Was She Still There?

I almost spent my entire childhood at my maternal home. I belong to a conservative joint Bengali family and I am habituated to grow up with my kins.

The year was 2004 and I as usual went to my maternal home to spend my summer vacation there. My mamabari (maternal home) was in the suburban area of West Bengal, a south eastern state in India. Because it was a bit rural therefore we had lots of woods around my mamabari and a large pond in front of it. There was also a jasmine tree near to the pond. We had very few street lights during that time in that area. My maternal home was divided into two parts. One was old made with clay and thatched roof with a big corridor and the new one was under construction.

Me, my elder brother (uncle's son) and my younger sister were playing in the corridor in evening about 7:00 pm to 7:20 pm when my brother suddenly stopped and said that he liked that jasmine tree and doesn't want it to be cut. We also looked at the tree which could be seen directly from the main door. We asked why and he said that a girl died there two months ago and her spirit was causing trouble in the village and that's why the elders have decided to cut the tree (in villages in India people believe if a person died near any flower tree his/her spirit would latch itself to that tree). Then he went to get some cold water for us as it was very hot. The lights went out after that.

We were just wondering what might happen when we suddenly saw someone coming through the back door and sitting in between us. We were relieved because our brother was sitting in the middle just before he went to get some water. We were also scared a bit after hearing that, so it was such a relief that he returned soon. We could not see his face properly because there was a power cut and it was dark around us. My sister said, "Will they really cut the tree?" He didn't answer. He was sitting still. I asked the same thing and still no answer. Then we got really scared and I touched his hand to assure it was him or not when I felt it was extremely cold and hard like wood. My sister screamed at that time and suddenly the lights came back and we saw there was no one sitting between us. That scared the hell out of us and we ran into the house just to see that my brother was still standing near the fridge and complaining about the water not being cold due to frequent power cuts.

Thanks for reading my story and I apologize for the content being so long.