"Nābhi-kamale smṛtir jāgrati, yatra nāsti bhedaḥ nārī-puṁsayoḥ.""In the navel-lotus awakens memory—where no difference remains between woman and man."
She didn't speak of the dream to anyone.
Not even to Tara, who arrived the next morning bearing a brass vessel of tulsi tea and eyes filled with worry. Not even when she saw the lotus petal drying into gold at the edge of the manuscript. Something had changed. Something had entered.
Tara touched the edge of the cloth that wrapped the scripture. Her fingertips recoiled.
"This isn't paper anymore."
Devika nodded.
"It never was."
They sat in silence. Through the open jali window, the scent of cow dung smoke mingled with the perfume of ripe guavas. A man outside was singing a nirgun bhajan. His voice cracked like old wood.
Tara leaned forward.
"Last night, I dreamt of a shrine beneath water. A temple below the river. And someone... blue."
Devika's heart skipped.
She did not tell Tara her own dream was identical.
Only now, she realized: they were being pulled into the same memory.
Not as metaphor. As inheritance.
By afternoon, she found herself on the rooftop. Sun above. Ganga below. The manuscript beside her.
She had not planned to chant.
But her lips opened, and the words emerged like smoke:
"Om Kāma-rāja smaraṇam me bhavatu.""O King of Desire, let memory arise through me."
As she uttered the last word, her spine arched involuntarily.
It was not pain.
It was remembrance.
A flow, like water gushing from locked gates. Her pelvis tightened. Her belly pulsed. Symbols — ancient, half-forgotten — bloomed across her skin like firelight.
And then she heard him.
Not with her ears. But through her navel.
"The scripture is not written in letters.It is inscribed in the hollow of your womb."
She rose.
Her breath was no longer hers. Her hands lifted without command.
And her fingers began to trace the air in front of her.
Mudras.
Unknown to her mind, but not to her body.
That evening, she returned to the riverbank.
This time, she did not go alone.
Three women were waiting for her at the foot of the steps. Silent. Barefoot. Dressed in red saris, their faces marked with ash.
She did not know them by name.
But she recognized them.
One extended her hand.
Devika took it.
They walked into the river.
Together.
They led her to a submerged platform, marked by a trident and a broken bell. There, one of the women poured milk into the water, chanting softly in a dialect Devika couldn't place. Another smeared her arms with sandal paste.
The third lifted Devika's sari and drew a symbol just below her navel.
Three moons. Encircling a flame.
The same symbol from the riverbed. From the dream.
"Welcome back, Yajñinī," said the eldest."You were the keeper of the Grantha in another age."
Devika's throat tightened.
"You remember me?"
The woman touched her chest.
"No. She remembers you."
And then the river stirred.
As if something enormous had turned beneath the surface.
Night fell.
Devika sat alone under a peepal tree near the edge of the university. Fireflies circled her. She had not returned home. The manuscript pulsed beside her, faintly lit from within.
Then — footsteps.
She turned.
A figure stood just beyond the shadow of the tree.
Not Jatin.
Not a student.
He wore a black dhoti. Bare-chested. Forearms marked with the tripundra of ascetics.
He stepped into the moonlight.
Her breath caught.
He was the man from the dreams. From the dream of Varuna.
But not quite.
He bowed.
"You summoned the verse. Now the memory will not stop."
"Who are you?"
He smiled.
"I have had many names. But you once called me... Aravinda."
The name exploded inside her like a bell struck too hard.
Memories surged. A stone chamber. A bronze oil lamp. Her fingers threading jasmine into his hair. A voice chanting from within her as he kissed her lower back. A yoni carved into rock. A flame rising without smoke.
She stumbled back.
"No... no, I never—"
"You did. You were keeper of the Ananga Grantha. And I... was its first protector."
He stepped closer.
"You lost it once. And it tore the worlds apart."
Devika gripped the edge of the manuscript.
"Not this time."
"No," he whispered. "This time, you must remember before it awakens fully. Or desire will unmake everything again."
The fireflies had vanished.
The wind had stilled.
Only one thing remained alive:
The pulse of the scripture.
And the growing warmth in her womb.