The Call at Gate 12

My first brush with the uncanny happened when I was twelve, and the memory clings to me like a cold draft that follows no window. My father had died when I was a baby, leaving me with my mother, a woman who read tarot cards with a certainty that made strangers weep. We lived in a small house in Portland, Maine, where the sea air carried the taste of salt and secrets. But that summer, my grandmother in Odisha was dying, and my mother, who had worshipped her from afar, insisted we fly to her bedside before the last breath left her body.

Our journey began with a flight from Boston to Frankfurt, a layover that should have been a mere pause. But a snowstorm—unseasonal and vicious—grounded us for a night, and we wandered the terminal, among flickering fluorescent lights and the smell of stale pretzels. I remember a clock that had stopped at 3:33, and my mother, pale, whispered that Grandma had once said, ‘When the clock stops, a soul is on its way.’ I brushed it off as one of her superstitions, though the hairs on my neck stood on end.

The next morning, we boarded a rebooked flight to Chennai. I was dragging my feet, my Sony Walkman heavy in my hand, when a voice—soft, like a whisper through gauze—called my name. ‘Anita.’ I spun around, expecting to see a friend or a stranger, but the corridor was a river of strangers, all looking ahead. I tugged my mother’s sleeve. ‘Did you call me?’ She shook her head, her eyes distant, and said, ‘Maybe it was the wind.’ But there was no wind inside the terminal.

On the plane, I settled into my seat by the window, the clouds a white sea below. I plugged in my earphones, and a tape of old Hindi songs hummed through, but between the tracks, I heard it again—my name, clear as a bell, as if someone were sitting right beside me. I yanked the earphones out, but the cabin was silent, save for the drone of the engines. My mother was asleep, her head lolling against the headrest. I stared at the back of the seat in front of me, my heart thudding like a drum.

For hours, I tried to sleep, but my mind raced. I thought of Grandma, whom I had never met, only seen in faded photographs where she wore a red saree and a stern smile. My mother had told me that grandma had a gift, a way of speaking to the dead, but that she had given it up when she married a man who feared such things. ‘She must be desperate to see you,’ my mother had said, ‘to call you across the world.’ Those words echoed as the plane descended into Chennai, and the heat hit me like a wet blanket.

The drive to the village was a blur of dust and honking horns, of cows wandering into the road and the smell of jasmine and diesel. My grandmother’s house was a low, whitewashed building with a tin roof, surrounded by coconut palms. Inside, the air was thick with incense and the murmured prayers of relatives. They led us to a room where Grandma lay on a thin mattress, her eyes sunken, her skin like parchment. When she saw us, a flicker of life crossed her face, and she stretched a trembling hand toward me.

I knelt beside her, and she grasped my fingers with surprising strength. Her voice was a rasp, but it carried a strange clarity. ‘You came,’ she said. ‘I called you twice, and I knew you would hear.’ I gasped, thinking of the voice on the plane. ‘That was you?’ I whispered. She nodded, a smile like a crack in the earth. ‘One more call, and you’ll be ready.’ I didn’t understand, but my mother began to sob, and the relatives herded me out of the room, saying the old woman was delirious.

That night, I lay on a cot in the courtyard, the stars like cold pinpricks. The village was silent, save for the distant barking of a stray dog. I was drifting off when I heard it a third time—my name, but not from the house. It came from the grove of trees behind the house, a voice that was sweeter and deeper than my grandmother’s. I sat up, and in the darkness, I saw a figure—a woman in a white saree, her face obscured by a veil. She raised a hand and beckoned. I felt a pull in my chest, a longing to go to her, but my mother’s voice cut through the night. ‘Anita! Stay inside!’

I froze, and the figure dissolved into the shadows. My mother rushed out, her face stricken, and she seized my arm. ‘Never answer that call,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘Your grandmother is gone. That was something else.’ I started to ask, but she silenced me with a look that held a terror I had never seen in her before. The next morning, we learned that Grandma had passed away at the exact moment I saw the figure. The relatives praised the timing, but my mother’s hands trembled as she clutched her tarot deck.

We stayed for the funeral, and in the quiet of the mourning, I asked my mother what had called me. She told me that when a soul is ready to depart, it must pass through a veil, and sometimes, a gatekeeper—a being neither alive nor dead—waits on the other side. ‘It called your name because you were open,’ she said, shuffling her cards. ‘But you are not ready to cross.’ She dealt three cards: the Death, the Hanged Man, and the World. ‘The gate will open for you one day, but not now.’ I shivered, remembering the cold voice, the beckoning hand.

Back in Portland, life returned to a semblance of normal, but I never forgot that voice. Sometimes, late at night, I think I hear it again—a faint whisper in the wind, calling my name. I never turn back, not since that day. I know now that the dead can reach out, and that some doors are better left shut. My mother, too, speaks less of her cards, and whenever a clock stops, I see her eyes go distant, as if she, too, is listening for a call that might come for her.