Stubborn Tara and a scary spooky discovery

Tara was a little girl who always wanted more. Her parents would get her everything that was needed but she was hardly satisfied.
New dresses, new pencils, new bags—she had them all, but in a few days she wanted more. If someone had something new, Tara had to have it too.

Their house was inside the school campus itself and each day, she walked to school with her best friend Pinky. One morning, Tara noticed Pinky’s brand-new red shoes. They sparkled in the sun.

That evening, Tara came home in tears.
“I want shoes like Pinky’s!” she cried.
“But your shoes are fine,” her mother said gently.
“I don’t want fine! I want new!” Tara shouted.

A few days later, another girl at school brought a shiny, glittery new bag. Tara stared at it all day.

That evening there were more tears and more shouting.
Her parents were exhausted.
“Why can’t she just be happy with what she has?” her father sighed.

Then came a day when Pinky was out of town. Tara walked to school alone.
On the way, under the huge old banyan tree, she saw something—
A beautiful pink Barbie bag lying on the low stone wall.

It looked brand-new. No one was nearby.
She peeked inside. It was empty. Not a single name tag or notebook.
Tara waited. But no one came. So, she took the bag.

At school, no one asked about it. No one claimed it and so she decided to keep it. It became hers.

At home, when her mother asked where the new bag came from.
“The girls at school gave it to me for my birthday,” Tara lied.
Her mother didn’t believe her but let it go.

Days passed. Then one day, Tara dropped her eraser inside the bag at school and when she reached in to find it, her fingers touched something cold and metallic.

She pulled it out. It was a red ruby ring, old and shiny.

She kept it a secret. But soon after she started wearing the ring, strange dreams began.

In her sleep, she would see a girl with bushy, wavy hair, wearing the red ring. The girl’s face was pale. In the dream, the girl would lean forward… and press her cold hands on Tara’s neck… strangling her slowly.

Tara woke up screaming.

Terrified, she stopped wearing the ring. One day, when no one was looking, she walked back to the banyan tree and threw the ring back beneath it.

That night, Tara fell very ill.

Her fever raged. Her hands went cold. She could barely breathe. She could barely eat, barely speak, and most of the time, she just stared blankly at the ceiling.

Doctors came and went. They gave her medicine, checked her heartbeat, and even ran tests—but nothing helped.

As her condition worsened, Tara was admitted to the hospital. Nurses monitored her round the clock, tubes connected to her arms, beeping machines lined beside her bed. But no one could explain why a young, otherwise healthy girl was slipping away like this.

For a whole week, her parents barely slept. Her mother stayed by her bedside, gently brushing Tara’s hair, whispering to her in hopes that something—anything—might reach her. Her father sat in the hallway, head in his hands, making calls, asking questions, holding back tears.

They prayed to every god they believed in. They lit candles in temples, churches, and by her bedside. They promised to be better parents, promised anything at all—if only Tara would open her eyes.

But Tara only sank deeper into her sickness… and into her strange, unexplainable dreams.

Then, one night, as everyone was gathered around her, Tara had another dream.

In the dream, she was in a car, sitting in the back seat with her mother beside her. Her father was driving. On her lap was the pink bag. Her mother was wearing the red ring.

“Can you hold this for a second?” her mother said, taking off the ring to apply some ointment to her hands. Tara tried the ring once and then dropped the ring into her pink school bag.

Just moments later, the car skidded, lost control, and crashed into a tree near a deep gorge. Flames rose. The whole car caught fire.

Everyone perished—except her mother.

In the dream, Tara watched the bag and the ring tumble down into a storm drain by the side of the road—just under a banyan tree.

When she woke up, she told her parents everything. She told them about the bag and the ring she found at the banyan tree and what she had done to the ring.

They rushed to the local police station, told the officers about the dream, and described the accident. To their shock, the officers remembered a real case: months ago, there had been a terrible accident at that very spot. A man and a child had died. Only the mother had survived. The belongings of the family were never recovered—only a few things had washed into the storm drain and vanished.

The officers went to search for the red ring and found it near the banyan tree. They also tracked down the woman.

She was living quietly in a large white house, surrounded by lush green gardens.

When the woman saw the ring, her eyes filled with tears.
“This was mine… it was with my daughter during the accident,” she whispered, holding it close.
“It’s like… you brought a part of her back to me.”

Just then, the pink bag that Tara had brought to return caught fire—suddenly, silently. It didn’t touch the floor or harm anyone—only the bag burned. They watched in stunned silence as it vanished into glowing ashes that floated into the sky and disappeared.

The others were shaken, but the woman’s face was calm, her eyes shining with tears.
She smiled softly.

“She came… she just wanted to return what was mine,” she murmured.

That very night, Tara’s fever broke. Her cheeks flushed with color. By morning, she was sitting up, smiling again. She was healed.

A few days later, the kind woman invited Tara’s family to her home.
“You’re welcome to visit anytime,” she said warmly. “My daughter would’ve loved having you play in the gardens.”

Tara nodded, her eyes bright with gratitude. She was happy.

And from that day on—she never threw tantrums for new things again. She learned to be thankful for all that she had.

Read in Hindi: तारा और डर का बैग