Deceiving Veils

Chapter- 58{will-o'-the-wisp}

Aryan returned to the broken shack which those men had allotted to his family. Nandini who was changing cold strips to tame Aashi's fever got on her feet and ran to him. 

"Did you find them?" She asked impatiently. 

Aryan shook his head and walked to his sister to avoid Nandini's insistent gaze. 

"What do you mean you didn't find them?" Nandini shouted while Aryan looked at her terrified. He gestured her to speak lowly while she started to pace across the room. 

"I can't sit here," She mumbled to herself and then looked at sick Aashi. 

"Those men are on prawl. One wrong step and we all would be executed," Aryan warned reading Nandini's face. 

"I don't care," She mumbled and reality again hit her like thunderbolt. 

"My sick father is out there. Do you understand?" She yelled and Aryan rushed to her to lower down her pitch. Covering her mouth, he reminded her about ears which wall had grown. 

"Let the dawn arrive, I will go out and find your father," Aryan tried to write down a vague promise to calm her down. 

Nandini kept looking at him opaquely. Her eyes had so much beyond that water, Aryan couldn't ever withstand those eyes. He looked away not knowing how to untangle the new knots. 

"I wonder where my dear brother had disappeared," He murmured as he walked back to Aashi. 

He didn't hear Nandini for few seconds and turned around dreading how she was gone. But she was standing there, looking to be in some inner battle. 

"Can you promise me something?" She asked, her eyes set on unconscious Aashi. 

"What?" Aryan asked horrified. 

"Keep her safe and alive till I come back," She asked finally meeting Aryan's unsure gaze. 

"Can you do it?" She asked with newly found stability. 

Aryan couldn't utter a word. He was asked to take care of his own sister whom he loved dearly. Was he that incapable? He pondered with a blood sucked face. 

He nodded fervently, maybe wanting Nandini to know how he cared for Aashi. Nandini walked to Aashi and kissed her burning forehead. Her lips mumbled some prayers before she stormed out of that cabin. 

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Nandini walked amid a sleeping village where ghosts of pain murmured the curses of hell. She could hear faint cries of infants, sobs of tormented lasses and she wanted to cover her ears. Her hair were veil to her face as she walked amid the horror. She didn't want to get caught. She knew her fate if she does. Drunkards moaned in delight as she walked amid them. Their claws tried to touch her flesh while she dodged them like raindrops duck the spots where they don't strike. 

Her feet worked faster, her mind ran errands. She thought she could explode any moment. She saw herself reaching secluded end of that colony and she didn't know if this was good news or bad. Gathering her wet wisps, she tucked them inside her coat. Entering the forest, she dared not to look back. She could feel hands reaching her any moment, she wanted to be a kid who didn't dare to look back and made it back downstairs. Her heart pumped blood at a speed she wondered even existed and before she could notice any further, she was away from human terror. She looked back finally and saw darkness. She sighed in relief. She wasn't sure if she was at right point or not. But she remembered they brought her here through this passage. She had snapped the trees and smelt the scent of night. But then they all looked same, didn't they?