The Vile.

Chapter : 40

The Eldest Son.

It's been a few days at this mansion. What surprises Vasudha is how she hardly gets to see anyone of them at all. Danuj and Maya mostly stay outside regarding the various business matters. Nihal stays at the hospital. They have given her every freedom to roam around inside the huge complex, except that cottage.

What gives them so much confidence that she won't be able to go there? The answer is very simple, if you want to reach that cottage you have to cross the lake, and to cross the lake there is no bridge, only one small white boat, that's locked with an iron chain. The key is obviously not easy to find. She has searched everywhere possible but to no avail.

Now that she stands infront of the lake overlooking the cottage her brain gives her various options. One very prominent amongst them surfaces: take a swim.

And without wasting another second she settles for that. She opens her shoes and jacket  and hides it behind the huge tree. She ties her hair into a tight bun and takes a deep breath. Her determined light brown eyes seem to lack confidence for the first time. Many questions throw her senses to overdrive. Is it the right decision? Is she rushing into it without judging the consequences? What if he has done something bad to her brother? And what if he is innocent?

Obstructing her thoughts she closes her eyes and jumps into the ice cold water. She struggles to breath for a few seconds but gets over with it in no time. Her hands stretch forward to the other side as she begins to swim. Every muscle in her body revolts, but she knows she can't stop.

Coming out of the water the first challenge she faces is the harsh attack of the cold breeze. Her whole body starts freezing. Dripping wet, she starts walking towards the cottage, that now looks bigger than she assumed. As she keeps walking a loud thunder booms, accompanied by a bright lightning. She looks at the gloomy sky and hurries towards the white cottage.

The cottage is mesmerizing and she would love to spend some time looking at it but now is not the time. She needs to hurry. She runs towards the entrance of the cottage and as expected, finds a huge lock hanging from the door. She doesn't even try, as she knows she won't be able to break it. She starts walking around it, looking for anything, anything that would help her get inside. Nothing, no way she can get inside it. Defeated, she closes her eyes and sighs. She turns around to leave when her eyes fall on a tree branch that actually passes by one of the small but open windows above. Can be a ventilation window of a bathroom, she thinks. If she can climb the tree she might get a chance to get inside. But then again, how would she come out of it. As she keeps thinking her eyes fall on the answer. These are sliding windows, without any grilling. She can easily come out, once she gets inside.

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She doesn't want to remember how embarrassingly she got inside the cottage and how she might have broken her back bone. But then she stands up and proves that her bones are still doing fine. This seems to be a store room. Its length is not much. The room is mostly empty apart from a few old books, some unimportant things like a broken night lamp, an old unusable armchair and things like that. So without wasting time she takes the narrow stairs that take her to the ground floor.

The architecture is beautiful. She totally likes everything about this comparatively small place. It feels like home, cozy and warm if only she wasn't wet. The floor is mostly filled with huge and tall bookshelves many wooden furniture, beautiful paintings of natural elements like flowers, mountains, galaxy filled with stars. Her eyes keep on scanning and searching for something that gives away some  informations. The whole room contains nothing like that. Practically it's plain and simple. Just the way his mansion at Kolkata has been. She looks behind the shelves, under the tables, everywhere but she receives nothing but hopelessness. She decides that she has mistaken and turns towards one of the windows when she realizes she hasn't checked the room behind.