The air in Rajasthan doesn't forget easily.
In the golden village of Kesar Bagh, where palaces whispered through sandstone and the air shimmered with heat like a mirage of memory, time didn't pass — it lingered. It clung to the arches of the old haveli, rested on the cracked marble floors, and hid between the folds of fading silk curtains.
And that's where Anaya Rathore found herself, one blazing afternoon in May — sweating in a linen kurta, sandals caked in dust, standing before a building that looked more like a forgotten goddess than a home.
The Rathore Haveli stood as it had for two centuries: proud, crumbling, and watchful.
Anaya had seen pictures of it, of course — in brittle photo albums and Instagram-filtered nostalgia posts her cousins shared. But standing before it now, alone, she felt something irrational crawl up her spine. Not fear exactly. Not awe either.
More like... being watched.
She shook it off. It was just the heat. Ninety-six degrees and rising.
"Home," she muttered.
The word didn't feel right. She hadn't been here since she was ten. Her parents barely spoke of the place. Her father had always been uncomfortable when Rajasthan came up — like a man who knew the walls here remembered too much.
And now, after fifteen years, he had sent her back alone, saying only: "Your Dadi's barsi (death anniversary) is yours to handle this year. I can't go."
That was all.
No explanation. No emotion.
The gate creaked open with the help of an old man who looked like he'd aged alongside the haveli itself.
"Anaya bitiya?[1]" he croaked, adjusting his dhoti.
"Yes... and you are?"
"Gopal. Since your father's father's time." He smiled with teeth like cracked marble. "I served your Dadi till her last breath."
He led her inside, past the peeling gates and into the courtyard — theaangan,[2] once alive with the rhythm of bangles and song, now faded. Vines crept up the columns like secrets trying to escape. Dust coated the jharokhas. A peacock called from the roof, as if to announce a guest the house didn't recognize.
And then, just as her sandals touched the inner courtyard, she heard it.
A whisper.
Soft. Too soft to be words.
She turned. No one.
Just a gust of wind sweeping through the hollow archways.
The Unseen Memory
There's a trick the mind plays when returning to a place tied to childhood. You start to remember things that never quite happened.
A song. A voice. A scent.
And Anaya swore, for a heartbeat, she smelled attar of rose and sandalwood, her Dadi's scent — the kind that used to linger in her silks.
She looked toward the steps that led to the zenana quarters — the women's wing — and her eyes narrowed.
Something flickered there. Not movement. A presence.
"You're imagining things," she said aloud. "Psychology 101. Childhood homes and suppressed grief. Nothing new."
But the feeling remained.
The House as a Character
The haveli wasn't abandoned. Not exactly. Servants like Gopal still maintained it, though barely. Her family visited only for major rituals — deaths, mostly.
The walls were stories waiting to be re-read. Ancient mirrors with flecks like stars, mosaic floors patterned with lotus petals, and the infamous Rang Mahal — the colored palace — a wing sealed for decades.
It was said to have once been the crown jewel of the haveli. Vibrant murals, miniature paintings, and jharokhas that caught the sunset just right. But no one had entered it since 1984.
The same year her grandmother Meera had "died in childbirth."
But that never made sense to Anaya. No one ever talked about how Meera died. Her father called it an "illness." Her uncle claimed it was "a tragedy." But neither explained the silence that had swallowed the haveli after.
Anaya had always believed there was more.
And now, as she walked its corridors, she felt it.
The Box
Gopal led her to Meera's old room. "It's been untouched, bitiya. Like she just left yesterday."
The room smelled of time and mothballs. Light filtered through carved wood, scattering lattice shadows on the floor. A tanpura sat in the corner, its strings silent. Photographs stared at her from silver frames — Meera in her bridal lehenga, eyes cast down; Meera with a young boy — her father — clinging to her pallu.
And on the bed... a wooden box.
Gopal hesitated. "This came out of the store room a few days ago. Strange, no one remembers putting it there. It was just… there. As if it was waiting for someone."
That old spine-crawl returned.
The box was hand-carved, locked with a brass latch, and wrapped in a faded red dupatta — the kind worn by married women. Tucked into the fabric was a yellowing letter, folded carefully.
Anaya opened it.
The handwriting was shaky. Feminine. Elegant.
"If anyone finds this, tell Aarav I never stopped waiting. They made me silent, but the walls know. The mural knows. Rang Mahal knows. — Meera"
Her breath caught.
Aarav?
Who was Aarav?
And what did she mean "the walls know"?
She looked up at Gopal, but he had stepped out.
Suddenly the silence felt louder. Like something just behind the veil of now was trying to speak.
The Mural Effect
Artists once believed paintings could trap emotion. A well-crafted mural could watch you back.
Anaya had read about the Mona Lisa effect in college. How some eyes in paintings follow you across a room. But that was a trick of the angle, of shadow.
This was different.
The name Rang Mahal tugged at something deep. A forbidden wing, locked away.
Her heart beat faster.
What if the mural Meera spoke of still existed?
What if it was hidden?
What if it watched?
The Ritual Begins
The next morning was the barsi — Meera's death anniversary.
Relatives arrived. Priests chanted. Marigolds were scattered.
Anaya watched as her father stood stiff during the ritual, eyes lowered, lips tight. She wondered if he, too, felt the weight of this place.
After the rituals, as the guests drank chai and gossiped, Anaya walked to the courtyard again. This time, she noticed something.
A faint line in the wall — an outline — behind an old tapestry near the Rang Mahal wing.
She pulled the cloth aside. The outline was unmistakable.
A doorway.
Sealed shut.
She pressed her ear to it.
Nothing.
But then… a whisper again. Just one word.
"Aarav..."
The Unsealing
That night, she couldn't sleep.
At 2:47 AM, driven by something between curiosity and compulsion, Anaya took a torch, returned to the sealed door, and used the key from the box.
It didn't fit. But the latch was old. A small push.
Click.
The door creaked open.
The air inside was cold — not dusty warm like the rest of the haveli. The kind of cold that lives in old grief.
She stepped inside.
And froze.
There it was.
A half-faded mural on the wall — but not any mural.
A woman in bridal red, holding a tanpura, standing beneath a flowering banyan tree.
Her eyes were painted to look away — demure, as tradition demanded.
But as Anaya stared…
She could've sworn the eyes slowly turned to look directly at her.
[1] daughter
[2] means garden