Chapter Three: Gifts from Ghosts
1292 Words
Chapter Three: Gifts from Ghosts
Mumbai – Three days later
The first gift was a box of shoes.
Thirty pairs. All sizes. All new.
They arrived at the orphanage gate in a plain white truck with no markings, no identification, no driver waiting to be thanked—or questioned. Just the hum of an engine fading into the street traffic and a box that hadn’t been there a moment ago.
Taped to the lid was a simple note, handwritten in an unfamiliar script:
For the ones who run toward dreams.
No signature. No explanation.
Anaya found the children huddled around the box like it was treasure. And to them, it was. They held up glittering sandals and sturdy sneakers, laughing and arguing over who got which pair. One boy cradled a pair of football cleats to his chest like he’d just met his future.
She should have smiled. But her jaw clenched.
She stared at the note for a long time, her thumb brushing over the last word: dreams.
Her dreams didn’t come in boxes.
They came with ghosts.
—
The second gift arrived the next morning: a brand-new bookshelf, already installed in the reading room before anyone noticed the workmen. No one could explain how they'd come or gone.
Made of rich walnut wood, it stretched across the wall like a warm invitation. Its compartments overflowed with books—new ones. Stories of space explorers, mythic warriors, lonely children who found magic in impossible places. The kind of books that taught a child to imagine differently.
The kids squealed. The volunteers whispered.
Anaya stood in silence.
She knew.
She knew.
—
The third gift came the next day.
A full medical cabinet, stocked better than any government clinic in the neighborhood. Antibiotics. Vitamins. Cough syrups and ointments. Bandages in every size. Even rare items—insulin, allergy pens, high-grade antiseptics.
Anaya didn’t need to ask who had sent them.
Only one man had the reach. The money. The audacity.
And only one man would dare to use kindness as a weapon.
—
Later That Week
“You should’ve told me,” Anaya said, voice brittle, words slicing the air like glass.
She stood in the director’s office, arms stiff at her sides, her nails pressing half-moons into her palms.
The director—a graying man with gentle eyes and an aching spine—removed his glasses slowly and set them on the desk between them. “They’re clean donations. Anonymous. Legal. You should be happy.”
“It’s not the money,” she said, her voice lower now. “It’s who it’s from.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Yes,” she said flatly, “we do.”
The silence that followed was thick. Outside, a bell rang for recess. Children shouted, laughed.
She should’ve felt joy. Relief.
Instead, she felt watched. Owned.
He sighed. “What would you have me do, Anaya? Return medicine? Tell the children they can’t have shoes?”
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Because she knew he was right. And still—she left without another word.
She wasn’t angry at the director.
She was angry at herself.
For the way her heart had jumped when she saw the first note. For the way she paused when she smelled the unmistakable trace of expensive Italian cologne near the gate. For the dreams that had started again—uninvited, silent, seductive.
And always, always ending in his voice:
You don’t know what you need.
She hated how much it echoed.
—
Two Days Later – Evening
The envelope was waiting for her when she got back from the clinic.
Folded precisely and slipped beneath her door like a secret. Heavy paper, the kind that whispered money. Inside: a grant application. Approved. Stamped, signed, sealed—by a European NGO she had never contacted.
A fund large enough to open a second orphanage.
Her hands trembled as she read it. Her breath came unevenly.
There was no sender. No contact details. Nothing.
But at the very bottom, scrawled so faintly it could be mistaken for a watermark, was a single line in Italian:
Per il cuore che non si piega.
For the heart that does not bend.
Anaya crushed the paper in her fist.
This had to stop.
—
That Night – Lorenzo’s Private Gallery
She didn’t plan the visit. Her body moved before her mind did, carried by something heavier than logic—anger, maybe. Or longing. She couldn’t tell anymore.
The gallery was hidden inside a restored colonial bungalow, near the sea, cloaked in ivy and mystery. As she pushed open the tall glass door, a chime rang overhead—soft, delicate, wrong.
The interior was bathed in low amber light. Marble floors. Vaulted ceilings. Shadows draped over art like velvet.
Paintings lined the walls—violent abstracts, delicate portraits, landscapes that looked like they remembered grief. Some were beautiful. Some looked like cries for help.
And in the far corner, beneath a single spotlight, stood a man in a dark waistcoat, sleeves rolled up, a glass of something golden in his hand.
He didn’t turn.
“You came,” Lorenzo said.
His voice was low, like a cello string pulled taut.
Anaya stepped forward, holding up the envelope like it was a weapon. “Is there a part of no you don’t understand?”
He turned to face her slowly, like he already knew what she’d say. His eyes roamed over her—not with hunger, but with something worse.
Affection.
“I don’t take orders,” he said softly, “from people who are in denial.”
“I’m not in denial,” she snapped. “I don’t want your money. Or your gifts. Or you.”
“But you came.”
He stepped toward her. One step. No threat. No rush.
“Which means,” he said gently, “part of you does.”
She walked past him, jaw clenched, and stopped in front of a painting behind him.
Her breath hitched.
It wasn’t finished. The brush strokes were uneven, raw. A mix of shadows and firelight.
But she knew the figure on the canvas.
It was a woman. Her.
Hair unbound. Shoulders bare. Head turned away. One hand lifted—not to strike, but to shield. Defiant. Fragile.
Alive.
“I didn’t paint your face,” Lorenzo said behind her, voice quieter now. “Because I haven’t seen it. Not all of it.”
She turned slowly.
“I should report you,” she whispered. “You’re dangerous.”
“I never claimed to be safe.”
She wanted to scream. To cry. To walk out and never return.
Instead, she stood there—trapped by the weight in his eyes, by the way he looked at her like she was both salvation and sin.
“I don’t want this,” she said, but the words barely made it past her lips.
“I do,” he replied. “And I always get what I want.”
He reached out—not to touch her, but to gently tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear.
She flinched.
His hand dropped.
“I’m not here to hurt you, Anaya.”
But she didn’t believe that. Not really.
Not when the ache in her chest grew louder. Not when her knees felt weak and her instincts whispered that some kinds of kindness came with chains.
She forced herself to step back. One, then another.
And then she turned and left—walking too fast, heart pounding, mind screaming.
The glass door slammed shut behind her.
—
Lorenzo didn’t move.
He only turned to the painting and whispered to no one:
“She’ll come back.”
—
End of Chapter Three
- Writer
