The town welcomed me with silence.Not the peaceful kind—the kind that makes you feel like something is being hidden.I at the beginning of summer. New house, new school, new routine. Everything felt normal, except one thing. Near the river stood a small white house. Always clean. Always closed. And strangely… always lit in the evenings.At exactly seven o’clock, the lights would turn on.By morning, they vanished.No one lived there. At least, that’s what everyone said.When I asked about it, people smiled politely and changed the topic. Some pretended they didn’t hear me. Others said, “Old property. Nothing important.”But I ...Read More

That realization didn’t arrive suddenly. It settled slowly, like dust after a door has been opened for the first in years. I stood there for a long moment, listening to the river, wondering how many questions a life could hide before they began asking themselves.At home, I searched through old boxes my family had carried from place to place. Most of them held ordinary things—school certificates, faded photographs, letters addressed to people who no longer lived with us. Then I found a thin file tucked beneath winter clothes.My name was written on it. Carefully. Deliberately.Inside were documents I had ...Read More

She didn’t sit immediately.Instead, she walked slowly around the room, her fingers brushing the table, the window frame, the of the notebook—as if touching memories rather than objects.“This house hasn’t changed,” she said softly. “It remembers better than people do.”I watched her closely. Up close, the resemblance was impossible to ignore. The same eyes. The same pause before speaking, as if choosing words carefully.“You’re Anaya Sen,” I said.She nodded once.“I wondered when you’d learn the name.”We sat facing each other, the space between us filled with things neither of us had said yet. Outside, the river continued its steady ...Read More