They walked together to Kanhaiya’s house afterward, a modest tin-roofed structure at the edge of the village, roughly half an hour’s walk from the market center.
Aanya navigated the winding path without a single moment’s hesitation, her feet clearly remembering a route her conscious mind hadn’t consulted in years — which only made the discovery waiting for them there considerably more disturbing.
A middle-aged woman answered the door when they knocked, her face tired but unmistakably kind, the particular exhaustion of someone who had spent years balancing too many responsibilities on too little rest.
“Are you Kanhaiya’s mother?” Aanya asked gently.
“Who is Kanhaiya?” the woman replied, and there was absolutely no performance in her confusion, no flicker of a carefully maintained deception.
Just simple, complete, honest bewilderment.
“I don’t have any sons at all, beta.
Only two daughters.” Behind her, through the open door, Vihaan could see clearly into the small, tidy house.
A single narrow bed.
Two pairs of small girls’ school shoes lined up neatly beside the entrance.
Absolutely nothing anywhere in that modest home to suggest that a boy had ever lived there at all, let alone for the past twelve years.
“Something about this is deeply wrong,” Aanya said once they were walking away from the house, her voice noticeably tighter than Vihaan had ever heard it before.
“I have personally had tea in that exact house, more than once.
I’ve helped that woman carry water up from the well.
She used to complain to me regularly about Kanhaiya avoiding his schoolwork.” “Perhaps you’re simply misremembering the details,” Vihaan offered carefully, though he didn’t entirely believe it himself.
“Don’t,” Aanya snapped, sharper than she clearly intended, before immediately catching herself and pressing the heels of her hands hard against her closed eyes for a long moment.
“I’m sorry.
I’m not misremembering anything.
I know, with absolute certainty, that I’m not.” “I believe you,” Vihaan said quietly, without a trace of hesitation.
She looked at him then, visibly surprised by how easily and immediately the reassurance had come, with no demand for proof, no polite skepticism attached to it at all.
“Why do you believe me so easily?” “Because I remember him too,” Vihaan said simply.
“I’ve only lived in this valley for a matter of days, and I still clearly remember a boy sorting empty bottles outside that tea stall every single morning.
If I’m capable of remembering something I genuinely shouldn’t have had enough time to properly notice, and you’re capable of remembering someone your entire village has apparently and collectively forgotten, then that’s not two separate, unrelated mistakes happening independently.
That’s something else entirely.” Aanya exhaled slowly at that, some of the rigid tension finally easing out of her shoulders, visibly relieved simply not to be facing this particular horror entirely alone.
“We need actual proof,” she said finally, her voice steadying.
“Something concrete that isn’t purely memory-based.
Memory clearly isn’t safe or reliable anymore, not in this valley.”