Now I'm telling you the mystery of Radharani's history—the one that people in the village only whisper about, never daring to speak aloud. This isn't just a story; it's the beginning of a curse.
In the late 1970s, Radharani was still a young woman. Her husband was the younger son of a local zamindar—his name was Harendra. Harendra was greedy, always drowning in alcohol and gambling. Even after marrying Radharani, he never changed. Their only child, Manik, was born in 1975. Manik was unusually quiet, with a strange gentleness in his eyes—as though, even as a child, he somehow knew his life would not be long.
It happened on a stormy night in 1980. Harendra came home drunk and started an argument with Radharani. The quarrel quickly turned violent. He shoved her hard; she fell to the floor. Manik, only five years old at the time, ran forward to protect his mother. In a fit of rage, Harendra slapped the boy. Manik's head struck the edge of something sharp as he fell… and he never got up again.
Terrified, Harendra fled the village that very night and was never seen again. Radharani spent the entire night cradling her son's body, weeping. When morning came, she did not bury him. Instead, she carried his small body to the mango grove behind the house, to the old well. Back then the well was still in use, though terribly deep. Radharani dropped her son's body into the darkness of the well. Then she sat on the edge and whispered:
"You will stay with me, Manik. I will never let you go. If anyone ever tries to take you away… I will take them instead."
From that night onward, Radharani changed completely. The kindness vanished from her eyes, replaced by a blind, obsessive hunger. The villagers say that Manik's body never decomposed at the bottom of the well. Some unnatural force seems to have kept it preserved—cold, in the dark, waiting.
Every full-moon night, Radharani still goes to the well, carrying that small wooden doll. The doll isn't ordinary: it was made using a lock of Manik's hair and drops of his blood. The red thread tied around its neck is a binding—a chain that refuses to break.
Those who have ventured too close to the well have heard it: from deep inside comes the faint voice of a little boy calling, "Mother… I'm cold… come…" And Radharani's laughter blends into that call, becoming one terrible sound.
Here is the true horror: Radharani did not kill her son, but she never set him free either. She has trapped him in the darkness of the well so that no one can ever leave him alone again. And now she hunts for new victims—anyone who comes too near will be pulled down… so that Manik can have another "playmate" to keep him company in the cold.
That is why Riya lost her voice. Radharani doesn't want anyone screaming for help. She wants them to come to her silently, quietly, without resistance.
Even now, when the full moon rises… if you stand at the edge of the well, you can hear two voices together. One belongs to an old woman, the other to a small boy. And in perfect unison they whisper:
"Come… we are waiting."