“What do you call a bumblebee that can’t play football?” asked Malhar, trundling up a gravel path overlooking a dense thicket.

“Kya?” chuckled Mirchi, tightening his grip around Munna’s leash. The black and white dog, unaccustomed to having a lead of leather tied around him, was trying his best to break free and inch closer to the herd of goats grazing upon a patch of thorny acacia.

“A fumble-bee!” Malhar clapped his hands together.

Throwing his head back, Mirchi roared with laughter. “Okay…my turn,” he said, as they followed Meera and her nature-photography group on their weekend trail.

This morning, their instructor Isaac had invited an insect expert named Sudha Venkat to help them learn about the six-legged wonders. Her bug-talk had prompted the boys into a competition of silly bug jokes. “What you calling a bee that is not sure?”

“What?”

“Maybee!” Mirchi shrugged, as the two collapsed once again in peals of uproarious laughter.

“Will you two stop braying like donkeys?” Meera marched up to them, binoculars dangling around her neck, camera bag strapped across her shoulder. “This is a nature walk, not a picnic!”

“You told me there’s no birding! And Isaac Sir said we don’t need to be quiet!” protested Malhar.

Maruti Tekdi was a thickly wooded hillock in the Daula Forest Range outside Maulsari, atop which stood an ancient fort and a small temple. While Malhar had little patience for Meera’s weekly bird-watching trips where one had to speak in hushed whispers and walk on tiptoes, he had come along this weekend, enticed by the trek to the fort. What was the point of a weekend out with friends if one couldn’t joke and laugh? “This is not school!” he chided his sister.

“Samaira was just about to get a great shot of a paradise flycatcher and your bakbak scared the bird away,” Meera pointed to her friend pouting crossly under a silk cotton tree up the dirt path.

“Tch!” Malhar frowned, “How many times will you keep photographing the same dumb birds?” he marched vigorously up the path to find the entomologist Sudha Venkat kneeling on the ground, magnifying glass in hand, a dozen faces crowding around her, as they all jointly admired a dung beetle that spent its day rolling animal faeces into giant balls. “Ugh!” Malhar turned up his nose, “Let’s get to the fort on top before the others!” he said to Mirchi, setting off on the steep incline, leaving his sister and her lot to ogle paper-wasps and rhinoceros-beetles.

More excited by the prospect of a race than the varied diets of caterpillars, Mirchi followed Malhar, dragging Munna along with him, until they reached a little fork in the dirt track up ahead. Stopping there, the boys considered which way they ought to go. There was a well-trodden pathway going further up, and a narrower one sloping downwards leading to the other side of the hill. “Let’s go up…” Malhar said, pulling out sandwiches from his bag, offering one to Mirchi before dropping some crumbs for Munna. And then, just as he was about to bite into the jammy delight, he stopped, his ears pricking up at a strange sound.

“You heard that?” he turned to Mirchi, his eyes wide.

Mirchi nodded. Of course he’d heard. But what was that sound? A person? An animal? Or something else? It sounded so strange.

There it was again! Malhar tapped Mirchi and pointed in the direction of the thick foliage up ahead.

They walked a few paces, their eyes darting this way and that, peering through the gaps between the leaves. But all around them stood tall trees reaching out to the sky like rising spires, and at their feet, leafy bushes and dense undergrowth. Nothing was visible beyond; and in their scrabble to get ahead, they’d left Meera and her group many meters behind.

“AAAAGGGHHHH!”

Again! The same sound. And this time, it was shriller, louder, closer. Malhar swallowed hard. Could it be a leopard? A bear? He turned around. Looked ahead. Searched behind. Nothing. Was it coming from the trees above? Or the valley below? The tree cover made the sound echo in a strange way. He just couldn’t say what it was or where it was coming from. Beads of sweat lining his brow, he reached for a stick near his shoe, his knees bent, his ears alert.

Mirchi watched Munna. The fellow seemed quite oblivious and hadn’t barked or shown any signs of alarm. Whatever this was, it seemed quite far away.

“…aao!…aao!”

They heard it again.

“I think it’s a peacock!” whispered Mirchi.

“Really?” Malhar squinted, wishing for the very first time that he’d paid more attention when his sister discussed pointless matters like bird calls and animal poop.

“BACHAO!”

They looked at each other. There seemed little room for doubt this time. That couldn’t have been a peacock. It was definitely a person. A woman.

“I’ll go up and check…” suggested Mirchi, his eyes searching for a good tree to climb.

The trees around them seemed unscalable, but the jamun and mango up ahead had low branches to give him a step up. “Come…” he said, taking the lead.

“BACHAO!” the voice cut through the lush canopy, growing more frantic.

Mirchi dropped his backpack, handed the leash to Malhar, and stood under the jamun tree, taking a moment to plan his way up. Then, grabbing hold of a low branch, he hauled himself up, and curled his legs around it. With a thrust and a twist, he got his torso up and sat astride.

Sliding further up the branch on his bottom, he got to the main trunk, held it for support, stood up, then began climbing higher.

Malhar tried to follow, jumping up to grab hold of the branch, pulling himself up only to come falling down with a light thud. Best to leave it to the expert, he thought before giving up. He watched Mirchi from below, Munna at his heels, as the agitated voice called out again. But he was less worried now that it was not a wild beast. Besides, he could hear soft voices behind him – Meera and her group seemed to be closing in on the gap.

Meanwhile, Mirchi had gotten himself nearly to the tree’s apex, from where he could see a large clearing of land. “There’s a woman…down below. And she is…she is…” Mirchi huffed, unable to put into words what he was seeing.

“What?” asked Malhar, craning his neck and straining his ears through the thick canopy. “I can’t understand what you’re saying!”

Mirchi spoke again, but his words were swallowed up by the stiff breeze. To make matters worse, Munna began to bark.

“What’s the matter with you two?” Meera swung Malhar around by his shoulders. “Can you stop making a racket? This is a forest…not a playground!”

“No…didi!” Malhar pointed to the tree above. “We heard someone…a woman…calling for help…Mirchi has climbed up to check.”

“What woman?” Isaac walked up to Malhar, paused under the tree and looked up. “Where?”

“We were just walking uphill when we heard…” Malhar began to explain, then stopped short, his explanation interrupted by rustling leaves, dropping jamuns, and a frantic Mirchi. “They’re…they’re attacking her!”

“Who is attacking whom?” demanded Colonel Barjor Bhesania, a towering giant of man who’d taken a fancy for nature photography after his retirement from the Indian Army.

“A woman,” panted Mirchi from a branch above as group members gaped at him from the base of the tree, “she was running…some people running behind her…” he jumped down with a thud. “…they are chasing her with wooden sticks and iron rods!”

“What?” Sudha Venkat looked aghast. “Now that you mention it, I thought I heard a strange sound too…like someone screaming. Why are they attacking her?”

“I don’t know!” Mirchi drew a deep breath, resting his palms on his knees. “They’re throwing stones at her!”

“What?” gasped Meera. “Guys, hurry!” she prodded the group in the direction Mirchi was pointing. “Let’s go and help her!”

Excerpted with permission from The Case Of The Mysterious Witches, Mallika Ravikumar, Talking Cub.