Chapter 1
Ridhima had wanted the hills her whole life. She just hadn't expected to want to cry the moment she got them.
It had been a long flight — Pune straight to Shimla. The moment the plane began its descent, she looked out the window and watched the hills rise up to meet it, as if the whole town were leaning forward to say hello.
The airport was small enough that calling it an airport felt a little generous. The cold hit her the second she stepped outside.
The cab was already booked. The driver loaded the bags, and the two of them settled into the back seat. Papa was in a formal shirt and trousers — Maa's doing, even for travel, proper clothes were non-negotiable.
The road began to turn — first something like a highway, then narrower roads, then the kind of bend after which the air itself seemed to change. The network went from slow to nearly gone. She put her phone away.
"Cold?" Papa asked.
"A little," she said, plainly.
The driver, taking the hint, nudged the heater up. Then they both went quiet.
It was the comfortable kind of silence — the kind that only exists between two people who are entirely at ease with each other. Ridhima liked this silence. There wasn't much of it at home.
***
The house wasn't what she'd pictured. Smaller. Older. The wooden trim had clearly seen a few too many winters. The gate complained when it opened — not a squeak, an actual complaint.
"It's safe here," Papa said, pulling out the keys.
Ridhima just nodded.
Next door lived the Mishras — Vijay and his wife Pooja, whose father, Shekhar, had once been an MD and was now retired. Ridhima had known them since she was a child, an old family connection through Papa. Nothing here was really new. Only the house was.
Stepping inside, the place had that shut-up-too-long smell — the one that comes from a room waiting for someone. She opened a window without thinking twice.
Cold air rushed straight in.
Better.
"It'll settle in a bit," Papa said.
"Hmm."
She was already scouting a spot for the cupboard.
The whole day disappeared into setting things up. Kitchen, basic. Bed, done. Clothes into the cupboard. Everything was so mechanical there wasn't time to think, which suited her fine. Papa worked quietly through it all — that particular kind of useful a person becomes when there's nothing to say but staying still doesn't feel right either. He put the bookshelf together. Found the geyser switch. Worked out which burner on the stove actually worked, after two tries and a small prayer.
"Use this one, the left one," he said, pointing, with the authority of a man who had discovered this fact roughly five minutes earlier.
"Noted."
At some point, folding clothes into the cupboard, it struck her that back home everyone would be going about their evening exactly as usual — Maa making dinner, Veer in front of the TV — everyone in their place. Life would carry on there, on its own schedule, without her.
It was a strange thought. She set it aside.
***
She found the joining letter while emptying her bag. She stood there a moment, not reading it, just holding it, thumb tracing the crease. It brought the day back to her.
It had arrived a month ago, and the house hadn't been the same since — Maa rearranging Ridhima's cupboard three times in a week, no system quite sticking. Papa hadn't said much. Just sat down one evening and asked, "Everything alright?"
"Yes, Papa."
"Good." Then back to a newspaper he hadn't actually read that evening — she'd noticed.
Veer hadn't talked much either, unusual since he always had something to say — school, friends, some video, always something. That week he mostly stayed in his room, headphones on, muttering to himself. She hadn't stopped.
Three days before she left, she'd gone to put out the dustbin — Gudiya had the day off — and Veer had come in through the gate holding a puppy small enough to look like a coconut, fighting his grip with everything it had.
"Didi, can't we just keep it for one day—"
"No." She didn't even have to think about it. "Maa won't like it. Take it back."
"But it's—" Veer held it tighter. "It keeps coming back, didi. I left it in the next lane, third time now. By evening it's back at the gate."
She hadn't paid that much attention at the time.
"Veer."
He'd gone off with that specific theatrical sadness only younger brothers can manage — puppy clutched to his chest like he was walking it to an execution.
That's when the postman came. The joining letter.
Bank of India, Shimla Branch. Joining date: next Monday.
Shimla. The hills. She'd always wanted them — a want so specific it was hard to explain, nothing dramatic, just a pull toward cold mornings and pine trees and roads that curved out of sight. She'd never told anyone the full shape of it. Some wants get smaller the moment you say them out loud.
And now, here it was. On government letterhead.
***
Papa left the next morning. Another goodbye at the gate — Ridhima noticed, a little amused, that most things in this house seemed to happen at the gate.
Papa had that look people get when they're worried and trying not to show it. He'd worn his favourite off-white collared T-shirt for the drive back.
"Keep calling."
"I will."
"Maa too."
"Yes, Papa."
He rested a hand on her head for a moment. Then got into the car.
She watched until it turned the corner. Then stood there a second longer — in the cold hill-morning, alone for the first time in any meaningful sense in her life.
It wasn't scary. Just very quiet. Quiet enough that she heard her own breathing.
She thought, someday there would be someone here to wait for. Not yet. For now it was just her, and a house still learning the sound of her voice.
She went inside and started folding clothes. Routine helps. Routine is useful when your hands need something to do and your mind doesn't know what to do with itself.
***
The rain started without any warning at all — the way it does in Shimla. One minute a rumor, the next, fully committed.
She was on her way back from the market, basic groceries plus two or three things she didn't need but had bought anyway. By the time she reached the house, the rain had stopped, just like that, like someone had flipped a switch.
She lowered her umbrella. Exhaled.
And right at that exact moment — the puppy shook the water off its body.
It was standing right next to her, she had no idea where it had come from, and it gave itself a full-body shake like this was the single greatest goal of its life. Cold water went straight onto her kurta, her bag, and the one part of her that had somehow managed to stay dry.
She looked down. The puppy looked up.
It was — she would admit this only to herself, and only internally — extremely small. White coat, a faint cream tinge around the ears. Round dark eyes, holding the certainty of a creature that had never once been told no, and had no plans of hearing it now.
But there was something else in that look too. Like it was searching. For someone. Or something. That it hadn't found yet.
"My God." She looked down at her kurta. "I saved every other part of me and this little thing—"
The puppy wagged its tail.
She looked at it. It wagged its tail again.
She walked on.
***
It followed her.
She heard it before she saw it — small determined feet on the wet road, tap tap tap, like it had somewhere very important to be, and that somewhere happened to be directly behind her.
She stopped. Turned. It stopped too, and looked straight at her. Innocent, and not even slightly ashamed.
She angled her umbrella forward.
"Don't you dare follow me. Go on. Shoo. Go."
The puppy tilted its head about fifteen degrees to the right, as if this were a mildly interesting performance it was happy to observe but didn't feel obligated to participate in.
She turned back around. Walked the rest of the way convincing herself it had stopped following. She didn't look back.
She was very good at not looking at things she'd already decided weren't her problem. It was an old habit, old enough that she couldn't remember when it had started. She'd never given it a name. She just did it.
But behind her, faint, came a sound.
A whimper.
She didn't stop.
But her steps slowed down. Just a little.
Chapter One — End
