M O O N F I R E

“Beneath petals of purity, the past lies rotting — and Meher is done being buried alive.”

________________

The next morning, the white roses didn’t look so innocent anymore.

They bloomed in the eastern courtyard—immaculate, eerie, too perfect to be real. Like they were nourished by more than just earth and water.

Meher stood barefoot on the dew-kissed grass, the hem of her pale saree damp, fingers clenched around a single letter from the library.

The one Naira wrote a week before her death.

“I wonder if these roses will bloom after me.

If they do, they will carry the weight of my silence.”

Meher stared at the blossoms.

They smelled sweet. Sickly sweet.

A perfume made of rot.

Behind her, the haveli stood tall, its centuries of wealth draped in quiet violence. Inside its walls, Raunak Pratap Singh moved like a king—and a ghost.

But she wasn’t afraid anymore.

Not of his money.

Not of his touch.

Not even of death.

Only of forgetting who she was.

The gardener appeared like a whisper. Old. Stooped. Eyes clouded by age, but wary. He didn’t look surprised to see her standing there.

“You seek answers,” he said in a broken voice, not a question.

She turned to him.

“Tell me about Naira.”

He looked at the roses.

Then at the sky.

“Naira madam used to sing here. Every morning. She talked to the flowers like they were her children.”

“Did you see what happened to her?”

He didn’t answer immediately. Only reached into his kurta and pulled out something wrapped in muslin.

A bangle.

Gold. Slightly cracked.

“I buried this with her,” he said. “But some things don’t stay buried.”

Meher took it with trembling hands.

“Why didn’t anyone stop him?”

His voice broke.

“We all tried. Some were fired. Others… disappeared. She was the last. After her, Malik saheb locked this wing. The roses kept growing.”

“And the letters?” Meher asked. “She wrote dozens.”

“They were never sent. She trusted the wrong person.”

Later, Meher sat in her room—door locked, curtains drawn. The bangle lay in her palm like proof. A piece of someone else's tragedy... bleeding into her own.

She placed it beside her mangalsutra.

One a symbol of life shared.

The other of life lost.

She didn’t cry.

She planned.

That night, Raunak didn’t return to their shared room.

It was almost worse than his presence.

The silence was heavier.

Like the haveli was waiting.

The next morning, a knock came.

Not a servant.

Not Raunak.

A woman.

Tall. Clad in crisp maroon. Hair in a tight bun. Lips red as blood.

“I’m Dr. Ishita Vyas,” she said. “Your new companion.”

Meher’s eyes narrowed. “Companion? Or spy?”

The woman smirked.

“I’m a psychiatrist. Malik saheb thought a woman’s presence might... soothe you.”

“You mean control me.”

“I mean observe you,” she replied with chilling honesty. “But what you choose to do with my presence? That’s on you.”

In the following days, Meher played her role.

The obedient bride.

The curious patient.

The silent storm.

But at night, she wrote.

She recreated Naira’s letters in her own handwriting. Every word. Every page.

And then... she began hiding them.

Inside hollowed books.

Beneath floor tiles.

Under the mattress.

And one—wrapped in muslin—inside a metal tin beneath the rose bush. Next to the cracked bangle.

Let the world find her story one day. If she couldn’t survive, then someone else would know.

Then came the night of the storm.

The sky split with thunder, lightning clawing across the desert horizon.

The haveli shuddered with wind and warning.

And Meher stood on the balcony where Naira died.

The same wind in her hair. The same railing. The same view of the cursed garden below.

Her saree clung to her skin in the rain. Hair wild. Eyes defiant.

Behind her, a voice.

“You stand where she ended.”

Raunak.

She turned slowly.

“Maybe I want to feel what she felt,” she said.

He stepped into the rain with her.

“I gave her everything,” he said quietly. “She still chose to leave me.”

“No,” Meher said. “You took everything. Even her voice.”

“She broke her vows,” he hissed. “I warned her. She thought she could shame me, run from me. But I don’t let go of what’s mine.”

“And what am I?”

He walked closer. Hands in fists.

“You’re stronger,” he admitted. “Smarter. You haven’t broken. Not yet.”

“And you hate that, don’t you?”

His lips curved in something that wasn’t a smile.

“No. I crave it.”

Suddenly, his hands were on her waist.

Not harsh. Not gentle.

Possessive.

“I can’t decide if I want to protect you,” he murmured, “or destroy you.”

“Then maybe I’ll decide for us both,” she said, her voice like steel.

Before he could react, she pushed past him, back into the room, dripping wet, heart beating like war drums.

She didn’t look back.

In the mirror that night, she saw it.

Not the fear.

Not the pain.

The fire.

And it had a name now.

Revenge.

________

The wind howled outside the haveli like a warning, rattling antique windowpanes and whispering through the cracks of the walls. She sat beside the window, Naira’s last letter in one hand, the cracked bangle in the other. The rain blurred the rose garden outside, but she could still see it—the ghost of a woman who had once stood here, her cries lost in a storm like this one.

She could almost hear her scream.

Then—footsteps.

Measured. Barefoot. Not a servant.

She turned.

Raunak stood there in the doorway, shirt half-unbuttoned, hair slightly wet from the rain, a shadow of something unspoken in his expression.

"You’re awake," he said.

She didn’t reply.

He looked at the letter in her hand. The bangle on the table.

"You went into the east wing."

"I did," Meher said, voice steady. "I know about her now."

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t even blink.

Instead, he stepped in slowly, closing the door behind him.

"You think you know."

"You killed her."

"No," he said calmly. "She killed herself. I only watched her do it."

The words struck like ice.

Meher rose. "You didn’t try to stop her?"

He walked closer, voice lowering.

"I warned her not to betray me. I told her what I would become if she lied."

"And when she broke?"

"She jumped."

Silence. Thick. Choking.

"But it wasn’t the fall that killed her, Meher." His voice was silk over steel now. "It was loneliness. Just like it will be yours—if you keep digging into things I buried for a reason."

She met his gaze with fire.

"I'd rather die lonely than live as your puppet."

Something flickered in his eyes.

Not rage.

Not fear.

Desire.

"You’re beautiful when you hate me," he said.

"And you're a monster when you think it makes you desirable."

That night, Meher locked the door. Not because she was afraid he would hurt her—but because she feared he might convince her not to run.

His madness was seductive.

But she was no longer prey.

The next morning, Dr. Ishita waited in the drawing room with a red folder in hand.

"You wanted records?" she said. “Of the staff. The family. Old reports. I found this buried in the basement archives.”

Meher opened it.

And froze.

Inside was a photograph—grainy but clear.

Raunak. Younger. And beside him—

Her father.

Alive. Smiling. Hand on Raunak’s shoulder.

The caption read:

Industrial Summit 2011 — Singh Group & Desai Conglomerates Join Forces.

Her stomach dropped.

"This... this can’t be," Meher whispered. “They were rivals. My father would never—”

“They weren’t rivals,” Ishita said grimly. “They were partners. Until your father tried to expose him. After that… nothing about your father’s ‘accident’ was ever questioned.”

Meher clutched the photo, her hands trembling.

“Do you understand now?” Ishita asked gently. “You were never married into this family by fate. You were given to him.”

She couldn’t breathe.

Her father hadn’t been her protector.

Raunak hadn’t been her enemy from the start.

They were both executioners.

But only one of them still held the blade.

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