Jharkhand

A village elder from somewhere in the Deccan — the informant would not name the place, only that it sat between two dry riverbeds — described a figure that appeared at the edge of the sorghum fields three nights before the monsoon broke, taller than the tallest man he had known, smelling of raw meat and iron, its shadow falling in the wrong direction relative to the moon. He had heard the old accounts from his own grandfather, knew the names one was not supposed to say aloud after dark, and said nothing. When asked what it wanted, he was quiet for a long time before saying he believed it was counting the children in the houses.