Room Writer

A month passed since that fateful day, and Sarah was now living with her cousins. She doesn’t quite remember what happened in the aftermath, but she sometimes hallucinates, which started the night of the incident.

Kev slept in their room that night because his father was taken by police for inquiry. Sarah’s mother made his bed next to her. Sarah had a hard time sleeping that night. She couldn’t help but keep thinking about everything that happened and how she was helpless. She knew something was going on with Kev’s mother in the past few days, but her child brain did not really know who to reach out to. She had seen Kev’s dad pointing a knife at his mother asking for money to buy alcohol, she had overheard Kev’s mother talking with her mom and asking her to take care of Kev if something were to happen to her. Sarah’s mom was a kind lady, but as she was busy raising two daughters of her own, she had no idea that Kev’s mother was going through a mental breakdown and depression. She tried to cheer her up and told her not to think so negatively and that she is lucky to have such a lovely boy. That motherhood is hard sometimes, but everything will fall into place.

That night, as Sarah was turning on her bed, trying to make sense of everything, she heard Kev calling his mother in his sleep. Sarah opened her eyes to reach out to him, but she froze when she saw Kev’s mother sitting next to him, gently brushing his forehead with her hand. Sarah shuddered in disbelief and covered her face with her sheet. She was hallucinating, but she thought she saw a ghost. The next morning, she woke up covered in sweat and her head dizzy. When her parents heard what she saw, they immediately moved her and Stella to live with their cousins. This was not the place to be if Sarah was to recover from the trauma.

Sarah’s parents would come to visit them twice a week. They told her that Kev was fine now and was living with his father, who was discharged from the police station the next day, after inquiry. There was no evidence indicating otherwise, and Kev’s mother death was reported as suicide. The file was closed now. Sarah was upset, but she dismissed her feeling. She knew grown-ups and specially the police couldn’t be wrong.

Her hallucinations would now come and go at odd times. She once saw Kev’s mother standing beneath the mango tree carrying sword and knives like the Hindu Goddess Kali. It was around dusk. She did not scream or anything, just gasped, and then the hallucination went away. Most of the days, she was busy playing with Stella and her cousins, and everything felt normal. She also started going to school after a long hiatus and with homeworks and school activities she had no time to think about the past.

A week later, Sarah’s parents rented a new apartment in a new location. Sarah and Stella moved into their new home.