A DREAM HOUSE

Khuki was jolted awake and he sprang up on bed with his heart thumping.

“Someone’s out there,” Nushi hissed in his ear.

“Wher…re? I didn’t hear the door bell.” stuttered Khuki.

His eyelids still refused to open and it felt so cold that he started shivering. He fell on the bed and tried pulling the blanket over but Nushi cruelly pulled it away.

“I said there’s someone out in the yard,” She came extremely close to his right ear and whispered into it.

Khuki closed the assaulted, most ticklish area near his face, his ear, with his hand and laughed aloud. In the semi darkness, he could see Nushi rolling her big eyes and looking reproachfully at him.

“Why did you do that?” She again hissed, this time somewhat away from her previous target.

“Why did I do what?” He questioned indignantly. She did not answer, but just turned away from him and lay quietly. This got him fully awake.

“What’s it darling?” He asked tenderly and with such genuine love that only he was capable of. Nushi refused answering him and kept silent like a stubborn child, but only for a few moments. Like a child’s bad temper her anger would not stay for long.

“There’s someone in the backyard. I have been waking you for half an hour,” she said in a complaining tone.

They went to look through the window overlooking the backyard. He could spot nothing there. He looked up and saw the beautiful stars, the gentle breeze caressing his cheeks. The smell of fresh foliage got his senses alert. How he loved the place!  But for some reason Nushi felt uneasy about it.

He had started loving Nushi right from the moment she offered her chubby hand for him to hold on and get up from the bottom of the staircase where he had fallen. He did take hold of the small hand when the other students who had laughed on seeing him slip and fall turned their faces away, probably in shame. She must have been three years old and in the kindergarten at that time and he, in grade six. His love for her grew as they grew, though she often made fun of him for being clumsy and naïve .

He dropped out from college and went into real estate business. He was able to make it better than he had imagined and he thought of bringing Nushi into his life. He had been dating her for some time, then.

Nushi had grown into a chubby self-conscious girl of twenty one. She had got herself a job in a hospital in the billing section, the desk job giving her even more of a rounded figure. But Khuki loved her all the more and when he held her hand to slip the wedding ring on, he could see the same small hand that offered to help him several years ago. He knew she would be with him through thick and thin.

Even in his most vibrant dreams he never thought he could buy that mansion for such a bargain. He walked not only on cloud nine but on all the clouds he could spot that day.

The two storey house, which was a hundred years old, had been built facing a lake. Sturdy it was with an ancient charm, he was sure Nushi would adore it. The area was just outside the city limits. After the hubbub in the work place, he thought, Nushi would love to stretch out in absolute silence. He wanted the house to be a gift for Nushi who turned twenty three that year.

Some of his ancestral property had to be sold to make a down payment for the house and the loan, he feared would get him repay heavily through the better part of his life; still he felt the house was a good bargain; it was huge with some artifacts of the past still intact and Ivygreen, an expanse of lush greenery and hushed solitude, was beautiful.

“This place looks so deserted, Khuki, almost eerie! It's practically a forest and I'm afraid wild animals would pounce on us from these countless wild bushes, anytime!” declared Nushi when he brought her for the first time to Ivygreen. He thought she would start liking it there after she got familiar with the new place.

“The people are so strange and unfriendly,” was her second complaint about the place.

“I guess there are crocodiles in the lake. No one goes near the water. People keep away at least a good half kilometer when they walk that way.” She never stopped saying things about the place and he felt a bit disappointed.

To top it all, at the dead of the night she woke him up to show someone moving about the back yard. He started to doubt her sanity. Was she suffering some form of mental illness?

A place that was near perfect in everything not only failed to satisfy her, but freaked her out.

The next morning he got up late and found Nushi still sleeping. He made coffee and brought a cup for his precious better half.

She got up and yawned and he said in a placating tone, “We should hire someone to cut all the wild growth and some of the trees as well.” He could see fear in her eyes after he said it.

“You have reminded me of the frightful apparition I saw at midnight,” she shuddered slightly.

He soon contacted an agency for cleaning up the garden.

The next morning a lone man was sent by the agency. He was a a burly fellow and obviously garrulous. He offered his suggestions not only in gardening but in several other subjects also.

As khuki had work in the city even though it was a Sunday, he left Nushi to supervise the work and headed for negotiations on a property to be sold.

Darkness had set in when Khuki was back. He was surprised to find the lights not switched on when he stepped inside. Inside, the whole house was in pitch darkness.

“Nushi!” He called softly and switched on the light of the passage that led to the drawing room. The light did not come on.

“You didn’t tell me about the power cuts,” he heard Nushi’s voice in darkness.

“Honey, where are you?” He called out. “For God’s sake light a candle, child!” He exclaimed. He stumbled upon a human form and and took it to be Nushi. He straightened himself and touched the figure in front of him.

Where are you, Khuki?” The voice came from somewhere inside. With a start he let go of the figure. He then remembered that there was an old life sized statue made of wax in the hallway.

“This place seems like some maze in a God damned fort,” shouted Nushi. They found the candles at last and lit a few. In the light he saw Nushi’s eyes were red and her cheeks glistening with fresh tears.

“Jesus! Why are you crying sweetheart?” He exclaimed and held her shaking figure, trying to calm her down.

“The gardener ….,” she sniffed….” he said Ivygreen has extensive areas used as graveyards. People from the city bury their dead here as the city burial grounds are full. He said the poor people buried their dead ones here, bare, without coffins. He even joked that the lush growth of plants is due to that. “ Nushi said and looked at him pitifully.

“What nonsense!” Cried Khuki.

“You now know why you got this house cheaper than its worth. And people here don’t come out after six. They fear the dead. Every tree here has an evil spirit in it, says the man. That’s why they don’t cut trees. The persons who had tried cutting them died mysteriously.” Nushi was crying uncontrollably.

Khuki did not even try to pacify her. It seemed the height of stupidity to him and looking at Nushi he felt almost certain that she had become mentally imbalanced.

“Such a beautiful pristine place, the city dweller would give anything to possess this,” thought he.

"For God's sake, Nushi, did he finish his work or not?" he asked impatiently.

"No, how could he? Knowing he wouldn't live if he touched even one of those damned trees?" She said between sobs.

“Since the day we stepped in, I have been seeing awful figures moving about in darkness in and outside the house. Had I tried telling you, you would have pooh-poohed it.” Nushi was looking at the floor and talking. “Let’s get away from here, please,” Nushi said in the most pathetic, pleading tone.

“I can understand how you feel, darling. You imagined this as something of a dream house and a rare and beautiful gift to your wife; but it has turned out to be a horror. I don’t blame you. You got cheated by the bargain,” Nushi said after some moments of silence.

Much to his regret, after a coulple of days they again shifted into the city to a single room apartment, similar to the one they had been occupying before he bought the house in Ivygreen.

He started contemplating on the sale of his house.

“I have spent my childhood in Ivygreen. Beautiful place. But for about a few years, the whole place has become a stinking hide out for drug peddlers and a hole for human trafficking also. The government is taking measures to curtail all the unlawful activities, but the old foxes in the dens elude the police.” A prospective buyer was talking about Ivygreen and he had much to say.

“The traffickers spread stories of ghosts and the walking dead to scare away people, so they can continue their activities unhindered and the joke is, even some in the police department believe the nonsense.”

Wasn't Khuki relieved on hearing what the man had to tell him! “I knew. " He stamped his foot.

"I would never, ever sell my house,” he promised himself aloud. The man threw a puzzled look at him and walked away.