Choking Buds

5- Gone with the Shadows

"You're growing bigger, mama is going to be proud!" She patted the calf and it rubbed its soft head against her. She milked Chandri after letting the cows out. Elowen came into the shed to help only after the last of them were gone. Marwa was going to do her daily teasing—about her phobia of cows, but she asked about Deepu. The girl always came to the shed during milking.

"Sleeping, maybe." Elowen murmured as she moved the wastes with a rake.

Marwa hummed.

During breakfast, there was the usual noise and blabber. Aisha was grinning at something another girl had said, and three girls were competing in jumping while a fourth yelled at them not to touch the candle-holders on the wall.

There was a certain- chaos missing.

"Where is Deepu?" Elowen looked at her. She shrugged.

There was a cry outside, followed by Amma's yelling. It sounded like she was asking someone to get water.

They rushed outside. The sound was coming from above. They darted upstairs, each gripping a cup of water- Marwa had to slow down because she nearly spilled it. They turned into a hallway and stopped by the doorway. Amma was holding a limp girl in her lap. She took the cup from Elowen and splashed the girl's face with some water.

Marwa handed her cup and she let a few drops fall into the girl's mouth. The girl coughed.

It was Jewel, a girl with doe's eyes and a bit younger than Deepu. Marwa looked around. There were two other girls in the room, huddled together by the wall. They shared the room. Deepu's bed was messy as usual.

"What happened?" Marwa said.

Amma looked at her anxiously. "These two told me that Jewel wasn't waking up. She's breathing, but it looks like the child has hit her head." She stroked the girl's hair. "There's no wound, though. And she was on the bed when I came in.." She put the girl back on the bed.

"Where's Deepu?" Marwa asked. Something was eating her on the inside.

"I haven't seen her." Amma looked at the two girls. "Have you, dears?"

The girls shook their heads.

Aisha came in. "Ustadha wants to talk to you, Amma."

The Imam's wife had taught them all- to read and write, to pray and to recite the Quraan. She would come to the manor daily, but when it became too difficult-for someone her age, she gave lessons once a week.

Amma left and Marwa sat beside Jewel. "When you woke up, was Deepu not in bed?"

The girls shook their heads.

"When did you wake up?" Elowen questioned.

"An hour ago." One of them said in a small voice.

"Where is she?" Marwa was getting tense.

Elowen bit her cheek in thought. "I wouldn't be surprised to find out this is some prank of hers."

Marwa loosened up just a little. Maybe she was hiding in the attic, waiting to PEEKABOO at their scared faces.

An hour later, everything got...grim. And terrifying.

Ustadha had come to check on the girls, because all over the village—young girls had gone missing overnight. The baker's youngest daughter. The fisherman's nieces. A total of four girls were gone. Deepu was one of them.

They had searched the whole manor, from the attic to the cellar, and even gone in the woods looking for her- only the older children were let outside.

Some of the kids were crying, while the others comforted them. Marwa didn't know what to feel- because she knew nothing, except that the girl wasn't in the manor.

Where and how?

She almost believed that Deepu would bang the gates any moment now, giggling and telling them ridiculous tales.

She felt someone squeezing her hands, warming her frosty fingers. She hadn't noticed that she was leaning against Elowen, who had her hands in hers. Ella was staring into the fireplace, while quietly comforting her.

Chattering broke the silence. They looked up to see some meek smiles. The girls were saying that Jewel had woken up.

Upstairs, the door to Deepu's room was locked, with kids gathered around it. Marwa knocked, and Amma yelled in a frustrated tone.

"Children, to your rooms! There is no fun fest going on here-"

"Amma, it's us." Marwa said.

The door was unlocked and the kids tried to enter but Aisha pushed them gently, bolting it from inside when Marwa and Elowen had entered.

"I don't want the younger children to hear about all this." She said sternly.

They nodded.

Jewel was sitting up on the bed, looking timid as a rabbit.

"What happened after that, dear?" Amma asked her.

"I don't know." Jewel squeaked. "They put a soft thing on my face and then..I slept suddenly."

Jewel had been recounting the events of last night. Aisha told Marwa what the girl had said.

Jewel had woken up to the sound of a something falling. Deepu's doll had been knocked down, and Jewel saw a strange figure by the window. The figure held a still Deepu, and Jewel had tried to run to the door to call for help—but the person grabbed her. They had whispered,"Stay still, or I'll take you too." before doing something that Jewel refused to tell, no matter what Amma asked. She had burst into hysterics when she was trying to narrate it the first time. She looked unharmed—there were no wounds or marks, so they hadn't hit her.

Marwa shifted uncomfortably. What was worse? Her mind refused to think about it.

Aisha looked at them with wide eyes. They were all shaken.

Deepu had been—what was that word—kidnapped.

Why?

The hallways suddenly felt empty. Marwa hadn't realised, until now, how much she was attached to the bubbly girl. She wondered if that was nearly how it felt to have a real, little sister. As much as the girl annoyed her to the core, she had come to love her over the past two years.

She gazed at the walls stained with tiny fingerprints.

Two years of frolic in the manor—which if her mother hadn't brought Deepu here, would have been the end of her childhood. Two years of playing, learning little things and sometimes praying beside her, while at other times chanting random words in Sanskrit her mother had taught her. Her mother, who had showed up at the orphanage one night in desperation, for her family was about to marry Deepu off; Deepu, who was a child in every way—chasing butterflies at the age of six. Her father had thought her a burden.

Just another mouth to be fed.