The Vermilion Door

The train screeched to a halt at Kalyan station, and I stepped onto the platform, the familiar smell of rain-soaked earth and diesel filling my lungs. It had been twenty-five years since I left this place, but the moment I walked out of the station and saw the auto-rickshaws waiting in the same chaotic line, it felt like I had never left. I was here to visit my childhood friend, Rohan, who had invited me to stay at his ancestral home for a few days while his family was away. He had arranged for me to stay with him, since my old house was now occupied by strangers who had no interest in letting me in.

Rohan met me at the station, a graying man with the same mischievous grin I remembered from our days of stealing mangoes from the neighbor’s tree. He drove me through the winding lanes of Ambernath, past the same crumbling buildings and the new high-rises that had sprouted like weeds. When we reached his building, I felt a pang of nostalgia. It was the same three-story structure, its walls now painted a dull yellow, but the familiar iron gate and the cracked steps leading up to the entrance brought back a flood of memories. I had spent my childhood here, in the apartment two floors below Rohan’s, and the building seemed to hold the essence of all those years.

Rohan’s home was warm and inviting, filled with the smell of old wood and incense. He had arranged some snacks and drinks, and we sat on the balcony, talking about our childhood antics, the cricket matches in the narrow street, and the time we got lost in the nearby forest. The evening turned to night, and the city sounds faded into a quiet hum. Rohan seemed a bit edgy, glancing occasionally at the door of the unused room that adjoined the living room. When I asked him about it, he shrugged and said, ‘Just storage. Never go in there.’ I didn’t press further, but a small chill ran down my spine.

That night, as I lay in the guest room, I couldn’t sleep. The room was musty, with old furniture covered in white sheets. The moonlight filtered through the dusty window, casting eerie shadows. I kept thinking about my old house across the narrow lane, wishing I could see it again. Suddenly, I heard a soft thumping sound coming from the wall behind my head. I pressed my ear against it, but the sound stopped. I shrugged it off as rats and tried to sleep.

The next morning, Rohan was already up, making tea. He seemed tired, and his eyes were bloodshot. ‘Did you hear that thumping last night?’ I asked. He hesitated, then nodded. ‘It’s been happening for a while now. The house seems to have a life of its own.’ He laughed nervously, but I could see that he was genuinely unsettled. I decided to investigate. I looked around the common areas, and I noticed a small, door-like panel in the wall, almost hidden behind a large cupboard. It was painted a deep vermilion, a stark contrast to the rest of the pale walls. When I pointed it out to Rohan, his face went pale. ‘You see that too?’ he whispered. ‘I’ve never noticed it before.’

Curiosity getting the better of me, I tried to open the panel. It was locked, but there was a keyhole. Rohan searched through his keys and found an old, rusty key that seemed to fit. With a creak, the lock turned, and the door swung open, revealing a narrow spiral staircase descending into darkness. The air that wafted up was cold and carried a faint, sweet odor like rotten flowers. Rohan looked at me, his voice trembling, ‘I’ve lived here for the past ten years, and I never knew this was here. My grandfather, who built this house, was obsessed with hidden rooms. But he died when I was a child, and my parents never spoke about it.’

Against his protests, I took out my phone light and stepped onto the stairs. The steps were stone, worn smooth in the middle, as if someone had used them for decades. Rohan followed reluctantly, his footsteps echoing behind me. We descended for what felt like several minutes, the air growing colder and mustier. Finally, we reached a small room with earthen walls. In the center, there was a wooden table, and on it sat a single metal box, covered in intricate carvings that looked almost like Sanskrit letters. Beside it lay a faded photograph of a young couple, the woman holding a small child. Rohan gasped. That was his grandfather and grandmother with his toddler mother.

I opened the box. Inside, there was a diary with yellowed pages and a circular mirror, about the size of a dinner plate, with a blackened surface. The diary was written in a mix of Marathi and English, by Rohan’s great-grandfather. It described a ritual to see ‘the one who watches from behind the wall.’ It said that the house was built over an ancient burial ground, and that the spirits required appeasement. The mirror was meant to be used during the new moon to communicate with them. I felt a heavy dread settle in my stomach, but Rohan was transfixed. ‘I remember my grandmother talking about this,’ he said. ‘But she always locked herself in a room, and we heard strange sounds. She died mysteriously, and my grandfather never spoke of it again.’

We took the diary and the mirror upstairs. Rohan seemed to spiral into a deep obsession. He spent hours poring over the diary, muttering to himself. That night, he decided he had to try the ritual, to ‘apologize to the spirits and finally bring peace to the house.’ I tried to talk him out of it, but he was adamant. As the clock struck midnight, he lit a candle and held the mirror up to the wall that adjoined my room. He began chanting words from the diary. I stood in the doorway, the hair on my arms standing up. Suddenly, the mirror’s surface rippled, and a dark shape moved behind it. The wall behind the mirror began to bulge, as if something was pressing against it from inside. A low moan filled the room, and I felt a cold breeze that seemed to pierce my bones.

I yelled at Rohan to stop, but he seemed entranced. The bulge in the wall grew until it formed an opening, a dark passage that led into the building itself. From the depths of that passage, a single eye, huge and bloodshot, peered out. It blinked, and then a draggy voice whispered, ‘You should not have come.’ Rohan screamed and dropped the mirror, which shattered into pieces. The opening snapped shut, leaving only the bare wall. The candle blew out, plunging us into darkness. When we managed to turn on the lights, Rohan was on the floor, sobbing. He told me that he had seen his own reflection in the eye, and that it was his own face, contorted in terror.

We tried to leave the house, but the front door would not open. The lock turned, but as we pulled, the door seemed glued shut. We tried the windows, but they too were sealed. The building, which had been so familiar, now felt like a prison. We spent the next hour in a state of panic, trying every exit. Finally, the door swung open on its own, and we stumbled out into the street. It was just past dawn, but the street was deserted, and a thick fog had rolled in. We didn’t speak as we drove back to the station. I couldn’t wait to get away.

I took the first train back to Bangalore. I haven’t spoken to Rohan since. He sent me a few frantic messages saying that the thumping had stopped, but that he saw faces in the mirror of his bathroom, and that his reflection sometimes moved on its own. His last message said, ‘The door is never closed. It’s always waiting for the next one.’ I deleted all his messages and blocked him. But even now, as I sit in my apartment in Bangalore, I sometimes hear faint footsteps above me, and I catch a glimpse of a shadow moving in my peripheral vision. And when I look in the mirror, I pray it’s just my own reflection that looks back.

But I know the vermilion door waits. It knows my name, and it has seen me. It will always find a way back.