The Thirteenth Crepe

Meera’s hands moved with the rhythm of two decades of practice. In the humid dawn, she slid the batter across the hot griddle, the sizzle a familiar comfort against the distant roar of the fishing boats. Her stall, ‘Meera’s Morning Tiffin’, was a humble plywood counter on the northern edge of the Arambol beach, far from the bustle of the main strip. She served the early risers, the seaweed gatherers, and the few tourists who’d lost their way. Her husband, Ravi, a wiry man with kind eyes, was her only helper, and their son, Arjun, was away at college in Panaji.

But that morning, something was off. The batter in her stainless steel bowl seemed thicker than usual, glistening with an oily sheen. The first crepe of the day turned out perfect—round, golden, crisp. The second too. But by the third, a tremor ran up her arm, gripping her wrist. Her hand moved of its own accord, swirling the ladle in a figure-eight. The crepe that emerged was not a crepe at all, but a gnarled, knotted shape that resembled a twisted root. Ravi, who was chopping coriander, noticed her pause. ‘Yenna aachi?’ he asked, wiping his brow. Meera looked at her hand, trembling. ‘I don’t know, Ravi. Something’s not right.’

She tried to make a simple round crepe, but her hand twisted again, this time pressing the batter into a shape that looked like a screaming mouth. The customers, a mix of locals and backpackers, began to murmur. A young woman with a camera took a photo. Meera felt a cold pressure, as if an invisible hand was wrapped around hers, guiding her movements. Ravi stepped forward, gently placing his hand on her shoulder to steady her. The moment his skin touched hers, a violent jolt ran through him. His eyes rolled back, and he crumpled to the sandy ground, unconscious. The customers gasped. A few ran. Meera screamed, dropping the ladle. She knelt beside Ravi, dousing his face with water from her bottle, her own hands still shaking. He sputtered awake, his face pale.

‘Stay away from me,’ Meera whispered, backing away from the stall. ‘Please, all of you, leave.’ The remaining customers, wide-eyed, scattered. Meera and Ravi stood alone, the griddle still sizzling, the half-cooked crepe on the ledge oozing a dark, tarry substance. The sun climbed higher, but the shadow of the coconut palms seemed to lengthen unnaturally.

That night, Meera couldn’t sleep. She recounted the day to Ravi, who said nothing, only rubbing his chest where the shock had hit. The next morning, she returned to the stall, determined to prove it was a fluke. But as she poured the batter, she heard a whisper—a low, guttural voice that seemed to come from the griddle itself. ‘Thirteen.’ She froze. The voice was familiar, yet not her own. It was the voice of her grandmother, who had died forty years ago, a woman said to have been a sorceress in her village. Meera had never believed the tales.

She forced herself to continue, but her hand began to move again, faster, more deliberate. She watched in horror as she created crepe after crepe, each one forming a strange symbol. The first five were letters from an ancient script she had seen in a temple in Hampi. The next seven were shapes: a crescent, an eye, a serpent, a flame, a wave, a leaf, and a broken wheel. And the thirteenth—it was a perfect circle, but inside it, a hole that seemed to swallow the light. Ravi, who had been watching from a distance, ran to her. But when he tried to stop her, the same electric shock threw him back, and he hit his head on a rock, unconscious again.

Meera realized she was not in control. She was a puppet. She looked at the griddle, and for the first time, she noticed the ancient symbol etched on its underside—a spiral she had always thought was a decorative nick. Now, it seemed to pulse. The voice inside her head grew clearer. ‘You are the vessel. Complete the ritual.’

She felt a pull toward the sea. The waves, which had been calm, began to churn, black and oily. The villagers on the shore, the ones who had left her stall, stood at the water’s edge, their faces blank, their mouths open in silent screams. She saw her son’s face among them, though he was hundreds of kilometers away. The thirteenth crepe began to move on the griddle, writhing like a living thing. Meera looked at Ravi, who was regaining consciousness, his eyes filled with terror. She made a choice. With a strength she didn’t know she had, she grabbed the edge of the griddle and flipped it, sending the crepe and the sizzling batter onto the sand.

But the symbol remained. And as the first wave of a freak tide rose, Meera realized that the ritual had not been stopped. It had merely begun. The beach, once a place of sunshine and sale, now reeked of salt and something darker. She took Ravi’s hand, and they ran, but the sand felt like glue, and the waves pursued them. They finally collapsed at the edge of the palm grove, looking back. The crepe on the sand had not burned. It had multiplied, forming a dark stain that spread toward the water. And somewhere in the distance, a voice called out, ‘Thirteen more.’

Meera never returned to the stall. The beach of Arambol became a place of whispers. Sometimes, fishermen swear they see a woman at the water’s edge, flipping crepes into the sea, her hands moving in patterns that are not human. And they say, if you listen closely, you can hear the griddle hiss, and the voice of a grandmother, naming the day when the tide will not recede.