The Witching Snakes pt 24

The servant Crimson is ordered about by various family members. She makes many oaths. Bapsi seeks Deoji.

Read Part 23

"Here," said the second voice, "let him have this other handkerchief but you must swear a solemn oath. Never speak of this time. Tell your master that you were detained."

"May my tongue rot and my body fall into dust, as I die brokenhearted in the shadow of the ugliest factory should I ever utter a word about your handkerchief. Does that suffice?"

"Oh damnation," said the second voice, "how long have we been chattering? We better start walking lest anyone suspect."

Chandra trembled. As soon as they moved from their place they would see her. One of those voices sounded like the peculiar girl named Crimson who had worked in Bapsi's room. Whatever Crimson did, she would take the discovery with a desperation that would throw everyone into whirling anxiety. Crimson was a servant; always on the verge of stigmata.

Chandra stepped a few paces back and then took deliberately loud steps on the creakiest parts of the path, breaking branches in order to announce herself and only then called out "Happy Boy! I know you're hiding from me!"

As she entered the pavilion, Crimson and Greenie (whom she knew only as Nightingale) screamed, startled to see her. They stood open mouthed as if caught in the middle of Chartism, thuggeries and rick-burning. Chandra spoke quickly in order to pretend that she hadn't seen their fear. "Have you got my sad cousin in here? Deoji."

"I haven't seen Master Deoji," said Greenie Nightingale.

"I saw him wandering over the water over there. I was going to surprise him but he disappeared. Are you sure he's not hiding?"

She went up to the statue and managed to look around it before chatting about how Deoji must have snuck away in the gardens. She joked about him being bitten by a snake. Nightingale gasped. Chandra found her satisfying. She walked away from the pavilion happy to have extricated herself so easily. She went laughing back to her cousins. She decided against telling the anecdote just in case Crimson's handkerchief was important. She had recently read Othello.