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The dreams were changing.
They no longer came like scattered fragments. They came with rhythm, with order. With the kind of weight that felt less like imagination and more like memory bleeding through cracks in time. I knew I was asleep. I could feel my body tucked under a too-thin blanket back in Miss Kaur's house, but my mind had traveled elsewhere.
The sky above was grey, split by long cracks of light like veins. Wind whispered low across the field of yellowed grass, and I stood at the edge of a wide lake that shimmered like polished obsidian.
Aranya was already waiting, her bare feet sinking slightly into the wet soil.
She looked clearer this time. Her long black braid swung gently behind her back, heavy with beads and tiny knots of string. Her hands, always scarred, were clasped loosely behind her as if she'd been thinking for hours. She looked… older than me, but younger than before. Like the curse was letting her reveal her true form to me, piece by piece.
"You came again," she said softly, not turning.
"I didn't choose to," I said.
"You never do. That's how blood calls. Not a choice. Just gravity."
We stood in silence for a while. The water lapped gently against the shore, and overhead, dark birds circled like they were waiting for something to die.
She finally spoke.
"I wanted to show you something."
She raised her hand, and the sky shifted like a curtain being pulled aside. The field bent into stone walls, heavy and cracked, a wide hearth blazing in the middle. A home. Not modern. This was at least a century and a half ago. I could smell smoke and bread, and a faint trace of sandalwood. The same scent Miss Kaur's room carried.
Two women stood near the fire, laughing softly. One of them was Aranya. The other, her face delicate, her hair loose and curling, her eyes the same shape as Miss Kaur's, was her wife.
"That's her?" I asked.
Aranya nodded, her gaze tender. "Samira Kaur. Your teacher's ancestor. My wife."
The words felt weighty, even though she said them so simply.
I looked at the two of them. "You were… allowed to marry back then?"
"We weren't allowed," Aranya said. "But we did anyway. We created our own ritual. We bound each other with soul-thread and oath. It was enough. The spirits honored it."
Her voice dipped into sadness. "Back then, love like ours didn't belong in records. But we were real. We lived. We bled together. We buried together."
I saw a child in the background. A boy, maybe ten or eleven. Big eyes, sharp cheekbones. The Forgotten Son. Only… he wasn't forgotten here. He was smiling. Drawing chalk patterns across the wooden floor.
"That's him?"
"Yes," she said, a breath catching in her throat. "Our son. Not by blood. He came to us during the winter of the red cough. Orphans lined the streets. Samira found him half-frozen under a temple bell."
"He looked… happy."
"He was. For a time." Aranya's gaze dropped. "He had two mothers who loved him. Two women who fought demons for a living but still baked his favorite sweets. We never planned to raise a child in such a cursed house, but we were selfish. And love makes you selfish."
The vision shifted again. Faster this time. Samira, once bright and gentle, now lay pale and shaking in a bed. Her skin bloomed with black markings, curse veins. Aranya sat at her side, screaming. The child was locked in a wooden box in the corner, watching everything through slits.
"No," I whispered. "That… that really happened?"
"Yes," Aranya said quietly. "Samira's family had dealt with curses for centuries, but she was the fragile one. Always too soft. She didn't know how to contain them. She tried. But one day the seal broke, and Sallos came through."
Aranya's fists clenched. "She protected us. She faced him without weapons. Told me to run with our son. But I stayed. I fought. And when I sealed him into the mirror, she was already dying. I used her bracelet. Her favorite one. She never even took it off. And I used it to trap a demon."
I couldn't speak.
My throat was dry.
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