Chapter 17
Day One - Morning
The knock came exactly at eight.
Abhinav had been waiting for twenty minutes. He opened the door.
Meera stood in the corridor, sunlight catching the saffron of her kurta, turning its edges almost gold. Her hair fell loose down her back.
“Good morning, Hukum.”
“Good morning… Meera.”
She cleared her throat. “Day one.”
He watched her.
“This is where I begin,” she added, her voice lower. “If you’re ready.”
There was a softness in her eyes, that drew a slight curve from his mouth. “After you.”
Her eyes brightened at once, a smile forming before she turned and started down the corridor.
He fell into step beside her. His gaze dropped to the key in her hand. “That looks like it opens something important.”
“It does. Which is why we’re starting here.”
“So this is your opening move.”
“This is me not wasting your time.”
His eyes returned to the key. “It looks dangerous.”
“It’s history.”
“That’s worse.”
This time, she didn’t hide the small smile.
The Haveli changed as they moved. Open spaces gave way to narrower passages. The walls drew closer. Light fell into narrow strips across the floor. The air cooled.
Their footsteps sounded quieter.
Meera walked ahead. Not too fast, not too slow. The distance between them was deliberate, like she had already decided this was how the day would be.
Professional. Contained. Untouchable.
He noticed all of it, and almost smiled.
They turned into a narrower passage.
Meera stopped before a wooden door reinforced with iron bands. She fitted the key. The mechanism resisted, then gave a firm click.
“Excuse the dust.” She pushed the door open.
He stepped in and stopped.
The scent reached him first. Old paper. Ink. Time pressed into pages. It did not feel like a room. It felt like memories.
The space stretched long, shelves covering every wall, filled with ledgers, manuscripts, rolls of parchment tied with threads that had lost their color.
Meera moved to the windows and pushed the shutters open. Light entered. Dust rose to meet it, drifting like something alive.
She went to the shelves and let her fingers move along the spines. Not searching. Just touching. Like a greeting.
Abhinav kept watching her.
She fit here. As easily as the records. As if the room recognised her and adjusted to her presence.
“We start here.” She pulled down a large leather-bound volume and placed it on the table near the window.
She took the chair nearest the light and opened it carefully. The pages had turned yellow, the ink softened to brown.
She glanced up and tilted her chin toward the other chair.
He moved immediately. Pulled it closer than necessary. Because obviously he needed to see the book. If that left their shoulders nearly touching… Well, practical considerations.
“The first Anand to settle here was Thakur Jai Kumar Anand,” she began, unaware, or choosing not to acknowledge how little space he had left between them. “Not a wealthy man. Not at first. A minor landowner with good instincts and strong faith.”
Her finger traced a line as she read.
Abhinav leaned in just enough to see. That was the excuse. His arm came to rest on the table, close to hers. His shoulder angled in, closing the distance without making it obvious.
He looked at the page. Looked at her hand. Forced his attention back to the book.
She translated as she read, her voice steady. Too steady.
“He began with fifty acres. By the time of his death, over three hundred.” A page turned. “The real change came during the drought of 1632.”
She shifted for a more comfortable position. The movement brought her closer. She felt it. But moving away would make it obvious.
She forced herself to focus on the page.
“Here.” Her finger stopped where the writing grew uneven, more urgent.
“Three months without rain,” she read. “The wells are dry. The crops have failed. My people are starving.”
She turned her head slightly toward him as she translated, and immediately wished she hadn’t.
He was closer than she had accounted for.
Meera’s breath paused, then returned.
“This is where everything begins,” she continued, turning the page. “Thakur Sa went alone to the hill where the villagers believed a goddess had once appeared. He fasted for three days. No food. No water.”
Her voice lowered. “On the third night, Kul Devi came to him.”
Abhinav didn’t interrupt. Didn’t move.
“Maa told him to dig at the base of the hill. She promised water would flow if he built her a temple and protected her devotees. For all time. He agreed.”
Another page opened to a rough sketch.
“The next day, he found an underground spring exactly where she had shown him.” Her finger traced the drawing. “This was the first temple. Stone walls. Sacred fire. The Haveli rose around it.”
“You speak as if you were there.” His voice had dropped. Or perhaps it sounded that way because of the space.
Warmth rose to her cheeks.
“These stories are not just history,” she replied, finding her balance again. “They are who we are.”
Her eyes met his. “Who you are.”
Light caught in her hair, softening her face.
Something in his expression changed. Quiet. Unnamed. As if he had found something he hadn’t expected to find.
“Hukum,” she dropped her eyes back to the book. “Are you listening?”
“Yes.” Not entirely untrue. He had been listening. Just not to the right things.
Meera glanced toward the highest shelf.
“Wait,” she was already moving. “There is more you need to see.”
She rose onto her toes, reaching for the top shelf. Her fingers brushed the leather, but didn’t quite reach.
“That one,” she murmured, breath catching with the stretch. “Thakur Vijay Kumar Anand’s personal journal. 1857.”
She tried again.
“It records how your family sheltered villagers during the uprising. How they hid them in underground passages. How…”
Meera forgot the rest of her sentence. She felt his warmth first. Then his presence.
He stepped in behind her with the ease of someone who had already decided the distance between them didn’t matter. His arm moved past hers, slow, unhurried.
Her body stilled, hand raised, breath caught halfway. Awareness hit all at once. His arm brushed hers. Her back pressed into him. The air vanished from a space that had been perfectly normal a moment ago.
Abhinav could have reached it from further away. He had decided not to reach it from further away.
His fingers closed around the journal and pulled it free. Slowly.
And then, because her body refused to cooperate with her dignity, Meera tried to step back. She pressed further into him. Her breath hitched audibly.
She froze.
Behind her, his mouth curved. He lowered the book and did not move away, letting the silence settle.
“Meera,” his voice was soft, breath brushing her ear. “Did you think I did that on purpose?”
Her eyes closed for an instant.
‘Idiot. Of course he didn’t.’
She turned.
He stepped back just enough, looking down at her with a calm that felt dangerously close to amusement.
Heat rushed to her face. She lifted her chin slightly, as if that might fix anything. “You’re blocking the light.”
His brow lifted. “Am I?”
He didn’t move. Not even a little. Instead, he held the journal out, watching how carefully she avoided his fingers when she took it.
Meera opened it immediately, her focus just a little too fixed on the pages.
“This journal records how your family protected villagers,” she continued, her voice impressively steady. “Not just landowners. Everyone.”
“Mm.”
The sound came from closer than it should have.
She turned a page. The words blurred, then settled.
Abhinav stepped back then, leaning against the table, arms folded, watching her openly.
“They hid entire families in underground passages,” she went on, a touch faster now. “For weeks. There are records of…”
She looked up. He was still watching her. Not the book. Her. And he wasn’t pretending otherwise.
Her voice faltered. Her gaze dropped again.
A breath left him, almost a laugh. He pushed off the table and stepped closer once more, stopping just behind her shoulder.
“Go on. I am listening.”
She nodded and turned another page, her fingers steadier now.
“Thakur Vijay Kumar Anand risked everything. The British would have executed him if they had found out. He did it anyway. That is what it meant to be an Anand. To protect what was yours.”
“Is that what you are doing?” His voice dropped again. “Protecting what is yours?”
She met his eyes. “Yes. I am.”
The words reached him deeper than he expected.
He should have answered. Pushed back. Slipped into the man he had been until yesterday.
He didn’t.
He watched her instead. The devotion in her gaze. The warmth on her skin. The uneven pull of her breath, held together by sheer will.
“We should break for lunch.” His voice came out rough.
She paused, then closed the journal carefully, her palm resting on it a moment longer than needed.
“Of course.” She adjusted her dupatta. “Evening then? When it’s cooler?”
“Evening.”
She nodded, setting the journal back into the shelf, anywhere which didn’t require him to stand behind her again.
He reached the door first and held it open.
She passed him carefully, trying not to touch him.
He noticed.
The corridors widened. The air shifted. Space returned, and so did Meera’s breathing.
By the time they reached the courtyard, the sun had taken over.
“Eight o’clock,” Meera said, stopping where their paths split.
“Eight.”
She gave a single nod and turned away.
A smile touched his lips as he turned in the opposite direction.
◆◆◆
Meera sat cross-legged before Kul Devi and folded her hands.
She stayed that way for a few breaths. Then one eye opened. Then the other. She looked straight at the goddess and exhaled. “Maa, I need help.”
The flame flickered once.
“Specifically,” Meera continued, “I need to understand why my brain has decided that a man standing close to me in an archive room is now… a situation.”
She shifted, pulling her dupatta tighter, as if that might restore order.
“He was reaching for a book. That’s it. A book. On a shelf. Above my head.”
A pause.
“From behind me.”
Her lips pressed together. “With absolutely no reason to stand that close while doing it.”
The flame did not react.
“There was space,” she went on, eyes narrowing. “There was distance. There were options. He used none of them.”
Still nothing.
“And fine,” she added, lifting a hand in mild exasperation, “let’s assume he has no awareness. None at all. He is simply a man who does not understand personal space.”
Silence stretched.
“But then,” she muttered, lowering her voice, “why did I stop breathing?”
She gestured toward herself. “I did not sign up for that. At no point did I agree to forget how lungs work because someone decided to take his time with a book.”
The goddess gave no reply.
“And when he stepped back…” she added, quieter now, “why did I notice that?”
Her hands dropped into her lap. “Why did it feel… different?”
She exhaled, sharper this time. “This is not efficient thinking, Maa. This is not useful. I have a Haveli to save.”
Another stretch of silence.
“And then there is Lakshya. I told Babuji I would consider him. He looked…” she searched for the right word, then shook her head, “…hopeful.”
She drew in a breath. “Lakshya is good. Sensible. He asks normal questions. He listens. He does not stand too close and rearrange my entire train of thought.”
She frowned. “That should count for something. That is a very strong, very stable quality.”
Neither the goddess, nor the flame offered any opinion.
She looked at them, almost accusing. “He is going to sell the Haveli. Or he is not. Either way, he leaves for Dubai. His life.”
Her voice steadied as she lined the facts up. “Everything here returns to normal.”
Normal? The word didn’t sit right.
“Maa,” she pleaded, softer now, “this is extremely inconvenient. Kindly fix it.”
Nothing. Of course.
Meera sighed and pushed herself to her feet. “Fine. Handle it yourself.”
She adjusted her dupatta, smoothed her kurta, and paused. “Eight o’clock.”
Heat rose up her cheeks. She turned and walked out, not looking back.