Chapter 5: Whispers in the Moonlight

The villagers never speak too loudly about what happens on full moon nights. Voices hush. Lamps burn low. Doors are shut early, and children are told bedtime stories with a little more urgency.

But in every household, without fail, a small bowl of rice beer, a marigold garland, and a piece of roasted pork are left outside—an offering to Sintu, the eternal guardian.

No one questions it. It’s just how things are. Just as the wind blows through the bamboo groves or the owls hoot from the peepal trees after dusk.

Yet, every now and then, someone sees something.

A flash of white near the hill. The soft sound of anklets echoing on the empty stone path. The scent of wild jasmine in the dead of winter. And sometimes, just sometimes, a soft voice calling your name from nowhere—and everywhere.

It had been a quiet few years until the night young Mindar, the potter’s curious grandson, decided to stay awake past bedtime.

He was just twelve, with eyes too wide and questions too many. Ever since his grandmother told him the story of Sintu, he had been obsessed. He would climb trees to peer at the hillock, sketch her imagined face in the dirt with sticks, and listen to the wind with his eyes closed, hoping to hear her voice.

“She’s not a ghost,” he once told his sceptical cousin. “She’s a watcher. A protector. Like the moon in the sky. You don’t always see her, but she’s always there.”

That night, as the full moon rose high and painted the fields in silver, Mindar crept out with nothing but a shawl, a handful of jaggery, and a heart thudding with excitement.

The village lay still.

He walked the narrow trail that led to the hillock. Every step made the air feel heavier, as though the world was holding its breath. The breeze whispered through the paddy like a lullaby—gentle, rhythmic, ancient.

And then, just before he reached the old stone shrine, he saw her.

A figure in white. Hair flowing like silk in water. Bare feet hovering just above the ground. She stood at the edge of the field, facing the forest, her form glowing faintly, as if moonlight itself was drawn to her.

Mindar froze. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t blink.

Sintu turned slowly. She didn’t speak, but her eyes—those star-filled eyes—met his, and in that instant, Mindar felt everything: peace, sorrow, love, and something else he couldn’t name.

She raised a hand—not in warning, not in farewell, but as if blessing him.

And then she was gone. Just like that. As if the mist had folded her back into the night.

Mindar ran home, his heart pounding with wonder. He didn’t tell anyone—not at first. Not even his grandmother. Not until the crops began to grow faster that season. Not until the village well, long dry, filled with water once again. Not until the old banyan tree, said to be dying, suddenly bloomed bright with red flowers.

Only then did the elders look at each other and whisper the words they hadn’t said in years.

“She’s watching again.”

Mindar never spoke of what he saw that night, not in full. But something changed in him afterward. His eyes carried a knowing calm, his hands shaped clay with a new grace, and sometimes, when the wind stirred the leaves just so, he would smile to himself, as if listening to a secret only he could hear.

But he wasn’t the only one.

The very next full moon, Mili, the little orphan girl who lived near the weaver’s hut, woke up to find her broken bamboo flute—her only toy—restored and placed gently beside her bed. The crack that had silenced its tune for months was gone, smoothed over like it had never existed. That morning, birds gathered on her windowsill as she played, chirping along to her soft melody.

Mili told the weaver lady that a glowing lady had knelt beside her in a dream and whispered, “You are not forgotten.” She swore she saw a shimmer of moonlight curl around the flute before she woke.

Then there was Sangpi, the village’s oldest widow, whose knees had ached for decades. Too frail to climb the steps to the shrine, she would leave her offerings at the base of her doorstep, whispering into the breeze words meant only for the wind and the one she missed the most—her granddaughter, who had vanished without a trace many years ago.

People said she had wandered off one stormy night and was never found again. Sangpi never stopped waiting. Never stopped praying.

One dawn, after a full moon, her neighbours found Sangpi standing by the well—upright, steady, without her cane. A gentle smile tugged at her lips, and her eyes sparkled with tears as she looked toward the hillock.

“She came to me,” Sangpi whispered, as if in a trance. “Sintu. She stood in the light, her hands warm on my face.”

The villagers gathered close, silent.

“She told me my granddaughter was not lost. She was sent. A piece of her… a flicker of her soul… reborn. She said my little one was her, in a new skin. That she would keep returning—every decade, in different forms—as long as this village remembers her.”

“She called me Phiphi,” Sangpi said softly. “That’s what Sintu used to call me when she was a child. I held her as a baby, you know. And now… she’s holding me.”

From that day on, Sangpi no longer used her cane. She returned to her garden, humming forgotten lullabies and planting jasmine wherever she went. And when the wind rustled the blossoms, it carried her laughter like a prayer answered at last.

Whispers spread like vines across the village.

They spoke of vines blooming overnight, trees that bent slightly toward the shrine, fireflies gathering in odd, perfect circles. Some villagers began leaving letters with their offerings, little folded notes sealed with wildflower petals, just in case she could still read them.

And in the quiet moments—just before dawn or just after dusk—the village felt watched. Not in fear, but in a comforting hush, like a warm quilt being tucked over the land.

Each person Sintu touched carried a piece of her magic. Mindar’s clay pots never cracked again. Mili’s music made the cows produce sweeter milk. Sangpi’s hands, once stiff with age, began weaving flower garlands like she had in her youth.

They didn’t speak much about these things, not loudly, not publicly. But they believed. And they knew.

The princess had not just returned.

She was listening.

 

It began with the birds.

At dawn, the mynas didn’t sing.

No chirping. No flutter of wings. Just silence—thick and strange, as if the sky itself was holding its breath. By midday, the sun dimmed behind a film of clouds, though no rain came. The elders tilted their heads, sniffing the breeze, and muttered words their grandchildren didn’t understand.

By evening, the whispers had turned to murmurs.

A stranger had arrived.

Not many found this village nestled between a sacred hillock and endless paddy fields. It was the kind of place stories forgot and the stars watched over in quiet reverence.

And yet, there he stood—dust on his boots, a heavy satchel slung across his shoulder, and eyes far too knowing for someone who claimed to be lost.

“I’m just a traveller,” he said with a charming, rehearsed smile. “Dongka Chingthu, notorious disowned son of the great legendary grandfather Dongka Sarpo, a benevolent and divine being. Looking for stories… maybe a place to rest for a while.”

The villagers exchanged wary glances. He was polite, soft-spoken, even helpful. But something about him unsettled the air. The dogs didn’t bark, but neither did they greet him. The birds didn’t return the next morning. And that night—Sintu did not appear.

Mindar felt the absence immediately.

The wind was colder. The bamboo groves, mute.

Dongka Chingthu lingered near the shrine too long. He stared at the old banyan tree with a strange glint in his eyes, and his fingers traced the ancient symbols carved into the boundary stone—symbols even the oldest villagers no longer understood.

Then came the questions.

“Have you seen her?” he asked Mindar one evening, voice smooth as river stone. “The one they call the guardian. Sintu, right? Tell me… does she bleed?”

Mindar’s brows furrowed. “What kind of question is that?”

But Dongka Chingthu only smiled and walked away, whistling a tune that didn’t belong to these hills.

That night, Mili screamed in her sleep.

They found her trembling, gripping a marigold garland, her eyes wide with something far older than fear.

“She was crying,” Mili whispered. “Sintu was standing outside my window. She looked at me like… like she needed help. Like something’s chasing her.”

Sangpi wrapped her in her shawl and whispered calming words. But her own heart beat fast beneath the cloth. Sintu crying? Asking for help?

That had never happened before.

Mindar didn’t sleep. Instead, he followed the trail of strange energy—cold spots in the earth, shadows moving the wrong way, and finally… Dongka Chingthu crouched by the stone shrine at midnight.

His satchel was open. Inside were things no ordinary traveller carried:

Silver needles etched with runes, vials of blackened salt, a book bound in hide—not leather, not cloth, something… older.

Mindar ducked behind a rock, heart hammering.

Dongka Chingthu was chanting. Not a prayer, but a summoning.

The shrine’s soil cracked. A faint wind began to circle, and above it all, Mindar heard it—the soft, breaking sob of a girl not seen but always felt.

Sintu.

She was trying to resist.

But something in Dongka Chingthu’s words pulled at her, binding her spirit to the stone, caging her in the very place she once protected.

“I’ve waited many decades for the veil to thin,” Dongka Chingthu murmured, eyes aglow with unnatural fire. “And now, sweet Sintu… your power will be mine.”

Just as the wind roared and the shrine flickered with ghost light, Dongka Chingthu’s hand reached into the soil—and came back clutching a braid of hair, black as ink and cold as death.

And from behind the rock, Mindar whispered one word:

“No.”