Parineeti squinted at the girl in front of her. She had long learned not to judge books by their covers, but she still balked at the air of imperiousness being exuded from this girl. She was rich, beautiful and used to things going her way. And even though fate had brought her to Parineeti, she still believed she was in full control of the situation.
“Right,” Treena said. “I told you everything about the situation. Are you going to do something about it?”
“You have my sympathies. But to act, I would need some proper evidence. Do you still have his Facebook password?”
“Yes, but he has probably changed it by now. I can send you screenshots of our conversations though. Would that work?”
“That will be a start, yes. Send me the links for his other social media handles, too. Will give me a better picture of the guy and what he’s usually like.”
Treena nodded. “I want him to suffer, like I did. You are good at doing that, right? Making people suffer?”
“Yeah, but that’s not something I usually advertise. It’s bad for the brand.”
Treena snorted. “You are a hedge witch, right? Doesn’t that mean, by definition, you don’t have a brand?’
Parineeti shrugged. “Can’t blame a girl for trying.”
“Anyways. He’s very popular, and I think it has gone to his head. I need you to bring him crashing back to Earth.”
“Right. He will get what’s coming to him. Just keep my fees ready.”
They shook hands, and then Parineeti headed out of the canteen. Her next class was in five minutes, and the faculty was rather strict when it came to timing.
Urmi waved at her when she entered the class. Parineeti smiled- and it was a genuine smile, for Urmi was a genuine person. She wore her heart on her sleeves for all occasions: whether that meant canoodling with her boyfriend of seven years, Tishad, or hanging out with her band of merry misfits.
“Another job, huh? What’s it about this time? Ex or stalker?”
“Ex,” Parineeti said. “He ghosted her for, like, a month before breaking up.”
“Ouch. How does a person ghost someone for a whole month in Dhaka? It’s a small place. Everyone bumps into each other once a week.”
“He’s away on a debate trip.”
“A debater, huh? I already hate him.”
Parineeti snorted. “Not all debaters are bad, Urmi.”
“That’s like saying not all BAT employees are morally bankrupt,” Urmi said, her eyes dancing with mirth. “Anyways, what rate are you charging this time?”
“10,000 Taka.”
“Whew. She’s rich, isn’t she?”
“Yeah. That makes her fair game.”
“Sure, as long as you sleep well at night.”
Throughout the class, Parineeti kept on eye on her phone, which vibrated every now and then, notifying her of the messages Treena was sending her way. Only when Zaida miss’ back was turned away did Parineeti glance at those messages. Treena had sent her well over a hundred screenshots. That was more than enough, for the time being.
As Parineeti travelled home, a curious realization dawned on her. For now, most of her life was confined to Mirpur, and the only break she had from this routine was when she visited Reyasat in Baridhara. That was a whole another bag of problems, and although she was glad she wasn’t dealing with that anymore, it did take away the brief respite from Mirpur that she sometimes craved.
By the time Parineeti reached home later that evening, she had already gone through Wasif’s social media accounts enough times to get a good handle on his usual activities. He had a band of his own, and he drove a 2012 Lancer, which he was quite proud of. There were multitudes of photos with Treena, in restaurants, on campus, and around hotels and hills, but lately there was a dearth of posts from his accounts.
Once she was done with dinner, Parineeti drew a sigil around the room’s center, placing her laptop and phone inside it. She grabbed her custom, modified VR headset and placed it on her head, turning it on with murmured chants.
The VR environment swam with pictures, statuses and messages. With practiced ease, she surfed through all of them, constructing a mental picture of Wasif’s personality and activities. He was one of those guys who straddled the line between a jock and a nerd. His gaunt, chiselled jaws also helped him stand out, as did his sharp, confident gaze. His smarminess wafted off his profile, like stink off a skunk, and Parineeti stopped herself from gagging.
As for his romantic activities, it soon became apparent that Wasif had a long habit of cheating on Treena. There were scores of nudes exchanged between him and several other girls, and soon she stumbled on a series of chats between him and a girl named Orpa. They had flirted for weeks, with Wasif slowly pushing past her shell. Parineeti felt something along to pity for this girl. She had made her bed, true, but she trusted Wasif, and that trust would, sooner or later, let her astray.
Their texts stopped abruptly, with a cryptic photo sent by Orpa, of a rain-drenched window overlooking Gulshan Lake, a hand grasping onto the grill. Funnily enough, Wasif hadn’t seen that photo: he had probably blocked her by then.
There was something funny about that picture. The more Parineeti looked at it, the more convinced she was that the hand was moving, and that raindrops were falling on the grill.
It was four hours later, in her sleep, that Parineeti understood what that photo was. It was a Remnant, created under great duress and stress.
Depression and anxiety assaulted her in a pincer movement, squashing her hopes, strangling the optimism out of her. In her dreams, it felt as though she was bleeding from the arms, and then that feeling lingered, longer than she had thought it was possible to feel pain.
When Parineeti woke, she could barely walk. She had lost her appetite, and her head throbbed, thoughts racing faster than she could stop them. With great difficulty, Parineeti drew sigils onto her arms, isolating the Remnant’s effects to her head.
She called in sick for classes and came clean to her mother, Onnesha, about what had happened. “Didn’t I tell you not to take these jobs?” she said, exasperated.
“Yeah. But so far, it’s been easy money.”
“Well, you are in good luck. I have enough ingredients to make one elixir. That should keep you in shape long enough for you to find the girl. That way you can get her to dispel the Remnant.”
“Yeah. Let’s hope she can do that.”
Parineeti spent the rest of the day finding Orpa out, which was easier said than done, as she had almost no online footprint for the last three years. She eventually managed to find Orpa on Tumblr, and that opened a rabbit’s hole that ultimately lead to her phone number.
Now came the hard part of convincing her to dispel the Remnant.
~*~
“That’s from a long while ago,” Orpa said. “And private.”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Parineeti said.
They were seated near TSC, sipping maltova tea. Orpa was in a much better place than she seemed to be in that photo. However, she wasn’t in the mood to revisit the past.
“Look, Wasif was one of those mistakes that make you reevaluate life and make you turn a new leaf. I mostly blame myself for falling for his tricks.”
“Well, you aren’t the only one he has played tricks on.”
“Serves them right, then.”
“Look, I understand that you were in a dark place then. But you worked on yourself and got to a better place in life. This Remnant is still drawing energy from your pain, and I think that, deep down, you are still holding on to it.”
Orpa looked up. When her mouth moved and her eyes shifted, it was akin to the ground shifting apart at the San Andreas Fault, revealing a chasm of emotions buried behind the surface.
“I was young, then, and a fool. And even though things have changed since then, there’s a good chance that, deep down, I am still that fool. Wouldn’t that be something?
Anyways, tell me what you need me to do. I will see if I can help.”
Parineeti walked her through the steps, and by evening, she had drawn another sigil on the grass nearby. With Orpa sitting in the center, Parineeti lit the sigil, and spent the next hour expelling the negative energy from Orpa’s mind. As she did so, she felt the Remnant’s hold on her own mind slacken.
“Well, could I learn how I do that? This magic thing?” Orpa said, as Parineeti doused the sigil fire.
“Maybe? Depends on whether or not if you have a knack for it.”
“Is there, like a test that I can take for it?”
“Actually, yeah. Tell you what, I will introduce you to the rest of the coven. I am sure they can come up with something for you.”
“Right, and what are you going to do about Wasif?”
“That’s for me to know and for him to find out.”
~*~
It wasn’t until the next weekend that Treena texted Parineeti about the case.
“Was that you?” she asked, attaching a Facebook link. It was a complete expose detailing Wasif’s activities, full with a Google Drive’s worth of screenshots and pictures.
“I can neither confirm nor deny that.”
“Well, I certainly got my money’s worth. I will bKash you the money by tomorrow.”
“That’s music to my ears.”
Parineeti was at Rabindra Sorobor, with Urmi and the others, gossiping about things twenty somethings are supposed to gossip about. She didn’t usually get emotionally involved in her jobs, but this time, she felt the tiniest shred of vindication over serving Wasif his just desserts.
As for Orpa, she had referred the girl to her mother, who promised to discuss the matter with the rest of her coven. They could use a girl with that much latent magical power: if that could be aimed and honed with practice, then she could be pretty useful indeed.
As for the Remnant, Parineeti had recovered from the brunt of the trauma. That was a strange experience, to tell the truth: she had gone through breakups herself, and seen others do it. But emotions are potent things, and they need to be excised from time to time- they tended to build up, otherwise, ready to explode at a moment’s notice.
The Remnant had been like a depository for sadness, like an old, aged wine, the heartbreak fermenting until it became something more solid and potent. She could have harnessed that, she realized, store it, shape it into something that she could later use. But that would have been a step too far. She had thought that she didn’t have morals, but she did.
And besides, what use would she have of such power? She was a simple hedge witch from Mirpur, after all, and she only used magic sparingly. She was content with her station in life, and what modest aspirations she had, she was able to achieve without magic.
“What are you thinking about, dunderhead?” Urmi asked, tapping Parineeti’s forehead.
“Oh nothing, other than the fact that you are probably the best.”
“Obviously. I am the best. What’s there to think about?”
Parineeti laughed. As she whiled away the hours of the evening, as only university students could, she felt something prickle the back of her head. It was an aftertaste of how the Remnant had made her feel.
Parineeti ticked that off as a strange, happy accident. In a way, she preferred that tinge of hurt and pain to be there, as a reminder. It made her good moments all the more striking.
And sometimes, that was all she ever wanted.
~*~