The invitation arrived on a Tuesday, cream-colored paper with gold embossing that spoke of money and tradition. Meera’s cousin Anjali was getting married in their ancestral village, and attendance wasn’t optional. Family obligations in Indian households didn’t come with decline buttons.
Meera hadn’t been back to the village in twelve years, not since her own wedding had been called off three days before the ceremony. The official story was “mutual understanding” but everyone knew the truth: the groom’s family had discovered Meera’s mother had been married before, a secret her father had buried for thirty years. In their community, a woman with a past, even a dead one, contaminated her daughter’s prospects.
The shame had been crushing. Meera had left for Mumbai the week after, built a career in advertising, and never looked back. Now, at thirty-four, she was successful, independent, and still single in a way that made aunties whisper at weddings. Going back felt like volunteering for judgment.
But Anjali had always been kind to her, and the girl deserved at least one family member who’d show up without ulterior motives. So Meera packed conservative salwar kameez sets, prepared her armor of indifference, and boarded the train to a past she’d tried to forget.
The village had aged poorly. The main road was still unpaved, electricity remained unreliable, and the same old men sat at the chai shop, probably discussing the same topics they’d debated when Meera was a child. Her grandmother’s house, where she’d be staying, sagged with neglect. The old woman had died five years ago, and no one in the family wanted to maintain a property they’d all escaped from.
Meera’s aunt Sudha, Anjali’s mother, greeted her with the kind of hug that was more performance than warmth. “So nice you could come, despite everything,” she said, the last two words carrying enough weight to sink ships. “Anjali will be so pleased. She specifically wanted you here, though I told her you’d probably be too busy with your city life.”
“I wouldn’t miss it,” Meera lied smoothly. Twelve years in Mumbai had taught her to match passive aggression with pleasant vagueness.
The house filled quickly with relatives, most of whom Meera barely recognized. They asked the same questions in rotation: Why wasn’t she married? Didn’t she want children? Was her job really more important than family? Meera smiled and deflected, a well-practiced dance of evasion.
Anjali found her on the terrace that evening, escaping another round of matrimonial interrogation. The bride-to-be looked exhausted despite the elaborate mehendi on her hands and the joy everyone insisted she should be feeling.
“Thank you for coming,” Anjali said, sitting beside her. “I know this place holds bad memories for you.”
“It’s your wedding. Of course I came.”
Anjali was quiet for a moment, picking at the edge of her dupatta. “Did you ever hear the story about the bride and the banyan tree?”
Meera had heard every village story, though she’d dismissed most as superstitious nonsense. “The churail? The ghost who steals brides?”
“Not steals. Warns.” Anjali’s voice dropped. “My grandmother told me before she died. She said every bride in our family goes to the banyan tree the night before her wedding. Alone. To ask permission.”
“Permission for what?”
“To marry. To leave.” Anjali looked at Meera with frightened eyes. “She said if you don’t go, if you don’t show respect, the marriage will be cursed. Bad things happen.”
Meera felt irritation rising. This was exactly the kind of folklore that kept villages trapped in the past, that gave old fears new life with each generation. “Anjali, you’re educated. You have a degree. You can’t possibly believe—”
“My grandmother went. My mother went. Every woman in our family for generations.” Anjali’s hands were shaking. “And the ones who didn’t… Meera, they all ended up like you. Marriages called off, or worse. Widowed young. Left by their husbands. Always something.”
The words hit harder than Meera expected. She wanted to argue, to explain that correlation wasn’t causation, that her broken engagement had nothing to do with supernatural intervention and everything to do with patriarchal obsession with female purity. But Anjali looked genuinely terrified.
“When are you supposed to go?” Meera asked.
“Tomorrow night. The night before the wedding.” Anjali grabbed Meera’s hand. “Will you come with me? Please? I know it’s stupid, I know you don’t believe in this stuff, but I’m scared to go alone and I can’t tell anyone else because they’ll either laugh or make it into a big dramatic thing.”
Meera should have said no. Should have talked Anjali out of this superstitious ritual, helped her see it for what it was: another way to control women through fear. But something in her cousin’s face, a vulnerability that reminded Meera of herself at twenty-two, made her agree.
“Okay. I’ll go with you.”
The next day passed in the organized chaos of pre-wedding preparations. Meera helped with decorations, endured more interrogations about her single status, and watched Anjali go through the ceremonies with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. The girl was genuinely frightened, and no amount of rational explanation seemed to help.
As evening fell, Meera found herself thinking about the banyan tree. She vaguely remembered it from childhood, a massive ancient thing at the edge of the village, surrounded by local legends. People avoided it after dark, though no one could ever give her a concrete reason why. Just stories, whispers, the accumulated weight of generations of fear.
At eleven that night, when the house had finally quieted, Anjali knocked softly on Meera’s door. She’d changed into a simple white salwar kameez, carrying a small brass thali with flowers, incense, and a diya.
“Ready?” she whispered.
They slipped out through the back entrance, avoiding the relatives camped out in the main hall. The village was dark, most households asleep, only a few distant lights marking inhabited homes. Anjali led the way with practiced familiarity, taking back paths that Meera had forgotten existed.
The banyan tree was exactly as imposing as Meera remembered, maybe more so. In the moonlight, its aerial roots created a cathedral of shadows, the main trunk so massive it would take a dozen people to encircle it. The air around it felt different, heavier, though Meera attributed that to suggestion and humidity.
“What exactly are we supposed to do?” Meera asked, watching Anjali set down the thali at the tree’s base.
“Light the diya. Offer the flowers. Ask for blessing and permission.” Anjali’s voice trembled. “And wait for a sign.”
“What kind of sign?”
“My grandmother said you’ll know. The bride always knows.”
Meera bit back her skepticism. This was clearly important to Anjali, and one night of indulging superstition wouldn’t kill either of them. She watched as her cousin performed the small puja with shaking hands, whispering prayers Meera couldn’t quite hear.
The diya flickered in the still air, casting moving shadows across the tree’s roots. Anjali finished her prayers and sat back, waiting. Minutes passed. Nothing happened. Meera was about to suggest they head back when Anjali suddenly stood, her body rigid.
“Do you hear that?” she whispered.
Meera listened. At first, nothing. Then, so faint it might have been imagination, a sound like wind chimes, though there were no chimes nearby. The noise seemed to come from within the tree itself, a melodic ringing that raised goosebumps on Meera’s arms.
“It’s just wind,” Meera said, though there was no wind.
“That’s the sign,” Anjali breathed. “That means she’s listening. That means—” She stopped abruptly, tilting her head. “Wait. No. That’s not right.”
The chiming sound changed, became discordant, almost angry. The diya’s flame, which had been burning steadily, suddenly guttered and went out despite the windless night. In the darkness, Meera heard something else: a woman’s voice, singing.
It was a wedding song, one Meera recognized from countless ceremonies. But this version sounded wrong, the melody twisted into something mournful. The singing seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, echoing off the tree’s massive trunk.
“We need to leave,” Anjali said, her voice high with panic. “Now. That’s not the right sign. That’s—”
She stopped talking because they both saw it: a figure moving between the aerial roots, pale in the moonlight, wearing what looked like a wedding sari. The figure was too far away to see clearly, but something about its movement was wrong, jerky and unnatural.
Meera’s rational mind scrambled for explanations. Another villager. A trick of shadow and moonlight. Shared hallucination brought on by suggestion and fear. But her body responded with pure animal terror, every instinct screaming run.
They ran.
Meera grabbed Anjali’s hand and pulled her away from the tree, not looking back, not stopping until they reached the edge of the village proper. Behind them, the singing continued, growing louder rather than fading with distance, words becoming clear:
“False brides bring false promises, empty hearts and borrowed smiles. She who comes with secrets buried joins the others after while.”
They stumbled back to the house, hearts pounding, and locked themselves in Meera’s room. Anjali was crying, her carefully applied mehendi smudged where she’d wiped her tears.
“What does it mean?” she kept asking. “What did we do wrong? Why was that the wrong sign?”
Meera had no answers. Her skepticism was warring with what she’d seen, heard, felt. There had been something at that tree, something that knew they were there, that responded to their presence. But that was impossible. Ghosts weren’t real. This had to be elaborate hazing, some village tradition of scaring brides that Anjali hadn’t been told about.
“Maybe it means nothing,” Meera tried. “Maybe the ceremony itself is just designed to frighten people, create bonding through shared fear.”
But she didn’t believe her own words, and clearly neither did Anjali.
“My grandmother said the churail judges the bride,” Anjali whispered. “She can see into your heart, know if the marriage is true or false. If she approves, you hear the bells and see white flowers appearing. If she doesn’t…” Anjali trailed off, fresh tears streaming down her face. “Meera, what if she knows?”
“Knows what?”
Anjali’s next words came out in a rush, a confession that had clearly been eating at her. “I don’t love him. Rahul. My fiancé. I barely know him. We talked three times before the engagement, always with our families present. He seems nice but I don’t love him, and I don’t think I ever will. I’m marrying him because my parents want me to, because saying no would break their hearts, because I’m twenty-six and everyone says I’m getting too old to be picky.” She looked at Meera desperately. “The churail knows I’m lying. That’s why she’s angry. That’s why the sign was wrong.”
Meera pulled her cousin into a hug, feeling the girl’s body shake with sobs. This was the real horror, she thought. Not ghosts or curses, but the way families forced daughters into marriages they didn’t want, then wrapped that coercion in rituals and traditions that made resistance feel like betrayal.
“You don’t have to marry him,” Meera said firmly. “It’s not too late to call it off.”
“It is too late. Everything’s paid for, the guests are here, the shame would destroy my parents.” Anjali pulled back, wiping her face. “I’ll go through with it. I just wish I’d been braver. Like you were.”
“I wasn’t brave,” Meera said bitterly. “My wedding was called off. I didn’t choose to escape.”
“But you stayed escaped. You didn’t let them marry you off to someone else. You chose yourself.”
Had she? Meera had always framed her single status as consequence rather than choice, punishment rather than freedom. But maybe Anjali was right. Maybe the real choice had been staying in Mumbai, building a life on her own terms, refusing to let one broken engagement define her worth.
They sat in silence until Anjali’s breathing calmed. Eventually, exhausted, her cousin fell asleep on Meera’s bed. Meera sat by the window, watching the darkness, thinking about traditions and choices and the stories villages told to keep daughters compliant.
She must have dozed because she woke suddenly to the sound of singing. The same wedding song from the banyan tree, closer now, right outside the house. Meera went to the window and saw her: a woman in a wedding sari, standing in the courtyard, looking up at Meera’s window.
The woman’s face was beautiful and terrible, young but wrong somehow, her features too sharp, her smile too wide. She sang in that same twisted melody, and this time Meera heard all the words:
“I went to marry, bound by duty, silenced by tradition’s chain. They dressed me up and called it honor, then buried me beneath my pain. Now I wait beneath the banyan, calling to my sisters still: Choose yourself or join the buried, one way or another, you will.”
Meera blinked and the figure vanished, leaving only empty courtyard and the lingering echo of singing. She looked over at Anjali, still sleeping, and made a decision.
The next morning, Meera took Anjali aside before the wedding preparations began in earnest.
“I need to show you something,” she said, leading her cousin to her laptop. She pulled up articles she’d found during her sleepless hours: historical records, old police reports, fragments of village history that most people had forgotten.
“In 1924, a bride named Lakshmi disappeared the night before her wedding,” Meera explained. “She was found three days later under the banyan tree. Dead. The official record said suicide, but there were injuries inconsistent with that verdict. Her family claimed she’d been happy about the marriage. No investigation was ever conducted.”
She clicked to another article. “1947: Another bride, Radha, died similarly. Same tree, night before her wedding. Again, ruled suicide, again suspicious circumstances.”
She showed Anjali five more cases, spanning decades, all following the same pattern. Young women, married or about to be married, found dead at the banyan tree under questionable circumstances. The most recent was from 1998.
“These aren’t ghost stories,” Meera said quietly. “These are murders made to look like suicides, or accidents, or divine punishment. And I think they all had one thing in common: they tried to refuse marriages they didn’t want.”
Anjali’s face had gone white. “You think someone killed them? Who?”
“I don’t know. Maybe families protecting their honor. Maybe husbands or fiancés angry at rejection. Maybe the village itself, enforcing conformity.” Meera closed the laptop. “But I think the churail legend exists to cover it up. Make people too afraid to ask questions. If you believe a vengeful ghost kills disobedient brides, you don’t look for human murderers.”
“But we saw her,” Anjali protested. “At the tree. We both saw her.”
“Did we? Or did we see what we expected to see because we were frightened and suggestible?” Meera paused. “Though I’ll admit, I saw her again last night. Outside the house. And I don’t have a rational explanation for that.”
They sat in silence, processing. Finally, Anjali spoke.
“What do I do?”
“Whatever you choose,” Meera said. “But choose it because you want it, not because you’re afraid of ghosts or gossip or disappointing people. Those women died, Anjali. Really died. Whether it was supernatural punishment or human violence, they died because they were trapped between impossible choices. Don’t let that be you.”
The wedding was scheduled for evening. At noon, Anjali asked to speak with her parents. An hour later, raised voices carried through the house. Meera stayed out of it, let her cousin handle it herself, but she was ready to intervene if needed.
Anjali emerged red-eyed but resolute. “I told them I need more time. That Rahul and I should get to know each other properly before committing to marriage. They’re furious, but I’m not calling it off completely, just postponing. It’s a compromise.”
It wasn’t the dramatic stand Meera might have hoped for, but it was Anjali’s choice, and that mattered.
The house erupted in controlled chaos. Guests had to be informed, the venue canceled, deposits forfeited. Anjali’s mother wouldn’t speak to her. Relatives whispered about shame and modern girls who thought they knew better than their elders. But the wedding didn’t happen.
That night, Meera couldn’t sleep. She kept thinking about the women under the banyan tree, whether they’d been killed or killed themselves or something else entirely. The rational part of her brain insisted there had to be logical explanations, but another part, the part that had heard singing and seen a figure in a wedding sari, wasn’t sure.
At midnight, she made a decision. She walked to the banyan tree alone, carrying nothing but her phone for light. The massive tree loomed against the stars, its aerial roots creating their cathedral of shadows.
“I don’t know if you’re real,” Meera said to the darkness. “I don’t know if you’re one woman or many, or just a story the village tells. But if you are real, if any part of this is real, then know this: she chose herself. Anjali chose herself. And maybe that’s the sign you were really asking for. Not obedience, but courage.”
The night stayed silent. No singing, no apparitions, nothing but Meera and an ancient tree and the weight of too many dead women.
Then, so subtle she almost missed it: the scent of mogra flowers, though no mogra grew near the tree. And in the distance, barely audible, the sound of bells. Not angry or discordant, but clear and sweet, like blessing or release.
Meera stood there for a long time, breathing in the impossible fragrance, listening to bells that shouldn’t exist. When she finally walked back to the village, she felt lighter somehow, like she’d put down a weight she hadn’t known she was carrying.
The next morning, she found Anjali in the kitchen, helping prepare breakfast as if nothing had changed, though everything had.
“The aunties are saying the churail cursed me,” Anjali said with a small smile. “That’s why I called off the wedding.”
“Are you okay with that narrative?”
“Better than the truth, which is that I wasn’t ready and said so. Let them blame the ghost. At least she’s honest about being dangerous.” Anjali paused. “Did you go back? To the tree?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
Meera thought about how to answer. “I think the real folklore isn’t about a vengeful ghost. It’s about generations of women who didn’t have choices, and the ones who tried to choose anyway. The horror isn’t supernatural. It’s what we do to each other, the ways we enforce conformity through fear and call it tradition.”
“But you saw her,” Anjali pressed. “We both did.”
“Maybe,” Meera admitted. “Or maybe we saw what needed to be seen. A reminder that the cost of forcing people into lives they don’t want is always higher than we admit.”
She never told Anjali about the mogra scent or the bells. Some things were too strange to share, too personal to explain. But she kept them as a secret certainty: something at that tree had been listening, and something had approved.
Meera left the village the next day, returned to Mumbai and her independent life. Anjali eventually married Rahul six months later, but only after they’d spent time genuinely getting to know each other, only after she’d chosen him freely.
The banyan tree still stands at the edge of that village. Brides still go there the night before their weddings, though fewer each year as traditions slowly fade. Some hear bells and smell flowers. Others hear singing and see figures in the shadows. The stories continue, passed down through generations, warnings and confessions wrapped in supernatural dressing.
And maybe that’s what folklore really is: not lies or superstition, but truth told slant, history recorded in the only language that survives when people are too afraid to speak plainly. The horror isn’t in the ghosts we imagine, but in the very real violence we commit and then mythologize to make ourselves feel better about it.
Meera never went back to that village, but she thought about it often. About the women under the banyan tree, whether they’d chosen death or had it chosen for them. About Anjali, who’d found courage to postpone if not refuse. About herself, and the wedding that never happened, and the life she’d built from its ruins.
Sometimes she still heard singing late at night, though she lived in a Mumbai apartment far from any banyan trees. A wedding song with a twisted melody, reminding her that some choices echo across generations, that the dead don’t always stay quiet, and that the most terrifying stories are the ones where we recognize ourselves in both the victims and the villains.
The folklore persists because the truth it contains persists: women are still forced into marriages they don’t want, still punished for refusing, still dying under the weight of other people’s expectations. The details change but the pattern holds, and until it doesn’t, until we stop sacrificing daughters on the altar of family honor and social respectability, the churail will keep singing her warnings to anyone brave enough to listen.
That’s the real horror. Not ghosts or curses, but our collective willingness to look at generations of suffering and call it tradition, to hear women’s screams and call them wedding songs, to find bodies under banyan trees and blame the victims rather than the systems that put them there.
Meera understood now why the legend persisted, why each generation added to it. Not because villagers were backward or superstitious, but because some truths are too terrible to speak plainly. Better to have a ghost story, a supernatural scapegoat, than to admit what we’ve done and keep doing.
The churail beneath the banyan tree judges brides not because she’s cruel, but because she remembers what it cost to have no choice at all. And her singing isn’t a curse—it’s a question: Will you choose yourself, or will you join the chorus of the silenced?
Meera had chosen. Anjali had chosen, however imperfectly. And somewhere in a village in India, beneath an ancient tree, women who’d had no choice at all kept singing, kept waiting, kept asking that question of every new bride who came to their roots.
The horror was that the question still needed asking. The tragedy was that too many still couldn’t answer yes.