The morning sunlight filtering through the gaps in the bamboo walls could not drive away the cold spreading through Karto's chest. Every time he tried to draw a breath, his throat felt hot and raw. The blackish-red bruises striping the skin of his neck had grown larger, resembling the marks left by a rope forcibly tightened around it.
Karto trembled as he stepped toward the wooden wardrobe in the corner of the room. On the packed-earth floor directly in front of it, traces of wet grave soil still remained. The earth was dark and muddy, spreading the sharp smell of a burial ground. With shaking hands, he opened the wardrobe door and reached beneath the lowest pile of clothes.
The old tin box was still there.
When Karto opened the lid, the Red Pocong Cord lay inside. It was no longer merely slick with corpse fluid; it gleamed strangely beneath the morning sunlight. Its red color had not faded in the slightest. If anything, it looked deeper, as though the cloth cord were constantly absorbing fluid from the air around it.
When Karto's fingers touched the cord's fibers to make sure it was really there, a cold sting shot rapidly up his upper arm. He slammed the tin lid shut, hid it behind his trousers, and resolved to visit Mbah Jambrong again in Penjalin Forest. Last night's terror had nearly taken his life, and he needed both answers and the protection the shaman had promised.
Before stepping outside, Karto tied a tattered scarf around his neck to cover the strangulation bruises. He had taken only a few steps along the village path when the noisy voices of Sukamerta's residents reached him from the main alley.
Several people had gathered near the neighborhood watch post, speaking in whispers with fear etched across their faces.
"It's downright strange," said Pak RT, a middle-aged man with a sarong draped around his neck. "The grave of the girl who was buried yesterday afternoon opened by itself. The excavated soil was scattered everywhere."
"It didn't just open," another resident added in a trembling voice. "A hoe was left inside the hole, and when the villagers examined her body... the cord around her neck had been cut! Someone took it from the corpse as a talisman!"
Karto bowed his head deeply. He quickened his pace, crossing through the crowd without greeting anyone. Cold sweat seeped through the scarf wrapped around his neck. He knew for a fact that the hoe left inside the grave was his—a battered old hoe with a distinctive notch on its wooden handle. If anyone recognized the tool, his life would be over at the hands of the villagers before the Red Pocong's restless spirit could finish him off.
"Karto!" a voice called from behind.
Karto's steps stopped at once. His body went rigid. He slowly turned and found Pak Lurah standing several yards away, accompanied by two young men from the village.
"Where are you going this early?" Pak Lurah's suspicious eyes scanned Karto from head to toe. "What's wrong with your neck? Why is it wrapped in cloth like that?"
Karto instinctively touched the cloth around his neck. "I... I'm not feeling well, Pak Lurah. A bad chill left my neck stiff."
Pak Lurah stepped closer. His gaze sharpened on Karto's clothes, still stained with dried red earth around the knees and elbows. "That dirt on your pants... where were you last night?"
"I... I was gathering firewood near the edge of the forest yesterday afternoon, Pak," Karto answered haltingly. Sweat dripped faster from his brow. "I have to go now. I've got something to take care of."
Without waiting for Pak Lurah's reply, Karto turned and jogged along a shortcut toward the western side of the village—toward Penjalin Forest. Behind him, he could still feel the villagers' suspicious eyes boring into his back.
Penjalin Forest did not look any friendlier in the morning than it had at night. Dense stands of old bamboo blocked most of the sunlight, casting long, gloomy shadows. Thick morning fog hung between the enormous trunks of rattan vines, covering the forest floor in a grayish white haze.
Crows called back and forth from the branches of the tall trees, creating a dreadful rhythm amid the forest's silence. Karto pushed through the undergrowth, breathing hard. Every time his foot came down on a dry branch, the crack sounded like breaking bones.
The deeper he went into the heart of the forest, the pungent smells of incense and serimpi oil began to replace the scent of fresh earth. Beyond the dense rattan trees, Mbah Jambrong's thatched-roof hut stood solidly in the dimness.
"Mbah! Mbah Jambrong!" Karto shouted as he pushed through the hut's slightly open plank door.
The hut's interior was just as dim as before. Incense smoke rose from a clay brazier in the corner, swirling around Mbah Jambrong, who sat cross-legged on a blackened pandan mat.
The old man did not move when Karto entered. His cloudy white eyes remained fixed blankly ahead.
"You've come back, Karto," said Mbah Jambrong. His gravelly voice echoed softly through the hut. "Has the money started coming in?"
"What money, Mbah?!" Karto stepped closer and roughly tore the scarf from his neck, revealing the terrible strangulation bruises to the shaman. "I nearly died last night! It came to my house! It strangled me until dawn!"
Mbah Jambrong slowly shifted his gaze toward Karto's neck. Instead of looking surprised, his utterly black lips pulled back into a thin, dreadful smile.
"Those are fine strangulation marks," Mbah Jambrong murmured. "That means the red pocong cord will truly make you rich."
"You said I'd be safe if I held the cord! But it nearly killed me in my own bed!"
Mbah Jambrong raised a hand as thin as a bird's claw, signaling Karto to be quiet. "Did you bring the cord?"
Karto reached into his trousers and felt for the tin containing the red cord. But before he could grasp it, a soft whisper drifted right behind his ear.
Ssshh... Karto...
Karto jerked in fright and spun around. There was no one there—only the darkness of the hut and incense smoke twisting through the air.
"What was that voice, Mbah?" Karto asked, breathing hard.
"This forest has ears, Karto. Especially after you brought something from the realm of the dead here," Mbah Jambrong said coldly. The old man picked up a clay bowl filled with cloudy water and sprinkled several frangipani petals over it.
"Take out the red cord and place it on this cloth," Mbah Jambrong ordered, spreading a faded yellow mori cloth in front of where he sat.
Karto obeyed. He placed the old tin box on the yellow cloth and opened it. He took out the blood-red Pocong Cord. The moment it touched the open air inside Mbah Jambrong's hut, the incense smoke around them was suddenly sucked toward it, as though the red cloth were greedily inhaling the mystical smoke.
Mbah Jambrong brought his face close to the red cord. The pungent stench of blood hit them at once. The old shaman extended a finger and touched its damp surface, then closed his cloudy white eyes.
Mbah Jambrong's lips began to mutter a spell in an ancient Javanese language Karto could not understand. His voice dropped, settling into a fast, monotonous rhythm.
Suddenly, all the candles burning along the hut's walls went out at once.
The hut plunged instantly into pitch darkness. Dense, bitter cold rushed in from every direction, colder than a night in a graveyard. Outside, powerful winds rolled against the bamboo walls, making them creak violently.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Heavy impacts pounded the hut's thatched roof, as though massive objects were being repeatedly dropped from the sky.
"Mbah! What's happening, Mbah?!" Karto cried as he crawled backward in terror.
"Silence!" Mbah Jambrong snapped, his voice suddenly becoming deep and commanding, completely unlike the frail voice he had used moments earlier.
In the darkness of the hut, the red Pocong Cord lying on the yellow cloth suddenly gave off a dim red glow. Bubbles began mysteriously boiling up from the liquid in Mbah Jambrong's clay bowl.
Then the whisper came again.
This time, it did not merely sound in Karto's ears. It echoed from every corner of the hut. It was the voice of a young woman—a voice heavy with pain, suffering, and deep hatred.
My... cord...
Why... did... you... take... my... cord...
Karto covered both ears with his hands, but the whisper seemed to seep through the bones of his skull. The voice sobbed and sobbed.
Mbah Jambrong... liar... the woman's voice whispered again, now sounding very close to where the shaman sat. You... told him... to dig up... your own sin...
Karto's eyes widened in the darkness. Your own sin? What did the whisper mean?
Mbah Jambrong suddenly spat water from his mouth toward the red cord and shouted, "Let the body vanish, let the soul hang suspended! Obey the one who holds the cord!"
Whoosh!
Thud!
The red glow on the cord suddenly went out. The pounding on the roof stopped at once. The fierce wind raging outside the hut collapsed back into suffocating silence. The candles along the hut's walls mysteriously reignited with bluish flames.
Mbah Jambrong panted heavily. His breathing was labored, and his face looked ten years older. A small streak of fresh blood ran from one of his nostrils.
Karto crawled closer, his body trembling. "Mbah... are you all right? And... what did that woman's whisper mean? Why did she say your name?"
Mbah Jambrong wiped the blood from his nose with the sleeve of his black shirt. His cloudy eyes fixed on Karto with a sharp, threatening stare.
"Don't listen to the devil's whispers from the earth!" Mbah Jambrong barked. "Restless spirits will always find a way to turn people against each other and frighten whoever controls their talisman!"
"But, Mbah—"
"Listen, Karto!" Mbah Jambrong cut him off, jabbing a finger into Karto's chest. "The figure whose grave you opened last night was no ordinary corpse. That woman died carrying a great secret in this village. The red cord around her neck was used to lock away her powers so they wouldn't run loose!"
"Lock away her powers?" Karto tilted his head, confused.
"Yes," Mbah Jambrong lied without blinking, though his face concealed deep anxiety. "That red cord was deliberately dyed with ritual blood when she was buried. It absorbed all her supernatural power and the luck she had in life while she was still breathing. Now that you've cut it, that lucky power is in your hands!"
Mbah Jambrong snatched the red cord from the yellow mori cloth, then forced it back into Karto's grasp.
The moment Karto's fingers touched the cord again, the bruises on his neck suddenly throbbed with excruciating pain, sending a stabbing sensation straight into his heart.
"Then what about the haunting, Mbah?" Karto asked, suppressing a wince as he held his aching neck. "It came to my room last night. It terrorized me until morning!"
Mbah Jambrong took a black cloth pouch tied with seven-colored thread and handed it to Karto.
"Put the red cord inside this pouch," Mbah Jambrong instructed. "It's been doused with spirit-subduing oil. Keep it inside your house, in the highest place you can find. Never touch it or open the cloth before the next Selasa Kliwon night."
"Will this keep it from coming after me again?" Karto asked hopefully.
"It will hold it back... for now." Mbah Jambrong looked at Karto with deep calculation. "But remember, Karto. You are already bound to it. To make that figure completely submit to you and give you immense wealth, you must complete the second stage of the ritual."
"The second stage of the ritual?" Karto recoiled. "You never said anything about a second stage!"
Mbah Jambrong leaned back against the rotting wall of his hut. His face was veiled by the dim incense smoke. "Unmatched wealth doesn't come from a single red cord, Karto. The red cord is only the key. You must bring a special offering to the grave hole you dug last night, exactly at midnight tomorrow."
Karto shook his head rapidly. "No! I won't go back to that grave! The villagers already know it was opened! If I'm caught—"
"If you don't do it," Mbah Jambrong cut in, his cold voice slicing through Karto's words, "the protection of this black pouch will be destroyed in three days. And when that happens, the Red Pocong won't merely strangle you until dawn... it will drag your soul into the earth to take its place."
Karto fell silent. The shaman's words felt like a death sentence hanging over his head. He was trapped in a snare of his own making. Greed had led him into a vicious circle with no safe way out.
"Who... who was that dead woman really, Mbah?" Karto asked softly. "What was the name of the girl whose burial shroud I cut last night?"
Mbah Jambrong was silent for a moment. His cloudy eyes stared at the candle flame, which had suddenly begun to sway gently.
"Her name was Marni," Mbah Jambrong answered after a long, suffocating silence. "An orphan girl who lived on the eastern edge of the village. And you... would be better off not knowing anything more than that."
Karto left Penjalin Forest feeling far heavier than when he had arrived. The black cloth pouch containing the red Pocong Cord was tucked tightly beneath his shirt. With every step, the pouch felt heavy and warm against his chest, as though whatever lay inside had a beating heart of its own.
The name kept circling through his mind. Marni.
Karto knew that name. Marni was a quiet village girl who rarely mingled with the residents. Three days earlier, news of Marni's death had indeed thrown Sukamerta into an uproar, but the villagers had been told that the girl had died suddenly from a severe fever. Several close neighbors had handled her burial very quickly, following Mbah Jambrong's instructions.
Yet the whisper from the hut continued to echo in Karto's memory: You... told him... to dig up... your own sin...
Why had Marni's spirit called this act Mbah Jambrong's sin? Why had the cord binding her burial shroud been dyed blood-red—something completely unheard of in the burial customs of Sukamerta's villagers?
Karto walked along the rice-field embankment toward his house. It was already midday, but the sun was hidden behind a procession of thick black clouds. The air felt hot and sticky.
In the middle of the embankment, he heard someone calling from a clump of banana trees below the hill.
"Karto!"
He turned. A woman stood among the wet banana leaves. She was small, wearing a faded blue kebaya, with loose hair covering half her face. Karto recognized her as Sari, Marni's younger cousin, who lived with her aunt on the eastern edge of the village.
Sari approached carefully. Her eyes were red, as though she had been crying all night.
"I've been looking for you since morning," she said. "Do you know who handled Marni's burial?"
Karto swallowed. "Wasn't it... her neighbors?"
"No." Sari stared at the black pouch hidden beneath Karto's shirt, as though she could see the object inside. "Mbah Jambrong came to her house the night before Marni died. I saw him. They argued. Marni screamed that Mbah Jambrong had to return something he'd stolen from her mother."
The breeze that had been blowing gently suddenly stopped.
"What was stolen?" Karto asked, though part of him already regretted opening his mouth.
Sari pulled a small object from the pocket of her kebaya. It was an old, rusted iron key with a circular head wrapped in rope-like carvings.
"Marni gave this to me before she went to see Mbah Jambrong," Sari said. "She told me that if anything happened to her, I should look for the house that never lit a lamp at the edge of Penjalin Forest. There was an answer beneath its floor about my mother's death."
From behind the banana leaves came the sound of heavy breathing.
Hhhfff... hhhfff...
Sari froze. The color drained from her face.
Karto turned toward the sound. There was no one among the banana trunks—only muddy earth and leaf shadows swaying even though the wind had died.
The black pouch against Karto's chest moved slowly.
Once.
Twice.
As though something inside had just knocked from behind the cloth.
"Karto," Sari whispered, her voice barely audible. "Why is that pouch breathing?"
Karto took a step back. From inside the black pouch came the sound of fabric fibers rubbing together, followed by a woman's whisper right beside his ear.
Not her house...
The house without a lamp...
Find it... before he burns... everything...
Karto gripped the old key. The metal was cold, but the rope-shaped carving on its head throbbed like a pulse.
In the distance, from the direction of Penjalin Forest, a wooden slit drum was struck three times.
Tok. Tok. Tok.
Sari stared at Karto in terror. "We have to go. Now."
But Karto did not move. For the first time since digging up Marni's grave, he realized that the red cord might not be a path to wealth.
Maybe the cord was the only witness left to a murder.
And someone in Penjalin Forest was trying to silence it.