An encounter with a real WITCH OF BANYAN TREE - A short story (SWC)

Image -Pixabay

This story is about 16-17 years old. I was about 13 years old. I am a small city kid but my parents come from a village or very small remote town named Sonipur, in Agra, India. In India, during summers (school) holidays family visit their home town or village for 10 or 15 days. So It was summer of 1999. I went to my village (home town) with my parents in summer holidays. My uncle used to have a small flour grinder and edible oil refinery shop at a town name Dhana about 5 KM from village. I was very fond of my uncle in my childhood so in the evening used to go to his shop and spend time there and used to come back to my home with him at about 9:30 PM after shutting down the shop.

One evening I reached to shop at about 6 PM by paddling my bicycle. I remember, It was about 8:30 PM when a middle age man came running and said that my aunty (uncle's wife) had got slipped at fungal well (water storage ditch) while fetching drinking water. She was seriously injured and need to see doctor immediately. My uncle has already poured mustered in oil machine. I had spent enough time with machines so I knew all basic operational work. Therefore my uncle asked me to look after shop till running batch of mustard grinds into the oil then shut the machine and close down the shop. He will take keys later from my home. Then he left hurriedly.

Image -Pixabay

It was about 9 PM when, I locked the shop after finishing the work. Only 1-2 shops were still open in market lane. In villages or small towns by 9 PM roads gets deserted. There were only few people were left in the market. My bicycle was only there left alone at the side of road. I picked up cycle and started paddling towards home. I have come only about 400 meters away from the shop, when it hit me that I was alone and there was about 3 km of lonely, deserted dark road ahead of me. I clinched break hard and stopped immediately. Let me tell you here that I was very cowardice kid. Not in the sense of fighting with other kids but I was not fan of dark and pet animals in the dark. I was scared of dark and ghosts living in it. I waited for about 15-20 minutes at the edge of closed market lane and hoped that someone would also come on the way heading towards my home so that I would not be alone but none came. It was about 9:30 PM and getting late by every passing second. Finally after self moral boosting and remembering ghost deterring God Bajarangbali ji , decided to cross dark path with full speed.

Image -Pixabay

I said - Jai Bajarang bali aloud and started paddling hard. As i crossing the path, A though came to my mind. a day before I was playing with my friends from village and during the game, my cousin was talking to his friend and neighbor named Daroga. Daroga was telling story of Chudail (female ghost - witch) and hunted banyan tree. According to him witch haunts people passing by the old tree. You know it always happens - the things you want to avoid, they always cross your path regularly and frequently. When they started talking about these ghost stories, I left but seed of horror element was already implanted. So I was almost in the middle of dark path and cycle was running blind. Suddenly I saw a big darker shadow like giant tree. My thought went towards banyan tree and witch living in it. I started ranting the god'd name loudly and speedily. I also paddled my bicycle harder than ever. I was almost near to shadow of giant tree. This giant shadow was banyan tree in my head and ghost was waiting for me. Suddenly amidst all this horrible thoughts chain of my bicycle got slipped. I got panicked but there was nothing I could do. My bicycle slowed down and finally stopped. I had already left giant shadow of tree behind. I re-pumped myself with courage. I started fix my cycle chain back on gears in dark with intuition. It took about 30-40 seconds to fix it, by that time I started getting relaxed but suddenly I heard rustling sound from behind, my breath got stuck in my chest. I was petrified. Rustling sound appeared to rushing towards me. I was blank for few seconds and finally, I ran towards my home in dark. Even I couldn't remember that my bicycle is left in the middle of the road there. And only thing after that I remember to knocking the door of my home loudly. I was out of breath my mother tried to console me that there was nothing. No ghosts nor witches. But that horror left me with fever and because of that I had been on bed for 3 days.

Image -Pixabay

I had full believe that the witch made me sick. On 3rd day my cousin and Daroga came and asked me to play with them. They already knew about the incident happen with me so they didn't ask me anything. When my mother insisted, I went out with them. We with five other friends were playing cricket. During game our ball went very far away. We all started looking for it here and there. We searched and later moved to near a mango tree. There was big brown dry grass under it. we searched ball there too. We also saw a medium size ditch there. Daroga jumped inside it to search ball there suddenly, A cat run away screaming from that ditch. Daroga found the ball and came out. cat was still screaming at distance. so annoyed Daroga aimed the ball at her to scare her away. Cat rushed away and left away resembling rustling sound from horrified night. Then suddenly everything came at front of me. This Mango tree beside the road is the tree, I thought to be banyan tree hunted by witch. This moaning cat might be the source of rustling sound on that night. Then suddenly I felt very light and healthy. Later I realized it's not the ghost or witch who haunt us but it's the fear who actually haunts. So I term fear as real witch And this was my story of encounter.

Thank you @jerrybanfield @budgets @gmichelbkk for Supernatural Writing Contest!
I hope you will like my story.

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The Patcher (@dpatcher)