THYME'S POV:
I stumbled through the front door of my uncle's house, and the silence hit me like a physical blow. The usual chaotic energy—the sound of the television, the clatter of dishes, the easy laughter—was gone. It was replaced by a suffocating, unnatural quiet that felt heavier than any sound. The air was thick with a grief so profound I could taste it, a bitter ash on my tongue. I found her in her room, and the sight was a punch to the gut that stole my breath and buckled my knees.
Siriporn, my beloved cousin, was lying on her bed. She was not sleeping. She was a canvas of purple and black, a grotesque masterpiece of bruises that marred her gentle features. Her face, a roadmap of pain, was swollen beyond recognition, her lips cracked and bloody. One eye was a swollen, discolored slit, the other a vacant, glassy stare aimed at the ceiling. She didn't move. She didn't breathe. She was just a broken doll on the bed, and her silence was a scream that echoed in the cavern of my own chest.
Nathaya, Siriporn's younger sister, stood at a distance, her body rigid with a terror so deep it seemed to have frozen her in place. Her eyes, red and puffy, were fixated on her sister, a silent, helpless witness.
"P'Siri?" I whispered, the name a fragile, broken thing in the dead air. I reached out to touch her arm, but the cold, unresponsive feel of her skin sent a jolt of ice through my veins. She was a statue of grief. I felt useless, a ghost in my own family's tragedy. I turned to Nathaya, and the moment she saw me approaching, she bolted, a startled animal fleeing a predator it couldn't name.
"Wait, Nathaya!" I called out, my voice a panicked whisper. I chased her through the cavernous house, a terrifying game of tag that ended in the manicured, serene chaos of the garden. She finally stopped by the rose bushes, her back to me, her small shoulders heaving with silent sobs. The exhaustion of the chase hit me, my lungs burning, but the fear in my heart was a greater ache.
"Nath..." I began, my voice soft. She spun around, and her eyes, filled with a raw, primal grief I had never seen before, met mine.
"My father did this to her," she said, the words a jagged shard of glass, each one cutting me deeper.
My world tilted on its axis. My uncle. A man whose laughter was a constant melody in my childhood memories. "What… what happened?" I stammered, the words tripping over themselves. "Why would Uncle… why?"
Nathaya's sobs intensified, and the story spilled out of her, a horrifying whisper of a family torn apart. "He found out about P'Siri… and Kanokwan," she choked out, her voice trembling. "Kanokwan's father came here. He was screaming. He told Father to 'fix' his daughter, to stop her from 'corrupting' his own. Father… he just exploded. He dragged P'Siri to her room and he just… he didn't stop. He just kept hitting her."
Her voice cracked, becoming a desperate, ragged sound. "I tried to stop him, Thyme. I screamed at him, I begged him, but it was like he couldn't hear me. He was consumed by this rage. He didn't stop until she promised to stop seeing Kanokwan. But she never did. Even when he was hitting her, she just kept whispering that she wouldn't stop loving her." Nathaya's face crumpled. "I couldn't stop him. I just stood there and watched. Am I a bad sister, Thyme? Am I a coward?"
My body was frozen, but a cold, hard rage began to crystallize in my veins. It was not just for my uncle, but for a world that could do this. I wrapped my arms around her, holding her tight as she sobbed into my shoulder. "No, Nathaya," I said, my voice shaking with a righteous fury I had never felt before. "You are not a coward. And Siriporn is not wrong. There is nothing wrong with loving someone. Nothing. It doesn't matter who they are."
The quiet, emotional moment was shattered by a scream from inside the house. A gut-wrenching, primal scream that pierced our ears and stopped our hearts. We ran back inside, a shared dread propelling us forward. The maid was standing at the entrance to Siriporn's room, her hands covering her mouth, her eyes wide with a pure, unadulterated terror.
But it was not the maid who caused the scream. It was the sight before us.
Siriporn's body was hanging from the ceiling, a silent, final protest against a world that refused to let her love.
"No… No… NO!" Nathaya screamed, her voice a broken, hysterical wail that echoed through the house of our trauma. The world around me dissolved. The sight of Siriporn, the sound of Nathaya's grief—it was a key turning a lock in my mind. The glass door of the cafe shattered, and the vision of the beaten woman, the hateful father, the unfeeling crowd, crashed over me. It was all the same. The same tragedy. The same pain. The same memories I had desperately tried to forget, now violently resurrected.
My silent screams tore at my own throat. I was back there, a helpless ghost, pleading with the faceless crowd to stop the man, but they simply watched, their eyes empty mirrors of my own powerlessness. The man, Manop, was a monster. He kicked his own daughter's head, again and again, with a brutal, sickening rhythm. How could a man like this exist? How could a father, a person sworn to protect, harbor such a bottomless well of hate?
A flash of memory, a jagged shard of glass, pierced through my consciousness. I remembered Siriporn. Her suicide came just a month after Kanokwan died. They said Kanokwan had fallen from a balcony. An accident. But I knew. I knew it was her own father who had beaten her, who had driven her to that edge. Siriporn's final breath was an act of surrender to a grief she could not bear alone. And now, the woman on the ground, beaten by her own father, might share the same fate. Why? Why do they need to hurt their children like this, all because their love isn't "normal"? Parents are supposed to be kind. They are supposed to understand.
"It is a futile effort, young man. No one will hear you."
My eyes widened. The voice was soft, but it cut through the din of my silent screams. I spun around. It was the old woman, the shaman from the street. How could she be here?
"Auntie, please!" I sobbed, the tears streaming down my face. "Help me stop him! I'm begging you!"
She shook her head, her gaze calm but sorrowful. "It's too late."
"Wh-why?" I wailed, my voice cracking. "Don't you have a conscience? Can't you see what he's doing to her? She's..." I was a puppet with its strings cut, and all I could do was cry.
"It was too late the moment the first blow landed with true hate," she said, her voice a chilling whisper. "That young woman is already dead. Her spirit is already outside her body, watching him desecrate her vessel."
"No… No!" I screamed. I crawled to the woman's still form, trying to use my phantom body to shield her. The father's leg swung through me, a chilling sensation of nothingness that was more violating than any physical blow.
The old woman's voice, though quiet, was an unbreakable command that finally pierced the father's rage. "Manop, stop now. She is already gone."
His hand froze in mid-air. He looked at the old woman, then at his daughter's body. The mother, Pacharapa, finally broke free from her fear and rushed to her daughter's side, her hands frantically searching for a pulse. There was nothing.
"No… No! My daughter!" she wailed, her grief a raw, primal sound that finally silenced the cruel murmurs of the crowd. The father, Manop, stumbled back, his face a horrifying mask of shock and guilt. In his righteous rage, he had killed his own child.
I wanted to hit him. I hated him. I hated him for what he had done to his daughter, and to Siriporn, and to me. But as I looked at his face—a face now stripped of its cruel pride, replaced by a hollow, sickening horror—I felt a strange, terrifying sense of satisfaction. He has to live with this. I thought, the coldness of it surprising me. He has to know he is a monster.
The old woman stood there for a long time. I stayed too, a silent shadow in their grief.
"Let's go, young man," she finally said.
I was not in my right mind. My feet moved on their own, following her out of the circle of tragedy. She led me to a simple, wooden house at the end of the street. She stopped at the front door. A wave of unease washed over me. I had just witnessed a nightmare. What could be waiting for me on the other side of this door?
"Do not worry, child. I will not hurt you. You are safe here," the old woman assured me.
I let myself enter her house. I was amazed. The small home was filled with dozens of different statues of gods and goddesses, their painted eyes seeming to follow me. The air smelled of sandalwood incense and dried herbs. On shelves lining the walls were strange objects—carved bones, colorful beads, and ancient-looking texts—things I had only ever seen in textbooks. My curiosity began to eclipse my fear. Who was this old woman?