Chapter 4: Beneath the Silence
The words still echoed in Zayaan's mind like a whisper etched into the bones of the night.
"She left it behind for you. Beneath the roots. Beneath the silence…"
He hadn't slept. Not really. His eyes had closed, but his mind was tangled in thoughts and fragments. Something about the way the dream ended—it didn't feel like a dream. It felt delivered.
He sat at the edge of his bed, the first threads of dawn crawling through the window. The house was quiet, but not still. The silence here always felt like it was listening.
The woods were only a few miles away. He could picture them in his head now—those crooked branches, that scent of decaying leaves, the way light never fully touched the ground. What could she have buried? And why did it feel like now was the time to find it?
But there was something else. A hesitation that clung to him like fog. The message in the dream hadn't just been about finding an object. It had felt like a warning cloaked in invitation. Something beneath the silence. Not just physical silence. Emotional. Generational. The kind that grows between people, over years.
Downstairs, the world stirred to life—plates clinking, Tara's laughter echoing faintly, his uncle humming a nostalgic tune. But Zayaan didn't move. His eyes drifted to the box he had found days ago—the one with his mother's letter, her photograph by the woods.
It was time.
---
Scene Two: Return to the Field
By afternoon, Zayaan had gathered his old companions—Kian, Wizz, and Yuwin. The four of them stood again beneath the Chinar trees, where memory felt heavier than time.
The field they had once run across as boys felt quieter now, almost aware of their presence.
"She left something behind?" Kian asked, crouching near the roots of the middle tree. "Like… actually buried it?"
"I think so," Zayaan said, his voice low. "But I don't know what it is. Only that it's meant for me."
They began to search. Not with shovels or tools, but with a strange mix of caution and reverence—like unearthing something sacred, or cursed.
Yuwin walked the perimeter of the tree line, his eyes scanning the moss-covered bark for symbols. "You ever think maybe it's not just about what's buried?" he asked. "Maybe it's about what got left behind when she died."
Zayaan looked at him. "What do you mean?"
"I mean… what if she buried a part of herself? A memory. Or something she wanted to protect you from."
The wind picked up suddenly, rustling the trees, sending dried leaves into motion. Wizz flinched.
"Guys… look at this," Kian said, brushing aside a patch of dead ivy near the tree's roots. There, etched into the base of the trunk, was a carving. A circle intersected by an ancient symbol.
Zayaan's breath hitched. "I've seen this. In my dreams."
And just like that, the search wasn't about finding something anymore. It was about remembering. And remembering came with weight.
They didn't find anything buried. Not that day. No box. No letter. No keepsake. Just that symbol, that mark—a silent confirmation that whatever haunted his dreams, whatever followed his mother… it had been real.
They left the woods quieter than when they'd entered. Each one lost in their own thoughts.
Chapter 4 — Scene:
The keeper of bitter herbs
They didn't find anything buried. Not that day.
No box. No letter. No keepsake.
Just that symbol, that mark—a silent confirmation that whatever haunted his dreams, whatever followed his mother… it had been real.
They left the woods quieter than when they'd entered. Each one lost in their own thoughts. The trees no longer whispered. Even the wind had gone still, like something had been watching—and was now gone.
Zayaan barely spoke on the walk back. Kian kept glancing at him, wanting to say something, but the words felt too small for the silence between them.
That night, Zayaan couldn't sleep.
The symbol had burned itself into his memory, not just as an image—but a feeling. Like a lock waiting for a key.
And so, the next morning, he didn't go to school.
Instead, he left quietly—telling no one—except Kian, who simply nodded and said, "I think you're doing the right thing."
---
It was Kian who had mentioned him. A man from their old town. A herbalist, some called him. A madman, others said. But Zayaan's mother had trusted him. Visited him. More than once.
Sheikh Rozin.
The name sounded older than the town itself.
He lived on the edge of the marketplace, tucked behind a forgotten alley where everything smelled like dried mint, dust, and something unplaceable. Zayaan stood outside the wooden door, unsure for a long moment. Then he knocked.
Nothing.
He raised his hand to knock again—when the door creaked open on its own.
A man sat inside by the window, turning the pages of a brown leather-bound book. The light caught his eyes first—faded amber, almost yellowed, like smoke trapped in glass.
"You've grown," the man said, before Zayaan could even introduce himself.
"You have her eyes… and something else."
Zayaan stepped inside.
The place smelled of old paper, bitter roots, and quiet things. Shelves lined the walls—jars filled with herbs, powders, dried leaves, some labeled, others not.
"Did you know my mother?" Zayaan asked, sitting down across from him.
Sheikh Rozin didn't answer immediately. He reached for a brass kettle on the stove, poured two small cups of dark tea, and handed one to Zayaan.
"I knew her silences more than her words," he said. "That's what grief does. It makes silence louder than anything else."
Zayaan looked down at his tea. "She came here often?"
"She came when her dreams changed," Rozin said, voice slow. "She feared the past would grow roots in her son."
Zayaan's chest tightened. He didn't understand what he wanted to understand. But something inside him—his instinct—felt like it already knew.
"She left me nothing," he muttered. "No explanation. Just dreams. Symbols. Things I can't explain."
Rozin finally looked at him fully.
"She left you more than you think. But not all gifts are wrapped. Some truths… they rot when spoken aloud."
He stood, went to the far corner of the room, and pulled out a wooden box—small, hand-carved, wrapped in cloth.
"She asked me to keep this until the time felt… right."
Zayaan stared. "What is it?"
"Not what. Who."
He unwrapped it.
Inside was a small jar of dark green liquid. Thick. Cloudy. Next to it, a slip of old parchment. Just one line, written in Aamira's handwriting:
> "He has the pull. But the woods remember the first child."
Zayaan's head swam. "What does that mean?"
Rozin didn't answer directly. "You dream of them, don't you? The trees. The breath in the wind. The things that follow without footsteps."
Zayaan nodded, barely.
"She dreamed of them too. But only after that visit to her mother's place. The old house, near the roots."
"She never told me," Zayaan whispered.
"She couldn't. Some truths would have broken her more."
There was a long silence.
Zayaan took the jar, holding it up to the window. The liquid inside shimmered faintly—like something moved when it caught the light.
"What is this?"
"A mirror," Rozin said. "But not the kind you know."
And then:
"She left it for you. To drink. But only when the woods call you by name."
Zayaan looked up.
"How will I know?"
Rozin's eyes burned brighter.
"You'll know."
---
As Zayaan left the shop, the weight of the jar in his coat, the day felt colder. The sky was dull and low, the kind of sky that presses on your shoulders.
But his thoughts burned hotter than ever.
Who was the first child?
Why did the woods remember?
And if he wasn't the first—then who had gone before?
Chapter 4 – Final Scene
"The Name Beneath the Roots"
As Zayaan left the shop, the weight of the jar in his coat, the day felt colder.
The sky was dull and low, the kind of sky that presses on your shoulders.
But his thoughts burned hotter than ever.
Who was the first child?
Why did the woods remember?
And if he wasn't the first—
Then who had gone before?
His feet moved out of habit, but his mind reeled with questions he didn't know how to form, let alone answer.
Then—
As if a match sparked in the fog of his mind—
He remembered something.
Not a word. A moment.
He was six. Sick with fever. Restless. And his mother had sat beside him, stroking his hair. She thought he was asleep.
> "You came from the silence," she whispered. "Like he did. But I'll never let them take you."
He'd never understood what it meant. He'd thought it was a fever dream.
Now, it felt like a map with no names.
---
The Next Day
They didn't waste time.
Zayaan and Kian arrived at Sheikh Rozin's place early, even before the incense smoke had fully curled around the morning.
Rozin opened the door slowly, eyes already knowing.
"You read the symbol?" he asked.
Zayaan nodded. "And I remembered something. From when I was a child."
Rozin didn't reply. Instead, he walked back inside without a word. They followed him.
This time, he took them not to the herb shelves or the tea corner—but behind the curtain that split the small backroom. The space was colder, darker. The light bulb above flickered as if reluctant to stay alive.
Rozin knelt at a wooden trunk and opened it slowly.
From inside, he took out something wrapped in a crimson cloth.
A pendant.
Black metal. Unpolished. With the same symbol carved onto it. It didn't shine. It breathed.
Zayaan stepped back without meaning to.
Rozin looked at him. "This belonged to her."
"My mother?" Zayaan's voice cracked on the word.
Rozin nodded. "She never wanted to keep it. She said it sang at night. That it made her remember things she never saw. But she also said you'd need it one day."
Zayaan reached for it, hesitated. "What does it do?"
Rozin smiled softly, but it didn't reach his eyes. "It doesn't do anything… until you listen."
The pendant felt warm when it touched his skin. Heavy in meaning, not in weight.
"Rozin," Kian said, "what did she mean by 'first child'? Who was before Zayaan?"
Rozin hesitated for the first time.
"There was another boy. Long ago. Before your time. The woods took him."
"Took him?" Zayaan echoed.
"They say he vanished," Rozin said quietly. "But some say… he was never real to begin with. Only a shadow born of the woods' hunger. Your mother believed otherwise. She believed he was real—and that he had returned, more than once."
"Returned how?"
Rozin didn't answer.
But he opened a small drawer and removed an old photograph—sepia-toned and worn at the edges.
Zayaan's breath caught.
A woman—his mother, much younger—and a small boy. Maybe five or six.
It wasn't him.
Same eyes. Same face. But it wasn't him.
"Who is that?" Kian whispered.
Rozin looked at Zayaan.
"She said he came to her once in a dream. Cried in her arms. Told her the woods had given him back… but changed."
Zayaan stared at the photograph.
The boy wasn't smiling. He was staring at the camera like he could see through it.
"I think," Rozin said slowly, "your mother buried something not to hide it, but to give you a choice. To follow her path—or to run from it."
Zayaan's hands were trembling. Not from fear. From the quiet feeling of everything turning inside out.
"I don't want to run," he said.
Rozin looked at him, truly looked.
"Then wear the pendant. And remember—when it warms, something sees you back."
---
As they stepped outside, the wind was sharper than before. Almost cutting.
Zayaan touched the pendant beneath his shirt.
It was warm again.
And in the distance, though no one else seemed to notice… the Chinar trees were swaying in a rhythm that matched his breath.
Like they were waiting.
Like they remembered.
---
[End of Chapter 4]