Every night, my mother-in-law would knock on our bedroom door at 3 a.m., so I set up a hidden camera to see what she was doing.-nghia

Arjun and I had been married for over a year. Our married life had been quiet, except for one thing: the strange habit of my mother-in-law, Shanti.

Every night, at exactly 3 o’clock, she would knock on our door. It wasn’t loud, just three soft “knock-knock-knock,” but they were enough to wake me up. At first I thought that she had confused her room or that she needed something. But when I opened the door, the hallway of the house in Delhi was dark and empty.

Arjun told me not to give it importance, that his mother used to wander around because of insomnia. But that disturbing frequency filled me with suspicion.

After a month of discomfort, I set up a small camera in front of our door. I didn’t tell Arjun anything because he would think I was exaggerating.

That night, at 3 o’clock, the blows again. I pretended to sleep, my heart racing.

The next morning I turned on the camera. What we saw left me speechless. Shanti, in a white nightgown, would come out of her room, walk to our door, look around as if nowhere to see her, and knock three times. After that, he didn’t come back. He stood there, motionless, for nearly ten minutes, watching the door, as if his cold pupils wanted to go through the lock. Then he would silently disappear from the frame.

I turned to Arjun. He was pale.
“You know something, don’t you?” I asked.

At last he sighed, in a trembling voice:
“Mother doesn’t want to disturb us. He has his reasons.