The Zamindar house or The Roybari Mondir Tala haunted the edge of the darkness, a lost artifact of ages. Arnab Roy stepped out of the taxi, staring at the decaying mansion that had once been his family’s pride. The vast property fronted the village of Gopalpur, an hour’s drive from Kolkata, hemmed in by untended trees and an uncanny stillness. It had been a long time since Arnab walked there.
Having gone back after his father’s death suddenly, he stayed to look after the family business, but just walking inside the house made his head spin. As a child, he remembered the whispered warnings from villagers and stories of strange happenings tied to the old house and its pond.
Even Arnab’s dog, Shona, felt uneasy. The golden retriever, usually brave and cheerful, whimpered at the gate, refusing to move.
“What’s wrong, boy?” Arnab said, trying to coax him forward.
But Shona growled a soft reply, his tail tucked between his legs, and a quiet hollow shiver passed across his shoulder blades. Arnab sighed and muttered, “It’s only an old house…” to himself, still not wholly convinced.
For the house, the crumbling walls disliked him. It was not the fireplace with damp wood, it was some other thing. And it was engendering an immense feeling in Arnab. He couldn’t express it.
It was a simple dinner of rice and dal, followed by a lonely hour of Arnab poring over the title deeds of a variety of inherited properties. The dim room had a solitary bulb flickering in it, casting misshapen shadows of the ornate furniture onto the walls.
Just as Shona began to growl again. Arnab was startled, and he looked down at the dog who was fixedly staring out the window toward the next window that looked out to a pond behind the house. The growling turned to frantic barking and then to panting as he ran under the table, a trembling bundle afraid.
“Shona! What has come over you?” he shouted. He got up and walked around the table to look out the window.
As moonlight descended and filtered through the flimsy branches near the pond in the distance, it lazily glistened with dancing fireflies, barely visible There was still no lake of movement. Nothing ruffled the water. But he thought he saw it.
He seemed to see a sudden wavelet spreading out from the center of the pond like unseen hands oaring or a breeze ruffling the rainless atmosphere. The air was so dense it was unmoving.
He shook his head. “It’s just water.” he whispered, though his heart felt heavy with unease.
The next morning, Arnab decided to explore the house. In a locked storage room, he found a dusty old trunk filled with books, ledgers, and diaries. Among them were several journals belonging to his great-grandfather, Zamindar Hiralal Roy.
The early entries painted a picture of wealth and grandeur. Hiralal had hosted lavish feasts, entertained British officers, and ruled over the estate with pride. But as Arnab flipped through the pages, the tone changed.
One entry from 1857 stood out:
“The pond… it is no longer just a pond. I have done something unforgivable. The water remembers. It knows.“
Arnab frowned. What could his great-grandfather have meant? He continued reading, finding cryptic references to a woman named Ishani.
Memories of childhood tales came flooding back. His mother used to warn him about the pond, calling it cursed. She mentioned a maid named Ishani who had disappeared long ago. At the time, Arnab had dismissed it as a ghost story meant to scare children. But now, reading Hiralal’s words, the story felt disturbingly real.
That evening, Arnab couldn’t resist. He had to see the pond up close. He held honey-brown, languid-lidded, twinkling eyes over hands resting spread-eagled on scabby knees, and at the same time, with deliberate slowness, leaned on as if meaning to rise only to lean back in position. From the sides of his shaggy half-thick toughened peninsular torn-off head of black hair, a few pieces fell over broad sleeping eyelids, and the wrinkles of his eyes suddenly dimmed in shadow like lowering stars. To any observer, Van seemed quite settled in a dubious stupor and melancholic escape, having granted an invitation even onto the soul of an abstract observer. Arnab tied him to a nearby tree and stepped closer to the water.
As he stared into its dark surface, he noticed something strange—the reflection of the house in the water looked different. The crumbling walls and broken windows were gone. Instead, the house appeared pristine, glowing with warm light as if it were alive.
And then he saw her.
A woman’s face emerged in the reflection, pale and lifeless, her hair floating around her like black seaweed. Her hollow eyes locked onto his. Her lips moved, and though no sound came from her, Arnab heard the words echo in his head:
“You remember me now… don’t you?“
His retreating figure was shrouded in darkness, clutching terror in his heart. The woman’s countenance dimmed horribly, but the water was writhing and wriggling wildly, its surface acting as if it were agitated somewhat.
Terrified, Arnab spent the night poring over the diaries. Slowly, the horrifying truth unfolded.
Ishani had been Hiralal’s mistress. When she became pregnant, he ordered her to drown in the pond to avoid scandal. Her cries had haunted him until his death. But Ishani’s spirit didn’t rest. The pond became cursed, tied to her vengeance.
“The bloodline must pay. The water remembers. The bloodline must end.“
As Arnab read these words, a cold breeze swept through the room. He heard some water-splattered footsteps out in the corridor.
“Who’s there?” he called, with his shaking voice.
A whisper answered:
“It’s not the pond that’s cursed. It’s you.“
Arnab turned to see his father standing in the doorway. His clothes were soaked, his face pale and expressionless.
“You thought it began with Hiralal,” his father said, his voice hollow. “But the bloodline is cursed because we chose to continue it. Every generation has fed the pond. And now it’s your turn.”
“No…” Arnab whispered, backing away.
But his father’s figure dissolved into water, puddling on the floor. From outside, the pond began to ripple violently, waves crashing against its banks.
Arnab tried to run, but the ground beneath him felt like quicksand. He heard Ishani’s voice, soft but cruel:
“You can’t escape, Arnab. The water knows. The water waits.“
Before he could get to the door, two cubes of ice from his hands grabbed his legs and pulled him to the floor, his screams muted as he was dragged towards the pond, its surface agitated by dark, churning movement.
The following morning the villagers found the house untenanted, doors wide open. The pond was still once again. But when they looked into its depths, they saw something new.
Arnab’s reflection stared back at them, his face twisted in terror, trapped beneath the water’s surface.
Far away in Kolkata, a distant cousin of Arnab’s received a letter. The Roy estate, it said, was now his inheritance. The boy smiled, unaware of what awaited him in Gopalpur.
Beautiful story .well written short and crisp
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