The Witches’ Lake

Budh was a boy who lived in a small village on the hillside. He was not a small boy any more, but he wasn’t big, either. He was just that age when boys begin to think about all the restrictions grownups place on children and then decide that they are all meaningless.

Most of the time Budh wasn’t clear about the restrictions that his parents imposed on him. Don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t go into the forest alone... The most meaningless of them all, of course, was the instruction: “Don’t go up the Red Hill alone. Ever. Ever, you understand?”

He didn’t. Of all the places, what was wrong with the Red Hill? So he had decided to ask. He had asked his mother first.

“Ma, why does everyone tell me never to go to the Red Hill alone?”

“That is something you needn’t know, son,” his mother had said. “Just go and finish your homework.”

He had asked Chandni, his childhood friend and companion who went to school with him every day. Chandni lived half a mile down the hill on the way to the village. Her father owned the small plot of land behind the hut just like Budh’s father owned the land behind their house. Every day, Budh would stop by to pick up Chandni on his way to school. That day he asked her.

“Chandni, why do you think we are not allowed to go to the Red Hill?”

Chandni turned her lower lip outward. “I have no idea,” she said.

“I asked Mother,” said Budh. “She didn’t tell me.”

“That’s strange,” said Chandni. “Wait, I will ask my father today. He’ll surely tell me.”

That was true. Chandni’s father had always answered all her questions, without fail.

Yet, when Chandni met Budh the next day, she had nothing to say.

“Oh, he said a lot of things,” said Chandni. “He told me how children should always listen to their parents and teachers, and how they should never be disobedient. He told me that oftentimes children who were disobedient and landed in big trouble. He even told me that it is not safe for anyone to go to the Red Hill and that didn’t only mean children. It meant that the Red Hill was out of bounds for grownups, too.”

“But why?” asked an exasperated Budh.

“He didn’t say that,” said Chandni.

“Why didn’t you ask?”

“I had asked, remember,” Chandni said. “That’s how he gave me the lecture.”

“I wonder who can tell us,” said Budh.

“I know,” said Chandni, excitedly. “We’ll ask Grandfather.”

That was such a brilliant idea that Budh suddenly stopped in his tracks.

“You are the cleverest girl I have ever seen,” he said.

Chandni sniffed. “You know only one girl,” she said. “That’s me.”

*

He wasn’t either his grandfather or hers. In fact, he had no grandchild of his own. He didn’t even have a living relative that anybody knew of. Yet, the entire village called him Grandfather. He was grandfather to all the children of the village and their parents, alike. No one knew how old he was, but they all agreed that he was very old indeed.

Chandni and Budh went to visit the old man after school that day. He was sitting at the door to his hut, staring at nothing. They went up to him and said, “Good evening, Grandfather.”

Grandfather patted the ground beside him. “Sit down,” he bade them. “You are Budh and you are Chandni, am I right?”

The old man was very sharp. They had brought some food for him, saved from their lunch. He was happy to see it.

“What story do you want today?” asked Grandfather after he had finished eating what they had brought.

Grandfather knew a lot of stories and he loved to tell them to whoever came to visit.

“Tell us about Red Hill, Grandfather,” said Chandni immediately.

For a moment it seemed to them as if even grandfather would deny them, but slowly, the old man began to speak.

“It all happened so long ago, that I am not sure I remember all the details correctly,” he began. “Many years ago, before even my birth, Red Hill wasn’t called so. In fact it had quite an ordinary name.”

“Red Hill doesn’t seem to be too unusual a name,” said Budh.

Grandfather looked at him with his hazy eyes. “Really?” he asked. “How many times have you seen that hill?”

How many times...! Budh was taken aback. Grandfather knew that he lived at the bottom of the Red Hill — practically on the hillside itself. So did Chandni. They didn’t have to answer, though. Grandfather wasn’t waiting for a reply. He went on.

“And have you ever seen anything red on the hill?” he asked.

This too didn’t need an answer. They all knew it. Never. Some trees grew reddish leaves in the spring, but they had never seen anything red on the hill, ever.

“Many, many years ago, it was not out of bounds for anyone,” Grandfather started again. “Anybody could climb anywhere on the hill and go right up to the top. People often did, and they all said that it was the most beautiful place on earth.”

“Why,” asked Chandni. “What is there to see?”

“The Witches’ Lake,” said Grandfather. “Witches come there every full moon night to work their magic. If anyone goes there then, the witches get angry and they are never seen again.”

“What happens to them?” asked Budh.

“Who knows,” said Grandfather. “Maybe they get turned into toads or lizards and hop or slither on the hillside for the rest of their lives!”

Chandni shivered silently. “Do you know anybody like that, Grandfather?”

Grandfather shook his head. “No, the hill was put out of bounds for us much before my time. I have only heard the stories.”

“If the witches come only on full moon nights,” asked Budh with a thoughtful frown, “why are we not allowed to go to the hill on any other day?”

Grandfather didn’t know. Many years before his birth the villagers had promised the witches that they were going to leave the hillside and hilltop alone. That no one would climb beyond the big black rock to live, work, or for fun. Every now and then, Grandfather told them, someone or the other decided that the story about the pact with the witches was all rubbish. They began to stray beyond the black rock. In the beginning, nothing would happen. Then it would suddenly hit them. The whole family would be destroyed. They would not be able to live here any more.

“Why Red Hill, then?” asked Budh, remembering Grandfather’s question.

“Danger,” hissed the old man. “It’s dangerous, that is what it is! That’s why.” Then he nodded his head vigorously.

*

On the way back, Budh said, “Do you realise that all he said is a very tall story?”

Chandni was surprised. “Why do you say so?” she asked.

“Several reasons,” said Budh. “First of all, Grandfather said no one has ever seen the witches. To whom did the villagers make the promise not to go up the hill, then? Again, when anybody goes beyond the black rock, they get destroyed. Yet, no one has seen a witch cursing anybody, have they?”

Chandni looked at him angrily. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Are you thinking like those stupid people who say the entire thing is a lot of rubbish?”

Budh didn’t answer. He was angry. He didn’t like it that she called him stupid like the people who didn’t believe in the witch stories.

A few days later Chandni got late for school, waiting for Budh to come. He didn’t come to pick her up. Chandni waited till it was almost too late and had to run to avoid a scolding from the teacher. She kept looking out for him all day, but he didn’t come. He was waiting for her though, at the end of the day, on the bridge that crossed the stream at the end of the village.

“Where were you all day?” asked Chandni.

Budh didn’t say anything, but fell into step beside her. They walked in silence for some time. Chandni realised that Budh was going to say something to her, but was hesitating.

After a while, when they were some distance away from the village, Budh stopped.

“I went there today,” he said.

Chandni felt a cold shiver go through her. She knew the answer, still she asked, “Where, to the hill?”

“Right up to the top,” said Budh.

Chandni was quiet for a while. Then, “What did you see?” she asked.

“It’s so beautiful,” said Budh enthusiastically. “You won’t believe it if I told you. The sky is clear and blue, the air smells so nice and the lake is so clean and the water so fresh, that, that...” Budh stopped, unable to find words to describe the beauty of the place.

Chandni kept quiet.

“I will take you there one day,” promised Budh. “You’ll see for yourself. It’s not a Witches’ Lake at all. It’s a fairies’ lake. In fact, that’s what I will call it from now — Fairy Lake. Come, let’s go there one day, you and I...”

“No!” Chandni’s reply was sharp. “I will not go there, ever. And neither will you, Budh. You’ll have to promise me that.”

“But...” Budh began to protest, but Chandni cut him short. “If you want to marry me and live with me, Budh, you will have to promise me, that you will never even think of your fairy lake, ever.”

She turned and walked on, without looking back, leaving Budh standing there, dumbfounded.

*

Some years had gone by. Chandni and Budh had finished studying in school and were married now. Chandni looked after the household and the land that Budh’s father used to farm on. Budh had opened a shop in the village that sold food. Budh had worked out that a lot of people travelled through the village and they often wanted to stop for tea, coffee and even meals. His shop was doing well. He was growing rich.

He had never talked about the Witches’ Lake to anyone since the day Chandni had scolded her. Initially he had thought of talking to Grandfather, but before he could gather enough courage, the old man had died and so, the only two people who knew about Budh’s Fairy Lake were Budh himself and Chandni.

Budh hadn’t forgotten his only visit to the Witches’ Lake, though. In fact, the more he thought of it, the more beautiful it became in his mind. The sky at the hilltop was bluer than the richest blue sky, the deep water of the lake was dark as the crow’s eyes and the trees and grass on the hill was green as no man’s eyes had ever seen.

He thought of the lake when he was awake and he dreamed of it at nights. In his dreams he often saw the witches but they were not ugly witches at all! They were beautiful women, dressed in the finest clothes and they could fly. They were fairies. Every day when he woke up in the morning, he would think of going to the lake at the top of the Red Hill, but then he would see Chandni, his wife, very practical, very level-headed and he would remember his promise to her, made many years ago. He would sigh, leave his bed and go to his shop, as Chandni looked after the house and the land and their children.

Budh would often hear people at his shop discuss excitedly about the places they had been to. It appeared that many miles away there was a hill so beautiful that people from far away would come to stay there on holidays. They stopped at Budh’s shop, excited with anticipation when they were going to the hill and they stopped on their way back, even more excited and happy at having seen so beautiful a place.

Budh listened to their talk and thought about their hill, their very own Red Hill, but when anyone asked him if there was anything worth visiting nearby, he always shook his head like all the other villagers.

“Nothing,” he would say. “There’s nothing interesting here.”

Till that day, when the young man came in just before Budh was going to close his shop after a long day and asked him if he could spend the night in the shop.

“Here?” Budh asked, surprised. “In this shop? But there is no place to sleep here.”

“You don’t worry about that,” said the young man. “I have my bed with me.” He pulled out a rolled up rubber mat and a soft long nylon bag from the large bag that he was carrying on his back and showed Budh how to sleep in it.

“This is my sleeping bag,” he told Budh. “All I need is permission to use your floor, since there is no other place to stay in this village.”

“But, why do you want to stay here at all?” asked Budh.

“I want to go to watch birds up that hill early tomorrow morning,” said the man, pointing at Red Hill.

“There is nothing to see there,” blurted Budh, more out of habit.

“I don’t want to see anything else,” said the man. “I have come for birds and that’s all I am interested in.”

Budh didn’t think there were any birds on the hill either and said so.

The man smiled. “Are you sure?” he asked. From his bag he brought out a book. Budh’s eyes widened as he saw pages filled with pictures of birds.

“The hills around here are full of birds,” said the man. “No reason why the Red Hill should be any different. Why is it called Red Hill, by the way?”

“Because it is dangerous,” said Budh.

“Dangerous?” asked the man in a disbelieving tone. “Why should it be dangerous? There are no dangerous animals in these hills!”

Budh didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want to tell the man about the witches and have him laugh at the villagers.

“People die,” he said simply.

The man laughed anyway. “Village superstition,” he said. “I bet you can’t name anyone who has died on that hill.”

It was true. Even Grandfather didn’t know anyone who had died there. He didn’t know what to say, so he kept quiet. The man closed the book, pushed it back into his bag and turned towards Budh again.

“Well, it has already become dark as we sat here talking. I will not be able to go anywhere else. So, my friend, if you will make arrangements for a small meal for me, along with the permission to sleep here, I will pay you well.”

The man fished out some money from his pocket and put it in front of Budh. Budh saw that the money was quite a bit for the little that he had to do. Anyway, the man was not going to go anywhere else. He had made up his mind even before asking Budh.

Budh took the money and went home.

He couldn’t sleep that night. The young man had told him that he was going to start early from Budh’s shop in the village, so that he could be there on top of the hill before sunrise. He planned to be there for the morning and come back to Budh’s shop for a late breakfast.

Budh could not tolerate the thought of another man on the hilltop that he had come to think of as his own in these many years.

Finally, he left his bed before sunrise and started off toward the village. He would somehow stop the man.

He met the man on the hillside, climbing up with his big back, a camera and binoculars. “Hey,” he said. He sounded both surprised and happy. “Are you going to accompany me?”

Budh hadn’t thought going along with him, but he could not think of an excuse good enough and he was also suddenly seized with an irresistible wish to go up to the top again. And why not? Was it not his own, the hilltop? And the lake? And the fairies?

He turned and trudged up the hill with the man who was going to watch birds.

*

The man returned late. Budh had left him with his camera and birds beside the lake on the hilltop. He had become friends with the man. He had told him all the stories. At first he had made Grandfather’s stories longer, scarier and gruesome to put some fear into the young man. However, he had started to feel good about talking and soon it had all come out — how he had been to the top alone when he was a boy and how he had to promise to Chandni that he was never going to come back again. How he had thought of the hilltop and the lake every day and dreamed of it in his sleep. He even shared with the man how he had almost started thinking of the place as his own.

“And why not?” he had asked, almost aggressively. “I know I don’t own any of this, but no one in the village will come here ever, so why can’t this place be mine?”

“Why not, indeed,” the young man had muttered under his breath as he scanned the trees for birds.

Budh had had to return to open his shop for breakfast for the early travellers. The man returned shortly before lunch, tired, but happy. He sat and chatted awhile with Budh, had an early lunch and left, but not before giving him a large tip. “For your help and guidance,” he told Budh. “And also for that wonderful story about Witches’ Lake.”

When Budh went home that day, Chandni spoke to him softly as she always did. What she asked, however, was not her usual question.

“Did you go up the Red Hill today?”

Budh had known anyone who saw him going up the hill would have told Chandni, but he hadn’t thought anyone had actually seen him. He tried to not answer the question, but Chandni would not leave him be. Finally, he brought out the money that the young man had given him for his guidance and flung it at her.

“Look at that,” he shouted. “That is what he gave me for taking him up the hill. I’d be an idiot, if I didn’t take it.”

Chandni didn’t say anything more, but turned away from Budh, her lips compressed tightly, her eyes full of tears, blazing with anger.

Budh, who hadn’t seen the lips, or the tears, or the anger, felt happy that the sight of the money had shut her up.

The young man was back after a few weeks. He had brought Budh a magazine. It was in English. Budh did not know how to read the strange language. No one in their village knew how to. He looked at the man, expecting an explanation.

“Go ahead,” the man encouraged Budh. “Turn the pages — see if you can recognise anything, or anyone!”

Confused, but curious, Budh turned the pages slowly. Soon he stopped, with a picture that spread across two pages. It was just what the Red Hill looked like from his shop. He turned to look at it through the window beside him. He couldn’t be wrong. He had seen this scene every day for years. He turned back towards the young man. The man smiled.

“This picture was taken from outside your shop,” he said. “In respect to your love for the Red Hill. I realised that no one else in this village loves it like you do. They are only afraid of it.”

“What is written here?” Budh asked, pointing at the English words at the bottom of the page.

“The Birds of the Red Hill,” said the man. “Look further.”

So he turned the pages. In four pages there were pictures of several birds and also one of his face! He had never seen a photograph of himself in his life. There was one of his shop, too! He was so surprised that he could not say anything. He only kept looking back at the pictures and at the man’s face.

“I have written that you took me up to the top of the hill and the witch stories of your Village Grandfather,” the man said. “Now you are well known in the city, for many thousands read this magazine.”

He brought out several sheets of paper, the same story from the magazine, in plastic covers. “These are laminated,” he said. “I will stick them up here on your wall with these pins. People will come here and see that they have come to eat at a famous man’s shop. Give me a hammer, will you?”

He hammered the pages on the wall and then gave Budh laminated pictures of his face and shop, of the Red Hill and Witches’ Lake, all in a bag. “You can show this to your wife and children,” he said. Then, almost shyly, he added, “I have been paid money for what I wrote in the magazine. If you don’t mind, I want to share some of the money with you.” And, before a surprised Budh could say anything, the young man had pressed a bunch of notes in his hands and gone, promising to come back soon.

Budh sat and stared at his pictures, the magazine and the money. He didn’t know what to think! His workers crowded round. They marvelled at the laminated pages stuck on the wall with the pictures of Budh and their shop. Budh thought of showing them the photos but finally he didn’t. The day passed, as if in a trance. Many customers read the pages of the magazine. Many congratulated him. Some asked him how much he charged to guide people up to the Fairy Lake, for it appeared that the young man had not used the name ‘Witches’ Lake’ at all. Budh shook his head at the questions about guiding people to the hilltop. “Not safe,” he muttered.

At the end of the day, when he was closing his shop, he picked up the magazine and photographs to show to Chandni and the kids. Then he thought better of it and put them back in a drawer in his table. Chandni wasn’t happy about his going to the hilltop. There was no immediate necessity to remind her of his broken promise.

*

Budh’s decision to keep Chandni in the dark did not work. People started pouring in from the city. Some were birders, they wanted Budh to take them to the hilltop to watch birds. Some were adventure-seekers, they wanted Budh to take them to Fairy Lake and tell them the story of the fearsome witches of the hilltop. Yet others were picnickers, looking for the best place to sit, while others wanted nothing more than to walk around and see. Budh never told Chandni any of it, but people talked and Chandni heard.

They all wanted Budh, however. They wanted him to come with them, to show them around and guide them. They paid him well and soon Budh forgot to fret about his promise to Chandni. The money was good, people spoke to him with respect and as time went by, he began to learn more about the hill. He now knew which were the best places for a view of the plains, he knew where the shadiest nooks were for picnicking, he had even begun to learn about birds — where the big brown owl slept in the daytime, which branch was the favourite nesting places for the Eagles and when the migratory ducks arrived for a few weeks in the autumn and spring.

Chandni grew quieter and slowly she stopped talking to Budh. She worked in silence at home and in the field. She would be out before he woke up and fast asleep before he came back. He was now rich enough to rent a bigger and better house in the village and felt they would be happier there, but he didn’t dare to say it to Chandni.

Then the villagers’ talk reached her. Chandni heard how Budh was a famous man even in the city now, how people were paying him good money to take them to the hilltop, how they called the hill Budh’s Hill and she was very hurt that Budh hadn’t told her any of it. She might have been able to stop his destruction if he had.

Budh returned home that day to find his house dark, Chandni and the children gone. He wandered in the gathering darkness, calling their names and then he went down the hill like in the days of their childhood, to that house where Chandni’s brother lived now.

“I have no idea where Chandni might have gone with the children,” said her brother, frowning angrily, his face turned away. “You might have known if you hadn’t been busy running up the hill, claiming it to be your own.”

Budh was going to deny this when he remembered that he had said it to the young man. Maybe he had written it in the English language magazine. Maybe all the villagers knew about it. He turned away, feeling embarrassed that his most private feelings were now known to all.

Budh left home and shifted to his shop. He did not call it his shop any more. The city people had taught him to call it a restaurant. A few months went by. Budh could not find out where Chandni and his children were. They were not in the village any more, that was certain, but the villagers could not, or did not tell him where they had gone.

Even the villagers had stopped talking to him after he had refused to listen to the village elders who had called him one day to tell him that he should stop taking outsiders to the Red Hill, violating the past promise to the witches. He had stormed back to the restaurant, angrily, thinking dark thoughts about the village elders.

“Stupid people,” he thought. “They will die, always afraid of witches. Only I know about the fairies and I will never tell anybody. Never.”

The next morning he overheard his restaurant workers chatting about him.

“It’s just like the curse says,” one of them said. “The family is broken up, the house is falling apart...”

Budh was surprised. How long ago was it that he had left the house? Not more than a few weeks, at the most, surely? That morning he led a group of picnickers past his old hillside home. He was shocked to see its state. It was never much more than a poor hovel, but it always had the touch of loving care about it, his mother’s and later, Chandni’s. It had never looked so forlorn and decrepit. Even the people with him were upset.

“Who lives here? Whose house is this?” asked one of them.

Budh did not want to admit that it was his own house. “Some people who have moved to the city,” he mumbled.

“This junk shouldn’t be allowed to remain,” they said. “You must tear it down. What an eyesore!”

Budh was too ashamed to say anything. He returned as soon as he could after settling the visitors at the picnic spot and went to the local town. From there he brought back artisans and repaired his house. After a few months, when it was ready to live in, he moved back there. He was a rich man now, both as a restaurant owner and a guide. People respected him, both the elders and people of his generation, though they avoided him. The younger generation was his fan, though. Every day one or two would come quietly and ask to be his assistant.

“Come back with your parents’ permission,” he told them. “I could do with some help, but I don’t want your parents’ curses on me over and above the witches’ curse, I am sure.”

The boys went away, never to return. Nobody’s parents wanted the son to take up such a dangerous job.

In his new, old house, Budh was desperately unhappy. Every day he thought of Chandni and his children and he could not sleep. He began to come home later in the night, more tired every day, so that he could fall asleep sooner. It didn’t help.

One such evening, as he climbed up to his home he looked up at the sky and saw it was a full moon night. The hillside was awash with bright moonlight. A sudden thought took hold of him and shook him. It was his hill. It was his hilltop. It was his Fairy Lake. He had, alone, by himself, changed the entire story of witches coming to the lake to work their magic and made it the land of the fairies. So he had every right to go and visit the lake in moonlight. In fact, he should have done it long ago. If he had done so, he would have met the fairies long ago.

He reached the top in a rush, out of breath. The lake looked divine. The full moon reflected in the still water in the silent night. There was no one there, but Budh couldn’t help feeling that something was happening there just before he arrived. They were here. They must have gone away this instant, just before he burst on to the lakeshore. He rushed about here and there, looking for the fairies, hiding from him.

He returned, disheartened, but not hopeless.

He could hardly concentrate on his work the next month. Every day he climbed the hill in the daytime to take visitors to their picnic spots or birding sites. Every evening he would shut his restaurant and climb to the Fairy Lake to sit there alone for hours. On some days he would wake up on the grassy meadow beside the lake.

“I’m sleeping better here than in my house,” he told himself.

The next full moon night Budh was ready. He shut his restaurant early in the evening and told his workers that they could take the evening off. Then, soon after sunset, he climbed the hill and sat quietly in the trees. There, hidden from the fairies’ eyes he waited for them to come.

He waited all night, till the sun rose on the eastern horizon. He knew they had come. He could sense their presence. It was very different from the feeling of all the other nights. He couldn’t see them, though. He reeled into his house and fell into a sleep deeper than what he had slept for many months. He did not go to the restaurant all day. His visitors went back. When he climbed down to the village, however, he was feeling years younger and had worked out a plan to see the fairies the next full moon night.

He worked hard every day all that month and planned in the night. He knew when he would climb the hill, where he would hide and where he would look from.

As the day advanced, he found it difficult to contain his excitement. After many days he thought of Chandni again. She ought to have been here tonight, beside him, enjoying the fruits of his success. He resolved to look for her earnestly after tomorrow. She will come back, and the children, and they would live happily again. He would not need to climb to Fairy Lake any more. If Chandni still didn’t want him to, he would not. His restaurant would be enough for him to be happy. He would bring her back, from wherever she had gone.

He woke up suddenly in the middle of the night. It was not full moon till tomorrow, but the moonlight was as bright. He walked out of his house on the hillside.

She was standing outside. He had never seen Chandni look so beautiful, so ethereal, so... so... words failed him. He could hardly breathe.

“Come with me,” she said. “We need your help,” and she flew off leading him along the path to the top.

He followed, blindly.

*

The hilltop is closed to people now. The villagers have erected barbed wire fences across all the paths to the top. They turn visitors away politely but firmly. The top is sacred, they say. No one is allowed there any more. We are sorry you have to go back disappointed. You can have a good meal at the restaurant there. Budh’s Restaurant it is called. No, Budh doesn’t run it any more. His wife Chandni and their children manage it now. The only thing that they have changed is that you will not see those laminated sheets of pages of the magazine telling about the Red Hill. Budh doesn’t even live here any more. You met a man who looks like Budh, you say? Well, he is a madman, who keeps saying that he has seen fairies on the hilltop. Of course, we look after him, he is a harmless mad man, after all. He is allowed to sleep in our compounds or on the doorstep if he wants to. Chandni feeds him every day. The children give him clothes. He believes that there are fairies on the hill and not witches. Poor chap, he doesn’t even know there’s no difference, really between the two.