Poison Orchid

Chapter 1

TWELVE YEARS LATER

When Isis came back home that day from school she found her aunt sobbing at the dining table. She was momentarily stunned before she rushed forward dropping her school bag to comfort her aunt.

“What is it?What has happened Aunty?Please, please don’t cry….tell me.. Have I done something wrong?”,Isis was on the verge of tears while saying this.

“No no darling…Not at all..It is just that..”,her aunt paused passing on to her a photograph.

It was an old photo of two teenage girls laughing with boundless joy and wreckless abandon. Isis felt that as if her own face was staring back at her from the picture.

“You look so much like Cattaleya, so much darling.. It hurts me to find that…”

“But who is this girl Aunty? This is my picture? How can this be so old?”

“No Isis, this is not your picture. This is your mother.”

“But you told me that you had no pictures of her??”

“Yes, it was her wish to make herself known to you when you were at the edge of your fall.”

“Edge of Fall? What is this Aunty? What are you saying? I can’t understand anything.”

“You will…You will certainly understand in a few months. On your sixteenth birthday we will have a great party… That is the Fall for you.”

“Aunty we never had a party for my birthday ever. Why then….”

“Sixteen is an important age for any girl beta. It marks growing up from a girl into a woman. The age of transformation.We ought to have a party.”

“But I don’t have friends ….”,argued Isis.

“ Enough chatter.. Go upstairs.. Get freshened up soon and come down… You need to study.”,said Rossetta in her no nonsense voice.

“Can I keep this photo?”, asked Isis in a small voice.

“Of course darling… I took this out for you only.. But don’t lose it. This is the only picture I have of your mother and my only baby sister.”

“Yeah Aunty..I won’t even dream of it..”

Isis picked up her school bag from the hardwood floor and went upstairs carefully clutching the photograph in her hand. Mother---- the woman of whom she had no memories of, who had died in the accident but she had lived. No one ever dreamt of her survival from that accident but she miraculously had survived.

Suddenly looking at her beautiful mother she felt guilty..guilty for being alive. She did not know how much time had already passed until her aunt called her down for supper. She had not even changed her clothes yet.

She took out the empty photostand of her drawers and put the picture in it. Placing it on her nightstand she looked at the mirror once. A pair of typical green eyes stared back at her from the mirror. Isis could never understand this feeling that whenever she stared at her reflection she felt that someone else was string back at her. She had always felt unnerved by mirrors and today was no exception. She tore away her eyes from the mirror and changing her clothes with a record speed she went downstairs.

“What took so long?”, asked Rossetta.

“Nothing Aunty. Just pondering. “replied Isis.

“On Leya?”she asked handing over a glass of blue coloured liquid.

“Aunty,yesterday only the colour of the milk was much lighter blue but today it is so dark?Any reasons ?”inquired Isis.

“Beta I have already said that your milk has herbs in it. I change the herbs at a regular interval so that you remain strong. Now no more questions..Drink up.”

Isis drank the milk as she did everyday and ate the bread and fruits with great fervor. She was a pure vegetarian, for which she was enough ridiculed in the school canteen. Her aunt said that she might be a bit late today to come back from her store since Rita had taken the evening off.

“You are to finish your homeworks and school studies and get to bed by 11 and no later than that. And you remember na, under no circumstances are you to go outside or open the door to anyone.”

“Yes Aunty I remember. You tell this to me everyday. How can I forget? Moreover board exams are coming. I don’t have time to do any thing else.”

“That’s my good girl. Focus on your studies. You know what to do to get your scholarships . Okay, I shall be off now. Be good.”

Saying this her aunt went off the home and a few minutes later Isis could hear the car going out of the garage into the street. Isis finished her meal locked the door and windows downstairs, left her plate on the sink and went upstairs to her room. Usually she did the dishes just after her meal but she was not feeling like it today.

As she opened the door, she saw a girl standing at her window.

Hearing her footsteps the girl turned towards her.. Isis could not tear off her eyes from he girl.

The girl was wearing a frock which was torn in several places and ragged. Her lips were split and bleeding and the right side of her face was caved in, as if bludgeoned with something blunt and heavy.

Before Isis could scream, the girl let out a shrilling and piercing scream which made the windows rattle. The girl kept on screaming and Isis slammed the door hut and ran downstairs to make a call to 911 but found that the girl was standing there beside the phone.

“How did you get here? I just locked you inside my room,”disbelief, astonishment and fear had crept into her voice without even her knowledge.

“Killed me,” said the girl in a small voice.

“Look I don’t know how you got in but you have of get out of my home. You can’t enter our property without my permission. Please leave,”Isis tried to sound brave but her voice sounded utterly miserable in her own ears.

“They killed me.,” the girl repeated again.

“Are you dead?”asked Isis.

The girl nodded her head.

“Is this a joke?Look, if you are being tortured by someone and you have escaped let me call the police. They will help you.”

“Only you.”said the girl who claimed to be ghost

“What only me?”asked Isis

“Help me.”said the girl

“What are you saying? Only I can help you?”

The girl nodded her head positively as if now Isis was making some sense.

“But who are you? How can I help you? I don’t know anything about you.”

The moment she finished her sentence a newspaper fell on the floor with a thwack sound. The girl looked at her as if saying she needed to read that paper. Isis took up the newspaper from the corner and read the news in the front page.

“ FIFTH GIRL MISSING…BODY NOT FOUND”

“ Naomi Redd has been missing from her friend’s home from the past three days.

Naomi, 13, studies at Robsons High and went missing on Saturday from 24/C, Redsons Avenue in southwest part of the town, leading to a town wide search.

She was last seen outside her friend’s home in the same address at 8 pm wearing a light sky blue coloured frock.”

I looked up and found that the girl was also wearing a light sky blue coloured frock. Good Heavens!!!!!This girl was dead. And she is standing in front of me. The paper dropped from her hands without her feeling anything.

“Mamma, please take me to her.”pleaded the ghost now sobbing.

“But how can I take you? Don’t you know your way home?”

“Can’t.”

“Why?”

“They killed me.”Finishing this sentence she again let out that shrill scream. Isis covered her ears with her hands. When she looked up the girl had already disappeared. But the paper was still lying on her feet.

She took up the paper and started reading the rest of the news . She found that the girl had a younger brother who was five years old. Her father was an accountant in the sheriff’s office and her mother was a homemaker and worked as a part-time waitress at the town’s café. Similarly four more girls had gone missing before her under the same circumstances. They were all of the age between 11 to 13. Another similarity was that all the girls had dirty blond hair and blue eyes.

The sheriff’s department suspected a serial killer on loose who was targeting the same pattern of girls under the same conditions. So they had asked all the children and teenagers not to go out after the dark in the woods.

Is this the reason that Aunty was telling me not to go out after the dark. But she tells it always, thought Isis. But why did the ghost of Naomi come to me? How can I help her? What did she want me to do for her? Shaken, She went back to her room finding it empty this time.

The geography project was still incomplete and the maps were to be drawn. She started studying but she kept on feeling that someone was standing behind her. But she could find no one in the room and the temperature of the room had fallen a few degrees and she was feeling cold. Isis understood that this ghost would not leave her alone until and unless something was done for her. She shut the book and closed her eyes and said out loud, ”Naomi I know you are in this room. I understand you need help but can you please show yourself and talk to me?”

As soon as she said these words, she opened her eyes and found the ghost sitting on her bed. She had that forlorn and lost look on her face.

“I believe you. Will you tell me how can I help you?”

The girl pointed at the window. Isis also looked at the window following her direction but couldn’t understand what she wanted to say. She then got up from the bed and went to the window. The girl came and stood by her side and then she pointed at the woods to the northeast of my bedroom.

“In the forest? This happened with you in the forest?” asked Isis.

The girl nodded vigorously.

“What did they do to you? Can you tell me that?” she asked the ghost

Naomi nodded her head indicating no. But she put forward her hand towards Isis as if asking for her hand. Isis looked at her hand carefully. She saw that there were red welt marks on her wrists as if they had been bound together. And dirt under her nails and small chips on her palms as if she had been trying to get up from the forest floor. She put forward her hand and kept it on the palm of the girl and felt a jolt of electricity passing through her body but cold.

Isis found herself looking at the forest floor, and lying on her belly with her wrists bound with a thin belt of leather. She tried to scream but she found she had lost her voice. And she saw three pairs of shoes in front of her. And someone between her legs raping her, violating her body and grunting like an animal.

She tried to see their faces but it was obscured by hoodies. One of them dropped down on his knees in the forest floor and pulled her hair and brought her mouth close to her neck. And bit down on her nape at the vein and she screamed, the shrill note of her dying voice reverberated round the forest.

“Leave something for us Jake…She is not yours alone.”

This was the last sentence she heard before she became unconscious.