Returning to the Berlin mansion was like stepping into the eye of a storm I never saw coming.
The rain hadn't stopped. It hammered against the windows, relentless, as if the sky itself was trying to break in. Thunder cracked—a sound so sharp it felt like the world splitting open. I pushed through the heavy oak doors, half-expecting the silence of a tomb, the kind of quiet that clung to abandoned places.
Instead, the house was alive.
Light spilled from the kitchen. The scent of charred spices and something sweet hung in the air, mingling with laughter—real, unfiltered laughter.
Ross and my father stood shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the stove, aprons tied haphazardly over their shirts, looking like two actors in a badly scripted domestic comedy. My dad was attempting to flip what might have been a pancake, while Ross waved a dish towel at the smoke detector, his voice dripping with theatrical despair.
"We're gonna set off every alarm in the city at this rate!
I should have laughed. I should have walked in and joined them. But my feet stayed rooted to the floor, my blood running cold beneath my skin.
Because the report was still screaming in my head.
The handwriting didn't match.
The woman I had called "Mom" my entire life—the one who tucked me in at night, who scolded me for scraped knees, who smelled like jasmine and old books—wasn't who I thought she was.
I swallowed hard, my pulse hammering in my throat.
"Dad."
My voice cut through the noise. He turned, wiping his hands on a kitchen towel, his expression shifting from amusement to curiosity.
"Yeah, son?"
I stepped forward, my fingers curling into fists at my sides.
"Tell me your and Maya's love story."
He blinked. Then, slowly, his face softened, as if I'd pulled him into a memory he hadn't visited in years.
"Ah... that takes me back." He exhaled, leaning against the counter. "Thirty-five years ago. Delhi. The company had just opened a local office. It was monsoon season—streets flooded, traffic at a standstill, the whole city drowning in chaos. I was driving back from a late-night investor meeting when I saw her..."
His voice trailed off, his gaze distant, lost in the past.
"She was standing on the side of the road. Soaked to the bone. No umbrella. Just her, in a maroon kurta, trying to hail a cab like some tragic heroine in an old film. I almost didn't stop. But something about her—the way she looked at the rain, like she wasn't afraid of it, like she belonged to it—made me roll down my window."
A ghost of a smile touched his lips.
"She leaned in, rainwater dripping from her hair, and said, 'Do you usually stop for strangers, or is today special?' That was the first time I heard her voice. Sharp. Musical. Like a challenge."
Ross had gone still, his plate forgotten. The only sound was the faint hiss of the stove.
"Her name was Maya. She worked for an NGO helping children displaced by floods. Brilliant. Fierce. Hated men in suits—said they were cowards hiding behind their collars."My dad chuckled. "Took me months to win her over. But she made me a better man."
His smile faded slightly, his voice dropping.
"She had a rule. Every Sunday, no matter what, we'd go to Lodhi Garden, buy kulfi, and sit under the same banyan tree. Just talking. About everything. About nothing. Even on our worst days."*
I nodded slowly, my mind racing.
"What was her native place?"I asked, my tone casual, but my eyes locked onto his.
He frowned, just slightly. "Haryana. A small town outside Rohtak."
I didn't blink.
"Call her side. Tell them Ross and I are coming tomorrow."
Confusion flickered across his face, but he nodded. Ross, meanwhile, had frozen mid-bite, his fork hovering in the air. His eyes met mine, wide and knowing.
Another city. Another twist.
The air here was thick with heat and memory, the scent of earth and diesel fumes clinging to everything. The drive from the airport took us through narrow lanes, past golden fields and crumbling temples, until we pulled up to a sprawling haveliits cream-colored walls veined with ivy, its arched windows like watchful eyes.
At the entrance stood an elderly woman—my nani.
She was smaller than I remembered, her silver hair pulled into a neat bun, her pink sari fluttering in the breeze. The moment she saw me, her face lit up.
"My Dev!" She pulled me into a hug so tight I could feel her bones beneath the fabric. Then she turned to Ross, her eyes twinkling. "And this?"
"Friend. Brother, sort of," Ross grinned.
She ushered us inside, the house exhaling the scent of rose water and old wood. Faded photographs lined the walls—sepia-toned ghosts of a past I didn't recognize.
Nani gave me Maya's old room. Ross was led to the guest wing.
The moment I stepped inside, the air changed.
It was a shrine to a life I never knew.
Books stacked neatly by the bed. A childhood poster of a Bollywood star still tacked to the wall. A wooden comb on the dresser, strands of long, black hair still tangled in its teeth.
And then I saw it.
A small photograph on the nightstand.
Two girls.
Identical.
Smiling, their arms wrapped around each other, their faces mirror imagesexcept for one detail.
A freckle. Just below the lip of the girl on the left.
The other didn't have it.
My pulse spiked.
I snatched the frame and ran downstairs, my breath coming too fast.
"Nani!"
She turned from the kitchen, her hands dusted with flour. "Yes, beta?"
I thrust the photo at her. "Who are these two?"
She chuckled, wiping her hands on her sari. "That's Maya. And her twin sister, Amrita."
Twin.
The word hit me like a punch to the gut.
"Wait—she had a twin?"
Nani's smile faded. "Yes. Born minutes apart. Inseparable. Same face, same voice, even shared the same diary." She sighed, her fingers brushing the frame. "But fate was cruel. Amrita died. A car accident, years ago. Just after you were born."
I stared. "Wait... both of them are gone?"
She nodded. "Yes. Maya passed when you were five. And Amrita... much earlier. The car was burnt beyond recognition, but they found her silver bangle on the body."
My mouth went dry.
Because I had seen that bangle.
Not in a police file.
Not in some forgotten box.
But in the attic of our Berlin home.
Tucked inside a drawer.
Beside a leather-bound journal.
That night, sleep refused to come.
The ceiling fan groaned above me, its rhythm uneven. The walls of the old house whispered, the wood creaking like it was trying to speak. I lay there, staring at the dark silhouette of the wardrobe, my mind clawing at the pieces of a puzzle that refused to fit.
The bracelet
The handwriting
The silver
The voice.
None of it made sense.
The woman I grew up with—she never spoke of a twin. Never showed me childhood photos. And she wore silver. Always.
But Maya, from everything I had just learned… hated silver.
She was allergic to it.
And the journal I found in Berlin?
The handwriting didn't match.
A cold, creeping dread slithered into my chest.
What if the woman I called "Mom" wasn't Maya at all?
What if she was Amrita?
What if, all these years, I had been living with a stranger wearing my mother's face?