Chapter 15 – The Union
It was 9 P.M after dinner when Peeya and Chavi huddled on Chavi’s bed to read the reminder of Lasting Fondness, their guide to solving the mysterious case of Peeya Mukherjee a.k.a Priscilla Russell D’Cousta.
“I have already finished the part where Priscilla’s parents are killed by Teddy Birmingham and Lt. Sam Perez, who were his brother Guss’s business affiliates. Benjamin Schneider had seen his brother’s murderers before he was killed.” explained Chavi.
“I guess my dad had seen his killers too” Peeya spoke softly.
“I am sorry, but we have to go through this. This is our chance at finding out the truth” Chavi consoled Peeya.
“Priscilla Schneider was taken to her foster parents who shifted base to Cincinnati just as had been instructed by Benjamin before he died. The School construction there by the trust board was in full swing.
Her name had been changed to Mary Anne Middleton, an English name that would keep her real identity secret. This was her official name but she continued to receive the monthly dole of $15,000 from the trust for her maintenance. The trust still continued to send across the cheques to Benjamin’s Tel Aviv address which was duly deposited in his account in New York which was then taken out posing as Benjamin Schneider, by Neil Middleton, again an alias, her foster father, David Neumann had adopted.
Priscilla did her schooling at the Benjamin Franklin Memorial School in a small village, Helmsworth outside of Cincinnati. The isolation & calm of the village was an ideal place to go in hiding.
Years passed and Priscilla was looking forward to her 10th birthday when one day, Neumann narrated the entire story of her father, her uncle and how he had been protecting her from bad people.
Priscilla was about 12 years of age when she made a resolve to penetrate deep into enemy hold, to unearth the secrets that were rotting in her father’s and Uncle’s graves. At puberty, Priscilla not only was changing physically, but a lot of things around her seemed to change.
Realization of such bitter truth had been extremely hard on her and she was angry, very angry at her fate and at her helplessness as she was left all alone in a dark spot. She knew that her father and Uncle were killed but no one knew well enough as to name them. The only way out she thought was to gain access to the school that was built on her money and try and figure out if there was indeed a link between the trust board and the killers. She perhaps had even thought of slowly exposing herself to the outside world if need be, just to draw the attention of her hunters.
Priscilla, now Mary Ann Middleton to the rest of the world, soon joined the school and got an admission to the dorm. It was here that she realized that all this while, she was not only being protected by her father’s devoted brother and his dedicated friends but also by her doting father, Guss, however not in the form she had desired for him.
“Could you skip to the part where she gets the clues about her father’s killers?” asked Peeya.
“Why of course! Stupid me!” said Chavi as she slowly flipped the pages of the voluminous novel.
“Mary Ann Middleton’s roommate had asked for a change of room and had it sanctioned as she had been sleeping in absolute terror, seeing Mary Ann speak to herself and look out the window panes for
hours together without catching a minute of sleep. Any child for that matter would be scared for their own selves when encountered with such strange phenomena.
The school authorities did not deem it necessary to quiz Priscilla about the reported incidents and transferred her to a smaller room in the dorm fit for single occupancy.
Priscilla would experience bouts of seizure in the middle of the night and there would be none to call out for help. There was terror in her eyes and her insomnia had taken a toll on her health and also physical appearance. The first few months in the school had never been eventful but the later months for her were full of penury. She would feel her legs and arms being pulled from each other in a searing pain that seemed like her arms and legs would be ripped off from her body and yet she would only wake up drenched in her own sweat to see her limbs intact.
“How could a nightmare be so painful?” Cried Priscilla alone in the darkness, but for a good while, she did not have answers.
She would never experience any such out of the body moments whenever she was with company, though for some reason she had, when she had a roommate. Maybe, the ‘force’ wanted her to be alone, to test her and try her, to check if she was ready to make the contact.
Priscilla Schneider had been extremely resilient and she chose to swallow the pain and endure the nightmares. She was resolved to finding out her family’s killers and no force, real or unreal would break her down. For a teenager, Priscilla had been very strong, in her mind.
The seizures and convulsions and the nightmares that pained her like hell, continued for the entire academic year. Priscilla had been a beautiful girl when she had walked into the school and now a year later, the other kids stayed away from her, even the two desks beside her in the classroom were abdicated by their previous occupants.
Finally, in the vacations at the end of her first academic year, she would witness something strange and yet very special.
It was the last night of the end of the year and the exams had just been concluded, while Priscilla lay silently on the wooden chair of her dorm room with a distant view of the school chapel outside the window.
“Priscilla, my child” the voice in her head asked her. She had been experiencing an otherwise head splitting migraine but she had been acclimatized to such pains for the last one year. The ‘voice’ had been training her to bear the pains the living have to endure in order to contact the souls.
The ‘voice’ she was hearing was that of Guss. Her father; she did not know if the voice was good or evil and she was more than thrilled to hear her father speak to her. Her innocence bound her from making theories about the voice really being her father’s. Her trust was her savior. The ‘voice’ had indeed beenGuss.
In many cultures ancient, medieval and modern, it is a widely accepted philosophy that each and every human being has a soul. It is the life force. This was it. A soul to soul connection. The soul is immortal, it is energy that can neither be created nor destroyed but it can only be transformed from one mass of flesh, blood and bones to another.
After hours of silent staring at the white chapel with fire red tiles, Priscilla had fallen into the abyss of sleep. The voices, still she could hear but she was not awake. But it was no dream either. The voices were very much real.
“Is that you father?” asked Priscilla, still asleep & yet if anyone had shared her room, they would not have heard a single word from her, as she did not speak with her mouth, it was her soul, doing the talking.
“You’ve always been a special one, my child! You deserved life. I did not. I have done a lot of things that I am not proud of Priscilla. But you! You will make me proud, my love” the voice told her.
Priscilla body was starting the reject this interaction at the metaphysical level. Her body was slowly losing heat, her skin cold, not from the cool moonlight that lit up her dorm room, but by the regress of blood flowing to her heart and brain.
“You! Will avenge your father!” the voice raised & yet Priscilla was unperturbed.
“I will, mother!” Priscilla replied as her skin changed from pale white to a tinge of blue which was threatening to assume the colour of the dark night sky and just when Priscilla was shook up by a violent reaction by her nervous system, throwing her into a momentary convulsion and thereby delinking her connection with her dead father.
Surprisingly, in her conscious, Priscilla could remember exactly what she had been instructed by her father.
“But Chavi! This books speaks about ghosts and stuff, why did you think that this story is similar to mine?” asked an apparently miffed Peeya.
“Well I do not say this story matches yours perfectly, but it definitely gives pointers. We must look for hidden clues to get to your granddad’s and your dad’s killers” Chavi explained.
After reading another dozen or so pages, that only describes more painful interactions between Priscilla Schneider and her slain father, who was a spirit left in limber, awaiting redemption. He was a dissatisfied soul, he wanted to avenge his death through his daughter & since she had innocent blood running inside her, it was all the easier for him to manipulate her and she would offer minimum resistance.
“This supernatural, paranormal stuff is just freaking me out, like I said, you guys must leave immediately, there’s no point in staying back. I could not find out much in a year and I do not expect you to find out any in the next 3 days. It is impossible, forget it” said Peeya.
“Aha aha” muttered Chavi as she chose to ignore Peeya’s statements as mere words of desperation & frustration “Look! Here it is! Our clue!” exclaimed Chavi after coming across a chapter in the book, where Priscilla meets up with an old lady, a shaman who claimed to have access to the other world. Priscilla had been experiencing strange things that she could not discuss with any of her teachers or even David, and never with friends, because she had none.
“This is going nowhere! Where are we going to discover a Voodoo lady here in Bangalore! And moreover neither my granddad or my dad have ever tried to ‘contact’ me” said Peeya rolling her eyes while raising both her hands with the index finger up in the air, sarcastically, drawing out imaginary ‘quotes’ in the air.
“Perhaps, your grandmother is the key! She definitely knows something! After all, all that the Voodoo lady here is doing is but help out Priscilla make the right decisions, interpret the signs for her” explained Chavi.
“That’s impossible, don’t you realize those dogs over there in the bungalow, have been planted to keep anyone but ‘them’ at bay” said Peeya.
“Hmm, you are right! I did hear Pawan say that those dogs almost pounced on you when you were with your parents for the school function. Is that true?” asked Chavi.
“It is indeed! That incident still gives me sleepless nights whenever I recall that. I really don’t know what had stopped them that day! Maybe I had been lucky!” Peeya said all the while looking up at the standstill fan on the ceiling.
“I just remembered one more thing now! That stallion incident! Why did the horse behave strangely after seeing you?” asked Chavi.
“How the hell should I know? I was so scared myself, the way it acted! I thought I would die that day. I stood there frozen. I could not move a muscle” said Peeya.
“I guess, someone was behind that incident, all these so called omens, I think they were all planned. I really don’t believe that your identity here is a secret anymore” said Chavi when they observe feet shuffling outside the door.
“Did you see that?” whispered Chavi “Someone’s outside, but at this hour?” It was well over 11’o clock in the night and since it was the last night of the students before the vacations, Ms. Sadhana Talapatra had been in a little generous mood that night. However, Chavi & Peeya were reading with only Chavi’s study lamp lit & the room was dark enough for the both of them to see the light outside being filtered in by a pair or two pairs perhaps, of legs.
“I guess, we better stop for now” whispered Chavi as she bookmarked the page they had left at. Chavi switched off the table lamp & the room turned as black as soot and a faint halo of light tried to sneak inside, from the gap in the door. The feet had stopped shuffling; they stood still for a while and then left.
“Oh! God! Who could that be?” Peeya went into whispering mode & Chavi had no answers with her either.
Peeya, slowly turned towards the window in the room and caught her own faint reflection in the closed glass doors, dimly illuminated by the lights from outside.
“Poor, Grandma, she has been alone all this while, I really don’t know if she thinks I’m dead or not, Dad”, she said referring to her foster father, David Neumann, “had told me that Grandma had a nervous breakdown and is suffering with depression after granddad was killed”.
Chavi was standing by her side, both literally and metaphorically.
“Everything will be alright Priscilla, we will make it alright” assured Chavi as she put her arm on Peeya’s shoulder as mark of being with her.
For the first time, Chavi could see the sparkle of hope and a semblance of a smile on Peeya’s face. No one had called Peeya by her birth name ever before and she was happy that Chavi had believed her and was with her to help her all the way.
The next morning, the school grounds buzzed with laughter, giggles, and grunts of excitement as parents swooped in to collect their beloved children for the long awaited 15 day vacation. All that could be seen at the school was joy and happiness. While the rest of the school danced in mirth, 4 girls spoke in hushed tones in Chavi & Peeya’s room.
“Now is the time” said Chavi after she had narrated last night’s incident to Disha and Praneethi “we must slip past everyone & go see Peeya’s grandmom”
“Are you bonkers?” Disha thundered “what about those dogs from hell?”
“I have a plan” Chavi said “Look at this” while showing a vial of a colorless liquid. The vial seemed to be tightly secured with a threaded cap.
“What is it?” Praneethi attempted to grab the vial from Chavi’s hand.
“Be careful! You wouldn’t want to break the vial here” warned Peeya.
Chavi explained to Disha and Praneethi, how she and Peeya had convinced the chemistry lab attendant to open the lab doors on the pretext of searching for Chavi’s allegedly lost gold earrings. While the attendant did not suspect much, he left the lab, door ajar to attend to nature’s call. The duo had seized the opportunity to transfer the contents of a big lab jar filled with & marked as ‘Chloroform’ replete with skull and cross bones indicating danger, to a small vial that Peeya used to carry with her. When Peeya had first come to ACE, this vial was filled with sand from her village in Kolkata when she was living with her father.
“Brilliant! All we now need to do is to create a diversion and slip past the commotion” said Praneethi.
“We were hoping you could help us in that, Praneethi” said Peeya.
“What? Me? Alone? What do you suppose I do?” Praneethi was taken aback by the sudden escalation of her responsibility.
“Nothing dangerous and don’t worry, it will have Disha Di also” said Chavi and Disha was taken aback too.
“Ok! I will quit talking in circles! Disha Di, Praneethi, we need you two to create a diversion so strong that it would last at least a good 2 – 3 minutes, enough for us to slip past the gate security and into the D’Cousta estate” explained Chavi.
“Again! How do you suppose we do that?” asked Disha.
“It’s an old trick, the four of us walk out into the crowd and Praneethi here, will act as if she is feeling giddy, drawing the crowd’s attention towards her, she faints and that is when Peeya and I confuse the gate security to leave their spots to help you out. Disha Di, will be the one who creates panic in the crowd” explained an embarrassed Chavi.
“Oh God! You guys must be kidding me! Your plan work, Chavi, else I will kill you myself!” hissed Praneethi while Disha laughed at her plight.
The ‘plan’ was neatly executed and the parents and students who had still not left the school made a big huddle around the ‘fallen’ Peeya while Disha cried, shouted, pushed and held Praneethi’s head on her lap all the while retaining the attention of the crowd.
“Somebody fainted! Quick help her out! Shouted Chavi and Peeya at the security guards, who could not think of anything but to run towards the crowd.
“The girls immediately ran towards Ararat. A good 30 – 40 meters later, they both stood frozen, at the sight of two vicious dogs hurtling down at them.
“Quick! The vial!” screamed Chavi as she held out her handkerchief, closed the mouth of the vial and bent it over in a swift motion of the hand so as to soak the cloth with its potent contents.
The barks had gotten louder since the dogs were now within pouncing distance. Chavi could see two pairs of darting black eyes of the canine imposters, the muscles on their fore and hinds bulging and rippling at their action, their fangs drenched in thick saliva which spewed all over when the hounds barked. The girls had relied on the primary instinct of dogs to bark at strangers. Unless, instructed, dogs, no matter how vicious would not attack humans and would basically try to intimidate.
The girls stood their ground and Chavi, though trembling with fear slowly dropped the chloroform soaked handkerchief in front of the two dogs, who naturally bent down to sniff. Within a few seconds, the barking had stopped and the dogs were lying on the ground, blissfully unconscious.
The girls sprinted towards the bungalow, but soon stopped to see activity near the small boat house. It was one of the house servants, tending to some routine work. He did not notice the two girls and Chavi & Peeya made a dash for the main door. The chemical would have its effect on the dogs for just another 40 – 50 minutes and they had to get what they wanted in this time.
They were not even sure if Peeya’s grandmother was in a position to speak to them. After all, she had only seen Priscilla last when she was but a small girl all of 3 years old & even if she was in the pink of health, it would be hard for her to say anything to a stranger, if at all she indeed had anything to say at all.
The grand door to the Ararat was open as is the case with bungalows in estates. The girls slid through as silently as possible. No one suspected a fly since the dogs had been silent and no one would have dared to trespass on their guard. The bungalow was quite big. A huge lobby cum living space hogged much of the space in the bungalow, which Richmond used for entertaining his guests, friends and business associates who poured in every single day. There were three – four doors on the far corners of the huge living room that the girls wanted to check. A nice winding staircase fashioned on the old Victorian era houses, lead to a veranda which then seemed to lead to another set of rooms and what not. The one striking feature inside the Bungalow was a huge hand painted portrait of a young Richmond and Lily Mary in much happier times. While Lily Mary looked demure in a Burgundy evening gown with a large marigold broach, a necklace of pearls with a golden pendant that seemed like a locket, the ones that were large enough to hold portraits; while Richmond looked suave in a neat white three piece with a darting red tie and a pocket handkerchief of the same color, hair neatly oiled and combed back with a thin parting line almost in the middle, a thin moustache and a faint smile, while the background of the painting was a maroon façade with a portion of a white framed French window, getting due notice.
“Well they say a picture speaks a 1000 words, your grandparents don’t look that they were living separate lives” Chavi remarked as she drew Peeya’s attention towards the portrait.
“I guess she would be on the first floor, I have often seen her sitting in the balcony” said Peeya.
“We have a very small window of time, Peeya; we got to search her now! Come back here” Chavi pulled Peeya towards her and they hid themselves behind the a huge mantelpiece, a tribal art work that Richmond had bought from his partners in Devadutta, as a maid with a tray that seemed to be carrying a glass of plain milk, a ceramic bowl – probably some cereal, rice or some fruits and walk up the stairs towards a room on the left where the staircase ended.
Chavi & Peeya, retraced the maid’s steps after she had come down and disappeared from the scene of the huge living room cum lobby and they found themselves in an old room that had the smell of a recently cleaned hospital ward room. There was no stench, but only the smell of floor disinfectant, the heavy odor of bathroom deodorants, the combination of smells of capsules and tablets and the smell of old people.
They see Lily Mary, dressed in an off white nightie with tiny blue daffodils and tiny pink doves making up for the lack of color on her dress. She had been sitting on of the comfortable arm chairs laid out in the balcony annexed to her room separated by sliding glass doors that spread from floor to ceiling, as was the trend in the construction of bungalows in Richmond’s time. Lily Mary had not touched a morsel of food that had been placed; it was some sort of barley – oats porridge made with milk.
“Come in my dears” Lily Mary almost startled the two little wayfarers “Come sit with me” she said without turning back, as if she had been expecting them all this while.
Without uttering a word, Chavi & Peeya stepped out of the glass doors and they were soon in front of a frail old lady whose hair had all gone white save a few grey ones and the wrinkles on her face made her look like she had been soaked in cold water for a whole day, the bags under her eyes seemed to tell a million tales of pain & solitude and the constant twitching of her lips told the two girls that Lily Mary had a lot of things to tell and frankly she did not know how to start.
“Naana!” Peeya called out at the withering old lady saving on time that she might have needed to guess out her grandchild from the two.
“Why of course!” Lily’s weak grey eyes were slowly being taken over by cataract, but she still held on “But my child! You must not be here, it’s too dangerous, who is this with you? Is this your friend? How did you get past Lucifer & Gabriel? Did anyone see you both coming here?” Lily threw a volley of questions at her granddaughter as she was both happy and dreadfully concerned about her.
“It’s ok Naana, the dogs have been taken care of, we came here to see you, we have a few things to ask you” spoke Peeya.
“Naana, it’s me, Priscilla, your granddaughter, I study in that school over there” said Peeya pointing towards the large white & violet school building & the cream painted girls’ hostel.
Peeya tried hard to convince her grandmother that she indeed was her granddaughter and had risked her life and that of her friend’s just to come see her and talk to her. Peeya also talked to her grandmother about the rumors about Richmond and herself that had been doing the rounds in the village. She also explained how her father had been killed and how the family advocate Mr. Kailash had been taking care of her all this while. She also told her about her friends who had gone out of their way to help her out & how they had managed to sneak in without alerting anyone.
All this while, Lily Mary listened to the girl who claimed to be her granddaughter with a smile and with attentive ears.
“I know dear, I know all about you, I have known you since you were but a little child, barely able to stand. You haven’t changed much, my eyes may be weak and old, but my memories of you are not. It has been a decade since I last saw your face so close” said Lily Mary recalling the incident during the school’s foundation laying function, “I have been keeping a close watch over you, dear, why do you think? You got that room on the 4th floor of your school hostel” she asked while laughing mellow & pointing towards an old, brass enameled vintage telescope that Richmond had bought her for one of her birthdays. The sheen on the brass had worn off but it had been serving its purpose.
“You mean, you are alright? You have known ever since? But why?” asked Peeya as if she was more hurt to realize that her grandmother had been sane all this while and she had been deprived of her love.
“It is for your own safety, child, there are some good people, who would take a bullet for our family, but there are many others who would fire one at us” said Lily Mary “Your granddad was a good man, he loved his family and took good care of it. He was a hardworking man and he easily trusted people, which was perhaps, his greatest mistake”
“A village boy making it big in a big city often draws the attention of hyenas and jackals, waiting to scavenge on his spoils” spoke Lily Mary in a metaphorical manner.
“Your granddad always kept himself surrounded with wrong company, they were not good people, they killed the Kamat family, your granddad, your parents and they have many times to kill me and you too” Lily Mary said.
“My identity is a secret, naana” said Peeya with confidence.
“Is it really my dear?” asked Lily Mary, rhetorically.
“What do you mean naana? Who could possibly know? Why would they remain silent all this time?” asked Peeya.
“They are very strong, they are organized & work like professionals, Mr. Kailash had sent me a message for my eyes only a few years back. He had written about you, coming into the school. I still do not know why he sent me that message, the whole world thought I had gone bonkers and I intended it to continue that way. That would give the trust some leverage on the management of the property, but maybe the father inside Kailash had urged him to alert your grandma about your arrival” explained Lily Mary “I made arrangements, through some trustworthy companions” referring to her nurse Shanti and her husband Mallesh, they both hailed from the village and Shanti had always been compassionate towards Lily & when Lily felt that Shanti had gained her trust, she had taken her help.
“Your hostel warden and her husband, the Talapatras, they are none other than Shanti and Mallesh. They joined the school immediately after you did and have since been watching over you like a shadow. She also paired you alongside dear Chavi” Lily said as she reached out her hand towards Chavi who bent over to have Lily’s wrinkled hand caress her soft cheeks.
“You mean it was all planned?” Chavi finally spoke “But why me?”
“Shanti, had read about you in the newspapers and when you came along with your parents, it was a blessing in disguise. You would be a perfect partner to Priscilla” came the reply from Lily & Peeya gave a hefty smile to Chavi.
“Well grandma” said Chavi, “Call me naana like your friend does” smiled Lily Mary.
“Naana we do not have much time, what do you know about the murders, any idea who could be behind all this? I think that both your and Peeya’s lives are in danger now. I think you are right, Peeya’s secret has been exposed” said Chavi.
“I am not sure honey, but I know for sure that they planted someone inside the school to watch over Priscilla’s activities just like I did, but to safeguard her” said Lily Mary “the trust operates as an autonomous body, the profits from the business all go to the banks and of course for the salaries of the directors and others, but as long as I or any other heir of Richmond stays alive, the trust stays alive. Priscilla was dead to the world, until she grew up and decided to come here, and I, am a patient suffering chronic depression, not a threat, but a target nevertheless. Somehow, I am alive to this day, maybe to tell you all this, but I am not sure, how long I can put on this show” laughed Lily Mary.
“Naana” spoke Peeya, “what had happened the other day during the school’s foundation laying? The dogs had attacked but stopped, I don