The Memory Keeper's Journal
The Keeper of Small Doors
The space inside was larger than physics should have allowed. Not warehouse-large, but deeper somehow, as if the walls had learned to breathe inward. Shelves lined every surface, floor to ceiling, filled with objects that looked like they'd been collected across centuries: brass lamps with Sanskrit etchings, wooden boxes worn smooth by countless hands, glass bottles that caught light like trapped stars.
The air smelled of cardamom and old paper and something I couldn't name…maybe the scent of time itself settling into corners.
"Close the door behind you," came the voice, carrying the weight of centuries. "Both of you. And mind the threshold….it remembers everyone who crosses it."
I turned to see Aditya squeezing through the impossible opening, his face a careful mask of wonder and wariness. The door clicked shut, and suddenly the space felt even more removed from the world outside.
The Keeper sat behind a desk that might have been carved from a single piece of driftwood, its surface polished to a dark gleam. The keeper was clearly…They…..because the Keeper was, neither fully male nor female but something older and more complete…like "Ardhanarishvara" itself, embodied by both Shiva and Parvathi, looked up from a ledger that wasn't the one I carried.
"Anaya," they said, and my name sounded different in their mouth. Like a word that had been waiting centuries to be spoken correctly.
"How do you……" I started, then stopped myself. At this point, asking "how do you know my name" felt like asking why water was wet. The supernatural had officially become my Tuesday afternoon.
"Know your name?" The Keeper's smile was patient, almost fond. "Child, your name is carved into every scar you carry. Every mark tells a story, and every story calls out to be heard." They gestured to a chair that definitely hadn't been there a moment before. "Sit. Both of you. This will take some explaining."
I sank into weathered leather that molded itself to my body like it remembered my shape. Aditya perched on the edge of his chair, ready to run or fight or both.
"The ledger," the Keeper said, extending a hand marked with intricate henna that seemed to shift in the lamplight. "The one you found is just the beginning."
I hesitated. The ledger is not yours to keep, the text had said, but holding it felt like holding a part of myself I'd just discovered.
"It was never yours to own," the Keeper said gently, reading my reluctance. "But it was always yours to read. Four stories, four lives, four chances to understand why you carry what you carry."
Their fingers were cool and sure as they took the ledger, opening it with the reverence reserved for sacred texts. The pages whispered against each other like secrets sharing themselves.
"Four lives," I repeated slowly, my hand unconsciously moving to touch the faded mark on my collarbone…the one I'd always told people was from falling off my bike as a kid. Except I'd never owned a bike until I was sixteen. "The four scars... they're not accidents, are they?"
"Ah." The Keeper's eyes lit up with something like pride. "You've started to see the pattern. Yes, four lives where the same soul…your soul…learned different lessons about survival. About what happens when women are taught to be small, to endure, to sacrifice themselves for others' comfort."
They turned the ledger towards me, and I saw pages I hadn't noticed before. Four sections, each marked with a symbol that corresponded to one of my scars.
"Life one," the Keeper said, pointing to a page that showed a child's drawing of a wedding. "The child bride who learned that marriage meant disappearing. Life two…" They flipped to a page with temple steps drawn in fading ink. "The woman who dared to refuse and was made an example of. Life three…" A kitchen scene, with ominous red stains. "The wife who discovered that love and money were the same transaction. And life four…." A woman's silhouette, neck marked with dark lines. "The one who tried to leave and was silenced."
My throat felt tight. "And this life?"
"This life," the Keeper said, closing the ledger, "is your chance to break the pattern. To choose yourself over anyone else's comfort. To understand that survival sometimes means saying no to love that requires you to be less than you are."
"You know what's funny?" I said, surprising myself. "Growing up, my mother always told me that good Indian girls don't ask questions. We adjust. We make space. We endure." I looked at the ledger in the Keeper's hands. "I spent thirty-one years thinking that was strength."
The Keeper nodded slowly. "And now?"
"Now I'm wondering if strength is learning to ask the right questions."
Aditya leaned forward. "What's my role in this?"
The Keeper studied him with ancient eyes. "You, young man, are here to learn what love looks like when it doesn't require conquest. When it doesn't need a woman to be broken in order to be beautiful." Their voice grew serious. "Your dreams of her aren't a coincidence. You've been connected across time, yes,but not always as lovers. Sometimes as a witness, as a friend, as a companion beyond love, time or space. Sometimes as the one who could have helped but chose comfort instead."
I watched Aditya's face go pale, then flush with something that looked like shame. "I didn’t mean to….," he breathed, running a hand through his hair. "How many times... how many times did I choose the easy way out?"
"I mean," the Keeper said gently, "that you have your own patterns to break. Your own learning to do about what it means to love someone without trying to fix them. Without making their healing about your heroism."
The air in the room shifted, becoming heavier, more charged. I could feel something building…a choice point approaching like a storm.
"So what happens now?" I asked.
The Keeper stood, moving to one of the countless shelves. They returned with a small copper key, no bigger than my thumb, and four tiny wooden tokens. "Now you choose. You can read the stories…all four lives, all four deaths, all four ways you learned to make yourself smaller. Or you can walk away, return to your life, and hope that this time will be different without understanding why the other times weren't."
I stared at the objects in their palm. Four tokens. Four lifetimes of pain. Four chances to understand why I kept choosing men who required me to be smaller. "And if I read them?" My voice came out steadier than I felt. "What if I'm not ready to know why I flinch when someone touches my neck? Why I always insist on paying for dinner? Why I apologize for taking up space?"
"Then you understand. Then you see the pattern clearly enough to break it. But understanding comes with a price….you can never unknow what you learn. You can never again pretend that the way you've been loved is the way you deserve to be loved. Truth will hurt you deeper than the scars you already have."
My phone buzzed in my pocket. Without looking, I knew it was Sharath.
"There's a third option," the Keeper said quietly. "You can read the stories together." They glanced at Aditya. "Both of you learning, both of you growing. Both of you understanding that breaking patterns isn't something you do alone, it's something you do in community, with witnesses, with people who hold you accountable to your own worth."
I looked at Aditya. His face was serious, uncertain, but not afraid. "Are you willing?" I asked him.
"To learn how to love you better?" He nodded slowly. "Yeah. I'm willing."
I didn't know he loved me, I thought to myself. I thought all he wanted was to own me, like the men that have come into my life before. They called it love, but to me it felt like a deal…you be with me and I will reduce myself to be your submissive girl. Was it my previous lives that made me this way?
The Keeper smiled..the first truly warm expression I'd seen from them. "Good. Very good indeed." They placed the key and tokens in my palm. "Four stories, four tokens. When you're ready for each story, hold the corresponding token and read. The key..." They paused meaningfully. "The key is for when you've learned all four lessons. It opens the door you'll build for yourself."
"What kind of door?"
"The kind that only opens from the inside," the Keeper said. "The kind that leads to a life where you choose yourself first, and trust that real love will meet you there."
The space around us began to shift, walls becoming less solid, shelves fading at the edges.
"Wait," I called out. "What if I'm not strong enough? What if the stories are too much?"
The Keeper's voice came from everywhere and nowhere: "Strength isn't about enduring pain, child. Strength is about refusing to pass it on. Do you want another Anaya to be born with a fifth scar? You've already survived these stories once. This time, you get to understand them."
We stood outside the shed again, blinking in the late afternoon light. The door behind us was normal-sized now, weathered wood that looked like it hadn't been opened in years.
In my palm, the copper key lay warm and real, along with four wooden tokens that seemed to pulse with their own subtle energy.
Aditya looked at me, questions and commitment warring in his expression. "So... we do this together?"
I thought about the easy thing…taking his hand, letting him guide me through whatever came next. Then I thought about the right thing…choosing to trust him with my truth while still owning it myself.
"Together," I said. "But I lead."
He smiled…small, genuine, respectful. "I wouldn't have it any other way."
My phone buzzed again. This time, I looked.
Sharath: This is ridiculous. I'm coming up.
Three months ago, this text would have sent me into overdrive…apologizing, explaining, rushing home to manage his mood. The old Anaya would have typed Sorry, give me 20 minutes before she'd even decided if she wanted to see him.
Instead, I typed: No. You're not.
Then I stared at the message for a long moment, thumb hovering over send. This was it. The first small door I was opening for myself.
I hit send.
And then I turned off my phone.
"Come on," I said to Aditya, pocketing the tokens and key. "Let's go learn some hard truths."
As we walked back toward the car, Max and Missy trotting beside us like faithful guardians, I realized something had fundamentally shifted. Not just in my relationship with Sharath, but in my relationship with myself.
I was no longer the woman who apologized for existing.
I was the woman who carried keys to doors she would build herself. And for the first time in any lifetime, that felt like enough.
To be continued...
Author's Note: Sometimes the most radical act isn't choosing the right person…it's choosing yourself first, and trusting that everything else will follow. But what does that actually look like in practice? When was the last time you said no without explaining why?
Tomorrow: The first story unfolds, and Anaya discovers why some patterns run deeper than this lifetime.