Summoning the Devil I Story By Anwesha, 14, Durgapur

Summoning the Devil

The shrill ringing sound jerked us out of a subconscious state of existence into the three dimensional reality- the abode of the physical. It was five minutes since we had been slowly sliding the small piece of wood, round and round against the peculiar board emblazoned with gold letters, numbers and even a few words. ‘Spirit, please answer us. Are you harmless or not?’- this was the only statement that we were relentlessly uttering throughout the past five minutes. I looked beside myself to find the ghost detector ringing, but it silenced itself within five seconds. Nevertheless, a spot could still be seen plotted on the screen. We were aware that this dot indicated the presence of a spirit in our room.

Reshmi said, with a tinge of exasperation, “Does this even work? I don’t find any movement on the board till now. Are you sure that this game is at all capable of establishing a connection between us and the dwellers of the realm of spirits, if it exists at all…..Good grief, my fingers are going cold and numb. I was perched listlessly on the ground with a calmness forged across my face, and allowed the numbing sensation wash over my index finger and palm. I had hardly doubted the possibilities of this occurrence. My calmness was just the expression of a blend of excitement and anxiety. Being the mother of eleven months old, I was not quite up for this Ouija board game at that point of time, but my impetuous sister would never understand the risks of inviting a spirit to a place where a tender soul exists. Maybe, this came about as a manifestation of her tendencies to refute the existence of paranormal. To get her believe what I believed so firmly, I brought out the Ouija board nearly after solid two years. Anyway, I was not afraid, rather I was more used to all these than many of my generation, but somehow this didn’t seem to be the right time.

I threw a momentary glare at my sister, and beckoned her to let things work out in the way they were supposed to. I didn’t fancy trying to oppose a supernatural entity after purposefully inviting it to my place. My index finger and hers too, were lightly placed on the wooden piece with a thin hollow cylinder carved in it. Slowly, the wood or planchette started sliding on its own, escorting our fingers along with itself. The corners of the board were labeled with a ‘yes’ and a ‘no’, but naturally our question was kind of open ended, and I guess that’s why the spirit didn’t bother to move the planchette towards the corners. The planchette lightly careened across the set of numbers to the central part of the board that was emblazoned with letters. We felt a peculiar tingling sensation in our palms. The feelings of having our wrists being dominated was capable enough to evoke a sense of discomfort within us. It moved up to the letter ‘H’, and then slowly on to the letter ‘A’, and then through the hollow space in the off-white planchette, a ‘R glistening in the light of an old, dusty and slightly cracked candle appeared. Next appeared ‘M’, much to our expectation and apprehension.

My sister had gone completely pale. Anyone would know that the spirit was trying to respond to us by moving the planchette, and unlike man, a spirit certainly won’t behold a facaded mental-makeup as of a chameleon before other beings. Immediately, I knew it was better not to continue the challenge with a spirit that had the intention to harm us. I didn’t want to have Varun, my step-son, wake up all of a sudden and abruptly end the game by throwing undue tantrums. Varun had a tendency to wake up in the middle of night, and I didn’t want him to realize my absence beside his cot. I was super-anxious, especially, because his father was not around then to tackle him till I could take my time, and end this with a safe conclusion. While I was about to converse my final decision to Reshmi, I felt a weird chill shoot up my spine.

My sister was blankly staring at the wall to the opposite side behind me. Fear had started taking a toll on my composure, but I was trying my level best to subdue it, ’cause in such games, scared souls are far more vulnerable to all sorts of ineffable mishaps- this was what my experience and those of others since yore have concluded. I turned back to be sure, and again turned to shake her shoulders hard. There was no response to my action. After a second or two, she started withdrawing her fingers slowly- the last thing one could do before bidding the spirit a respectful goodbye. I said in a hushed voice, “What on the earth do you think you’re doing?”

Reshmi mysteriously lifted her head to look at me. To my horror, her eyes had gone red. Those greenish eye balls were quivering, and then they slid upwards behind her lids. She started panting. Low deep grunts escaped her lips. Her hand hovered to her head, clasped her own bun and smashed the clutch clip. Those silky straight hair fell on her forehead and veiled her left eye, but naturally she didn’t care to put it right. It was the first instance in my life where I was observing a major possession. I just wanted to end all these here, hence I pulled a candle up and was about to say the farewell note to the entity, but at the nick of time, Reshmi kicked my arm painfully. Alas! The candle crashed on the floor, and the fire was extinguished. 

In the flickering light of the last candle, I noticed Reshmi’s pink lips moving slightly, and a creepy moan in the form of a heavily double tracked voice escaped from those. The mysterious sound reverberated through the atmosphere. I knew that something was not quite right. This was not the voice of Reshmi, not even the voice of a human being. It was definitely a different entity speaking through her. I forged some firmness and sense of authority into my tone, and said, “Who are you? Why are they trying to harm us?” 

There was no reply for quite a while, but after about fifteen minutes, Reshmi said  “Are you trying to pretend to be oblivious to the cacophony you had created five years ago in the small stable, back at your village. If not for your carelessness, the one year old sick horse would have been galloping around the forests by now. In our realm, these creatures are catered to in a far better way than on Earth.” Initially, I couldn’t recall anything but the last bit of information unleashed some old memories and subdued sentiments. 

A young girl with green eyes, loosely braided brownish black beautiful hair and a round face was sitting on her haunches, clad in a warm long coat over her suit-salwar while a handsome young man having mohawk hair, dressed in a casual attire, sweater and a muffler stood by her, trying to ignite the candles with matches. It was one in the morning, and the surrounding was cloaked in the soft satin sheet of darkness. This tiny horse stable, nearly five hundred meters away from the last building in the village, had been the ideal location for the couple to plan out their adventures or perform horror rituals, not black magic though. The horizon was lined with uneven rocky hills meagrely adorned with greenery where bushes projected the greatest prominence. The moon glistened on the rocks, especially on yellowish loose soil smeared on the broken end of these boulders. To their right, there was a massive farmhouse, and the corns swayed with the light cold wind. The man said, “Savitri, let’s sit inside the stable today. It’s too windy here, and we can’t afford to have our candle extinguished in the middle of such a risky challenge” The young woman nodded negatively and said, “We can’t waste our time on clearing the hay. You should know that hay  usually catches fire quite easily, and hence, we can’t place the candles near the bed of hay.” The carefree bachelor said, “Oh dear, what would happen? The horses had been escorted to the market in the town a week ago. I suppose they won’t use this old small stable anymore, provided a new stable is being constructed on the other side of the village.” The argument put forward by her partner was quite cogent, yet not completely convincing. Therefore, she emphasized on the fact that they would sit just at the gate, only because we didn’t want to have the wind put the candle out before we could complete our job.

The women’s intuitions molded itself into reality when the bed of hay caught fire on the account of those burning candles, just before they could say a farewell to the spirit in the horror Card Game. Being amateur freshers in regards to the enormity of paranormal, the couple just managed to extinguish the fire within half an hour, but could not formally complete this game. Farewell was supposed to be an indispensable part of this game which they were compelled to skip.

indispensable part of this game which they were compelled to skip.

Apparently, this tale had been lost in the crowded labyrinths of my memory, by which I could almost complete my twenty sixth year on Earth. Now, I was sojourning in a sober house in the city of Udaipur, nearly forty kilometers away from my maternal home, the ancient big courtyard house in the small village adjoining the forest of Haldighati. Truly speaking, the presence of a sick one year old horse had been completely unknown to me till the very moment before the shocking epiphany, and not even my ex-fiance was aware of this fact. I hoped for a moment that I could bring the truth to the notice of this ‘cool’ dude who had disappeared into blue all of a sudden, but I won’t say that it had troubled me much, though my family members were worried to death. As a matter of fact, my grandfather himself had discovered this obscure boy out of nowhere, and addressed him as the son of his business partner. Anyway, for a moment, I could not help but express my frustration at the outrageous deed of ours, though done in ignorance.

I splattered, “What are you saying? Do elaborate. ” Reshmi started rocking vigorously and said, “You didn’t even bother to bid me farewell, and I was stuck there for ages before someone else performed the same ritual near the same stable. I was liberated out of this suffocating world after then. Now, I have got a nice chance to haunt your….” The sentence was left incomplete as Reshmi’s frail body gave away, and she collapsed on the ouija board. The planchette sprang into the air, falling on my lap.

Things were just falling apart and getting more and more unrestrained. I felt totally devastated and least prepared to have the weirdest of surprises unfurl altogether. The paranormal has always been something beyond man’s capabilities of interpretation, too unpredictable to be intertwined with the tangible world, too vast to be deciphered with the narrow perspectives of man. My resilience had not completely manifested into form before I heard a horrible, distinctive kneigh. I sharply turned my head towards the door.

The candle slipped out of my grasp, and smashed down on the floor, extinguishing itself completely, but it was not completely dark as supposed to be. Varun’s blood shot eyes glistened in the darkness, and he was crawling and advancing towards me on his fours, letting the deafening sound of a whole herd of horses escape his lips.  

To be continued

By Anwesha Topdar

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