by Hanna Alkaf
Then it was impossible not to look back, impossible not to watch as those tiny, monstrous shapes swarmed all over Pink, impossible not to scream as sharp claws began to rend his skin, as the pointed tips of tiny teeth began to gore his flesh.
She was still screaming when she heard a sharp thwack: the sound, as it turned out, of wood as it smacked against polong flesh.
There they were, rows of not-quite-there apparitions, bearing thick wooden branches and rocks picked from cemetery dirt in their barely opaque hands, and leading the charge were Saloma and Badrul, who glowered at the interlopers. “Come to my house and cause such a ruckus, will you?” he bellowed, hitching his sarong a little higher up his waist. “Bunch of thugs and hooligans! In my day ghosts knew how to behave! Mangkuk!”
“CHARGE!” Saloma trilled like an off-key diva in a B-rate opera, and the ghosts glided forward, waving their makeshift weapons and whooping and howling as they went.
“Cooooooooool,” Suraya heard Jing breathe out beside her.
“Come on,” she said, tugging on Jing’s arm. “We have to hurry.”
A crack of thunder ripped through the sky, and the rain began to fall in fat, heavy drops that fell hard and splattered wide on the ground. And then there was another sound, one that tore right through Suraya’s chest so that fear spilled out and chilled her all over: a fearsome, bloodcurdling shriek. They whirled around just in time to see the langsuir burst from her owl form, a swirling figure in green robes, with long, dark hair that hung down to her ankles. Through the driving rain, Suraya could just make out her long, sharp nails and the menacing grin on her pale face as she swooped down among the ghostly melee.
“What the . . . ,” Jing whispered, as they watched her swoop down on the crowd below.
“No time,” Suraya said, forcing herself to turn away. “Don’t look back.”
The closer they got to the grave, the harder it was to hear the sounds of the battle behind them, the more the ground sloped, and the less well-tended the graves, so that they had to scramble at some points, holding out their hands to help each other over trickier bits. Jing winced as her hurt arm jostled around in its cast. The rain turned their baju kurungs into sodden, heavy nets that clung to their skin, weighed them down, and caught at their ankles; it seeped deep into the earth, turning it into thick mud that alternately made them slip and slide, or gripped their shoes and refused to let go.
It was while Jing was helping Suraya dislodge her foot from a particularly clingy mud puddle that they heard the rustling in the trees.
Suraya turned to Jing, whose eyes mirrored the panic she felt rising from her belly. “What was that?”
“I don’t know,” Suraya whispered back, scanning the treeline. “Maybe just a cat or something?”
“Maybe.” Jing gulped. “Come on, we . . .”
But the words died on her lips because right at that moment, a shadow detached itself from the trees and slunk toward them. The bajang-civet bared his rows of sharp little teeth in a fiendish grin, staring hungrily at first Jing, then Suraya, then back again, as though trying to decide which one to devour first. And as they backed away, a snicker made them whirl around to see the toyol blocking the path behind them.
Jing looked at Suraya. “We’re surrounded,” she said.
Suraya nodded. “Perfect time for the plan. You ready?”
“Ready.”
They turned with their backs pressed against each other, so that they each faced a monster: Suraya staring down the bajang, which had begun to hiss softly, and Jing looking straight at the toyol, who kept giggling as he advanced closer and closer to them.
“On my count,” Suraya said softly.
“One . . .” Behind her, she felt Jing tense up and saw her hand slip slowly into the pocket of her backpack.
“Two . . .” The toyol’s giggle turned into a cackle of glee; he was just inches away from Jing now, and the bajang was preparing to pounce.
“Three!”
Both girls moved at exactly the same time. Jing ran toward the trees, the toyol hot on her heels, and as she ran she scattered bright colored cheap plastic toys, candy, and coins that they’d cobbled together from their own pockets and from the shelves of the only 24-hour convenience store in town. The trinkets shone and glimmered in the moonlight. “A toyol, which is basically the spirit of a child, can be distracted just as a child can be distracted, with bright colors and shiny objects, toys, and sweetmeats and valuables,” they’d read together earlier, and sure enough, the toyol slowed down as soon as he saw his new playthings. “Oooooooh,” they heard him whisper as he sat to peruse them properly, turning each one over and over lovingly between his fingers. “Oooooooh.”
Meanwhile, Suraya was trying to dodge the bajang. As she heard his quick, light steps behind her, she whirled around to face him. “You hungry?” she called out. “Here you go!” And she drew a plastic bag from her backpack and set it down at her feet before turning to run again. She knew he could send her into a fit of madness any minute now, if he could catch her. I can’t give him that chance, she told herself, panting hard. Please let this work. Please. Please. Her blood thundered through her veins and in her ears so that it took a while for her to realize that she could no longer hear the bajang’s steps. She turned around cautiously and saw that he had stopped and was devouring the contents of the bag: a gallon of fresh milk and two dozen eggs they’d hurriedly purchased at a mini-mart in town once they’d read that bajangs could never pass up a meal. “Especially this one,” Suraya had noted, remembering the hungry look in this particular bajang’s eyes as it moved around its glass prison.
Jing caught up with her, trying to catch her own breath. “I can’t believe that worked.”
Suraya glanced down at the fighting down below and whatever triumph she felt quickly faded. “Don’t get too comfortable,” she said. “We’re about to have company.” For as they watched, the pawang had peeled away from the pack of fighting ghosts and was making his way up to them, his robe hitched up over his knees.
“Coming, girls!” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the thud of the rain, wiping the water from his glasses as he picked his way carefully through the graves.
Jing and Suraya looked at each other, their expressions twin masks of horror. “We’re so close!” Suraya said desperately, looking up at the tiny grave at the top of the hill, just steps away. “We can make it, hurry!” She grabbed Jing’s hand. “Come on!”
She turned and began to run, pulling Jing along behind her.
Jing didn’t move.
“What are you doing?” Suraya turned to look at her. “Let’s go!”
“I can’t!” Jing said, her voice rising in panic. “What’s going on? I can’t move my foot!”
Suraya looked down.
In the shadow and the muck and the rain, something moved.
And then she saw it: a polong gripped Jing’s foot, digging its claws into her shoes, holding her to the ground so that she couldn’t lift it more than an inch. Suraya bent down to swat it away, then yelped as the creature dug its teeth into her finger and ripped out a chunk of flesh.
“You nasty thing!” she gasped, blinking back tears, blood trickling from the open wound and down her elbow, staining the sleeves of her baju kurung; in answer, the polong merely grinned at her, licking her blood from its lips with sickening relish. She tried to aim a swift, hard kick in its direction but couldn’t move—more polong had come, digging their claws into her shoes and feet too, holding them flat to the ground. As she watched, more and more swarmed to them, until both her legs and Jing’s were writhing masses of black, and the prickle of dozens of little claws made her bite her bottom lip in pain.
The rain stopped, as suddenly as it had begun.
“Sooz.” Jing’s voice was choked with fear and tears she was trying her best to hold back. “What do we do now?”
But before Suraya could answer, someone else spoke first.
“Give up, of course,” the pawang sa
id, smiling pleasantly at them from where he stood between two graves, his hands in the pockets of his sodden robe, the full moon blazing behind him, turning his face into a mask of sharp shadow and light.
Thirty-Four
Girl
IF IT WERE possible for looks to kill, Suraya’s dagger-filled stare would have guaranteed one more ghost in the cemetery right there and then.
“We’ll never give up!” Jing said, spitting furiously in the pawang’s direction. The gob of saliva landed by his foot, studded with bubbles that shone in the light of the moon, and he looked down at it with disgust.
“That’s your decision, I suppose,” he said smoothly. “But you’re going to die tonight anyway, girly, so why waste your energy fighting it?”
“Why are you doing this?” Suraya whispered. “What do you want?”
“What do I want?” The pawang seemed genuinely surprised by this question. “My dear girl. I want what I deserve. I want the world.” And he stretched out his arms wide, as if to show her just how great his claim was.
“But why do you need Pink to get it?”
The pawang shrugged. “I guess I don’t need him, exactly. I just want him. You know how it is, when you collect things—you don’t feel like you’re really done unless you have everything. Like Pokémon! Gotta catch ’em all. . . .” He hummed tunelessly to himself.
“You’re insane.”
“Call me whatever you like.” He smiled at her. “You’re still the ones all tied up and at my mercy.” He chuckled and rubbed his hands together. “Oooh, I’m so excited! I’ve been after a pelesit for so long! They’re so much more difficult to come by. The timing has to be just right. Bajangs, toyols, those are a little irritating to handle, but doable, you know? And polong, boy, those are easier still! You just need the blood of a murdered man. And nobody notices one less vagrant, one less drug addict, one less drain on society.”
Suraya felt a wave of nausea wash over her. “You . . . you killed people?”
He waved his hand dismissively. “I helped clean up the streets. I did the authorities a service, in fact. They should thank me. But the thing is, while the polong do what they’re told, they have no . . . finesse. Send them to exact revenge on my enemies and people just wind up dead. And I don’t particularly mind that, but it’s just such a mess, and eventually people do notice when dead bodies start turning up. . . .”
“So what do you want Pink for?”
The pawang stared up at the moon. “When the pelesit and the polong work in tandem . . . oh dear girl. The possibilities are endless. The pelesit, you see, goes first. He may spread a little disease and disorder in the beginning to set the scene. And then he uses that sharp little tail end of his to dig a path into a human, so that my little polong can burrow their way inside, giving me control. Total control.” He shivered in delight at the thought. “Possession. Imagine all that I could do with that kind of power. Leaders of nations would be on their knees before me! Banks would willingly offer up their riches!” He sighed happily. “The world, as they say, would be my oyster. And I do love a good oyster.” His tongue flickered out of his mouth to lick his chapped, peeling lips.
Suraya’s voice shook with anger. “You could never make him do it. He would never listen to you.”
“No. But he would listen to you.” The pawang smiled, baring rows of perfectly straight white teeth. “You see, you’re coming with me.”
“No!” Jing kicked and struggled against the tiny hands that held her down. “You can’t do that! You can’t take her!”
“Shut her up, please,” the pawang barked, and a dozen polong swarmed onto Jing’s face, using their little clawed hands to press her lips firmly together, ignoring her muffled yelps of protest.
Suraya glared at him. “I’ll never tell him to do what you want me to. I’d rather die.”
“But that’s just it. He’d rather you didn’t. In fact, he’d do anything to make sure you didn’t.” The pawang grinned. “He’ll do whatever I tell him to, as long as I keep you alive. It’s the perfect plan. And if he doesn’t . . . well, it’s only your blood that I need, after all.”
Suraya swallowed hard. She knew he was right.
“Call him.”
She pressed her lips together so tight it was like she was willing them to fuse together.
“A rebel, eh?” The pawang grinned as he drew something out of the pocket of his robe and flicked his wrist deftly so that a blade whispered out of its hiding place, moonlight glinting along its razor-sharp edge. “Good for you, standing up for what you believe in.”
With light, quick steps, he walked over to Jing, whose eyes widened in terror as he used the blade to caress the line of her jaw. “Of course, one must also understand that disobedience has consequences.”
His eyes never left Suraya’s face.
“Are you prepared for those consequences, child?”
The blade pressed a little too close, biting into the tender flesh right at Jing’s chin, making her wince. Suraya watched through her tears as blood trickled down Jing’s neck.
“Look at that,” the pawang said, frowning at his knife. “You’ve made it all dirty.” And he brought the flat of the blade up to his face and licked it, from hilt to tip, so that no blood was left. He looked at Suraya again, and this time there was no hint of a smile on his face. “This is your last chance, my dear, before I add your friend to my polong collection.” Each word was etched with ice. “Call. Him.”
Suraya bowed her head. “Pink,” she whispered brokenly. “Pink. Come to me.”
In a flash he was beside her, roaring at the polong who still held her in their grasp, tearing them away by the handful and hissing through his teeth as they attacked him right back. Thick, dark liquid came oozing from his wounds as he tried to fight them off.
“Tell him to stop hurting my polong.” The pawang had to raise his voice to be heard over the sounds of polong and pelesit locked in struggle. “Or you’ll pay the price.” The bright little blade moved, settling itself on Jing’s exposed neck, tender veins ready to be sliced in one quick move.
“Stop, Pink,” Suraya yelled, her throat raw with tears. “Stop!”
Pink growled, ignoring her as he continued ripping away the last of the polong that clung to her shoes and tossing them to the ground before stomping them into the thick mud with his huge feet.
Suraya drew herself up and yelled with all the strength she had left in her body. “Pink. As your master, I COMMAND YOU TO STOP. NOW.”
She saw his whole body go still, even as the black creatures on him still gnawed away on his flesh.
“Good, good,” the pawang said, beaming as he inspected Pink up and down like a prize he’d just won. “Nice and strong, aren’t you? You’ll make a good addition to my little army.”
Your army? Pink’s nostrils flared slightly, and his flanks gleamed, damp with sweat and slick with rain.
“Haven’t you heard? You’re under new management from now on.”
I obey no one but my master.
“And she obeys me, so that works out just fine.” The pawang leaned in close, so close that his breath misted on the scales of Pink’s cheek. “We’re going to get to know each other well, you and I.”
He pulled back and glanced at Suraya. “Tell him to shrink. We’re going to go, you and I, before people come looking for you little miscreants.” He looked at Jing, trembling next to him, and sighed. “I suppose I’ll have to kill this one after all. Can’t have you telling tales now, can we?”
“Go grasshopper, Pink,” Suraya said, trying to keep the tremble out of her voice, and in seconds he was back in his familiar form on the palm of her hand.
The pawang chuckled. “I knew it,” he said, shaking his head. “I knew as soon as your mother told me about you, that you were the sort to obey. A biddable child, a child who does as she’s told. A child who doesn’t like to make trouble for other people. A good girl.”
Suraya’s cheeks burned. Why did he make it so
und like an insult?
“The best part,” the pawang continued, “the most wonderful part of it all, is that taking you won’t even be that much of a hassle. Your mother, she doesn’t care for you much, does she?” That slow smile, that taunting look in his eyes. Suraya could feel a hot flame of anger start to flicker in her belly.
“She probably won’t miss you at all,” the pawang said, still smiling that wicked smile.
The flame grew and grew, spreading from her belly to her heart, igniting her chest in a fiery explosion of rage.
“She might not even notice you’re gone.”
She stared straight at him, and if you looked closely, you might have seen the telltale sparks of her wrath glowing in the depths of her eyes. Luckily, the pawang was not the sort of person to pay much attention to children, or indeed, believe that their emotions carried any weight at all.
“Now you tell that monster of yours that he’s only to transform on command.” The pawang gestured toward the grasshopper in her hand. “Go on, now. Tell him.”
Suraya looked down. Her voice, when she spoke, was low and even. “Pink. You are only to transform when I tell you to. Do you understand? When I tell you, transform.”
He inclined his head very slightly. Yes, master.
Pink never called her master.
“Very good,” the pawang said, smiling at her. “All right, come now, let’s get out of here before anyone finds us. We’ll take care of . . . this . . . later on,” he added, curling his lip as he looked at Jing. “I don’t want to get her all over my jubah. Blood is a real pain to clean off, let me tell you. The number of nice robes I’ve had to sacrifice over the years . . .”
“One last thing,” Suraya said, and her voice was clear and strong.
The pawang cocked one eyebrow and looked down at her, his arms crossed. “Well?”
“Fortune favors the bold.” And with that, she took Pink and threw him with all her might behind the pawang. “NOW, PINK!” she shouted, as she stepped forward and threw her shoulder against the pawang’s stomach with all her might.
