CHAPTER 2: The Alley That Isn't on the Map
“Go home.”
Ninda didn’t move right away.
Not because she was brave. Courage was often just a name people gave a bad decision after they’d managed to get through it. Ninda didn’t know whether she was being brave or merely late to the fear.
Her phone’s flashlight was still aimed beneath the banyan tree. The white light trembled in her hand, cutting across roots that reached out like old fingers. The pair of eyes among the shadows did not move with it. They did not come closer. They did not chase her.
They were only waiting.
“You can talk,” Ninda said. Her voice sounded thinner than she wanted. “That means you can answer questions.”
The eyes narrowed slightly.
“Go home.”
One word. The same voice. Deep and flat, with a weariness that didn’t fit the age of the face—one Ninda still hadn’t seen clearly.
Ninda took half a step back. The banyan roots pressed against her heels through the soles of her shoes. She glanced over her shoulder. The mouth of the alley was still visible, only about twenty steps away. The streetlights outside were glowing as usual. The sound of a television drifted from the nearest house, followed by someone’s laughter and a spoon clinking against a glass.
The normal world was right there.
Yet when Ninda looked back at the banyan, the distance between her and the tree felt longer.
She raised her phone a little.
“I’m not going home until I know who you are.”
The shadow beneath the tree changed.
It didn’t move like someone taking a step. It was more like darkness being shifted from one place to another. Something stood among the roots. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Its face was still covered by black lines cast by branches and leaves.
Ninda smelled the stronger scent of wet earth.
Then there was another sound.
It didn’t come from in front of her. It didn’t come from behind. It seemed to emerge from inside her own head, very close to a memory she couldn’t quite grasp.
Breathe.
Ninda blinked.
The golden eyes were gone.
In their place were only banyan roots, leaves moving without wind, and a long shadow that vanished when the streetlights came back on.
She lowered her phone.
“Damn it.”
The word sounded human enough to make her feel a little better.
Ninda turned and walked quickly out of the alley. She didn’t run. Running would mean admitting that something had chased her, when there was nothing behind her. She heard no footsteps. No breathing. No voice calling her name.
But she still quickened her pace.
Outside the alley, the city’s noise hit her all at once.
Motorcycles went by. A child cried because they’d dropped their ice cream. A cigarette vendor was closing his glass case. From a musala, the soft sound of someone reciting the Quran drifted between the noise of traffic.
Ninda stopped on the sidewalk.
She looked at her phone. 7:26 p.m.
The battery was down to eleven percent.
There was no video recording. The phone’s camera had been open, but all it had saved was a dark photo with a slanted streak of light. No eyes. No figure. Just a black blur in front of the banyan.
The voice recorder had been on too.
Ninda pressed play.
She heard her footsteps. Electrical hum. Her quick breathing. Then a long hiss, like fabric being dragged across the ground.
After that, silence.
There was no man’s voice.
No “go home.”
No evidence she could send Bagas without sounding like someone who had just lost her mind.
She saved the file, then ordered a ride home.
Throughout the trip, Ninda tried to organize what had happened the way she usually did when dealing with a lying witness: separate fact from interpretation.
Fact: she had gone to the alley after Maghrib.
Fact: she had seen something beneath the tree.
Fact: that something had spoken to her.
Interpretation: that something wasn’t human.
Fact: she didn’t remember exactly when the voice had stopped.
Interpretation: someone or something had tampered with her memory.
The vehicle stopped in front of her boarding room at 7:58 p.m. Ninda paid, climbed the stairs, and only then realized that her palms smelled of dirt.
She washed them three times.
The smell remained until she fell asleep.
Ninda woke up in front of Mbak Rara’s food stall.
The first thing she felt was cold.
Not the cold of air-conditioning or bathroom tiles. A cold that seeped from her back into her shoulder blades, as if she’d been sleeping on open ground. She opened her eyes and found a white morning sky above her.
There was the sound of a spoon stirring a glass.
The smell of strong coffee.
Something was tapping softly against the side of her head.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
“If you’re going to pass out, don’t do it in the middle of the road, miss. You’re disrupting traffic for humans and jinn.”
Ninda turned her head.
Mbak Rara stood over her with a glass of water. A dish towel was tucked over her shoulder. She didn’t look panicked, only slightly annoyed, as if Ninda had just spilled sugar on the floor.
Ninda sat up abruptly.
Her head spun. She pressed her temples and looked around. The food stall was still partially closed. The green tarp had been rolled up halfway. Motorcycles and vegetable sellers were only just beginning to pass along the road in front of the alley. The banyan tree stood at the end of the alley, just as large, just as dark, as if the previous night had never happened.
“Where am I?”
“Good question for someone sleeping in front of someone else’s food stall.” Mbak Rara handed her the water. “Drink. Don’t die here. It’s a hassle to deal with.”
Ninda took the glass. The water was warm and smelled faintly of pandan leaves.
“What time is it?”
“Quarter to six.”
Ninda nearly dropped the glass.
She remembered walking out of the alley. Remembered standing on the sidewalk. Remembered her phone nearly dying. Remembered her palms smelling of dirt.
After that, there was nothing.
No trip home. No boarding-house stairs. No opening the door. No sleep.
She reached into her jacket pocket. Her phone was there, but it was dead. She pressed the button repeatedly until the screen came on. The battery showed thirty-seven percent.
Ninda stared at the number.
“It was eleven percent yesterday,” she said.
Mbak Rara took the empty glass from the table. “Maybe your phone found religion.”
“What time did I get home?”
“You didn’t go home.”
The words landed harder than they should have.
Ninda stood. Her knees were weak. She looked at her shoes. There was black dirt along the right side, stuck between the treads. The hems of her pants were wet up to her calves.
“When did I get here?”
“A little after midnight.”
“Alone?”
Mbak Rara looked at her, this time without humor.
“You came alone. You walked from the direction of the alley. You didn’t answer when I asked you anything. Then you sat in that chair, wrote something, and fell asleep.”
Mbak Rara pointed to the wooden bench in front of the stall. Ninda’s notebook lay on it.
Ninda picked it up.
The last page she remembered contained the sentence: Daytime is normal. The residents aren’t.
Beneath it, in the same ink and her own handwriting, was one large word.
BREATHE.
Ninda stared at the word until its black lines seemed to move.
“When did I write this?”
“When you refused to answer me.”
“Did I say anything?”
“Not much.”
“What did I say?”
Mbak Rara wiped the table. Her movements were slow, deliberately giving Ninda time to wait.
“You said, ‘Don’t let them erase it.’”
Ninda held her breath.
“Erase what?”
“Exactly. That’s what you didn’t say.”
At the end of the alley, the sound of a twig broom scraping against the sidewalk drifted toward them. An old woman appeared carrying a bucket. She saw Ninda, then immediately lowered her head. She quickened her pace toward the row house without looking back at the banyan even once.
Ninda watched her tense shoulders.
“Mbak Rara,” she said, “the people here know something.”
“People everywhere know something. The difference is, people in Semarang usually know things while they’re eating.”
“Don’t joke.”
“I’m not joking. This is a coffee stall. If nobody’s eating or drinking, it’s just a room with a leaky roof.”
Ninda closed her notebook. She could still feel the cold at the nape of her neck, even as the sun began to warm the street.
“I’m going to ask the residents.”
“Go ahead. They’ll lie to you too.”
“Why?”
Mbak Rara set down the dish towel. Her gaze shifted to the banyan.
“Because some things, if they’re mentioned too often, eventually start listening on their own.”
Ninda waited for an explanation.
Mbak Rara didn’t give her one.
She only turned on the burner, poured water into a small pot, and said, “If you want to ask questions, do it in broad daylight. Before the sun changes direction.”
Ninda looked at the banyan tree.
Among the raised roots, something looked like the imprint of a large footprint. Only one. The shape was quickly covered by the shadows of the leaves.
She wrote on a new page.
Wringin Anom Alley: everyone knows it. No one wants to remember it out loud.
Then, beneath the sentence, she copied the word she didn’t remember ever writing.
BREATHE.