Aneesha Marak
Part 1: The Broken Route
It was past nine when the cab took the sharp bend near Cherrapunji, the headlights cutting through curtains of mist that clung to the hills like secrets. The driver muttered something in Khasi, tapped the dashboard thrice, and the engine made a coughing sound that didn’t feel reassuring.
Inside the cab sat three people who hadn’t planned to meet each other—much less rely on one another. But Meghalaya, with her moody skies and rain-polished roads, has a way of bending fate like bamboo in the wind.
Anaya, curled up in the backseat with her oversized backpack, looked up from her dog-eared travel journal. Her pen paused mid-sentence. She hated being interrupted during writing, especially by mechanical failure. She was here to escape Delhi, the endless noise of her job, and the echo of a recent heartbreak. Silence was what she craved—just not the kind that comes with a dead engine.
In the front seat, Rishi was already fiddling with his phone, raising it to the sky like a tiny prayer tower. No network. No bars. Not even one polite dot. His black hoodie clung to his skin in the damp, and his face held that unmistakable Delhi confidence tinged with unease. He was a coder, on a forced sabbatical after quitting his startup. Or getting fired. He hadn’t decided what story to stick to.
Beside him, Tara adjusted her shawl and leaned over the driver’s shoulder. “Ka battery kamaiñ?” she asked in broken Khasi, offering a tired smile.
The driver grunted, opened the hood, and stepped into the drizzle without answering. Tara sighed and stepped out too, her tan boots splashing into a shallow puddle. The rain here wasn’t the angry kind—it whispered, soaked, and stayed. It was a permanent presence, like breath in winter.
Anaya opened her window slightly. “Do you think we’re stuck?”
“No, we’re just conveniently abandoned in a cinematic location,” Rishi quipped.
Tara laughed—dry and low. “We’re about ten kilometers from the last town. No garage in sight. No signal. But yes, let’s call it cinematic.”
“Is this normal?” Anaya asked.
“In Meghalaya?” Tara shrugged. “Define normal.”
The driver returned with a helpless expression, shrugged dramatically, and said, “No more go tonight. You can wait in cab or walk to village. One kilometer, uphill. I go find help.”
He pointed vaguely toward a trail that disappeared into dense green and shifting fog.
Anaya frowned. “Wait—he’s leaving us?”
But the driver was already walking away, humming to himself, becoming one with the drizzle.
Rishi zipped up his hoodie. “I’m not waiting in the cab and getting eaten by a cloud.”
“Then let’s walk,” Tara said. “It’s just a kilometer.”
Anaya hesitated, glancing at her sneakers, then the mist. She didn’t like walking in the dark. Not since… but she brushed the thought away.
They started the uphill walk, their steps uneven on the slippery trail. Trees leaned like eavesdroppers, the air thick with petrichor and occasional crickets. Tara led the way, sure-footed and calm. Rishi kept trying to get signal. Anaya trailed behind, holding her journal close to her chest like it could anchor her.
After ten minutes, the fog cleared enough to reveal a small wooden sign:
“Lumsohphoh – 500m”
“Village?” Anaya asked.
“Maybe,” Tara said, eyes scanning the landscape.
As they rounded a bend, a faint glow appeared in the distance. Lanterns. Warm light through slatted windows. Wooden houses standing like sentinels in the mist.
But something felt strange.
There were no sounds. No dogs barking. No chatter. Not even the clinking of pots or music from a radio. Just the rain, and a faint humming sound that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere.
Rishi slowed. “This place feels… off.”
Tara narrowed her eyes. “Something’s… too quiet.”
Anaya shivered, and not from cold.
They stepped into the village, uninvited, unsure if anyone was awake—or if anyone lived there at all.
Part 2: The Village Without Voices
The houses looked lived-in—laundry lines sagged under the weight of damp clothes, a pair of rubber slippers sat just outside a doorstep, and one window flickered with the light of what might have been a candle. But no one came out. Not even to stare.
Anaya hugged herself. “Are we sure this is… real?”
“It’s not haunted,” Tara said, voice soft but firm. “Villages here sleep early. Especially in the rain.”
Rishi smirked. “Okay, but even ghosts usually make an entrance.”
Just then, a door creaked open.
A small boy, no older than seven, peeked out. His skin glowed bronze in the lantern light, and his eyes, wide and unreadable, stared straight at them. He said nothing. Simply turned and vanished back into the house, door swinging shut behind him.
“Well, someone’s awake,” Rishi muttered.
“Let’s not scare anyone,” Tara said. “We’re outsiders, walking into their world.”
They approached the largest house, a bamboo-walled structure with a corrugated tin roof and a porch strung with betel vines. Tara knocked gently.
After a moment, an elderly woman opened the door. She wore a blue shawl, her silver hair tied neatly. Her expression was calm, as if she’d been expecting them. Without a word, she stepped aside and gestured for them to enter.
“Um,” Anaya began, but Tara nodded and stepped in.
The inside smelled of smoke and herbs. A kettle boiled on a wood-fired stove. A framed picture of Jesus sat beside a bamboo cross, and a cat slept curled in the corner.
The woman pointed to the fire. “You dry,” she said simply. “Sit.”
Anaya sat closest to the warmth, fingers thawing. “Thank you,” she said quietly.
The woman nodded once. “Rain comes. You walk far?”
Tara explained their cab had broken down. The woman listened, her face unreadable, then disappeared into another room. She returned with three dry shawls and a bowl of warm water with crushed ginger floating inside.
“Drink. Ginger good for wet bones.”
Anaya met her eyes. “What’s your name?”
The woman paused. “Ka Rilang.”
“Ka Rilang,” Anaya repeated softly. “Thank you.”
For a while, they sat in silence, sipping the warm infusion. Outside, the rain softened into a hush.
Then Ka Rilang said, almost to herself, “Sometimes the road breaks to show what’s hidden.”
Rishi looked up. “What do you mean?”
She smiled, eyes half-closed. “Some maps are only drawn in the rain.”
Before anyone could ask more, she stood and motioned toward the inner room. “Sleep. Morning come fast.”
There were three sleeping mats laid out. Anaya blinked. “You… had these ready?”
But Ka Rilang said nothing more, already curling into her own corner, humming a tune too faint to catch.
Later, as they lay side by side—Anaya clutching her journal, Rishi scrolling through an unlit screen, and Tara watching the wooden ceiling—none of them could sleep.
The house creaked as if it breathed. The rain outside had stopped, but the air still felt heavy with questions.
“Did she seem like she was waiting for us?” Anaya whispered.
Rishi nodded in the dark. “Like she knew.”
Tara didn’t answer. She turned on her side and finally said, “Maybe this is one of those detours we needed.”
And from somewhere deeper in the house, the faint humming returned—soft, old, and unmistakably familiar to none of them.
They slept uneasily, in a village not marked on maps.
Part 3: The Whispering Path
The morning arrived not with sunlight, but with silver mist curling through bamboo slats. When Anaya opened her eyes, the room glowed softly—like a dream not quite finished. Ka Rilang was gone. So was the cat.
Tara sat cross-legged at the door, staring at the hills beyond. “You’re up,” she said without turning.
“Barely,” Anaya mumbled, stretching. “Is it still raining?”
“No. But everything’s wet anyway.”
Rishi groaned and sat up. “So. What’s the plan? Wait for the driver to magically reappear?”
As if summoned, Ka Rilang entered with a basket of puffed rice, boiled eggs, and jackfruit leaf cups filled with red tea.
“Eat. Then you go.”
“Go where?” Rishi asked.
Ka Rilang pointed toward a trail leading away from the village. “Downhill. By stream. You reach phone line by afternoon.”
Anaya blinked. “You sure?”
She smiled. “Path remembers old feet.”
Tara took the basket and bowed slightly. “Thank you.”
They packed quickly. Anaya slid her journal into her sling bag, Rishi pulled on his damp hoodie, and Tara folded the shawl carefully before placing it back on the sleeping mat.
As they stepped outside, a few children peeked from behind wooden fences, but no one spoke. Only eyes followed.
“Are we the only visitors they’ve had?” Rishi asked under his breath.
“No,” Tara replied. “But we might be the only ones who stayed the night.”
They followed the path Ka Rilang had indicated. It wound past still ponds and slopes layered in ferns, moss clinging to every surface. The trees overhead formed a shifting green tunnel.
At one bend, they found a stone with something etched into it—an old poem, maybe. Weather-worn letters in Khasi:
“Only the lost find the silent bridge.”
Tara ran her fingers across it. “This is a marker,” she murmured. “I read about these. Oral history, carved into stone. The locals say these appear to travelers who aren’t looking for directions, but meaning.”
Rishi raised an eyebrow. “So we’re what? Chosen?”
Anaya smiled faintly. “Or just very, very wet.”
They walked in silence for some time. Birds called in short, echoing notes. The trail dipped downward toward a stream, gentle and clear. A bamboo bridge crossed it, woven tightly, strong despite its rustic look.
On the other side stood a figure.
A boy. No more than twenty. Holding a fishing rod and wearing a sky-blue kurta. He looked up, surprised—but not alarmed.
“You’re coming from Lumsohphoh?” he asked in perfect English.
“Yes,” Tara replied. “Cab broke down. We were told this way leads to signal.”
He nodded. “It does. Another hour. I’m Kynpham.”
“Do you live here?” Anaya asked.
He looked past her shoulder toward the hills. “I used to. Not many live in that village now.”
“But we saw people,” Rishi interrupted. “We stayed with a woman—Ka Rilang.”
Kynpham’s eyes narrowed slightly. Then, very softly, he said, “Ka Rilang passed away six years ago.”
The air shifted.
“What?” Anaya whispered.
Kynpham nodded slowly. “She was the healer. Kept the village alive when everyone else left. Died during the great landslide. Only a few of us return sometimes… during festivals.”
“But we stayed in her house,” Tara said, voice even. “She made us tea. Gave us shawls.”
The boy stepped closer. “Then you were meant to find her. Or she found you.”
They stood at the edge of the stream, each absorbing that strange twist of truth.
“Come,” Kynpham said. “There’s more road ahead. You’ll have questions. Some might find answers. Others will just stay like mist.”
And so they crossed the bridge—leaving behind a village not listed on maps, and a woman who lived in memory, offering tea and shelter to those the path chose.
Part 4: What the Mist Remembers
They walked behind Kynpham as the trail turned rockier. Trees thinned, replaced by open hills rolling like waves under the blanket of cloud. Now and then, he’d pause to glance back, as if counting not steps, but something more invisible.
“So you come back to this stream often?” Tara asked, stepping around a puddle.
“Yes,” Kynpham replied. “My uncle still owns a plot near here. I come for the fish… and sometimes the quiet.”
“What did you mean earlier?” Anaya asked. “That she—Ka Rilang—found us?”
He turned to her, eyes calm. “You said your cab broke down, yes? But this trail… people don’t usually end up here by accident. Lumsohphoh is not on tourist maps anymore. Even Google doesn’t name it.”
Rishi frowned. “Our driver knew the road.”
“Drivers are sometimes guided by other things. Rain. Shadows. Memories,” Kynpham said with a small smile. “Meghalaya listens. And when it hears something unsettled, it whispers.”
Anaya looked at him sharply. “Unsettled?”
“You three… you didn’t seem like you were just traveling.”
Tara didn’t respond. Rishi kicked a small stone. Anaya clutched her sling bag tighter.
They climbed a short ridge, and Kynpham led them to a flat clearing overlooking a deep green valley. A tree stood in the center, old and low, its branches bent with age and wind. Beneath it sat a mossy bench.
“My mother carved that,” he said, touching the bench’s edge. “She believed when people sat here, their truths spilled out.”
Rishi laughed dryly. “So it’s a truth bench?”
“Something like that.”
They sat anyway. The silence pressed in—not heavy, but expectant.
“I was supposed to be in Bangkok this week,” Rishi said suddenly. “With my team. Then I—kind of destroyed everything. Company. Friendships. I guess I didn’t know how to stop working.”
Anaya turned toward him, surprised.
“I just thought I’d run to the hills, hike something, drink rice beer, post a selfie. But now I’m here, talking about guilt like it’s some mountain breeze.”
Tara smiled faintly. “The bench works.”
Anaya looked away, toward the clouds. “I left behind someone I loved. Not because I stopped loving him, but because I forgot how to explain the version of myself I became. So I packed a bag and came here, thinking I’d write and forget. But now… even forgetting feels like a kind of betrayal.”
Kynpham was silent, letting the words fall.
Tara finally spoke, her voice low and deliberate. “I’m not lost. I came here looking for something specific. My grandmother once disappeared from a wedding in these hills. Just vanished. Left her slippers behind and never returned. No one ever found out what happened. Some say she ran. Some say she was taken. I just wanted to walk where she might have walked. To see what she might have seen before she disappeared.”
The wind stirred. Somewhere far below, a bird called. The clouds shifted.
“People vanish here?” Anaya asked.
“Only the ones who want to,” Kynpham said gently. “Or those the forest chooses.”
A pause. Then he added, “But not all disappearances are tragic. Some are transformations.”
They sat with that thought, the three of them—and a fourth, who belonged to the place more than any map.
After a long while, Kynpham stood. “The phone line’s not far. I’ll take you there. But once you get signal, everything changes.”
“Like?” Rishi asked.
“Like the mist no longer listens.”
They walked down together, into the valley.
But none of them noticed that under the old tree, the bench held drops of water—not from the rain, but like tears left behind.
Part 5: Signal and Silence
The descent was easier than expected, though the silence between them had grown denser—like a fragile thread none of them dared to snap. The sunlight had started breaking through in places, staining the fog gold. For the first time in hours, they saw shadows.
Kynpham stopped near a bend where bamboo trees grew thick on either side. He turned and pointed uphill. “Walk a little further—there’s a rock shaped like a sleeping dog. That’s where you’ll get signal.”
“And you’re not coming?” Tara asked.
He shook his head. “I go back from here. My uncle’s hut is on the other side.”
Rishi hesitated. “So, what—this is it? You just drop metaphors and disappear into the hills?”
Kynpham grinned. “The hills don’t need metaphors. They are one.”
Anaya stepped forward. “Will we see you again?”
He thought for a moment. “Maybe not here. But I have a feeling the road’s not finished with any of you.”
And just like that, he turned and walked into the green, vanishing without sound.
They stood in silence for a while, then followed his direction uphill. The rock did look like a sleeping dog—round and curled under a tree. Rishi checked his phone first.
“Two bars.”
Anaya took hers out too. “Oh my god. It’s alive.”
Messages flooded in—missed calls, work updates, family pings. Tara’s screen lit up and went dark again. She didn’t check it.
“I forgot about all this,” Anaya whispered.
“You miss anything?” Rishi asked, scanning his notifications.
“I’m not sure.”
They sat on the rock, signal flickering in and out. Below, the hills rolled endlessly, dotted with clusters of villages and the far-off shimmer of a tin rooftop catching the sun. The forest buzzed softly.
Tara finally broke the quiet. “Do you think she was really there?”
“Ka Rilang?” Anaya asked.
Tara nodded.
“I don’t know,” Anaya said. “But I remember how the tea tasted.”
Rishi leaned back. “She was real to me. That fire, the humming… I don’t care if the rest of the world calls it a ghost story.”
Tara turned her face to the breeze. “I think people aren’t lost in these hills. I think they’re remembered differently.”
They sat for a while longer, then slowly walked down toward the main road, where jeeps and tourists and phone lines waited to reclaim them.
By the time they reached the first dhaba, the spell had lifted slightly. The owner served them hot momos and black tea without questions. Only after they’d eaten and washed their hands did Rishi finally say, “So what now?”
Tara smiled. “There’s still time on the clock. We could hire another cab.”
“To where?”
Anaya looked up from her journal. “Where the road breaks again.”
They didn’t say goodbye.
They simply picked up their bags, and walked back into the hills.
Because sometimes, the place that finds you once—might just be waiting to finish the story.
Part 6: Detour to Mawphlang
By late afternoon, they had flagged down a shared jeep heading toward Mawphlang—a place Tara remembered from her grandmother’s notes. The sacred groves there were said to be alive with memory, where nothing could be taken—not even a fallen leaf—or the forest would remember, and punish.
“I’m surprised you’re still with us,” Anaya said to Rishi, elbowing him lightly as they squeezed into the back seat.
He shrugged, grinning. “I have no plan. Might as well follow someone else’s mystery.”
Tara chuckled. “Welcome to my research trip.”
The jeep rattled through narrow bends, passing villages with names like Mylliem and Sohryngkham, each clinging to hills like they’d grown there rather than been built. Children waved, cows blocked the road, and fog drifted in and out like the curtain between scenes.
As they reached Mawphlang, the driver dropped them near a wooden signpost:
Sacred Grove – No Plucking, No Disturbing. Enter Respectfully.
They stepped into the grove as if entering a chapel. The trees here were older, gnarled with time, their roots exposed like veins on ancient hands. Moss covered everything. The air was cooler. Dense. Whisper-thick.
“I can’t explain it,” Tara murmured. “But it feels like my grandmother was here.”
“She left nothing behind?” Anaya asked.
“Only a half-written letter. Said the grove ‘knew her.’ I never understood it.”
They walked deeper until they reached a clearing where sun trickled through. At the center stood an altar made of stones—no markings, no names. Just presence.
Tara walked to it slowly, touching the cool surface.
“I read stories,” she said. “About people who offered secrets here—truths they couldn’t carry. And the forest held them, guarded them.”
“Like confession?” Rishi asked.
“No. More like… offering a burden. So the earth remembers it for you.”
Anaya stepped closer. “Can we do that?”
“Only if it’s true.”
They stood silently. One by one, they stepped to the altar.
Anaya went first. She closed her eyes, placed her palm on the stone, and whispered something too soft to hear. Her lips trembled. When she stepped back, she looked lighter.
Rishi followed, hesitant. He didn’t speak out loud, but when he opened his eyes, they were strangely bright. “Well,” he said. “That felt… permanent.”
Tara stepped forward last. She didn’t speak either, but her fingers lingered on the altar for a long time. When she turned back, there was something different in her stance—less searching, more still.
A light breeze stirred the canopy.
Then a small yellow flower fell near Anaya’s feet. Not from a tree. Just… from the air.
She looked up, startled. “Did you see that?”
They all did.
Rishi bent and picked it up. “I thought nothing could be taken from the grove.”
“Nothing can be taken,” Tara said, staring at the flower. “But sometimes… it gives.”
They left the grove in silence.
Back at the edge, a local guide they hadn’t seen before stood waiting.
“You felt it?” he asked.
Anaya nodded.
He smiled. “Then you were meant to come.”
They walked past him, back toward the village road. The map of their journey, once blank, now had its first marked place—written not in lines or GPS, but in memory.
Part 7: Fireflies at Sohra
That night, they found a small homestay near Sohra—Cherrapunji to the rest of the world. The wooden cabin overlooked the valley, and though electricity was patchy, the warmth of the host family made up for it.
Dinner was rice and smoked pork with tungtap chutney. Rishi coughed at the spice. Anaya scribbled notes between mouthfuls, and Tara watched the fog descend, as if clouds were settling in to sleep too.
Later, the host’s daughter, a girl with two tight braids and curious eyes, offered to show them “the firefly hill.”
“You have to come now,” she insisted. “They only dance when no one asks why.”
“How far?” Anaya asked.
“Ten minutes. Quiet steps.”
They followed her through a bamboo trail lit only by the faint glow of her lantern. Leaves crunched. Frogs sang. And then, the world opened into a clearing where the darkness pulsed with flickers of light.
Hundreds of fireflies.
They rose and dipped like living lanterns, flashing in quiet rhythm, as if conducting a silent orchestra.
Anaya gasped. “It’s like… the sky fell.”
Rishi smiled. “I’ve never seen this many. I thought fireflies were rare now.”
“Not here,” the girl whispered. “They return every year to this same spot. People say it’s where old stories rest.”
Tara knelt on the grass, watching one land on her sleeve, its tiny body blinking like a heartbeat. “Do you think stories really have places they return to?”
Anaya nodded slowly. “I think some places are made of stories. Like this one.”
A wind picked up gently. The fireflies danced faster, then slower, like they knew they were being watched but didn’t mind.
Rishi lay down on the grass, hands behind his head. “This trip was supposed to be a mess,” he said softly. “Now I think it’s a map.”
“To what?” Anaya asked, lying beside him.
“Don’t know. Maybe just… back to ourselves.”
The girl tapped Tara’s shoulder. “You came with questions,” she said. “But did you come with offerings?”
Tara blinked. “Offerings?”
“Not things. Thoughts. Regrets. The forest keeps them. That’s why it doesn’t forget.”
Tara nodded.
For a long while, none of them spoke. The fireflies blinked around them like living punctuation, scattered across the sentence of the night.
Eventually, the girl said, “We should go before the hill stops listening.”
Back at the homestay, they found warm blankets and the smell of burning pine. As Anaya slipped into sleep, she whispered into the pillow, “This is the kind of day that doesn’t end. It just echoes.”
And somewhere outside, beneath the dark umbrella of mist and memory, a thousand fireflies blinked in agreement.
Part 8: The Disappearing Stone
The next morning arrived gently, with orange streaks in the sky and the smell of pine in the air. Tara was already up, reading a page torn from an old diary. Anaya and Rishi joined her on the veranda with warm cups of red tea.
“What’s that?” Anaya asked, still sleepy-eyed.
“It’s from my grandmother’s letter,” Tara said, her voice unusually quiet. “She wrote: ‘If you ever reach the place where the stone disappears, don’t be afraid. It means you’ve stepped where time forgets to count.’”
Rishi raised an eyebrow. “Okay, that’s cryptic.”
“Welcome to my family,” Tara replied.
After breakfast, their host mentioned a strange place not far from Sohra—Mawsmai, a cave village known for its limestone formations. But there was something else.
“There is a stone near the entrance,” he said, lowering his voice. “It disappears. Not always. Just… sometimes. Tourists don’t notice. But the locals know.”
Naturally, they had to go.
They hired a bike taxi—three people squeezed awkwardly on two bikes—and headed toward the caves. The road curved sharply, rain teasing from behind the clouds. The jungle loomed tall and ancient on either side.
At the entrance to the cave park, the tourists were plenty. Kids with dripping ice creams, couples clicking selfies. But the moment they veered off the main trail, following a narrow path guided by a local boy, the air changed. He pointed to a mossy clearing.
“There,” he said, nodding at a low stone slab, shaped like a crescent. “Touch it.”
Rishi bent to place his palm on it. “It’s just—”
He froze. Blinked.
“Okay. Either my hand just went through that or I’m very, very sleep-deprived.”
Anaya knelt beside him and reached out too. Her fingers met nothing. The stone was gone. Visibly there—but not there.
Tara stepped closer and closed her eyes.
When she touched it, her breath caught. The world around her dimmed. A low hum filled her ears. For a second—less than that—she saw a face. A woman with sharp eyes and silver hair, smiling. A shawl wrapped tight.
Ka Rilang.
When Tara opened her eyes, the stone was solid again.
She stumbled back, shaken.
“You saw something, didn’t you?” Anaya asked.
Tara nodded. “She was there. Just for a second.”
Rishi sat down on a tree root. “Okay, so first a ghost host, then poetic children, and now vanishing stones. What is this trip?”
Anaya smiled, brushing a hand through her hair. “Exactly what it needs to be.”
Tara looked at the stone one more time.
“It’s not just the hills that remember,” she said. “It’s us too. We carry things, unknowingly. And sometimes the land lifts them out—shows them to us. Just to say, ‘This is yours. Look at it. Let go if you’re ready.’”
The boy guide, silent till now, finally said, “This place takes nothing. But it shows what you left behind.”
They left shortly after, walking back slowly through tall grass and mist-hung branches. No one said much. But their silences weren’t heavy anymore.
That night, they didn’t check their phones.
And when Anaya opened her journal, she didn’t write. She just looked at the pages and let them be.
Because some stories need space before they’re ready to be told.
Part 9: The Song in the Rain
The next day began with a drizzle that never quite turned into rain. The three of them walked without purpose now—no destination, no plan—just following winding paths through forests and fields that smelled like old stories.
They reached a cliffside not far from Nohkalikai Falls. The water poured down in a silver ribbon, disappearing into clouds below. Tourists gathered at the usual viewing point, snapping photos, laughing. But Tara led them further, to a hidden edge behind a cluster of moss-covered stones.
Here, they sat. Quiet. Just the three of them and the roar of the waterfall.
“I used to think grief was something you outgrow,” Anaya said. “Like a shoe that eventually becomes too tight. But maybe it’s more like a sweater—you wear it until it doesn’t itch.”
Rishi didn’t speak, but he nodded.
Tara pulled out a tiny recorder—an old, battered one from her journalist days. “My grandmother used to hum something. A tune that made no sense, no lyrics. But I heard someone singing it last night.”
“In your dream?” Anaya asked.
Tara looked up. “No. From the forest.”
She pressed play. A faint humming spilled out—a lilt both sad and soothing.
“That’s the one,” Rishi said suddenly. “Ka Rilang was humming that too.”
Anaya leaned closer. “It’s like it’s following us.”
“Or guiding us,” Tara replied.
They listened in silence, the hum weaving with the rhythm of falling water.
“I think this journey,” Tara said slowly, “was never about destinations. Not for any of us. It’s about the versions of ourselves we’ve dropped along the way. And maybe, here, the land lets us gather them again.”
Rishi laughed, but it wasn’t mocking. “Great. I came to escape a failed startup and ended up in a therapy session with hills and ghosts.”
“But you’re still here,” Anaya said.
“So are you,” he replied gently.
The rain grew heavier. Anaya stood up and walked to the edge. The wind tossed her hair, and her journal, slung across her shoulder, flapped like wings.
She took it off and opened it.
Then she did something strange.
She tore out a page. A single page. Folded it once. And let it go.
The wind caught it, danced it away.
“What was that?” Tara asked.
“A memory,” Anaya said. “Of someone who doesn’t need to live in me anymore.”
Tara smiled. Rishi clapped, slow and dramatic.
They didn’t say anything more. But the mood shifted—lighter, clearer.
As they turned to leave, Rishi said, “You know, we only have one night left. Then it’s back to airports, alerts, inboxes.”
“Then we spend this one well,” Tara said.
They walked back down the trail, the humming tune still alive in the air.
And behind them, under a tree near the cliff, the torn page settled onto wet earth—its ink bleeding gently, like a story choosing to rest.
Part 10: The Map We Made
On their last evening in Meghalaya, the sky opened briefly—gold slipping between clouds, lighting up the hills like a farewell blessing. They stayed at a quiet guesthouse near Laitkynsew, where the windows overlooked a valley that seemed to stretch into forever.
There was no Wi-Fi. No tourists. Just the rustle of leaves and the creaking of old wood.
Rishi stood at the porch railing, sipping black tea. “You ever think maybe we didn’t choose this journey?”
Tara looked up from the fire, where she was roasting pieces of dry bamboo for fun. “You think it chose us?”
“I think the rain did,” he said. “The mist. The silence.”
Anaya smiled. “And Ka Rilang.”
They all fell quiet at the mention of her name. The woman they met, who may or may not have existed. The host. The guide. The memory.
Tara reached into her bag and pulled out a small notebook. Not her grandmother’s, but her own. She flipped it open.
“I think this is what she meant,” she said. “My grandmother. When she said ‘walk where the sky forgets your name.’ I thought it was poetry. But maybe she meant this exact place. This fog. These roads. These people.”
Anaya added softly, “And how the forgetting makes space for remembering who you really are.”
Later, as dusk bled into night, they built a small bonfire. Not for warmth, but for closure.
Each of them added something to it.
Tara placed her grandmother’s last letter—just the envelope, empty now.
Rishi dropped in a ticket stub from his cancelled Bangkok trip.
Anaya held her torn journal page, then instead of burning it, tucked it between two stones under the tree behind the house. “Let it stay here,” she whispered. “Let the forest read it.”
They didn’t take photographs.
They didn’t check out formally.
The next morning, as they boarded a shared jeep back toward Shillong airport, none of them said goodbye. Because it didn’t feel like the end of anything.
Anaya stared out the window as the hills passed in slow rhythm. Then she opened a fresh page in her journal and began writing:
“Midnight Maps of Meghalaya — the places we didn’t plan to find, the people we weren’t supposed to meet, the stories we never meant to tell.”
Beside her, Tara dozed lightly, the firefly hill still glowing behind her closed eyes.
And Rishi—headphones in, eyes out the window—smiled as he quietly hummed the tune Ka Rilang once sang.
The jeep turned a corner. The mist returned. And somewhere behind them, the hills watched, quiet and endless.
Because some roads never really end. They just wait. Until you’re ready to walk them again.
END
