noises were movement, a body, in the basement study. She had a flash of memory then – the night she imagined Naveem waking in the hospital and walking home in his gown like a zombie – how it unnerved her. Now, it made her hesitate. Could it be him? But no. Deep down, she knew this noise was foreign.
As quietly as she could – and Mrs Dixit could be very quiet – she slipped out of bed and towards the door. Anyone else might have thought about sourcing a makeshift weapon – the pair of dressmaker’s scissors, a large knitting needle, a vase, a paperweight, but Mrs Dixit knew her diminutive size meant that the perpetrator would most likely use whatever she held against her, so she went empty-handed, optimistic – and incorrect – in the hope that she could talk her way out of whatever lay ahead, that this intrusion had been an error of judgement or a mistake, something that could be remedied collaboratively.
In the hallway, there was a banging below her, and what sounded like someone cursing. The cursing was good – the intruder was corporeal at least, not that Mrs Dixit really thought it was a ghoul, but it was better to rule it out completely. Human – not animal or a bird that had flown in somehow and was thrashing around, trying to escape. A human, male. And young, if the voice was any gauge.
Was he alone?
At the top of the stairs, she paused. Twice in one night, Mrs Dixit was on the threshold of doing something that terrified her. The door at Naveem’s parents’ house, and now… She’d dreamt that trip though, she reminded herself. As proof, she slipped her tongue into the gap in her mouth and tested the neighbouring teeth. Not the slightest wiggle. Was she dreaming this too?
No. This was palpably real.
She walked down the stairs with almost a trance-like focus, counting the steps. The study door was closed, so she turned the handle, pushed it open – see, it was easy – and went right in.
There was a young man – a boy – dressed in grey jeans and a black hoodie with the hood down, but his back was turned so she couldn’t see his face.
‘What are you doing?’ Mrs Dixit asked in her normal voice, at a normal volume. It might have been a clap of thunder, the way the boy swivelled to look at her. Immediately, she had the strange sensation of sticky carpet underfoot, the smell of old popcorn, and the sense she knew him from somewhere.
‘Oh, fuck it,’ the boy said, and launched himself at her.
He had the advantage, already facing her. Mrs Dixit’s legs were not very long, but adrenaline made them fast. As she reached the middle of the stairs, she felt a hand grabbing at her right ankle, but she managed, falling onto her hands and scurrying instead of running, to evade his grasp and make it to the top. He was fast too, and young, and had adrenaline aplenty, and there were equally high stakes his side. They used no words, just grunts – the most primal and readily understandable of languages. Mrs Dixit knew now she was in danger, real scarlet-hued, razor-tipped danger, that bad things could happen, and most likely would, if she could not get to help. She had almost cleared the stairs when the hand came back to her foot, more assured this time, and clasped itself around her ankle, causing her to smash to the floor, hitting her chin hard, the ankle popping out of its socket.
Mrs Dixit tried shaking her leg, but the grasp was strong, and she was aware of another hand coming for her other ankle. In her mind, she pictured the rams at shearing time, bundled up by their ankles and then plonked down unceremoniously to scarper away naked and confused, except she would not be plonked down. She would be got for good. Her free foot made contact with the grabbing hand, and there was a satisfying crunch, and an ‘Oh fuck, my fingers!’, and the grasp on her caught ankle loosened. Mrs Dixit saw her moment and bucked her body with all her might, levering herself out of his clutches, and she was standing again – in fact, skidding on the linoleum – and she had possibly five seconds to decide what to do next.
Unfortunately, time did not slow down, the fight or flight response did not accelerate her decision-making