I waited three days.
Let the silence settle.
Let the name Mayura echo in my chest without fear.
The nightmares stopped.
The reflection in my mirror was mine again.
And yet… something remained unfinished.
Something left unsaid.
---
I knew where I had to go.
Not back to the shrine.
Not to the monk.
Not even to the banyan.
But to the house I grew up in.
To the attic.
Where my mother kept everything she never wanted me to find.
---
I had never dared go up there before.
Not even after she died.
But the door was already open.
The ladder unfolded like it had been waiting for me.
Dust spiraled in the air, catching the light like old breath.
---
The attic was hot.
Still.
Smelled like paper and jasmine.
There were boxes. Dozens. Some labeled in Thai, some in English. But only one drew me in:
"Kamala – Do not burn."
---
Inside:
A set of photos. My mother as a teenager. Five girls beneath a banyan, smiling. Holding candles.
A small doll made of ash and red thread.
And her original journal.
Not the one I'd found buried under her bed.
This was older.
Fragile.
Burnt around the edges.
But inside, still legible.
---
The first page read:
> "This is not a confession."
> "This is a preservation."
> "They say names die when no one speaks them."
> "But I remember."
> "And if I must die to keep them from waking, so be it."
---
I kept reading.
Page after page.
Each one more personal than the last.
Each filled with grief she never showed me.
Shame she never passed on.
And a truth that changed everything.
---
> "We didn't summon the god."
> "We didn't choose him."
> "He found us."
> "He came to Mayura first."
> "She heard him in the roots."
> "He promised her a new name. One that couldn't be erased."
> "And she… let him in."
---
I stopped breathing.
The god hadn't been forced into her.
She'd invited him.
She'd made the pact.
And when the others—my mother included—refused to go further, it was Mayura who died screaming beneath the banyan.
Not as a victim.
As an offering.
---
And the god?
He wasn't satisfied.
He'd tasted her name.
Her identity.
Her memory.
And like all hungry things…
He wanted more.
---
> "We bound him in silence."
> "We scattered our voices."
> "We made a pact to forget her… so he would, too."
> "But I remembered."
> "I kept her name hidden in my blood."
> "And when I had you, Anya…"
> "I gave you what was never mine to keep."
---
I clutched the journal to my chest.
My throat burned.
Tears welled—but I didn't cry.
Because now I understood.
This story wasn't about possession.
It wasn't about ghosts or curses or shrines.
It was about remembrance.
And the terror of being forgotten.
---
I lit a single incense stick.
Placed it beside the journal.
And whispered both names into the smoke:
> "Kamala."
> "Mayura."
---
No wind.
No voice.
Just stillness.
Until the doll in the box moved.
Just a twitch.
Its thread pulled tight.
And then it fell apart.
---
The thread unraveled in a perfect spiral.
And at the center—
A pearl.
No bigger than a tear.
Warm in my hand.
Alive.
---
I knew what it was.
Her name.
The true one.
The first one.
The name she gave to the god before she was buried in silence.
I pressed it to my lips.
And whispered it for the first—and last—time:
> "Prapai."
---
The attic exhaled.
The dust swirled.
And I felt something lift.
Not from the room.
From me.
---
The weight of inheritance.
Of stolen memory.
Of shared breath.
Gone.
And in its place—
Not emptiness.
But space.
A place to become something new.
---
---
🌕 One Year Later
I moved to Chiang Mai.
Started teaching folklore and oral traditions.
No one believes me when I say I was born from a story.
That I carried a borrowed name for half my life.
That I once heard a tree sing.
That a god once whispered through mirrors and teeth.
And that somewhere, in a clearing no longer on any map, a shrine lies in ruin.
Silent.
Unfed.
---
But some nights, when the jasmine is heavy and the moon is thin, I light incense and open my mouth—
Not to scream.
Not to pray.
But to speak.
To name the forgotten.
To write them again in air and ash.
---
Because I am Anya.
I am Mayura.
And I am Prapai.
All daughters of silence.
And all now, remembered.