Returning to my fiancée’s village, one night changed my life forever…

Reaching their house
It was raining lightly in the cool air of Uttarakhand, and the clouds loomed like a thin veil over the terraced rice fields. I picked up my meager luggage as I got off the last bus of the night.

This was my first visit to Anaya’s, my fiancée’s, hometown. A simple visit to introduce me to her family before our wedding. I thought it would be normal—a typical “meet the family.” But whenever she mentioned her mother—Maa Shanta—there was a hidden fear in her eyes.

“Maa is very strict… quiet… as if she is hiding something you don’t understand.”

I ignored her. I was used to criticizing such parents.

But that night, inside that old teak house, deep in the mountains, I realized I was not ready.

I am welcome
Anaya greeted me at the gate. She was wearing an emerald green salwar kameez, her hair was open, a smile on her face but worry was hidden in her eyes.

“Come in. Mother is waiting inside.”

As I entered the house, I immediately smelled a mixture of wood and turmeric. At the door stood Mother Shanta – thin, small, but her gaze… sharp, critical, as if she knew of your sins that you had not mentioned.

“Namaste Po,” I greeted, bowing.

“Come in. Dinner is ready,” she replied sternly.

While we were eating chapati and curry, she asked just a few questions: about work, family and marriage plans. Each of my answers was answered with a cold nod.

The entire dinner, as if an interrogation in silence.

After dinner, I was taken to the guest room at the end of the house. Anaya had to sleep in her mother’s room—“she said it was her habit whenever she came home.”

The first night
The room was simple—an old bed, a tablecloth, and a single ghee candle. The night was quiet. Outside, crickets and frogs could be heard on the riverbank. I slowly drifted off into sleep.

Until I woke up at about two in the morning.

I heard a low moan—not obscene, but as if in pain or trying to remember something.

It was coming from Anaya and Mother Shanta’s room.

I sat up. I felt it. But the moan was getting deeper. There was a whisper. Suddenly laughter. Breaths ragged as if trying to hold back tears.

I was scared. I went to the door.

And before I could close the lamp’s window, there was a sudden scream—loud, familiar.

“Mom! Enough! Don’t do it!”

I immediately ran to the room.

The revelation of the night
The door was slightly open. Inside, Anaya lay on the floor, crying, shaking, while mother Shanta stood wide-eyed, holding a small pandurya knife in her hand, as if she had not heard her voice.

“Enough!” I screamed.

I snatched the knife from her hand. She offered no resistance. She looked at me blankly, as if she had no soul.

Anaya came, hugged her mother, and whispered something that sounded like a prayer.

Then, she looked at me:

“Please…go back to the room. I will explain tomorrow.”

The secret in the river
The next day, Anaya took me to the backyard, to the old river they called Gangadhar. As the wind caressed the water, she told me everything:

“Mom…is not normal. Not just from shock or depression.”

“Ever since I was a kid, there were many nights when she would wake up like she didn’t know who she was. Sometimes she would have a knife in her hand. Sometimes she would whisper something I couldn’t understand.”

“But she hasn’t hurt anyone… not yet.”

“Not yet?” I asked, worried.

She shook her head with tears in her eyes.

“Papa has a notebook. He writes in secret. He dies for no reason.

And from then on, the nights of fear began.”

The Kitchen Diary
One night when I was packing to go home, I heard whispers.

Not from the bedroom – but from the kitchen.

When I came downstairs, I saw Mother Shanta. Her eyes were closed. She was whispering something in Sanskrit. She had an old diary with a cloth cover in her hand.

She dropped it. I opened it. I read:

“If you are reading this, you may be next.”

“There is a curse in our family.”

“Every third generation, a voice ‘guides’ a woman.”

“I don’t know if it’s a spirit or madness… but when Shanta has a knife…”

“… don’t leave her alone.”

Anaya’s Disappearance
One morning, when I woke up, Anaya was gone.

There was just a sticky note on the table:

“My dear Aryan, I can’t get you out of this nightmare.

If I was next to mom… I might have lost control.

Forgive me. Don’t look for me now. — Anaya”

I looked for her in the villages and towns around Dehradun. I found nothing.

Like smoke—she disappeared.

The Manila incident… Este, Mumbai
When I returned to Mumbai, one night in my apartment, while washing my face, I heard a groan.

I don’t know if this sound was coming from outside… or from me.

When I looked in the mirror…

My eyes were red. Glowing. Like mom Shanta’s eyes.

And in my hand…

There was a knife.

Aryan’s return

Even after a year of Anaya’s disappearance, Aryan has not made any progress. No amount of therapy, medication or prayer has stopped the nightly moans, the whispers in the mirror and the feeling of not being himself every morning.

Until, one day, while cleaning out an old cupboard in Mumbai, he finds Anaya’s father’s diary—the same diary Anaya had mentioned earlier, the one he thought was lost.

The last page, written in Sanskrit, is translated into English below:

“When the voice passes into a new body, only ancient ritual can stop it.”

“But if it doesn’t end… it will go beyond blood.”

Blood.

Not just women.

Not just race.

Now, it’s his.

And so, Aryan travels back to Uttarakhand once again to find the root of the curse.

And maybe… Anaya.

The search for an ancient symbol
On reaching the village, all was quiet.

No one wanted to talk about Anaya or mother Shanta.

Only an old man sitting on the edge of the Kashi temple agreed to speak.

“There is a story about a Devdasi – a sadhvi – from the olden days. A temple maid who was cursed after running away from her duty.”

“It is believed that before the priests killed her, she cursed her own blood – that every third generation, one of her descendants would be the receptacle for her resurrection.”

“Only a ritual could stop this. But… nothing was accomplished. Because something had to be sacrificed that could not be sacrificed yet.”

“What was that?” Aryan asked.

The old man was staring at him, as if seeing something behind his eyes.

“Myself.”

The Mystery of the Old Cave

With the help of some elders, Aryan located the old cave in the foothills of Rudraprayag mountain, where the ritual is said to have been performed.

There was a mark on the rock – a circle with an eye in the middle – which was the symbol of the Sadhvi.

Inside the cave, there was a wooden altar with burnt ashes, broken pots and a vessel filled with blood.

But that was not enough.

Behind the altar, instructions were inscribed:

“Light the fire.

Speak the voice.

Use the vessel’s blood.

And bet on what will happen soon.”

Aryan shuddered as he thought:

“I am the vessel. And what will happen soon… is also me.”

Anaya’s Reappearance
While in the cave, a cold wind blew.

And a voice came from the darkness:

“Why did you come back?”

Anaya.

Pale, thin, eyes that looked as if they had not slept for years. But they were alive.

“Anaya… it’s you. Oh my god…”

“I ran away, Aryan,” she whispered. “But I’m not safe. Every full moon, I hear her voice.”

“Sadhvi. She wants to come back to me. But I think… she’s gone to you.”

“Now, we’re both targets. And there’s only one way out.”

Aryan nodded. “The ritual.”

On the last night of the full moon

The night of the lunar full moon, they returned to the cave.

They brought:

A black candle

A bottle of salt

Aryan’s blood

An old, broken vessel from Anaya’s family

And something they didn’t know they could do…

Facing the voice.

As the ritual began, they lit a fire on the altar. Anaya read her father’s diary.

Suddenly Aryan spoke—but he didn’t have to.

“Anaya… Leave him. I am your real mother. I am the heir to the throne. I am the Sadhvi.”

Anaya screamed:

“We don’t allow you to do this anymore!”

She grabbed the knife, smeared some blood on Aryan — and picked up the vessel and poured the blood out.

A loud echo echoed through the cave.

The ground shook.

The fire turned black.

And the sound, slowly getting fainter… fainter…

Until it was gone.

Epilogue: Silent Night

After the ritual, Aryan and Anaya returned to the city.

No more sounds. No more nightmares.

But they both carried:

One everyday question — “What if I go back?”

On the last page of the diary, Aryan wrote:

“History does not always forgive.

But there are some who are able to face the darkness—not to fight,

but to embrace the wounds,

and prevent them from being passed on to the next generation.