The jasmine flowers shouldn't have been there.
I'd left them at the cremation site. Burnt earth. Crushed ash. No wind that night.
And yet when I bent to pick them up from the floor of my mother's old room, they were still damp. Still fragrant. Still warm.
Tied with red thread.
The kind used to seal spirits. Not honor them.
I turned them over in my hands, expecting to find a note or token hidden inside.
Instead, I found a stain on my palm.
Ash.
And something written inside it.
A single, smeared Thai word:
> "คืน"
Return.
---
I washed my hands. Threw the flowers out. Burned the thread.
But the next morning, it didn't matter.
The village had changed.
Not visibly. Not to anyone else.
But I could feel it.
In the way the dogs barked at empty spaces.
In the way the air tasted heavier.
And in the way everyone kept looking past me—like I wasn't supposed to be here anymore.
Like something else had taken my place.
---
At breakfast, Aunt Malee served boiled rice and avoided my eyes.
Uncle Prem smoked a cigarette without speaking.
When I finally asked why no one came to the funeral, Aunt Malee just said:
> "There are old rules."
> "Rules she… broke."
I pressed.
> "What rules?"
> "About the shrine?"
She dropped her spoon and muttered:
> "Don't speak of it."
> "Not when the smoke is still fresh."
---
Later that day, the village changed again.
This time, everyone saw it.
---
I was standing outside the spirit shrine.
Watching the garlands sway.
Listening.
Waiting.
And then—
He walked out of the woods.
A figure in orange robes.
Tall. Thin. His face half-shadowed by the trees.
At first I thought he was just a passing monk. A traveler, maybe. I stepped back to give space.
But then I saw the way the villagers reacted.
They screamed.
---
A boy dropped his school bag and ran.
Two elders threw themselves to the ground in prayer.
A woman fainted on her porch.
And the monk?
He just walked.
Barefoot.
His feet were blackened with soot.
His robes torn at the shoulder.
And his chest… was covered in something like calligraphy—symbols inked or carved directly into his skin.
And in his left hand?
He held a soaked white cloth.
Something hidden inside.
---
I couldn't move.
Not when he stepped into the village square.
Not when he approached the main shrine with slow, deliberate steps.
And certainly not when he unwrapped the cloth—and revealed what he carried.
A tongue.
Dark red. Curled. Preserved in black salt.
He dropped it at the base of the shrine. Bowed once. And then—
Pointed directly at me.
---
No one spoke.
Not a breath.
Then the old headman, Somchai, stepped forward.
He was shaking.
> "Luang Pho Niran," he whispered.
> "You… you returned."
I turned to him.
> "You know him?"
> "My mother mentioned him—"
> "She said he guarded the shrine—"
Somchai looked at me with glassy eyes.
> "He's been gone for twelve years."
> "We thought he was dead."
> "We hoped he was."
---
Niran didn't speak.
He couldn't.
Because when he opened his mouth—
There was only a raw, blood-caked hollow.
He had no tongue.
Only teeth.
Only silence.
---
Later, they brought him to the temple.
Wrapped his wounds. Tended to his feet.
But he didn't respond.
Just sat cross-legged, eyes closed, rocking slowly back and forth.
I wanted to ask him about my mother. About the shrine. About the mark on his chest that mirrored the one I found in her notebook.
But when I got close, he raised one hand.
And slid a folded scrap of paper across the floor toward me.
---
I opened it alone in my room.
Inside was a message, hand-scrawled in trembling Thai:
> "You are the blood-owed."
"You walk on a borrowed soul."
"Return her name before the moon is red."
"Or lose your own."
---
I didn't sleep that night.
I kept hearing footsteps outside.
But when I looked through the window, no one was there.
Just the shrine.
And behind it… movement in the trees.
Not a person.
Not an animal.
But something tall.
Crowned in vines.
Wrapped in cloth.
Its mouth sewn shut.
---
The next morning, Aunt Malee didn't recognize me.
I came down for breakfast and she flinched.
> "I'm sorry," she said in English. "Are you… a guest from Bangkok?"
I stared.
> "I'm Anya."
> "Your niece."
> "I've been here for three days."
She looked horrified.
Uncle Prem shook his head.
> "She's confused," he muttered.
> "Some names… don't stick when you speak too loud near the trees."
---
I ran to the mirror.
My reflection was wrong.
Eyes darker.
Skin paler.
Hair longer than I remembered.
And across my collarbone…
The same symbol carved into the monk's chest.
Appearing now—on me.
Faint.
But growing.
---
That afternoon, I found a photograph under my pillow.
A photo of me, standing in front of the shrine, smiling.
But it was aged.
Sun-damaged.
Faded like it had been taken years ago.
And on the back, in looping script:
> "She smiled before she knew her name wasn't hers."