Prologue

The Verma family is like any other large Indian family—loud, chaotic, full of love and the occasional squabble. At its head sits Nirmala Verma, seventy-four years old, widowed, the matriarch whose word is law and whose love, though sometimes stern, runs deep as the ocean.

Her four children have long since married and built their own lives. Ramalata, the eldest, is a homemaker married to Umesh Prasad, an industrialist whose success has never gone to his head. Their children, Ujwal and Sriya, are the responsible eldest cousins—Ujwal with his protective big-brother attitude, Sriya with her medical student's precision and her easy laugh.

Ramesh, the eldest son, runs a bakery and is married to Chandrika, a high school social studies teacher with endless patience for her husband's quirks. Their sons, Yuvan and Prithvi, are as different as night and day—Yuvan quiet and observant, Prithvi loud and always ready with a joke, even at the worst possible moments.

Jyoti, the second daughter, is a homemaker married to Sagar Mehra, who owns a chain of hotels and resorts. Their only child, Sanjh, is the heart of this story—an eighteen-year-old who believes in standing eye-to-eye with anyone, much to her traditional grandmother's dismay.

And Sivaram, the youngest, works in a bank and is married to Payal, a gentle soul who keeps their household running smoothly. Their daughter Hima, at seventeen, is the baby of the family, following her cousins everywhere like a shadow.

Together, they are the kind of family that gathers for every festival, every celebration, every excuse to be together. They are the kind of family that fights and makes up within the same hour, that laughs until they cry and cries until they laugh.

When Nirmala announces that she wants to fulfill her long-dead father's wish—to visit the Nishiteshwar Temple in a place called Nishigiri with her entire family—no one hesitates. A family trip. Fifteen days together. What could possibly go wrong?

They don't know that Nishigiri has been waiting for them.

They don't know that the village border is guarded by a goddess who notices when blood is spilled on her soil.

And they don't know that buried beneath an ancient tree, wrapped in rotting cloth, lies a secret that has waited decades to be found.

What follows is a story of friendship that transcends death, of secrets that span generations, of courage found in the most unlikely places, and of justice that comes, finally, after fifty years of silence.

It is a story about how seven cousins, one grandmother, and a ghost named Nitya taught each other what it truly means to be family.

Raaz. A Tale of Life and Death.

Come. The shadows are waiting.