The Weight of Stillness

The summer of my twelfth year was a held breath. My father’s transfer to Khajuraho had come through, and we were to leave our small town of Chhindwara in three days. Our neighbor, Mrs. Iyer, insisted on a farewell lunch. Her government bungalow, a sprawling colonial relic, sat at the edge of the town, its plaster peeling like sunburnt skin. My mother, always anxious about propriety, accepted.

The day arrived with a sky bleached white, the air so thick and still that even the crows seemed to pant. My elder brother, Arjun, and my sister, Meera, and I were relegated to the back courtyard while the adults fussed in the kitchen. The courtyard was a perfect square of cracked concrete, enclosed by a low wall overrun with wild jasmine, its scent cloying and sweet. A single neem tree stood in the corner, casting a puddle of shade that barely moved.

I complained about the heat. ‘Mom, can’t we sit inside? It’s miserable out here, not even a breeze.’ But Mrs. Iyer shooed us out with a wide smile, saying, ‘Fresh air will do you good, children. We’ll bring the food out in a jiffy.’ So we sat on a frayed jute mat, Arjun reading a dog-eared comic, Meera tracing patterns in the dust, and I, with nothing better to do, counted the cracks in the wall.

Lunch was a spread of fragrant rice, dal, and a fiery vegetable curry that made my eyes water. Mrs. Iyer’s son, a boy my age named Ravi, joined us. He was quiet, with a severe haircut that made him look like a startled owl. As we ate, the stillness deepened. The chimes that hung from the roof were mute. The leaves of the neem tree hung limp, as if the world had pressed pause.

Ravi suddenly stopped chewing. He looked at me, his eyes wide. ‘Did you hear that?’ he whispered. I listened. Nothing. ‘Hear what?’ He shook his head, returned to his plate. I assumed a trick of the heat. Then Meera dropped her spoon with a clatter. ‘The well,’ she said, her voice flat. She was staring at the far corner of the courtyard, where an old stone well crumbled beneath a tangle of vines. ‘It’s calling.’

We all laughed, a bit uneasily. Arjun grabbed her hand. ‘Stop it, Meera. You’re scaring the little ones.’ But she wouldn’t look away. Her face had gone pale, her lips pressed thin. Mrs. Iyer emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her sari. ‘What’s wrong, beta?’ she asked. Meera just pointed at the well. The adults exchanged glances, and Mrs. Iyer’s smile faltered. ‘Oh, that thing? It’s been dry for decades. Don’t think about it.’

After lunch, the adults went inside for coffee, leaving us with the sticky residue of mango pickle and the oppressive heat. I had a strange urge to walk to the well, as if my feet were being pulled. I didn’t. Instead, I watched the mouth of the well, a blackness that seemed to drink the sunlight. I noticed Ravi was doing the same.

A low hum started, so faint I thought it was my ears. But then Ravi heard it too, and Arjun, and Meera. The hum rose in pitch until it became a woman’s voice, singing a lullaby in a language I didn’t recognize. The melody was discordant, off-key, and it seemed to come from the well itself. Ravi started crying, clawing at his ears. Arjun shouted for our parents, but no one came. The kitchen window was dark, and I could see shadows moving inside, but they didn’t respond.

The singing stopped. A silence, heavier than before, settled. Then we heard a thud from the well, like something heavy had been dropped. Meera walked forward, stiff-legged, her arms at her sides. I screamed, ‘Meera, no!’ But she kept going. Arjun grabbed her, and she blinked as if waking up. ‘What am I doing here?’ she asked. We pulled her back to the mat, but all of us were trembling.

Ravi wouldn’t stop shaking. He looked at me, his eyes brimming with tears. ‘She used to live in my room. She wanted to play with you.’ I didn’t understand. Before I could ask, the main gate to the bungalow creaked open, and I saw an old woman in a white sari walk in, her feet not quite touching the ground. She smiled at us, a black gap where her teeth should have been, and then she vanished into the shadow of the neem tree.

I felt a cold hand on my shoulder. I turned, but no one was there. All of us were being touched, a gentle pressure on each of our shoulders. Then the touch was gone. The sun seemed to darken, as if a cloud had passed, but the sky remained clear. My skin prickled. I looked at the well, and for the first time, I saw it clearly: a crack running down its side, with something shiny inside, like the edge of a glass bangle.

My mother finally came out, her face flushed from the kitchen. ‘Was everything okay? You children look pale. Must be the heat. Let’s go inside, I’ll make some nimbu pani.’ We didn’t move. We were frozen, and she didn’t seem to notice. She waved us in, and one by one, we followed, but I looked back at the well. The bangle was gone.

We left for Khajuraho a day early. No one spoke about the incident to my parents, but we all carried that weight. I never saw Ravi again. Years later, I learned that Mrs. Iyer’s bungalow had been built over an old village well that was sealed after a woman drowned herself there, her child left alone. The lullaby, the bangle, the touch—they all made sense in a way that chilled my bones. The stillness of that afternoon was not a quirk of weather; it was the stillness of grief, waiting to be noticed.