By Radhika Mishra
In the woods of Wayanad, where the jackals cry,
And the tendu trees blossom at the monsoon sky,
A township stood veiled in sacred fear-
Where something dark kept lingering near.
There are tales of heard screams at every dusk,
Of rotting chrysanthemums and iron musk
Children vanished, dogs were found,
With slit throats, no blood, no sound.
They speculated a foul play-of ghosts and the moon,
Every house lit a lamp by late noon,
And when the little girl Nithya went missing too,
The chills of the ghost spread like morning dew.
Enters the scene DCP Nayak Bose,
From Khozhikode with papers and prose,
Not entertaining myths or ghostly tales,
He was known to shatter lies and truth be unveiled.
He asked the priest, the washerman
The tea stall man with a shaking hand,
Each voice echoed a similar thread-
“Don’t dare search the woods… or you too will be dead!”
Near Nithya’s thatched house- beneath a coconut tree,
A skull was planted deliberately,
Painted blood red with ash and lime,
Folklore of terror from ancient times.
Nayak’s eye saw what no one had seen,
The paint wasnt old- it smelled new and clean,
Something modern, a mix of glue?
No ghost, no monster- someone else passing this through.
An old woman named Maaya Raati,
Blind, but sharp as mountain tea.
She kept on going, “ go check the old british well,
Where logic ends, and legends fell.”
The well was found-behind an old shrine,
Bricks were coarse red-no holy sign,
As he broke open- his heart started to sink,
There were five skeletons- his mind refused to think!
Nithya tied, but breathing so slow,
Eyes like deep forest, but refused to show.
It wasnt a curse, a monster or a ghost,
Rather Pratap Raj, the village host,
He ran the hospital, school and temple deeds,
And trafficked children for darker needs.
Used cliched horrors to mask his crimes,
Wrapped up horror in the veils of time,
The painter of skulls to plant fear,
So that no one dares to comes too near.
Every child was tied, drugged and sold away,
The missing ones were his actual prey,
But baby Nithya fought, she tried to flee-
Led the law to where it must be.
Bose locked him up and shut the gates,
On legends that played with innocent fate,
Wayanad could breathe clear air once more,
Though wounds still bled at every door.
The priest sighed “now we all know-
The worst horrors are played by faces we know”
Now in the forest the butterflies feed,
On the roses where once Nithya did bleed,
And when you trek-once the sky is rust,
You dont hear screams but smell jasmine and trust.
The sinful ghosts wear a human skin,
The darkest stories start within.