you see yourself inside, you cannot pull free.”
“Help me,” Aanya gasped. “Tell me what to do!”
He shook his head slowly. “There is no undoing. Only choosing how you stay.”
The mirror pulsed, and her reflection pressed closer, mouth moving though no sound came. But she read the words clearly: Join us.
Aanya stumbled backward, clutching her notebook to her chest. She thought of Meera, of all the vanished names in the guestbook. They hadn’t died. They had been absorbed, their stories folded into the endless masquerade. And now it wanted hers.
“No,” she whispered fiercely. “I will not vanish. I will not dance.”
The laughter cut off. Silence dropped like a blade. In the mirror, her reflection stopped mid-twirl. Its hollow eyes fixed on her, its smile widening into a ghastly grin. The surface quivered as though something inside pressed against it, desperate to break free.
The walls groaned. The bed slid an inch across the floor. The cracked wardrobe toppled with a crash. Aanya bolted for the door, yanking it open just as the mirror shattered behind her. A howl of wind burst out, carrying with it faint strains of music. She stumbled into the corridor, slamming the door shut. Her lungs burned, her ears rang, her heart galloped in terror.
But the sound of the waltz still lingered, threading through the air, as though it had escaped with her.
When she staggered into the dining hall, Dutta was already there, seated at the table, his face gray. “It has begun,” he said flatly. “There is no turning back now.”
Aanya collapsed into a chair, clutching her notebook. On its open page, fresh words glistened in wet ink: The door is open. She has entered. She belongs.
Her pulse thudded in her ears. The forbidden room had shown her truth—her place was already sealed.
And yet, some stubborn fire inside her refused to bow. If the lodge wanted her story, she would write it herself.
Even if the ink was her own blood.
The storm that night refused to quiet. Wind screamed through the shutters, lightning flashed across the valley, and the lodge trembled as if it too were alive. Aanya sat in the dining hall, soaked in candlelight, her hands shaking around the notebook she no longer trusted. Dutta entered silently, carrying a lantern. His eyes looked hollow, his movements weary, as though the weight of years pressed against his bones.
“You opened the room,” he said without question, his voice a mixture of sorrow and inevitability.
“I saw myself inside,” she whispered, the memory curdling in her throat. “I saw… everything. The mirror. The dancers. They want me.”
“They have you,” Dutta corrected, lowering himself into the chair across from her. “The moment you stepped into Misty Pines, the lodge chose you. The music, the visions, the mirror—it is their way of pulling you in.”
“Why?” she demanded. “Why me? Why anyone?”
His gaze flickered toward the mirror in the hallway, faintly gleaming even in darkness. “Because the lodge must feed. It has since the night its master vanished. Henry Alcott. He was the last owner. On the night of Independence, he held a grand ball. He toasted freedom, and then he disappeared. No one saw him leave. No one saw him die. But the dance never stopped. The guests remained, bound to the music. And the lodge became their prison.”
Her skin prickled. “You talk as though you know.”
Dutta’s shoulders slumped. “Because I was there.”
The words hit her like cold water. She stared at him, his lined face, his trembling hands. He looked no younger than seventy, perhaps eighty. But in his eyes, she glimpsed a boy long buried.
“I was a servant’s son,” he murmured. “My father worked in the kitchens. I wandered where I should not, peeking into the ballroom, watching the sahibs and memsahibs whirl across the floor. That night in ’47, I hid beneath a table. I saw the music twist. I saw faces hollow out, hands stiffen, eyes drain of life. One by one, they were taken into the dance. Only I slipped away.”
His hand tightened around the lantern handle. “But the lodge never let me go. It needed a witness. Someone to serve, to keep it alive between its feasts. I became the caretaker. Bound here, unable to leave, unable to die.”
Aanya’s chest constricted. “You mean—you’ve lived here ever since?”
He nodded slowly. “Seventy-eight years. The lodge keeps me. Not alive, not dead. Only waiting.”
Her heart thudded. “Then tell me—how do I stop it? How do I leave?”
He looked at her with deep pity. “There is no leaving. Once the lodge marks you, you are drawn in. I tried to run, once, as a young man. I made it to Siliguri. But when I woke the next morning, I was back in this dining hall, as though I had never left. The lodge has roots deeper than the pines. It is not a place. It is a hunger.”
His words felt like a noose tightening around her throat. She wanted to scream, to deny, but she remembered the ballroom’s pull, the frost in her veins, the way her feet had obeyed music not her own.
“Then why warn me at all?” she snapped, tears burning her eyes. “Why tell me not to look into mirrors, not to go near Room 6, if there’s no way out?”
Dutta’s voice cracked. “Because warning you is all I can do. Each soul the lodge takes must first resist. It is part of the ritual. Without resistance, the dance would end. And then I—” He stopped, swallowing hard. “I am tied to their survival. As long as they dance, I remain. If they ever stop, I… end.”
The truth twisted in her gut. Dutta wasn’t just a victim. He was complicit, bound in chains invisible yet unbroken. “You need them,” she whispered, her voice sharp with horror. “You need me to join them.”
He bowed his head. His silence was answer enough.
The storm roared louder, rattling the windows. Aanya clutched her notebook, fury boiling against fear. “Then I’ll fight. If they want me, I’ll resist until the end. I won’t become another ghost in their masquerade.”
Dutta’s eyes glimmered with something unreadable—sorrow, perhaps admiration, perhaps even envy. “So did they all,” he murmured. “Every one of them fought. Every one of them lost.”
The candle sputtered, and the waltz rose faintly in the distance. Not loud, but enough to make her bones ache. Aanya turned her head toward the corridor. The mirror glowed faintly, light pulsing like a heartbeat.
“They’re calling,” Dutta said softly. “And soon, you will answer.”
Aanya stood abruptly, the notebook pressed to her chest like a shield. Her voice shook, but her words were iron. “Not yet. Not tonight.”
She ran to her room and bolted the door. But she knew it was useless. Already, the music throbbed faintly in her ears. Already, her reflection in the window swayed gently, step by step, to the rhythm of a waltz she hadn’t begun.
And when she opened her notebook to write, the page had filled itself with a single sentence: The witness becomes the dancer. The story must go on.
The storm had passed, but the silence it left behind was worse. No wind in the pines, no birdsong, no drip of rainwater from the eaves. The entire hill seemed to be holding its breath. Aanya sat at her desk with her notebook open, staring at the words that kept appearing without her hand: Tonight. Tonight. Tonight.
She pressed her palms hard against her temples. “No,” she whispered to herself. “I won’t give in. I won’t dance.” But the air already carried the faint hum of strings, the ghost of a waltz crawling beneath her skin.
Desperate, she grabbed the notebook and scribbled furiously: I am Aanya Sen. I am alive. I am real. I do not belong to the lodge. She filled the page, line after line, her handwriting shaking but determined. For the first time in days, no new words appeared over hers. A surge of hope lit her chest. Maybe she could anchor herself in her own story, wrestle the narrative back from the lodge.
At midnight, the music swelled. Louder this time, impossibly loud, though no instrument was visible. The walls vibrated with the rhythm. The mirror at the end of the corridor blazed with light, spilling gold across the floorboards. She heard voices rising in harmony with the strings—dozens, hundreds, all whispering her name.
Her body tried to stand, but she clutched the desk, refusing to move. “Not this time,” she hissed. With a sudden fury, she seized the candlestick and stormed into the corridor. The glow from the mirror blinded her, the ballroom alive within its depths. Dancers swirled, masks gleamed, hollow eyes fixed on her. Henry Alcott raised his glass in eternal salute.
Aanya raised the candlestick and hurled it at the phonograph in the dining hall. It crashed, wood splintering, the needle snapping. Sparks spat as the machine died. For a moment, silence fell.
Then, impossibly, the music continued. Stronger, purer, as though it came not from an instrument but from the bones of the lodge itself. The chandeliers in the mirror shook with laughter. The dancers clapped in rhythm. The waltz thundered on.
“No!” she screamed, grabbing her notebook. She wrote wildly, tearing through pages: The music has stopped. The mirror is dark. The dancers are gone. Over and over, she forced the words. Her breath came ragged, her vision blurring with tears. But when she looked up, the mirror still glowed, the dancers still spun, and her reflection was already among them, smiling with hollow eyes.
The door to Room 6 burst open. The waltz poured from within like a tidal wave of sound. The air whipped into a gale, tearing at her hair, dragging her feet toward the door. She clutched the notebook to her chest, digging her nails into the leather, screaming words to drown the music.
“I am alive! I am not yours!”
But the dancers in the mirror only spun faster, their mouths opening in a scream of laughter. Meera Sharma stepped forward, her typewriter hanging like a chain, her eyes black. She reached out a hand, and Aanya felt the pull in her bones.
Her feet moved despite her resistance. Step, turn, step. She was dancing. The notebook fell from her hands, pages flapping like wings. She tried to reach for it, but her partner seized her—the man in the white suit, his bird mask glinting, his grip iron. He twirled her into the center of the ballroom. The music surged until it filled her skull, until her heartbeat matched its rhythm.
She fought. She screamed. She dug her nails into his glove. For a moment, the mask slipped, and she saw nothing beneath—no face, no skin, only emptiness. The sight stole her breath.
The dancers closed around her, circling, clapping in time. Her body spun, her vision blurred. Her voice broke. She clung to the last fragments of herself, the last shred of will. With every ounce of strength, she screamed into the void: “I will not belong to you!”
And the music faltered.
Just a fraction, but it faltered. The dancers stumbled for a beat. The chandeliers flickered. For the first time, the waltz broke its perfect loop.
But then it roared back louder than ever, crashing over her like a tide. Her voice drowned. Her body bent. Her feet obeyed. The white-suited man pulled her close, whispering into her skull: One more step, one more turn, and you are ours forever.
The last thing she saw before darkness swallowed her was her notebook lying open on the floor, its pages filling with a final line: She dances with us now.
Morning came pale and cold, though the sun did not touch the valley. Mist lay thick across the courtyard, and the pines bent under its weight. Dutta moved slowly through the corridors, lantern in hand though daylight streamed faintly through the windows. His face was hollow, older than stone. He knew before he saw. He had felt the shift in the air the moment the clock struck midnight.
He opened the door to Room 3. Empty. The bed neatly made, suitcase closed, clothes folded as though untouched. Only the notebook remained on the desk, open to its last page. He stepped closer, his eyes lingering on the words written there in unfamiliar hands. Dozens of hands. Some looping, some jagged, some fading as though written decades ago. Yet all part of the same chorus.
She danced. She joined. She belongs.
Dutta closed the notebook with trembling fingers. The sound echoed in the silent room. For a long time he stood there, staring at the walls, at the mist pressing against the glass. Then, with the heaviness of ritual, he carried the notebook to the study and placed it atop the stack of others—dozens, perhaps hundreds, bound in leather, each marked with the name of one who had entered and never left.
The ballroom in the mirror shimmered faintly as he passed. For a moment, he saw her—Aanya—dressed in white, eyes vacant, her lips parted in a smile that was not her own. She spun gracefully among the dancers, her partner leading her through the endless waltz. Her notebook dangled from her hand, pages fluttering though no wind stirred. She looked directly at him. For an instant, he thought she recognized him, that her eyes sparked with memory. But the light faded, and she turned away, dissolving into the rhythm.
Dutta sank into a chair in the dining hall, his shawl slipping from his shoulders. His voice cracked as he whispered to the empty air, “Another witness. Another story.”
The lodge creaked in response, its old bones satisfied. The pines swayed though no wind blew. Somewhere deep within, the waltz hummed, faint but unending.
Outside, Darjeeling stirred awake. Tourists wandered Mall Road, sipping tea, buying shawls. Children ran through narrow lanes. Life moved on. But above the town, hidden in mist, Misty Pines waited, its windows dark, its doors heavy, its heart pulsing with music no living ear could resist.
Weeks later, a group of hikers passed the lodge. They swore they heard faint music echoing through the pines. One of them, curious, pressed his ear to the gate. He thought he heard laughter, champagne glasses clinking, footsteps across polished wood. He stepped back quickly, muttering that the place felt wrong. They hurried on, leaving the lodge alone.
At night, when the mist thickened, the lodge breathed again. In the courtyard, pale figures drifted, spinning to a rhythm only they could hear. Aanya danced among them now, her gown trailing like mist, her face serene, her voice woven into the endless harmony. She had become what she had feared: a name in the guestbook, a shadow in the mirror, a dancer in the eternal masquerade.
And the lodge waited patiently for the next traveler, the next curious soul who would step through its creaking gates.
For Misty Pines never truly slept.
The dance was never over.
END
