CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 1
Jancy, thirteen and fast asleep, blinked when she found her cousins no longer with her.
A beat.
She blinked again.
Strange.
Just moments ago, these suckers were playing Truth or Dare next to her bed, laughing and giggling while she rolled her eyes at them fondly and threatened to throw a pillow at their heads.
Her cousins had cackled at her.
And she had fondly rolled her eyes.
They had all come to their grandmother’s thotaveedu — a palatial ancestral home in Tirunelveli — for vacation, as they always did every summer.
The house stood thick and deep within sprawling gardens in the middle of the village, ancient and enormous beneath the darkening sky.
Their parents were at the smaller house nearby, playing cards, joking and laughing, threatening each other playfully over who cheated whom in rummy.
Meanwhile, her achi had gone to sleep.
She had threatened every grandchild with metaphorical and literal death if they ever disturbed her from her slumber.
Jancy had opted out of the games since she had a nasty cold from the weather and instead chose to watch her cousins and roast them playfully from beneath her blanket.
So the kids decided they would have their own fun.
Nine-year-old Josh.
Ten-year-old Annie.
Twelve-year-old Nancy.
Sixteen-year-old Rani.
There they were — her ragtag group of cousins — playing Truth or Dare with full and utter nonsense.
Josh had teased her dramatically.
“Perhaps we should find out whether Jancy’s nose makes a waterfall.”
Jancy added dryly, “Perhaps I should throw you out of the window.”
Josh had mockingly gasped.
He swooned playfully, pointing at the locked window dramatically.
“KILL ME NOW!” he whined. “Witnesses here see thee — my own sister has betrayed me!”
Nancy choked with laughter and Annie fell over her own pillow giggling.
Rani had sprawled across the mattress like a dying car and announced solemnly, “Let us all raise a finger for Joshua, who died under Jancy’s siege.”
Joshua clutched imaginary pearls dramatically and placed a hand over his heart.
“Not the window, sis…” he inhaled dramatically. “I am destined for greater things.”
He tilted his head side to side playfully.
“I have dreams and ambitions and a future—”
Jancy raised a finger.
“You ate my brownie,” she said flatly. “You die.”
Nancy wheezed with laughter, collapsing onto the pillow.
Annie kicked her legs against the mattress, cackling like a malfunctioning fish.
Jancy smirked despite herself, rolled into the blanket like an angry burrito, her messy French braid splayed across the bed.
“Your future,” she cracked playfully, “is as likely as One Direction ever reuniting again.”
Josh pointed at her, scandalized.
“See? See how she wounds my soul?”
“She’s right though,” Nancy wheezed.
“Peak akka behavior,” Annie added between giggles.
Josh pointed at her like a betrayed Victorian duchess divorced thrice.
“You hear this cruelty?” he cried dramatically, swooning again. “I come with nothing but love, kindness, and generosity, and my own sister threatens me with murder and death. Waahhhh—”
He collapsed dramatically onto Nancy’s lap.
“You did steal her brownie,” Annie reminded cheerfully.
Josh gasped.
“Traitor,” he whispered, clutching his forehead like a swooning maiden. “Et tu, Annie? I thought we were soul bonded—”
Annie nearly fell out of bed laughing.
“EW!” she screamed. “We are cousins, idiot!”
“Love knows no blood relation, sister!” Josh exclaimed dramatically.
Immediately, Nancy and Rani collaboratively threw pillows at his face.
“STOP TALKING—” Nancy declared.
Jancy added dryly, “As a service to society.”
They laughed.
Rani snorted Coke out of her nose.
Annie made an entirely undignified sound.
And that was what Jancy remembered as she had fallen asleep.
And now—
Complete silence.
Crickets.
Well…
She could still hear the adults laughing from the other house.
Her parents and uncles and aunts were still there, talking and laughing.
The songs still played on the TV her grandmother usually put on before sleeping.
Jancy frowned.
Strange.
Very strange.
Maybe they had all gone downstairs to grab snacks.
Or maybe Josh had finally snapped everyone’s last patience and gotten sacrificed to the village ghost.
Jancy sniffed hard enough that she felt her nose attempt active resignation and submit a leave letter.
She rubbed her nose with a tissue, the blanket wrapped around her like a warm battle-worm cloak from Lord of the Rings.
She looked around, rubbing her sore eyes.
The room was dim now except for Rani’s Buzz Bee night lamp, flickering and flickering softly in the darkness.
The curtains shifted near the windows.
Their shadows flickered against the walls.
Empty pillows.
Empty mattresses.
She huffed weakly.
“Idiots.”
The room answered her with pitch-black silence.
She rolled her eyes, sniffling.
“Brilliant. Just brilliant.”
And then she turned her head—
And froze.
Because in the window—
She did not see the pitch-black night sky.
She saw—
Her own bedroom.
From the blue painted walls…
To the yellow Buzz Bee night lamp…
And she saw all of them.
Annie.
Josh.
Rani.
Nancy.
Playing as usual.
Laughing.
Shoving each other.
Arguing loudly.
And then—
She saw herself among them.
Laughing.
Playing.
Her breathing stopped.
What the hell?
What the actual hell?
Her palms grew sweaty.
Her throat tightened.
And then Annie stopped laughing first.
The girl froze mid-giggle.
Then Rani stopped too.
Then Nancy.
Then Josh slowly turned his head.
Smiling far too widely.
The other version of Jancy looked up.
And smiled directly at her.
The end.
