The bride dreams of carefree lagoon play with her cousins, then wakes beside Thankamma, with JoJo nestled against his aunt. The silence unsettles her; she realizes she misses the murmur of water. From the adjacent room, her husband makes no sound.

She recalls yesterday’s arrival: a vallum landing at a jetty, fields of coconut, cows, banana rows, and a burbling stream that broadened into a pond. Thankamma proudly named the five-hundred-acre estate, Parambil, much of it untamed. Seeing the house on a rise, the bride wondered why it stood far from water. Inside, the teak-built dwelling follows Vastu, yet its siting troubles her.

In the night, a rustle and shifting shadow spark fear; she imagines a ghost or snake entering through the half-door. Jasmine’s scent precedes the truth: an elephant’s trunk extends a sprig into the room. The trunk snuffles her gently, and she accepts the fragrant offering. JoJo silently watches; she lifts him and heads outside after the visitor.

On the muttam, she senses presences fading before the elephant. In the clearing, the huge animal calmly feeds, its bulk soothing her. JoJo clings to her, as if they have always belonged together. Nearby, on a rope cot, her husband sleeps by the elephant’s leeward side. In his curled arm she notes an echo of the trunk’s shape, and the scene eases her dread of this unfamiliar, landlocked home.