Morning mist swirling, dew drops on fresh grass, anticipation of a whole day ahead with no school and no homework. These  made a fantastic holiday’s first day.

Nita wandered out of the room at the resort her parents had booked for the week end. She had not paid much attention to the surroundings last night as they arrived, they had driven down to Bannargatta from Bangalore and were going to spend the next two days trekking, visiting the safari and the zoo.

She had not been too excited at first because all her other friends were flying out to various exotic destinations and this seemed a rather insignificant place in comparison.

This morning  reminded her  of  a newly hatched chicken she had seen once in her grandmother’s house. All clean white, fluffy and full of excitement. Her brother was still asleep which meant she could explore around for a little while longer, before his constant chatter would spoil the purity of the morning.

Even the smells were different, the mist and the eucalyptus trees blended together to create a tingling
sensation in her nose- she took a deep breath , swinging her arms around in childish joy and walked to a row of trees.

The bark of a decayed tree had a profusion of mushrooms growing from it. They looked like an army of tiny people, fascinated she moved closer and suddenly found herself losing her balance and falling forward.

She just stopped herself from falling face first! Looking down she found her foot had caught in a hole that was partially covered by grass which is why she had not seen it .The hole was not more than six inches wide and it seemed to have been created by some sort of heavy object.

There were swirls of mist coming out of it or wait was it smoke? Anyway Nita cautiously moved away. Something prepared her for flight.

“This is such nonsense”, she thought to herself “Here I am in such a beautiful and peaceful place, I can see the room where my parents are asleep and just a call away, then why am I feeling  as if some one were watching me?” One moment she had felt so carefree and the next moment she felt like she wanted to run back to the safety of her room and parents, this was not her nature. Nita was an independent girl who enjoyed exploring on her own.

She felt quite silly and made a determined effort to relax. There seemed to be an unnatural stillness around her, it was a little early in the morning for holiday makers to get up and about but here even the leaves in the trees seemed to be standing still, not a single bird sang! She turned again to look for the mushrooms, which is what had caught her attention in the first place.

This was really strange because they were not to be seen any more- they seemed to have dissolved. The bark of the decayed tree had some smudges on them where the mushrooms had stood a few minutes ago. Looking around she noticed several more holes like the one that had almost tripped her.

She took a deep shaking breath, this is really silly she thought to her self, “I have been reading too many ‘Goosebumps’ and scary stories.” As she turned to leave she noticed the mist seeping out of the holes in the ground.

She was almost relieved to hear her mother calling her, this gave her an excuse to leave without feeling foolishly that she was running away.

A gust of wind  blew her hair into her eyes. Something seemed to want her to move away from there as soon as possible, and she was not in a mood to be stubborn. Her footsteps quickened and with relief saw her mother come out onto the veranda of their rooms.

Her mother saw her , Nita saw her mother begin to smile and raise her hand to wave but her hand stopped in mid air and she seemed to be looking towards the same spot that Nita had been a few minutes ago!

“Why Nita, were you building a morning bonfire?” her mother commented as Nita joined her on the front veranda. “I have told you not to play with fire” her mother continued to scold her. Nita turned around in surprise to see what her mother was talking about.

To her amazement she saw the decayed log was burning! The holes had smoke billowing from it and now the holes seemed to be all around the burning log. Nita felt the back of her neck tingle just like she had read about in all the horror stories.

She excitedly tried to explain all that had happened, her mother had that look on her face again , which said -“ now what story are you trying to sell me”, ‘at least she did not lecture me again on the dangers of playing with matches’ thought Nita in resignation.

No one will believe me, she thought as she wandered back to the same spot with her talkative brother later in the day. Now the sun shown brightly , the earlier mist had melted away leaving a bright no nonsense morning and no lingering fears of just a few hours ago.

Now there were plenty of holiday makers around, so casually she moved back to look at the log with the mushrooms- it looked exactly the same.

A regular old rotting tree trunk with moss and no other distinguishing features. The dampness seemed to have dried it up in the mid-morning sun – and the most amazing thing was -there were no traces of the fire she and her mother had witnessed a few hours ago!