The Cartographer’s Grove

I’ve been in Kolkata for a week now, staying with my aunt in the old northern part of the city. The lanes are a labyrinth of crumbling mansions and sudden temples, and the air smells of marigolds and diesel. My cousin Rohan and I have taken to evening walks in a place the locals call the Cartographer’s Grove, a small park tucked behind a row of abandoned warehouses. It’s not on any map, and if you blink you’ll miss the iron gate, rusted half open, with a sign that reads ‘Pritchard’s Folly’ in faded letters.

The park is a strange delight. The trees are old, gnarled, with branches that twist into shapes that seem almost intentional. Someone long ago trimmed the hedges into birds and beasts, but the animals are wrong: a deer with too many legs, a bird with a beak that opens too wide, a monkey with a human-like hand. The locals avoid it after dusk. Rohan says it’s just superstition, but he always walks a little faster when we pass the monkey.

Last Tuesday, we finished our walk and bought two kulfi sticks from a vendor outside the gate. The man was old, with a face like a crumpled map, and he looked at us with a strange intensity. ‘You walk the Grove every evening,’ he said, not a question. ‘Be careful of the topiary. They change when you look away.’ We laughed, but as we turned back, the monkey seemed to have moved. I told myself it was the light.

On Thursday, we decided to test the old vendor’s warning. We stood at the edge of the lawn and stared at the hedge-elephant. I blinked, and for a split second, its trunk was not a trunk but a tusk, curved and sharp. Rohan saw it too, because he grabbed my arm. ‘We should go,’ he said, but I was entranced. I walked closer, and the elephant appeared to lean toward me, as if it wanted to speak.

That night, I dreamed of the grove. The hedges were not plants but people, frozen in mid-movement. Their faces were contorted, and their eyes followed me as I walked the paths. In the center of the lawn, where there was a clear patch, there was a sundial, but the shadow pointed to midnight even though the sun was high. I woke up sweaty, with the taste of kulfi in my mouth.

The next evening, we returned, but the gate was padlocked. The chain was new, shiny, but the lock was rusted. The vendor was nowhere to be seen. A woman passed by and said, ‘They closed it after the incident.’ When we asked what incident, she just shook her head and hurried away.

Frustrated, we circled the grove, looking for another way in. Behind the warehouses, we found a break in the wall, a narrow gap just wide enough to slip through. Inside, the park was different. The sky seemed darker, the air cooler. The topiary animals were all turned to face us. The monkey’s hand was raised, and its fingers were clearly distinct, flexing as if beckoning.

Rohan whispered, ‘We shouldn’t be here,’ but I couldn’t stop. I walked toward the sundial. Its face was not brass but ivory, yellowed with age. The gnomon cast a shadow that pointed to the number six, but the sun was setting in the west. As I watched, the shadow began to move, counterclockwise, picking up speed. It spun and spun until it was a blur, and then it stopped abruptly at the number twelve.

A low hum filled the air, like a thousand bees. The topiary animals began to quiver. The elephant’s trunk curled into a trumpet, and it let out a sound that was not a trumpet but a scream, human and terrifying. The bird’s beak opened, and a torrent of dark liquid poured out, pooling at our feet. It smelled of iron and old earth.

We ran for the gap in the wall, but the gap was gone. The wall was smooth, unbroken. We turned, and the topiary were closing in, their branches unfurling like arms. The monkey reached out with its human hand, and I saw that its nails were dirty and chipped. It grabbed Rohan’s shoulder, and Rohan screamed, but his scream was cut short as leaves covered his mouth.

I backed away, stumbling over the sundial. The shadow pointed at me now, and I felt a cold pressure on my chest. The elephant’s eyes, which were hollow, now glowed with a sickly yellow light. The monkey’s grip tightened, and I saw Rohan’s skin turn gray, his features smoothing out, becoming waxy. He was turning into topiary.

I broke free, tore Rohan’s arm from the monkey’s grasp, but he was already stiff, his arm covered in a thin layer of bark. I dragged him, half-carrying him, through the Grove, but every path led back to the sundial. The animals hummed in a choir, and the ground beneath us began to shift, like a living thing.

Then I saw it: the vendor, standing by the gate, now unlocked. He held two kulfi sticks, dripping with honey. ‘You’ve seen them grow,’ he said calmly. ‘They need to be shaped. You’ll be beautiful.’ He gestured to the empty spaces in the hedges, shaped like a man and a woman. I looked at Rohan, his face now a smooth mask of leaves, and I realized I was already rooted, my feet sinking into the grass.

I woke up on a bench outside the gate, my clothes damp with dew. Rohan was beside me, trembling. We didn’t speak about it, but we never returned to the Grove. Yet sometimes, at dusk, I look out my window and see the hedges in the distance, and they seem to be watching me. And in my dreams, I hear the monkey’s human voice, whispering, ‘You left before we could finish. But we know where you live.’