Paromita’s hands shook. She was running out of time. She cursed the day she had found the trunk. And yet it was her only hope now. Her repentant thoughts about not listening to her dadima choked her up. Shreyan’s panicked voice brought her back to the here and now.

“Did you find it?”

“No.”

“Hurry up. It will be 5:30 soon.”

Shreyan’s thoughts flashes back to the day they both had landed on their Dadima’s doorstep after her death. After all, she had willed the house to him and his favourite cousin, Paromita. It was while sorting through the attic that they had found the box with the forbidding note on the top that had warned them that it was never to be opened. Of course, that note had merely caused a faint excitement as they had opened the box, expecting to find evidence of youthful misdeeds of their Dadima only to find a bunch of dusty photographs.

At first they hadn’t connected the mysterious happenings to the photos. The first vision was that of 3 people vaguely outlined during the desk in the garden seat. It was Paromita who had first realised that the random people who appeared hour on the hour were actually those from the photographs. The faded photo quality of these eerie people added to the terror of being inside the trapped House. The photo people always appeared in the garden within the sight of one of the windows but never made any attempt to come inside. But frighteningly, the cousins were unable to leave the house as well. Every time, they tried to step outside the entrance of the house, they found themselves back in the attic. The phones no longer worked and the house was set far inside a clearing for them to hail their neighbours.

“Please, Dadima. Help us.” thought Paromita desperately.

To be continued……

TellTaleThursday with Anshu & Priya