Where Do You Go in the Dark, My Love?

By Isha Singh

Your understanding of the occult is about to change. There are no vampires here, no werewolves. These are stories of life interrupted by forces unknown: energy flowing dark and silent from unspoken fears, repressed desires and small-town secrets. Set in hauntingly beautiful hill-stations, the sleepy lanes of Lucknow and breath-taking Rishikesh, these stories explore cities and the characters they coil around: whether it is a waiter disillusioned with the world around him, a school boy followed everywhere by a pig, a lawyer who wears a tiger claw at his neck for virility, or a young woman as much in love as she is in mortal danger. Here, in these eerily quiet worlds, are stories of horror that come from the most familiar of places, where nothing is ever as it seems.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins India
• Release date: Nov 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9789353574093

Isha Singh

Isha Singh is a research scholar, currently working on Trauma and Memory in Holocaust literature. She has previously done her Bachelors from Miranda House, University of Delhi.

Book preview

THE INN

Every morning, a dozen tourists arrived at the inn, and it was Ishan’s job to cater to their whims. Maple syrup with pancakes, honey and oats for breakfast – they would order and he would dash into the kitchen, joke with the Nepali cook and wait peacefully. He often smoked a pipe while waiting.

Ishan did not like any of them – these fancy tourists with their cars, their clothes which screamed money and their absolute lack of manners. He did not like how they littered the valley with their Lays and their bottles of coke. He hated how they staked claim on the hills during summer, and abandoned them like an orphan child in the harsh months of winter. When the hills were covered with snow, they belonged to him and him alone. Each crusty layer of snow on the crest, each falling snowflake, each rut of tire in the snow-covered tracks – it was his kingdom, his earthly glory.

But he had to tolerate them like he tolerated the writer who lived above the inn. The whole cottage belonged to the writer – a quaint fellow who never left his house except to go and sit at an old bookstore. There would be girls squealing to meet him as he signed the books that they had bought. Ishan had not read anything that the man had written, nor did he care. He merely knew that the inn had once belonged to his father, and now, these tourists and the writer were taking it all away from him.

Ishan did not mind the girls though. He liked the way they eyed him when he brought them their pancakes. He knew that he was too good-looking for a place like this. He was as beautiful as the mountains themselves. Well-built, muscled, a rugged looking specimen – he knew why they kept asking for him at the reception again and again. But he had never loved any of those girls. The only thing that he loved had been his father’s inn, where he had now been reduced to a servant. He also loved Landour and its sprawling cantonment; he loved it like it was a person with a soul.

Every day, he walked amongst those pines, slowly inhaling the resiny scent. He felt their soft needles and the hard cones on the trees. He crushed the moss beneath his feet, plucked it out of the soil and flung it as far as he could. Sometimes, it would land merely a foot away; sometimes, too far. On occasion, it would get caught in a spider’s web, bringing down the gossamer threads, glistening with early-morning dew. The spider would scuttle over to a leaf; pausing animatedly, ready to jump at Ishan’s fingers.

Wherever Ishan went, destruction followed.

When he was little, he was once playing with kerosene and burnt down the entire house. The fire devoured both his parents. His uncle sold the land to the writer and sent Ishan to a boarding-school. But Ishan ran away from there and returned to Landour. His uncle left him to his own devices.

There had been one girl in Ishan’s life, whom he had liked a little, but she had been visiting the place briefly and left, never to return. He told her some of his deepest secrets, which seemed shameful to admit to others, but innocuous enough to share with her in the warmth of their bed.

When she did not return, he grew distant from the few friends he had at the inn. The Nepali cooks tried to cheer him up, but he did not joke with them as he once would. Even the writer noticed his gruffness when Ishan took him breakfast one morning.

‘Been having a rough day?’ he inquired genially.

Ishan never answered the old man. He was tired of hearing the same old story about his love for the mountains, how he had sold his soul to the devil to live in Landour. The love for the mountains coursed through Ishan’s veins too, but he did not feel the urge to proclaim it to the whole world. It was like inviting the whole party to come partake in paradise with you. Too many people coming to the hills had commercialized them. Landour was changing right in front of his eyes.

The first to vanish and face the brunt of this commercialization was the German Bakery. It got replaced by an upcoming shopping centre, thronged by preppies and their girlfriends. The owner of the bakery, a friend of Ishan’s, shifted the entire set-up to a remote corner of the town, where he dished out carrot cake and banana muffins from a shack. Word around the town was that the writer was planning to sell the inn too. Ishan wanted to shake him, confront him and tell him that it wasn’t his to sell.

‘I bet you are wondering what this old man is doing, living alone amongst these pines.’ The writer’s voice broke Ishan’s reverie.

For the first time ever, Ishan chose to engage. ‘I heard that you are planning to sell the place. Is that true?’

‘No, my boy! A few offers have trickled in, but these mountains are in my bones and now my bones are old. They will still be with me when my bones are interred, the day the devil comes to take my soul,’ the writer answered.

Ishan laughed – a sardonic, wry smile twisting his lips. ‘Why do you keep saying that?’

‘Because it is true. When I left my home, I left a wife and two daughters behind. Gave it all up for these hills. With all the pain that I’ve caused, I am surely going to hell.’

Ishan murmured a prayer in his mind, hoping for the old man to be taken away by the devil soon. Then he left the room.

That night, Ishan’s prayer was answered.

Ishan was walking back towards the inn, along the dark and wooded trail, when he heard the first crash. Then, another thud followed by what seemed like an avalanche. Only, it felt as if the earth stood still; the mountains around him stood still too, in all their jagged glory.

It appeared as if the sky was falling apart. A dim, orange glow had spread across its vast expanse and soon, darkness engulfed the mountains. They became invisible; looking around, you could not say it was a hilly area. Everything became silent for a while before the ravens began to screech. They kept screeching as Ishan rushed down the trail, avoiding the rocks jutting out of the undergrowth.

For the first time in his life, he was afraid of these hills; aware of some dark secret that they kept hidden in their hungry bellies. It seemed as if the sky was pouring down red-hot coals. It became too hot suddenly and he found it difficult to breathe.

People were rushing out of their homes. It appeared as if a massive earthquake was shaking all of Landour. The pine needles were rustling to the ground, leaving the trees bare like skeletons. At the far end of the valley, the Sal trees, which had stood guardians for decades, were crumbling like fresh pastry.

The wolves started to howl and the mountain dogs could be heard yelping as well. The air was full of the black feathers of the ravens, which they had shed while flying over the sky.

The corrugated tin roof of one of the cafés, lifted up into the sky and fell on the road with a deafening bang. Tourists panicked and ran out into the market, leaving their coffees behind.

Then, it stopped. The pines stopped shaking and the December chill returned. The ravens disappeared into the valley.

Ishan ran into the inn to check up on the writer, but he was nowhere to be found. His pen lay on the table, leaving ink stains on the fresh sheets of paper below. His porridge lay on his bed, untouched.

The next day, sunlight streamed into the valley. The inn stood awash; its garish neon-green paint gleaming in the bright sun. The locals said that last night’s happenings were a wind disturbance and a major landslide had been prevented. But a nagging thought persisted at the back of Ishan’s mind. It was something about the devil that the writer had said.

Ishan hurried towards the bookstore, feet racing, heart pounding and his checked shirt all streaked with dirt. His knuckles were raw from the fall that he had sustained last night. But he did not bother because he was feeling guilty – guilty that he had wished it and caused the writer to disappear.

Then he saw him – down at the bookstore, deep in conversation with a girl he seemed to recognize. Ishan had never known such relief and joy before. He was alive – that mad, zany writer! The girl of his dreams was back as well and was now smiling at him, squinting in the sunlight. He must have looked like such a fool, leaping in the air.

Within a few days, they had all forgotten about that night. It was a blur in Ishan’s memory. Only happiness surged through him.

After a few days, the writer called him to the room upstairs.

‘I want you to have the inn,’ he said. ‘Sorry it took me so many days. I was tying up a few other affairs.’

Ishan was speechless. Just like that, his entire childhood had been given back to him.

‘Will you accompany me to a place? I seem to have troubled you enough. It is one last favour that I will ask of you.’

Ishan did not say much; he was overwhelmed. Together, they started from the inn and traversed through the ridge. They came to the circuit house. The writer stared at it for a minute and then continued walking. At night, the pines looked like sentries to the gateways of hell. A raven perched up on a pine branch flew away upon hearing the approaching footsteps.

The rain had collected in small puddles along the path. As they hiked up the mountain path, it sloshed around.His boots got muddy, but Ishan did not mind. He was not paying attention to the trail, for he knew these meandering mountain trails like the back of his hand. He was not so sure where that one led though, but it would hopefully be the last time he would have to entertain the writer.

Step after step, breathing in the thick forest, he followed the writer till the man suddenly stopped. The moon, which had hitherto been hiding behind clouds, suddenly decided to grace the hills with its ethereal light. As it shone upon a marble edifice, Ishan realized that they had reached a graveyard.

‘What the…?’ As he stammered, his eyes fell upon the writer, who seemed to be flickering like a pale candle. With horror, Ishan realized that the man had no shadow. His blood curdled.

‘Told you I had sold my soul to the devil. He came that night to claim it when you wished me dead, Ishan.’ The words echoed ominously in the forest and the last thing that Ishan, the waiter at Dom’s Inn saw, was an old tentacle-like hand reaching up to grab his throat.

A POSTING IN MANALI

The mountain air is heavy with secrets. It carries them from the depths of the earth, coated with masses of fresh snow, and from the snow-crusted needles of the blue pines. It carries them into the city, where the