THYME'S POV:
The questions and confusion swirling in my mind had become a storm I couldn't navigate. How had Aunt Ying known that the woman I saw, the one I mistook for my sister, was Metharaj's sister, Thanya? And how could she have a face that was both my sister's and a stranger's? It was a mind-bending paradox, and the more I thought about it, the more I felt like a ship lost at sea. It was already late, the darkness outside as heavy as the dread in my heart, and still, Aunt Ying had not returned. I paced the living room, the grandfather clock's tick a heavy, ominous metronome to my rising panic.
Then, the soft click of the front door. I immediately ran to the stairs, relief washing over me so completely my knees almost buckled. Aunt Ying stood in the doorway, her shoulders slumped, her eyes distant and full of a profound worry I couldn't explain. Her usual calm demeanor was gone, replaced by a deep-seated weariness that was almost palpable.
"Aunt Ying? What happened? Why do you look so worried?" I asked, my voice trembling with concern.
She started, as if snapped out of a trance, and her expression immediately shifted back to her usual serene mask. A thin, forced smile touched her lips. "No, it's nothing, child. Just a long day."
I nodded, my own heart sinking at her obvious evasion. I didn't want to push her, not now. I had something far more important to ask. "Just wait here for a moment," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. I turned and went upstairs, my feet flying over the familiar wooden steps, leaving her looking confused in the entryway.
I came back down holding the small, dusty photo album. I held it out to her, my hand shaking slightly. Her gaze fell upon the album, and the fragile smile on her face vanished instantly, replaced by a horrified, stricken expression. Her eyes, so often a window to ancient wisdom, were now wide with pure, unadulterated shock. She knew what it was. She knew what it meant.
"You might already have the idea, child," she said, her voice a soft, broken thing. A fresh wave of tears stung my eyes. I watched as she reached out, her fingers trembling, to trace the embossed pattern on the cover. A single, crystalline tear rolled down her cheek, and her lips parted in a sad, beautiful smile. "My answer is yes. I'm Ladawan Dawklao's sister, or as you might know her, Ladawan Kosumal."
Ladawan Kosumal. My grandmother. The woman who had given me a love so fierce it transcended time itself. The truth hit me with the force of a physical blow, and I could no longer hold back the tears. They came in a rush, hot and unstoppable, and I sagged against the banister, my shoulders shaking with a grief so profound it felt like joy.
She walked toward me, her arms opening, and pulled me into a hug that smelled of sandalwood and home. The warmth of her hands on my cheeks, the gentle way she stroked my hair, was the same unconditional comfort I had found in my grandmother's arms so many lifetimes ago.
"I'm sorry, Thyme," she whispered, her voice thick with worry. "I couldn't tell you. I... I didn't want you to get attached to this place, to this timeline."
I buried my face in her shoulder, the raw, aching emotion of the moment a powerful tide. "I understand, Aunt Ying. I really do. But what do I do? I'm stuck here. I've tried everything. I can't return."
My head was a battlefield of warring emotions. The relief of finding family was warring with a new, sharper fear. It was no longer about my own life; it was about hers. What if Raj discovered I was hiding here? What if he kills her, a woman I've known for only a few days, but have already come to love? The thought was a dagger to my heart. I would blame myself for the rest of my life.
She pulled back, her hands still on my shoulders, her eyes looking at me with a profound, maternal love. "Don't worry, Thyme. I will try to find a way. A way for you to go home."
I simply smiled and nodded, not wanting to give her false hope in something that might not happen. Her warmth made me feel calm, even as my mind was a great turmoil. But then, a chilling question cut through the calm.
"But... how did you know I was your grandson, Aunt Ying?"
She looked at me, a thoughtful, distant expression on her face. "I've had dreams of you, child. Multiple times. In these dreams, I see my sister, Ladawan, but she is older than she is now, and you are with her, calling her grandmother. The moment I saw you, I knew."
I couldn't help but feel amazed. My grandmother sister had an ability to see the future. "Then... is it possible for me to meet my grandmother in this timeline?"
Aunt Ying's face fell, and she shook her head slowly, a sad smile on her lips. "I'm sorry, Thyme. You can't. If you meet her, she might be able to see you. She has the gift. And if she does, it could cause changes. I don't want you to cause any more ripples in your own future."
The gravity of her words hit me. I had to protect my timeline. I had to protect my family, even a family that was gone. "But I'm still here, Thyme," she said, her eyes shining. "I can still be your grandmother, even if I'm too young to be one." She laughed, a gentle, musical sound that was meant to comfort me.
"But... does that mean my grandmother can also see spirits, like you?" I asked, needing to confirm the idea in my head.
"Yes. And my younger brother, Prawit, the monk in the temple you visited earlier? All of us have the gift. We all see."
My jaw dropped. "Wait... your brother is a monk?"
"Yes, he is."
"And all of you can see spirits, but I can't? Did my ability come from my grandmother's side?"
"My dreams tell me your ability was sealed. Not by me, but by my brother, Prawit. In your future, when you are born, he will be the one to perform the ritual. But it's not a permanent seal, Thyme. The ability will unlock eventually, and you will begin to see things you never saw before. When that happens, you can seek him out. He will be alive in your timeline. You can visit him for guidance, or for anything that bothers you."
"But I never met you or him when I was young." I looked down, the sadness of a family I never knew hitting me all over again.
She reached out and took my hand. "That's because Ladawan, your grandmother, left our home when she was twenty years old. Our parents wanted her to become a shaman like us, but she wanted to be normal. That's why she left, and why she never introduced us to you. She wanted you to be normal, too. That's why she asked Prawit to seal your ability."
"Then can I meet you in my timeline, Aunt Ying?" I asked, my voice filled with a desperate hope.
She smiled sadly and nodded. I didn't know why, but a cold fear snaked into my heart. I felt like there was something wrong with her response, something she wasn't telling me. "Then is it possible that my ability to time travel came from your family's bloodline?" I asked, grasping at any straw I could find.
"No, Thyme," she said, shaking her head. "Your ability to travel through time was not from our bloodline. Like I said before, you were created by someone. A confluence of powers."
"But my father abandoned me," I argued, my voice rising with frustration. "If he had intended to create a child who could travel through time, he wouldn't have just left me. It doesn't make sense!"
Aunt Ying's face grew pale, and a deep sense of dread filled the room. "That is what confuses me. I have tried to use divination to see who your father is, but every time I try... I am violently forced to wake up from my dreams, as if something is fighting me from the other side. And..."
Suddenly, a violent, guttural cough ripped from her throat, and a stream of thick, black blood splattered on the wooden floor. The white strings tied around her wrist, which I had never noticed before, snapped and burst into flames, the smell of burning cloth and flesh filling the air. Her beaded bracelet, which had been a constant presence on her wrist, shattered, the beads scattering across the floor like tiny, horrified eyes. A powerful, unseen force slammed into the house, and the wooden frame groaned in protest. The heavy, centuries-old anito on the mantelpiece, objects that would have taken two men to lift, were suddenly hurled across the room, smashing into the walls with terrifying force. The lights began to flicker, a frantic strobe in the encroaching darkness.
"Aunt Ying! What is happening?!" I screamed, my voice cracking with pure, unadulterated terror.
"Don't panic, child, we are still safe!" she commanded, her voice strained. Her eyes, filled with a primal, terrified light, met mine for a brief moment before she began to chant in a language I couldn't understand, her voice a desperate, rhythmic prayer against the wind and chaos. Slowly, the wind died down, the lights became steady, and the house fell into a terrifying, unnatural silence.
"Aunt Ying, what was that?" I asked, my body trembling uncontrollably.
"It was the evil spirit," she said, her voice weak and laced with exhaustion. "The one I drove away yesterday. It seems it was able to track me down and sought revenge."
I felt a cold shiver run down my spine, a feeling of deep, profound disbelief. I had witnessed her power, and I knew she was the most powerful shaman I had ever known. A mere "evil spirit" would never have been able to inflict this much damage. And why would it attack her at the exact moment she was trying to say something about my father?
My heart ached with worry when I saw her wrist, where the white string had been. It was raw, blistered, and bleeding from the burning thread. The wound was deep. I completely forgot about the questions about my origin, my grandmother, and my identity. The only thing that mattered was Aunt Ying's well-being. But as I treated her wounds, a chilling, terrifying thought settled in my mind like a shroud. The attack was not from an evil spirit. It was from something else. Something powerful. And it had been listening.
Because of what happened, I asked Aunt Ying if I could sleep on the floor beside her bed. I couldn't bear the thought of being alone, of the silence, of the darkness. She agreed without question, and I laid out a thin mattress on the cool wooden floor. But sleep was an impossible dream. I stared up at the ceiling, the shadows from the moonlight outside twisting into monstrous shapes. Every creak of the old house was the sound of something malevolent creeping closer. Every gust of wind was the whisper of a name I couldn't bear to hear.
I felt like I had forgotten something. A crucial piece of the puzzle, a memory just beyond my grasp, shimmering and then vanishing whenever I tried to look at it directly. The attack… it wasn't random. It was a warning. A message. Something was guarding the secret of my father's identity, something powerful enough to harm a shaman as strong as Aunt Ying.
I squeezed my eyes shut, but the image that bloomed behind them was not of the anito or the flickering lights. It was the face of the scarred Meta—Raj—his eyes cold and dead, his lips twisted into a cruel, knowing smile. He knew something. I was sure of it. And then, a new, even more horrifying thought took root in my mind, a seed of pure terror that began to sprout in the fertile ground of my fear.
The attack hadn't come from an evil spirit. It hadn't come from some abstract, cosmic force. It had a face. A name. And it was the same face, the same name, that had been haunting my every waking moment. The force that was protecting my father's identity, the force that had attacked my great-aunt, was the same force that wanted me dead.
What if my father wasn't just a man who had abandoned my mother? What if he was something else entirely? What if he was the reason I was "made"? What if… what if he was a monster, just like Raj?
The questions were a relentless, agonizing tide, pulling me under, and all I could do was lie there in the darkness, a lost boy in a haunted house, waiting for the dawn that I was no longer sure would ever come.