The Rainmaker’s Visitor

I have never been one to believe in the supernatural. My name is Arjun, and I grew up in a cramped two-room flat in the bustling city of Kochi, not Chennai. My parents were simple folk, my father a bank clerk, my mother a homemaker. Life was mundane, predictable, and I liked it that way.

It was the monsoon season, and the rains were unrelenting, turning the narrow lanes into rivers and the tin roofs into drumming symphonies. That day, the rain was particularly fierce, and the world outside was a blur of grey and green. I was nine, and I had a fever, so my mother insisted I stay indoors. I lay on the cool floor, listening to the raindrops, and before I knew it, I had drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.

I woke up with a start, the silence around me unnerving. The rain had stopped, and the house was shrouded in darkness. It was late evening, the kind of deep dusk that seems to swallow everything. My parents were asleep on the cot in the corner, their soft snores a comforting rhythm. I needed to pee, and I tiptoed to the small courtyard behind our house, the only place with a drain.

The courtyard was damp and smelled of wet earth. As I stood there, a chill ran down my spine, not from the cold, but from a primal fear I couldn’t explain. I looked up, and my blood froze. Under the old banyan tree that stood three houses away, there was a figure. A woman, impossibly tall, at least seven or eight feet, draped in a black, tattered dress that seemed to blend with the shadows. Her face was pale, almost luminescent, and her eyes, though I couldn’t see them clearly, seemed to bore into my soul.

She raised a long, thin arm and beckoned to me. Her hand moved in a slow, deliberate arc, as if she were pulling the air itself. I felt an inexplicable pull, a desire to walk towards her, but my legs refused. I was shaking violently, my breath coming in short gasps. Never in my nine years of existence had I seen anything so tall, so otherworldly.

I snapped out of my trance and bolted back inside, slamming the door behind me. My heart pounded like a drum as I scrambled to my parents’ side, shaking them awake. Through trembling sobs, I told them what I had seen. My father, a practical man, frowned but grabbed a flashlight and went out to check. My mother held me close, her hand stroking my hair.

After what felt like an eternity, my father returned, his expression a mix of confusion and irritation. ‘There’s nothing there, Arjun. Just the old tree and the shadows. You probably had a nightmare.’ He patted my head and went back to sleep, mumbling about overactive imaginations.

But I knew what I saw. That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay awake, listening to the sounds of the night, the creaks of the old house, the distant barks of stray dogs. And then, I heard it—the soft, rhythmic sound of scratching, as if someone was dragging a hand across the outside wall. I pulled the blanket over my head and squeezed my eyes shut, praying for dawn.

The next morning, the sun was bright and the rain had washed away all traces of the previous night. But the memory remained, etched into my mind. I never told anyone else, for who would believe a child’s story? And as the years passed, I tried to convince myself it was a figment of my feverish imagination.

But sometimes, on rainy nights, when the world is quiet and the shadows dance, I catch a glimpse of a tall, dark figure out of the corner of my eye, standing under the old banyan tree, waiting. And I wonder, what if she had not called me, but something else? What if, on that rainy night, she had marked me, and she is still waiting for me to answer her call?

I am now a grown man, living far from that house, but the fear never truly left me. And every time it rains, I remember the night I saw her, and I wonder if she is still there, counting the years until I return.