I always thought the dead left behind a silence.
A hush.
A coldness in the air that made you want to hold your breath.
But when I stepped off the train and into the heat of Ban Nakhon—my mother's home village in northern Thailand—the first thing I felt wasn't silence.
It was absence.
Like something had been cut out of the world, and the empty space was still bleeding.
---
The sun burned through the haze of jungle smoke. Roosters crowed from far-off yards. A child cried somewhere I couldn't see. And yet none of it felt real.
Not without her.
I kept expecting her voice to meet me at the station. That gentle tone she used when I was sick, the one she saved for prayers and lullabies.
Instead, there was only a man holding a paper sign with my name: "Anya C."
He didn't speak.
He just nodded and gestured toward the tuk-tuk idling at the edge of the dirt road.
---
The village hadn't changed.
The same creaking wooden houses raised on stilts.
The same sagging wires. The same jungle pressing in from all sides, dense and wet and full of unseen things.
But no one met my eyes.
They watched me—yes. From windows. From shadows.
But no one said her name.
Not my mother's.
Not once.
---
Aunt Malee met me at the gate of the house with her hands pressed together in greeting, but her expression was strained, like I was a letter delivered to the wrong address.
> "We are sorry for your… loss," she said carefully in Thai.
> "It must be difficult for you. You were raised overseas."
> "Perhaps not everything will make sense."
She didn't invite me inside right away.
---
I tried to smile.
> "When is the funeral?"
She paused.
> "It's already done."
---
I stared at her.
> "What?"
> "I was told it would be held today—"
> "That's why I booked the flight—"
She looked away, folding her arms.
> "It was done quietly."
> "There was… no monk available."
> "No one came. No one wanted to… risk involvement."
---
Risk?
> "She was your sister."
> "What are you talking about?"
> "What did she do to make everyone act like she was some kind of—"
I stopped.
Because Aunt Malee's face had gone pale.
And her mouth was shaking.
> "Don't say her name here," she said.
> "Please."
> "Just… stay the night."
> "Then go back."
---
The next morning, I visited the cremation site alone.
A pit in the corner of the field behind the temple.
Unmarked.
Just a shallow scorch in the dry grass, and the faint smell of smoke that hadn't quite faded.
I knelt.
Placed the white jasmine flowers I'd carried from the airport gently into the dirt.
> "Mom," I whispered.
> "I'm here."
> "I came like you asked."
> "I… I'm sorry I wasn't in time."
---
And then, the wind changed.
For a moment, I thought I heard someone whisper behind me.
My name.
Soft.
> "Anya…"
But when I turned, no one was there.
Just the tree line.
Just the shrine.
---
It stood crookedly at the edge of the jungle—a small spirit house, painted red and gold, with garlands of marigolds long since rotted to strings of black.
The offerings were old.
Flies circled spoiled fruit and incense ashes.
But what made my skin crawl was the rope.
It had been wrapped around the entire shrine, tied tight in seven knots, as if someone was trying to keep whatever was inside from getting out.
---
I stepped closer.
My mother had once told me never to go near the spirit shrine.
> "Never feed it."
> "Never speak to it."
> "Never bow, no matter what you hear."
But I was tired.
Empty.
Angry.
---
So I broke off one of the old incense sticks.
Lit it.
Placed it at the base of the shrine.
And bowed once, just to be polite.
> "You probably don't know me," I whispered.
> "But I think… you knew her."
> "And I want to know why she died afraid."
---
That night, I slept in my mother's old room.
It was small.
Neat.
Untouched, like no one had been inside for years.
There was a photo of her as a teenager on the wall.
But when I asked Aunt Malee who else was in the photo—four girls standing together outside the banyan tree shrine—she said:
> "I've never seen that picture before."
> "I don't recognize any of them."
> "You're mistaken."
---
I checked the back of the frame.
There were names scribbled in Thai.
I recognized one.
My mother's real name:
> Kamala Chaiyawan.
And beneath it, one of the other girls' names was underlined in faded red pen:
> "Som, who became She."
---
I didn't sleep well.
I kept hearing tapping.
First at the window.
Then at the walls.
Then… beneath the bed.
Like nails gently scraping at the wood.
At 2:33 a.m., I woke up to the sound of her voice.
Not from outside.
Not from my memory.
From under the bed.
> "Anya…"
> "Don't trust them."
> "They buried me without a name."
---
I sat up, heart hammering.
> "Mom?"
Silence.
Then:
Tap. Tap. Tap.
And a soft sigh.
Like breath against wood.
---
I turned on the light.
Bent down.
There was nothing under the bed.
No one in the room.
But I swear…
The jasmine flowers I had placed at her grave were there.
Laid neatly on the floorboards.
And tied around them was a piece of red string—
The same kind used to seal the shrine.