The Woman in 3B

The Notice Board of St. Marks School informed that Room No 3B has been shut and that no one is allowed to enter the room. St. Marks School was one of the most famous residential schools in town. Apparently, school officials wanted the Play room to be redesigned into an auditorium taking advantage of the huge space outside the room. The work was supposed to start from the next Sunday. Reading this, the little girl Leora was unhappy. She and her friends liked playing in the room; it was their favourite pass time post school.

Leora was an inquisitive, rebellious child and always wanted to do things differently. She was not happy that her favorite play room had been snatched away from her by the school officials and decided that she will steal one of the keys to the room from the Hostel Warden’s chamber. She tried convincing few of her friends to accompany her but was unsuccessful. Leora was in standard fifth then and had been in the school for a year now. She knew ways to get things done by now. Post dinner between 10 to 10:15 PM, the time when Warden Room’s watchman used to go out for a round of smoke, she sneaked into the Hostel warden’s chamber and stole one of the keys to the room. It was autumn and the wind was howling that night. She quickly ran through the corridors before anyone could notice her. Around one in the morning, when everyone was fast asleep, she sneaked out of her room and quietly opened the Room No 3B. Her favourite chessboard, TT table were still around but since there was no one to play with she started feeling bored. As she was going out of the room, she heard a crumbling sound from one of the wardrobes as if something was breaking. Though initially scared, she decided to find out the reason out of curiosity. As she opened the wardrobe, it appeared as if the shadows had swirled around her feet, sucking her in she found a woman with enormous red eyes, wearing a white sari and hair disheveled. She screamed but no one could hear anything in the overwhelming darkness. She tried to run but fell down. Luckily for her, the watch man was passing by and found out Leora in the troubled situation. He came to her rescue and accompanied her till her room. He broke the news to the school officials the next day. Leora was dismissed from the school, hearing which she was disappointed but relieved that she will never have to go through the same trauma again. What she did not know was that she had already been drowned in the slumbering evil and that there was no escape.

Eighteen years later, Leora grew up to be a successful independent woman who loved to make new friends and travel.  She was a HR consultant by profession but had a desire to write a great American love story. She looked happy to the outside world but the trauma of that night was yet to be erased. She had been getting nightmares of the same woman from the past eighteen years. Her nightmares had the same pattern. A cool shudder used to trickle down her spine. Glancing around nervously, she used to see dreadful portraits staring at her from behind layers of dust, seemingly penetrating her very being.  Whirling around, she used to see the same woman in the hallway coming close to her, giving her an appalling whine with a bloodcurdling voice, “I will get you in the end”.

All kinds of therapies were tried on her but nothing worked out. It had now become part of her life which she carried with her every moment. She had mentioned about it to very close set of people because she didn’t want to portray herself as a weak woman in any respect and also did not want people to sympathize with her.

Leora loved to visit Israel but had not travelled to Israel for a long time. She was born in Israel but her family had moved to the states later. Somehow she always had this idea to go to Israel and then start work upon her first novel. Childish as it may sound but she wanted to start from where she belonged.  Also she thought, the change of place might take her mind away from that torrid night and help her concentrate on the book. She had many ideas floating around but was not able to zero in to one. The essential problem was that she was always sucked into that night and her imagination always took her to the same room. Around Six, On a cloudy evening, she was sitting near the river and suddenly it appeared as if something had exploded on the river, the next thing she heard was a hustling voice trickling down her spine and saying” You are free” and then vanishing into the wind. It was the same old woman. Leora was speechless and did not know how to react. A few days later, she came to know that due to an Electric spark problem the Room 3B was set on fire and everything including the wardrobe had vanished on the same day and around the same time when she saw the dreadful woman. Luckily for the school, the fire did not affect the rest of the school and there were no major casualties. The nightmares suddenly stopped and after eighteen tortuous years, Leora was finally set free from that horrid night.

Two years later she is now the author of International best seller “You are free” and I am her proud and relieved mother.