1 Jealous Cat

Mini was very happy because today she had gotten everything she'd wanted in her life; attractive looks, adoration, a wealthy husband and a promising marriage. It was the fated day of their housewarming; Adarsh, her husband, had told her that he had found a home in a quiet and beautiful place and since then, she had been very eager to see the place. It seemed almost like a dream; theirs was a whirlwind affair, and before anyone could offer their two cents about the marriage, they had already gotten married and now, it was her first day into her matrimonial house. The road to their house was paved with scenic beauty and exquisite view of the nature, and although it was further away from the city than she would've liked, Mini was still excited to greet her their new home.

Merely a month ago, Mini was a nurse in the local hospital, where, as fate would have it, Adarsh had come to visit an ailing friend; the moment he saw Mini, he fell in love and there was no doubt in his mind whatsoever. From their meeting to marriage, everything happened so quickly that Mini didn't even get a chance to think about it; it is said that young love has the life of a flickering flame. It was indeed a surprise when Adarsh had asked Mini's mother for her hand, and the marriage took place as quickly as the proposal. The marriage had been simple because Mini's father was no more and her family had no money to spend on weddings, but it was not lost on anyone that Mini had been very fortunate in her partner and the life ahead.

"We're home" Adarsh announced, bringing Mini back from her dreams. She was greeted by a small, yet homely and beautiful, cottage. The entire area was covered with greenery and flora, and the cottage itself stood at the beginning of a lake, which went on to form the most beautiful waterfall Mini had ever seen. The inside of the cottage was even more beautiful than its exterior and a feeling of comfort and warmth permeated the air. Mini looked at Adarsh, almost trying to check whether she was in a dream or reality.

"I, for one, am famished, so first, we will have breakfast and then … we can go to bed." The naughtiness in Adarsh's voice was not lost on Mini as she immediately blushed. She was a simple girl who didn't know the latkas and jhatkas of modern girls, and that was one of the reasons Adarsh had found her so attractive.

Just as Mini was getting comfortable, a black cat entered the room, which surprised Mini and pleased Adarsh; he invited the cat towards her and introduced the cat to Mini and vice versa. Adarsh looked at both of them and said, "She is my companion for life. I love her and I will appreciate it if you bond with her, same as me." Mini looked at the little black cat and while it looked harmless, there was something sinister in its eyes that scared Mini, but it was probably the fatigue and excitement of her travel, and she brushed aside such baseless thoughts. Mini and Adarsh prepared a light breakfast for themselves in the small kitchen, and thereafter, Adarsh looked longingly towards the bedroom. Mini and Adarsh talked for a while, after which they began to make love to each other, but what they did not see was the pair of cat eyes, of the little black cat sitting in on the window and watching them intently. Anyone who claims that animals cannot express emotions on a human spectrum had not witnessed the intolerable anger and hatred in the eyes of that cat. The cat kept watching till the lovemaking continued, whereafter it turned its head away. Mini had noticed the eyes of the cat looming over her and, it might have been her imagination but, as soon as their eyes met, the cat turned its head away.

In the evening it became cold and chilly. Adarsh took Mini to show her around. Of all the beauty surrounding them, Mini was deeply entranced by the waterfall; she had never seen one in person, and had never even seen pictures of one as deep and large as this one. Mini stood mesmerized, looking at the waterfall, as Adarsh came behind her and started kissing her softly; before they knew it, both of them were kissing each other, when suddenly Mini felt a pull on her leg, felt the ground beneath her give away and the feeling of falling swallowed her. Mini grappled with the air trying to hold on to something when Adarsh managed to catch hold of her hand; one half leaning and the other falling, Mini tried to pull herself up but felt herself falling deeper towards the water. With a strong and sudden jerk, Adarsh managed to pull Mini back to the shore, who fell face down onto the ground with a thud, whereas, with a loud splash behind her, Adarsh tried to swim back ashore, but disappeared into the dark waters. Mini got up with effort, as the throbbing pain in her face and mouth made her groan. Mini shouted at the edge, and kept shouting out for Adarsh, with tears running down her face, till her voice was hoarse, until she lost hope and fainted on the spot. A couple of hours later, Mini woke up in the middle of the night, being lulled by the soft rushing of water and met the eyes of the cat. Mini recalled what had happened, and as tears started flowing again and her throat closed up, she picked herself up and managed to stagger back inside the warm cottage. Upon entering, her eyes cautiously looked around for an Adarsh who would jump out and tease her for falling for the oldest trick in the book, but the house was dark and silent; the fire had died down and no one was there to rekindle it. Mini went to the bedroom, closed the door, and fell down on the bed. She could not help being choked with the feeling that her misfortune had only just begun.

The morning came crisp and early, and Mini felt tired and heavy. She opened her bleary eyes when the cat, all seven pounds of squirming flesh, climbed onto her belly. Squinting into the sunlight streaming in from the open window, she discovered that she was now the weary possessor of a pounding headache, and at some point, had managed to lose both a tooth and a spouse. While the sun was only just coming up, Mini grabbed her coat and exited the cottage.

She could not wait around and do nothing; the first thing that needed to be done was an assessment of the situation facing her. She went as close to the edge as she could, and called out for Adarsh and waited for a response. She tried to look down the waterfall, to see if there were smaller beaches down the stream, but her eyes would not go beyond the waters. Mini looked around for a while, and as soon the adrenaline had run out, she fell back at the spot with a heavy thud and landed at the same spot where Adarsh had kissed her last night. She brushed away some rocks and a tooth, and looked at the waterfall, expecting it to solve her predicaments.

The sun had reached its peak, and Mini could no longer bear to sit on the ground besides the waterfall; she had to call the police and ask for a search party to go down and look for Adarsh. She had not lost the hope that Adarsh was still alive and that he was stuck in a place which could not be escaped without someone's help.

She went back into the cottage to find that the landline was yet to be connected, and her mobile phone received no service. Mini wanted to shout and break the telephones, but didn't; she came out and sat down at the same spot as before. Mini contemplated jumping in the river herself; either she'd join Adarsh, wherever he was stuck, or she'd meet Adarsh wherever he'd gone to. The waters were calm, but deadly, and there was no guarantee of survival; it was possible that Adarsh may have survived the fall, but she might not.

Slowly, evening fell over Mini, and the blue sparkly waters turned dark and black. Mini had not eaten a bite since the day before and had made friends with a headache which would not go away; sad and exhausted, she came back inside the cottage, made herself a cup of tea and took a painkiller. Mini had no attention to give to the cat, but the cat had been paying close attention to Mini and had literally been following her since she'd come to this cottage. As the pain numbed down a bit, Mini decided to go to the nearest Police Station, to seek some help. Mini grabbed the car keys and headed out, but this time the cat did not follow her outside; she looked for the lock and key, but decided against it; the only thing valuable to her had flown down the waterfall and nothing else felt precious enough to be protected.

Before Mini could reach the car, she saw a silhouette in the distance approaching the direction of the cottage. Expectedly, she rushed out of the car and called out for Adarsh, but alas, it was not Adarsh, but one of the officers from the Police Station. He introduced himself as Samarth, who told her that he regularly made round of this area and stopped by the cottage, even before it had been purchased by Adarsh. Mini narrated the entire incident to the police officer and asked him for help. He radioed in the information, and arranged for divers to come and look for Adarsh in the morning. Mini insisted on urgency, but the police explained it to her that it was not possible to lead a search in the darkness of night, and it was only an invitation for tragedy.

He took Mini inside the cottage, put on some tea in a kettle and waited for it to be ready. He told her that earlier, two girls, accompanied with Adarsh on separate occasions, have also disappeared from the cottage under suspicious circumstances. Adarsh was the obvious suspect, but it was unexpected that Adarsh would have become a victim instead of the suspect. He chuckled and said, maybe the waterfall is eating people, and then in a less humorous tone, said out loud, or maybe you have done it as revenge for the missing girls?

Mini was shocked and her breath stopped for a minute, the police officer noticed it, and withdrew his suspicion. It had just been a day which had turned Mini from a newlywed to possibly a widow. Mini had become a bride, and then become a widow, and now she was being suspected of his murder. In the morning, the search party was constituted, and they scoured the area till the evening, but found no traces of Adarsh. While no one spoke an untoward word, Mini could not help but feel suspecting eyes looking at her again and again. It was a fact that two girls, who had been brought here by Adarsh on separate occasions, had gone missing from the cottage, and none was the wiser as to their whereabouts. Once could be an accident, twice could be a misfortune, but a third time could be nothing but deliberate.

In the meanwhile, Adarsh's best friend arrived at the cottage, who had been contacted by Inspector Samarth on Mini's request. Sachin consoled Mini and assured her that everything would be alright. Sachin reasoned with the Inspector and told him that there was no reason to doubt Mini because she had nothing to gain from Adarsh's death and further told him about the modest background that Mini came from. Adarsh had met Mini and her mother and had no reservations about his love for Mini; Sachin refused to acknowledge the possibility that Adarsh could have been misled in his love. Sachin had known Adarsh for years, and while he was also aware of the two girls that had disappeared from the cottage in the past, he was confident that Adarsh had nothing to do with it. While the Inspector could see that Sachin believed in everything he spoke and there was nothing that he was trying to hide, he could not help but ask, "That is fine, but those two girls were Adarsh's friends, were they not? At two different points in time, he invited a girl with him to the cottage and then the girl is nowhere to be found. You say that Adarsh had nothing to do with it, that it could have been an accident. Don't you think that too many accidents are happening around here and only surrounding this cottage? I don't believe in coincidences, and I don't believe that what's happening here is the result of accidents. Someone is definitely behind this, the only question is who benefits from all this?"

At this time, there was a knock outside the cottage. A maid servant was standing outside meekly and further became terrified when the Inspector opened the door to ask about her business. She introduced herself as Kantabai and upon seeing a woman inside the house, eased up a little bit. She explained that she's Adarsh's maid and that he had telephoned her to come up to the cottage yesterday. However, due to an urgency in her family, the maid could neither come up to the cottage nor call ahead to inform of her absence. Today, while on her way to the cottage, she saw the divers and the police and came to know that something had happened to Adarsh saab. When the Inspector nodded in affirmation, the maid broke down in tears, possibly at the loss of her employer, but probably at the loss of her employment. Inspector Samarth ignored the maid and tried to think if it was a good idea to keep Mini in custody for the night in case she tries to make a run for it at nighttime, but instead decided to post an officer at the exit to keep watch.

As the sun was setting down, Mini felt scared to be in the cottage by herself, with only the cat to keep her company. The search team had agreed to come back tomorrow at her insistence, to look for Adarsh, but there had been no progress with the same. Mini was sitting on the couch, weeping, when the cat who was sitting near here started making noise, "what is this Kitty?" Mini asked. The cat started running towards the door, trying to open the door with its paws, which made Mini curious and a bit hopeful. She had heard that animals could smell their masters from a distance. Expectantly, Mini opened the door, but to her dismay, nobody was outside. Mini turned to go inside as the cat ran outside, and Mini called out after her, "Come back you stupid cat, there is no one out here." However, the cat ignored her voice and ran towards the waterfall. Mini ran after the cat, because Adarsh had loved it and now it might be the only memento of his that she had. The cat was running towards the waterfall with Mini behind it, "Stop, stop Kitty." The cat reached towards the edge and now it was not visible. Mini was nervous of whether the cat, too, was going to disappear into the waterfall. The noise of water and the setting sun was making the whole atmosphere fearsome but Mini collected her strength and as if in a trance, went towards the edge of waterfall.

As she was leaning towards the bottom of waterfalls, she felt a jolt as if something was pushing her. With great difficulty, she balanced herself and turned around to see the perpetrator. There, sitting was the CAT who was trying to push her into the water, with cruel and hateful eyes. Suddenly, everything became clear to Mini's mind. Mini was the target yesterday, whereas Adarsh was an unintended victim. The cat jumped again, this time violently, at Mini, but a hand caught the cat in midair and held Mini firm in her place. The police officer had came back, and inadvertently saved Mini's life. Mini dared not tell her story to the police officer or anyone else. She left the cottage the next day to go back to the city, and did not look for the cat before she left. The investigation into Adarsh's disappearance continued for while, but without a body, it never culminated into anything but a dead case.

Mini was back to her old life as a nurse and tried to forget about her marriage. During her time in the hospital, she had once heard a couple say, who had visited a cute little cottage at the edge of waterfall, that there's this black cat outside, who is sometimes found sitting on the edge of waterfall, as if waiting for someone to come back home.

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Thank you for reading the JEALOUS CAT.