Chapter 3: Ghosts and Names

3

It took a long time for the family to calm down.

Anjali reached over and gently massaged her daughter’s back, whispering something soothing in her ear. Kabir finally stopped shaking, and Old Mehra sat upright, still trembling.

Old Mehra took another cigarette from me, inhaled deeply, and said again, "Thank you, Bhaiya Rao."

His voice was hoarse, and he exhaled with a sigh that seemed to carry years of weariness.

"Why does it keep chasing us?"

Kabir looked up, his voice cracking, eyes still wide with fear. Even Anjali turned her face away to wipe a tear.

The girl, huddled in Anjali’s arms, hugged herself tightly. "We didn’t provoke it."

Her fingers dug into her sleeves, her voice barely above a whisper.

Anjali gently patted her daughter, her gaze meeting mine in the rearview mirror, her voice dropping lower and lower. "Could it be, it’s here to take someone’s place?"

She said it softly, but her words sent a chill through the cab. The wind outside picked up, rattling the window glass.

"Didn’t we just hear that there was an accident on this stretch of road, and the driver of the red sports car died on the spot?"

Anjali looked at me again. "Bhaiya Rao, do you know what happened afterward? How many people died in that accident?"

Her voice was trembling, as though she didn’t really want the answer. Even Kabir shrank away from her, clutching at his backpack.

"Maa—"

The girl’s voice was plaintive, almost pleading. She pressed her face into Anjali’s sari pallu, as if she could hide there.

Before I could answer, the frightened girl clung tightly to Anjali’s waist.

Old Mehra glared at Anjali. "Stop talking nonsense. How many people died isn’t our concern. Don’t scare the kids in the middle of the night."

He raised his hand as if to scold, but Anjali just shook her head, lips pressed tight together. In families like ours, sometimes it’s better not to speak of ghosts at night.

Looking in the rearview mirror, I saw Anjali slowly lower her head, while the girl’s eyes filled with tears of fear.

She bit her lip, the way children do when they’re trying hard not to cry. Kabir looked away, pressing his face to the glass.

Their son, Kabir, kept his head pressed against the window, bumping his forehead in time with the truck’s jolts, as if he didn’t feel a thing.

He drew patterns in the condensation with his finger, lost in some silent world.

"I don’t remember exactly how many people died," I replied to Anjali. "But I think there was a girl riding with the red sports car driver. After the accident, she fell into a coma."

I remembered the story as I’d heard it from an old chaiwala at the highway tapri. They said she was beautiful, with long hair and a floral dress, and that even after the crash, her spirit lingered, waiting.