Photo by Lewis Roberts on Unsplash

Sampark and Senjuti both work for a foreign company concurrently and were married a year ago. They met at their workplace and after two years of courtship, decided to marry. Sampark lived in Navgram, Murshidabad, while Senjuti hailed from Arambagh, Hooghly. Their wedding took place at a hotel in Baharampur, attended by guests from both families who celebrated the occasion together.

Soon after their marriage, Senjuti expressed reluctance to move to Sampark's house in Navgram. Therefore, within two days of the wedding, they resumed their office duties. Prior to their marriage, they had already rented a furnished two-room flat in South Kolkata.

After a year of living there, they began contemplating purchasing their own flat or house. Through a familiar broker, they learned about an old house in Mahamayatla, Garia. They decided to visit the house one holiday. It was an ancient single-story structure on approximately three acres of land, comprising five rooms with a drawing room well decorated with various oil paintings. The furnishings included a teakwood bed and an eight-foot-high mirror with an oil painting of a smiling child above it, which started Senjuti. Moreover, the house was swept clean as if someone cleaned it daily.

However, the secluded suburban location of the house enamoured them.

On an auspicious day, they moved in and hosted friends for an evening gathering. After dinner, their friends departed, leaving Sampark and Senjuti to retire for the night.

In the quiet hours before dawn, Senjuti was stirred from her sleep by a faint but persistent noise echoing through the house. At first, she hesitated to wake Sampark, hoping the disturbance would subside on its own. However, as the sounds continued, growing slightly louder with each passing moment, her concern deepened. But being the first night at her new home, she ignored it and soon fell asleep.

The following morning, they awoke to the distant call of a rooster, at the break of the dawn. Sampark and Senjuti roused themselves from sleep, greeted by the soft, warm light of the early morning sun bathing the floor of the veranda.

Senjuti brewed tea while recalling the previous night's disturbance. Pressed for time to reach the office, they did not discuss the matter further. That evening, while having tea in the drawing room, Senjuti shared the previous night's events with Sampark. He reassured her, attributing the noises to her tiredness from the last night.

Later that night, while asleep, Senjuti was suddenly awakened by what felt like a child's touch on her leg, accompanied by giggling. Startled, she sat up but found no one around except for the nocturnal sounds of birds outside. Moonlight streamed into the room through the blinds, illuminating Sampark peacefully asleep beside her.

The next day, Senjuti confided in her colleague Trisha about the unsettling incidents. Trisha advised her to observe the situation for a few more days. That evening, during dinner, Sampark mentioned having a dream the previous night but couldn't recall its details, leaving Senjuti unsettled. That night, despite leaving a lamp on, Senjuti struggled to sleep, disturbed by the memory of the child's laughter and the faint sound of a ball hitting against a bat. She woke up all frightened just to notice a change in the oil painting of the child on their dressing table — the once-smiling face now smeared with black paint. Horrified, she woke Sampark with her scream. Switching on the tube light, they found the painting had returned to its original state, depicting the child's cheerful face once more. A petrified Senjuti shared about the nightmare to Sampark. Reassured by her husband she freshened herself up and lay down back to her bed again but couldn't sleep for the rest of the night. The next day as she shared the incidents with Trisha, her colleague, the latter advised her to take an expert's help.

Tonight, after dinner, both of them went to bed. Senjuti did not sleep tonight and that she would stay awake to see what happens. So she kept the table lamp on today. But in no time she fell into deep sleep. Suddenly, she was startled as felt someone caressing her. In a subconscious state she thought it might be Sampark, so she embraced it despite her reluctance. But soon she was shocked to find Sampark lying asleep beside her. The table lamp was off. When she got up hurriedly and turned on the light, to found her upper body exposed as if she had just breastfed a child. Immediately she called her husband and he was bewildered to hear of the incident. And this time he somehow couldn't deny the ghostly affairs taking place because he himself believed in it. They observed the painting closely under the table lamp, noticing the child's smile appearing brighter in the darkness.

The next morning, they decided to walk down to the streets to ask the neighbours about any abnormal history of the place they live in. Soon they found someone working in a grocery store who told that the home was cursed. The story goes back to when there lived a rich couple but childless. They lived here remotely and in their absence the house was taken care by a poor woman. She had a little son who accompanied her but the owner used to be displeased with the little boy. One day mistakenly the kid broke a costly showpiece. Out of rage, he was beaten blue and black. The maid begged them on their feet to give relief to his son. Some days later, the kid came in search of his mother after which he was never found.

Sun was at it's peak when Senjuti and Sampark returned home with a heavy heart. Near their gate they were stopped by a beggar in ragged clothes, uncombed dirty hair crying for her lost child. It wasn't difficult for them to understand that the poor woman in her mid-thirties was no one but the caretaker maid of the house they lived in.

Without wasting any more time they decided to visit an exorcist who could help them. They also went to a carpenter to get some furniture built for their room. The same night went uninterrupted. A relieved Senjuti was about to get into bed the next night when suddenly a sharp cry of a child was heard pleading for his life. In response, there was a threatening angry voice of a man who bullied or killed him. A provocating voice of a female shouted to end the little life within no time. It was barely some seconds when the kid struggled for his life and shouted. A full unearthly episode of a murder was taking place somewhere near their bedroom.

The frightened couple curled up in the corner of the room petrified by the sounds. Suddenly everything was silent. They couldn't sleep the whole night. In the morning, they found red blood streaks on the floor which left them in chills. The next morning as per the planning a group of carpenters came to take a measurement of the furniture they wanted to put up. As they removed the photo frame of the child in their bedroom, they found an uneven unpainted surface on the wall. Intrigued by the wall, as one of the carpenters put a stroke of hammer on the wall, loose pieces of plastered cover fell on the floor. There laid a beheaded body of a child with the head kept beside it. It was the same smiling face drawn in the painting. Senjuti lost her senses. After a while when she regained consciousness, she realised that this was a kid who tolled in the house playing. His spirit was entrapped in the wall which came out every night in search of her mother.

Bewildered, the couple left the lovely house for the good on their mutual decision to let the small kid live in peace, while they went on a search for a new home.

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