Chapter 1: The Night Before Shaadi

On the night before my shaadi, while the house buzzed with last-minute preparations, the tulsi maiyya I’d tended since I was a child took my shape—and with one cold finger, pressed straight through my heart.

That night, the courtyard was thick with the scent of agarbatti, and distant temple bells echoed in the darkness. Even now, I can feel the wind—warm, swirling with mango leaves and damp earth. I crumpled to the ground, pain blinding me. My forehead struck the cool marble, the scent of agarbatti and earth swirling around me. For a moment, I thought I heard Ma’s anklets, but it was only the wind. As I lay there, she bent over me—my own face staring back, her long hair spilling over her shoulder, black as a monsoon cloud, hiding half her face the way Dadi used to drape her pallu. In the streetlight’s yellow glow, she looked sacred, almost divine.

She gouged out my eyeball, threaded it onto a gold chain. Her hands, stained with haldi from the wedding rituals, worked with quiet precision. The chain was one Ma had set aside for my bidaai. Then, she took my place to marry my childhood fiancé.

Her fingers, cold as the marble floors of our Lucknow home in winter, twisted the gold chain delicately, as if threading a flower garland. I tried to scream, but my voice was lost in the humid air. She slipped the chain around her neck, and it settled against her throat—a mark of her triumph.

I watched as Ma adjusted the pallu on Tulsi’s head, her hands trembling just a little, but she only smiled and blessed her. Papa, Ma, Bhaiya... none of them realised she was not me.

I hovered nearby, a silent presence, longing for someone—anyone—to sense the wrongness, to call out, to stop the rituals. But they all bustled about, fussing over the wedding, their joy echoing in every corner of the house, completely blind to the horror that had occurred.

But only he—when she lowered her head in shy submission—the gentle light in his eyes vanished, making him seem even more terrifying than his usual stern self.

I saw the change in Arjun's eyes. For a second, even the band playing in the lane outside seemed to falter. His lips pressed into a thin line, and I felt a chill. In that moment, I realised, maybe he was not as oblivious as the others.