The Other Side

“I’ll take any means to have my son back. I killed him Dave, I left him near the train subway!”
“It wasn’t your fault Jane, you didn’t know what was about to happen.”
“He’d still be here if I didn’t left him. I’m going.”
“Wait, wait!” Dave grabbed her wife’s arm to get her back to sit. But Jane was standing frozen trying to resist her husband’s pressure.
“Where are you going Jane? I can’t stand you acting like this anymore. Please, I’m begging you, just let it go. I’ve given you times to be alone to have yourself some peace, still, you can’t get over it? Stop it now Jane. I am tired.”
Jane ignored her husband and walked away. Before she reached the door, her husband asked her the last question.
“Jane, can you at least tell me where you’re going?”
She stopped before the door and slightly move her head to the side of her right shoulder, eyes staring to the floor.
“India.”

Jane felt guilty for leaving her son alone at the subway station. Inside the plane she couldn’t help but crying all day thinking of her late son. She promised to get him a new bicycle but all of that was just memory. Jane wasn’t really a superstitious woman, but recently she’s been obsessed reading books about the other world, black magic, evils, demons and all paranormal related. At one time she thought she was going crazy. She denied it. She only wanted to meet her son for the very last time. In one of the books she read, there was this elderly woman she wanted to meet, a witch doctor from India, famous for her supernatural abilities to cure strange diseases and healing someone suffering from exorcism. Rumors also said, she could see and talk to the dead.

Few days later, somewhere in the southern deep remote village in India, Jane arrived to the place where the witch doctor should be living. She felt like a total stranger as the local people around the village kept their gaze on her as she passed by them. With the helped of a translator, she asked one of the woman in green sari of where the person she was looking for staying at. The woman in green sari pointed her finger toward an old wooden house with a torn red curtain at the main door, next to a stupendous tree. Jane thanked the woman, gave the translator some tips and ordered him to go back home. Jane was glad that she finally found what she had been looking for.

Just when Jane was about to knock the door, a voice from inside the house greeted her.
“Come in.”
She entered the house and saw the old lady in her traditional clothes, silver hair tied up nicely and she wore some peculiar necklace around her wrinkled neck. The atmosphere around the house was dark and uncomfortable, plus the house was filled with thick smell of incense.
“My name is Jane . . .” Jane lost her words as the witch doctor interrupted her.
“What brought you here?”
“I heard that you can talk to the dead.”
“I do.”
“There is something I want you to do. Can you deliver a message to my late son?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“You have to do it yourself. I can only talk to the dead that I once touched.”
“Tell me. I ‘ll do anything. Anything for my son.”
“Do you have your son’s most treasured possession?”
“I do. His toy car.”
“Your duty is simple. You need to go to Mehandipur Balaji temple, located in the northwestern state of Rajasthan. Lock yourself inside the temple over night and place your son’s most treasured possession behind the front door. Wait until someone came knocking. You’ll hear your son’s voice. Tell him anything whatever you wanted to say. But Jane … There is one condition you must not crossed.” Jane released a breath of sigh, between nervousness and uncertainty.
“What is it?”
“No matter how much he plead, no matter how much he cried for help, DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR.”