The banyan tree was burning again.
Mihir woke with a sharp inhale, as if his lungs had forgotten how to work without permission. The ceiling above him swam into focus—cracked plaster, water stains shaped like continents that no longer existed. The air smelled wrong. Not rot. Not dampness. Smoke.
He lay still, counting his breaths the way his therapist had taught him years ago. One. Two. Three. The dream clung stubbornly, a living thing pressed against the inside of his skull.
Fire licking bark that should not burn. Roots like blackened veins twisting beneath the earth. The tree inhaling—expanding—as though it had lungs. And somewhere inside it, something screaming without a mouth.
Mihir.
His name had not been shouted. It had been breathed.
He sat up abruptly.
The room answered with a soft groan of old wood. This mansion—his grandfather's, and his grandfather's before that—had never been silent. It shifted and sighed like a sleeping animal, disturbed by his movement. Mihir welcomed the noise. It anchored him.
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and rubbed his face, fingers dragging down over eyes still burning with afterimages of flame. He told himself the dream was nothing more than his own research turning against him. Too many nights spent reading about death rites and spirit-binding folklore would do that to anyone. The mind, after all, was a cooperative traitor.
That was the rational explanation.
He looked down at his hands.
Gray dust clung to his palms and the creases of his fingers. Fine. Powdery. It caught under his nails like residue left behind after prayer or cremation.
Ash.
Mihir stared, unmoving, as the last threads of sleep dissolved into something colder.
He sniffed his hands. Smoke.
"No," he said aloud, the word sounding brittle in the vastness of the room. "That's not possible."
There had been no fire. No candles. No incense. He had arrived barely six hours ago, too exhausted from the journey from Kolkata to do anything but unpack and collapse onto the bed. The electricity had flickered twice before dying entirely, leaving the mansion to the mercy of oil lamps and moonlight. He hadn't lit a single one.
Still, the ash was warm.
Mihir crossed the room and scrubbed his hands at the washbasin until his skin burned pink. The ash slid down the drain in gray spirals, disappearing without resistance. He watched it go, jaw clenched.
Stress, he told himself. Residual dream imagery. He reached for his notebook automatically, flipping to a fresh page with practiced ease.
Field Note – Day OnePossible hypnagogic hallucination. Tactile sensation upon waking. Ash-like substance present—investigate environmental source.
The words looked neat. Controlled. Safe.
Outside, something exhaled.
Mihir froze, pen hovering mid-sentence.
The sound came again, low and prolonged, like breath drawn through a massive chest. Leaves rustled, not sharply, but slowly—deliberately. As though whatever moved them had all the time in the world.
He stepped toward the window.
The ancestral mansion sat at the edge of the village, its back pressed against a stretch of forest so old it resisted naming. Banyan trees dominated the land there, roots descending like hanging nooses, thick canopies blotting out the sky. Even in daylight, the forest swallowed sound.
Now, at dusk's edge, it felt infinite.
Mihir's gaze snagged on the largest banyan of them all.
It stood apart from the others, its trunk massive, bark ridged and scarred as if by old wounds. A faint mist clung to its base, curling lazily around exposed roots that twisted above ground like petrified serpents.
The leaves moved again.
Not with the wind. There was no wind.
The tree expanded—only slightly, only if one were looking too hard. Then it settled.
Mihir took an involuntary step back.
"You're projecting," he muttered. He pressed his forehead to the cool glass. "You wanted folklore. Congratulations. Your brain is obliging."
A knock sounded behind him.
He spun.
The sound had not come from inside the house. It came from the door.
Three knocks. Slow. Evenly spaced.
Mihir checked his watch. 6:47 p.m.
No one had told him to expect visitors.
He hesitated only a moment before crossing the room. The mansion's corridors were long and narrow, ceilings high enough to swallow sound. His footsteps echoed back at him distorted, as though someone else were walking half a second behind.
When he reached the front door, he paused.
Another knock. Gentler this time.
Mihir opened it.
The man standing on the threshold looked like he had stepped out of a different century and simply failed to notice.
He was young—no older than twenty-five, Mihir guessed—but there was something profoundly unhurried about the way he stood, hands folded loosely behind his back. His hair was dark and long enough to brush his collar, eyes an unsettling shade somewhere between black and deep brown. He wore plain clothes, unremarkable except for how carefully they were kept, as though dust itself avoided touching him.
When he spoke, his voice was low, smooth, each word enunciated with a precision that felt old-fashioned.
"You've arrived," he said.
It wasn't a question.
"Yes," Mihir replied automatically. "I—can I help you?"
The man inclined his head. "Arjun Dev Mukherjee. I take care of the estate."
Mihir frowned. "I wasn't told there was a caretaker."
Arjun's gaze slid past him, into the house, lingering for just a fraction too long on the darkened hallway.
"They never are," he said softly.
A chill traced Mihir's spine. He ignored it. "I'm Mihir Roy."
Something shifted in Arjun's expression—not surprise. Recognition.
"Of course you are."
Mihir bristled. "Have we met?"
"No."
Arjun's lips curved. Not quite a smile.
"But I know you."
The air between them thickened, heavy with unsaid things. Mihir opened his mouth to press the issue, then stopped.
Behind Arjun, the forest breathed again.
This time, Arjun heard it too.
His gaze flicked briefly toward the banyan, then back to Mihir. Something dark and unreadable passed through his eyes.
"You shouldn't stand in the doorway after sunset," he said. "It confuses things."
"Confuses what?"
Arjun stepped closer.
He did not cross the threshold. He stopped just short of it, as though held back by an invisible line. Up close, he smelled faintly of earth and smoke—like rain hitting ashes.
"You'll see," he murmured. "Come inside."
Mihir hesitated, then stepped back. Arjun followed, the door closing behind him with a finality that felt undeservedly loud.
The lights flickered.
For a heartbeat, Arjun's reflection in the glass cabinet by the wall lagged behind his movement. His head turned a second too late. His eyes met Mihir's reflection last.
Then it corrected itself.
Mihir blinked hard.
"Caretaker," he said, forcing steadiness into his voice. "What exactly does that involve?"
Arjun regarded him with something like amusement. "Keeping things where they belong."
"And where do I belong?"
The question slipped out before Mihir could stop it.
Arjun's gaze softened.
"Not outside," he said.
Another breath rolled through the forest, deeper now, closer.
Mihir felt it press against his chest, felt his pulse quicken in response.
Somewhere beneath the banyan, roots shifted.
Arjun tilted his head, listening.
"You were dreaming," he said quietly.
Mihir's throat went dry. "How would you know?"
Arjun finally smiled.
Not kindly.
Not cruelly.
As though fear itself were a familiar companion.
"The tree stirs when you do," he said. "And tonight…"
He stepped closer again, close enough that Mihir could feel the cold radiating from his skin.
"…it's very awake."
Outside, the banyan inhaled.