The next morning, Nil woke to the rhythmic patter of rain on the roof. The smell of wet earth seeped through the open window, mingling with the faint aroma of jasmine from the garden below. He pulled on a sweater, stepped onto the balcony, and let the mist swallow him. The river was a restless silver ribbon, moving faster than yesterday, its surface broken by sudden splashes of rain.
Roshni appeared in the doorway, holding a tray with steaming tea and a small plate of local pastries. She moved with the quiet grace of someone who had lived much of her life in stillness, her presence both comforting and deliberate.
"Good morning," she said. Her eyes lingered on him for a fraction longer than necessary, and he felt a curious warmth mixed with a twinge of unease.
"Good morning," Nil replied. "The rain… it's incredible."
She smiled faintly. "It hides things. And sometimes it reveals them."
Her words lingered in his mind longer than they should have. He took the tea and sipped slowly, letting the warmth seep into him.
After breakfast, Roshni offered him a tour of the house. It was modest but charming—wooden floors worn smooth with age, walls lined with photographs of the hills, the river, and the people who had stayed there. Each room had a story, but one room in particular drew his attention.
A door at the end of a narrow hallway was locked, its paint chipped and faded. Nil lingered there longer than necessary, as though the lock itself was a magnet.
"That room is… private," Roshni said gently, noticing his gaze. Her tone was soft, almost apologetic, but there was a firmness beneath it, a boundary he could not cross. "Some things are not ready to be shared."
He nodded, pretending to be polite, but curiosity gnawed at him. There was something in the way she avoided the subject, in the careful distance of her smile, that made him want to see the hidden room all the more.
As he explored the rest of the homestay, Nil began to notice the small details that made the place feel alive. The faint smell of sandalwood that lingered in the corners, the old books stacked haphazardly on a shelf, the way the floorboards creaked in patterns almost like whispers. Each creak, each sigh of the house, made him feel as if he had stepped into a world that existed alongside his own—a world where stories waited to be found.
By evening, the rain had slowed to a gentle drizzle, and the river reflected the muted light of a gray sky. Nil and Roshni sat on the balcony, silent, listening to the water. For a long moment, he felt the strangest sense of intimacy—as if the space between them was charged with words neither dared to speak.
"You'll write here," she said finally, breaking the silence. Her eyes were distant, watching the river rather than him. "You'll find what you're looking for, if you let yourself."
Nil wanted to ask her what she meant, but he held back. There was something in her tone—soft, sure, and slightly sorrowful—that told him the story was not hers to tell, at least not yet.
That night, as he lay in bed, the house creaking around him like a living thing, he realized that he had arrived somewhere unlike anywhere he had ever known. And in the quiet, shadowed corners of the homestay, he began to feel that his story—and perhaps his life—would never be the same again.