CHAPTER 4

OJASWINI

The sea was grey and furious.

I sat on the bench under the tarp, arms wrapped around myself, watching Sameer navigate swells that looked big enough to flip us. The boat rose and dropped and rose again — not the gentle rocking of a lake but the violent, purposeful movement of an ocean that wanted us dead. Spray hit my face. Salt stung my eyes. My stomach was somewhere near my throat.

Sameer didn't flinch. His hands on the wheel were steady, his body moving with the boat like he was part of it. He adjusted the throttle, rode the waves, read the water with the casual expertise of someone who'd been born doing this.

"You okay?" he shouted over the engine and the wind.

"Define okay!"

He laughed. "First time on the water?"

"First time on the water in a cyclone!"

"This isn't a cyclone! This is June! Cyclones come in November!" He flashed that grin — the one with the scar through his eyebrow. "This is just a mild disagreement between the sky and the sea!"

"I'm from Pune! We don't have oceans! The closest thing to water we have is a lake that dries up in April!"

He turned. Rain dripping off his nose, eyes bright with an energy that had nothing to do with weather. "You're gonna love this place then!"

I wanted to argue but a wave hit the hull broadside and I grabbed the railing and forgot how to form sentences.

The crossing took fifty-three minutes. I know because I counted every one.

In that time I learned three things about Sameer Naik:

One — he talked when he was comfortable. About the coast, mostly. About the Koli fishing community that had worked these waters for centuries. About how his grandfather had built the first motorboat in Malvan from salvaged teak and a diesel engine he'd bartered for with dried bombil. About the declining fish stocks and the trawler regulations and the way the monsoon was getting more unpredictable every year. He talked about these things the way other people talked about cricket or movies — with an intimacy that suggested he'd spent more time thinking about the sea than about himself.

Two — he wasn't just a boatman. There was a degree somewhere in his past, or at least the ghost of one. He used words like "ecosystem" and "infrastructure" alongside "nets" and "tides." He referenced a marine biology course he'd taken at Goa University before his father's fishing business needed him back. He'd come home. Hadn't gone back. Didn't seem bitter about it — just practical, the way people are when duty isn't a concept but a reflex.

Three — he kept looking at me when he thought I wasn't looking.

The island appeared at minute forty-seven.

It rose out of the grey like a fever dream. Cliffs of red laterite, jagged and ancient, the rock face streaked with black where centuries of rain had carved channels. Coconut palms bent horizontal by the wind, their fronds whipping like flags of surrender. Dense green vegetation climbing the slopes — mango trees, cashew, wild hibiscus. And perched on the highest point, commanding the western cliff like a colonial governor surveying stolen territory — the mansion.

Portuguese colonial. Three stories of whitewashed walls turning grey in the rain, terracotta roof tiles the color of dried blood. Wraparound verandas on every level with carved wooden railings. Arched windows with green wooden shutters, some closed, some banging in the wind. A stone tower on the north side that looked like it belonged to a lighthouse or a watchtower — some structure built for looking outward, for seeing danger before it arrived.

"Holy shit," I breathed.

"Yeah," Sameer said. He cut the throttle. The engine dropped to a purr. "First time I saw it I thought someone was fucking with me. Like someone had picked up a building from Goa and dropped it on a rock in the middle of the Arabian Sea."

"How old is it?"

"1823. The Portuguese built it as a trading post. Then it became a residence for some minor colonial official. Then the Marathas took it back after independence. It was abandoned for decades — squatters, smugglers, a brief period in the 1970s when some hippies from Goa tried to turn it into a commune." He grinned. "Then Deven Shrivastav bought it in 2018 for ₹18 crore and restored it."

"Eighteen crore for an island?"

"For the house. The island was a separate land deal with the state government. He basically paid the Maharashtra Tourism Board enough money to look the other way." Sameer shrugged. "Welcome to India."

We pulled into a small harbor — just a stone breakwater built from the same red laterite as the cliffs, and a wooden dock that looked recently repaired. Two kayaks were tied to the pilings. A corrugated metal boathouse sat at the end of the dock, its roof streaked with rust.

Sameer killed the engine. The silence was immediate and oppressive — no engine, no traffic, no city hum. Just the rain. The wind. The waves hitting the breakwater. And underneath it all, the deep, constant sound of the sea breathing against the cliffs.

I climbed out. My legs shook. My hands were numb from gripping the railing for fifty-three minutes. My kurta was soaked. My hair was plastered to my skull.

"You good?" Sameer asked, already hauling my insulated boxes onto the dock.

"I'm great. Love being on an island with no escape route during monsoon season."

He set my knife roll on the dock. Straightened up. Looked at me.

"I'll be back Sunday to pick you up." He pulled a business card from his back pocket. Soggy but legible. Sameer Naik. Brixton Marine Services. Boat Charters & Repairs. His phone number was handwritten at the bottom in blue ink that had started to bleed.

"And if you need anything before then—"

"Anything?" I asked.

His eyes held mine. Not joking now. No grin. Something steady and serious behind the rain-slicked face.

"Anything," he said.

I took the card. Tucked it into my jeans pocket where the denim would keep it dry.

The mansion door opened.

A woman stepped out onto the veranda. Mid-thirties. Gorgeous in that Delhi way — the kind of beauty that came from good genetics amplified by expensive maintenance. Silk salwar kameez in deep maroon with gold embroidery at the neckline. Hair pulled back in a sleek bun. Diamond studs in her ears. She had the kind of face that looked good in dim lighting — sharp cheekbones, dark eyes, mouth that defaulted to "bored" but could pivot to "charming" in half a second.

"Ojaswini!" she called. "You made it!"

Tapsee Shrivastav. In person.

She was shorter than I expected. Her Instagram made her look six feet tall. In reality she was maybe 5'3" — tiny, bird-boned, the kind of woman whose husband could wrap one hand around both her wrists.

I climbed the stone steps. They were slick with rain and moss. She pulled me into a hug that smelled like Chanel No. 5 and jasmine and something else underneath — something medicinal. Hand sanitizer, maybe. Or the faint chemical tang of medication.

"Thank god you're here," she said. Her hands gripped my shoulders. Her fingers were ice cold despite the June humidity. "I was so worried the weather would stop you."

"The driver was great," I said. "And Sameer got me here safely."

She glanced past me at Sameer, who was carrying my boxes up the steps. Her smile tightened. Just a fraction. A micro-expression — the kind you miss unless you spend your professional life reading faces across a kitchen counter, gauging whether someone actually likes your food or is just being polite.

"Yes. Sameer. He's very... reliable."

Something in her voice made my skin prickle. Not the word. The pause before it. Like she'd considered several other adjectives and settled on the most neutral one available.

Sameer set my boxes on the veranda. Straightened up. "All set, Mrs. Shrivastav."

"Thank you, Sameer." She didn't look at him. "We'll call when we need you."

He nodded. Looked at me. Held the look for a beat longer than necessary.

"Remember," he said. "Anything."

Then he was gone. Down the steps, across the dock, into the boat. The engine coughed to life. The rain swallowed him in seconds — one moment he was there, solid and real, and the next he was a shadow dissolving into grey.

Tapsee watched him go. Her jaw was tight. She was holding something back — something she wanted to say about Sameer or about the island or about the weekend. I could feel it radiating off her like heat from a tawa.

Then she turned to me. The smile returned. Perfect, practiced, not quite reaching her eyes.

"Come," she said. "Let me show you the kitchen. You're going to love it."

I followed her inside.

The entrance hall was cool and dark and smelled like old teak furniture and rain-dampened stone. Paintings lined the walls — Portuguese colonial portraits, Maratha warriors on horseback, a faded map of the Konkan coast in a gilt frame. The floor was original — wide teak planks worn smooth by two centuries of footsteps, the wood so dark it was almost black.

The door closed behind us.

The lock clicked.

A heavy, brass, colonial-era lock. The kind that didn't click by accident.

And I realized I hadn't asked Sameer how to reach him if the cell signal was dead.

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