The next morning, Plai Saen refused to eat his bananas.
Kham stood holding a bunch of bananas beside the feeding trough for nearly an hour. The bull elephant merely raised his trunk to sniff them, then turned away. From time to time, both ears spread wide, as though he were listening to something no one else in camp could hear.
“What’s wrong with him?” Ming asked from the pen’s fence.
“There was a bell ringing in the forest last night,” Kham replied.
“It was just a bell. What else could it be?”
Kham didn’t answer. Instead, he looked at the ground in front of the pen. It had rained heavily last night, leaving the earth muddy, but the only tracks there belonged to Plai Saen. There were no human footprints, no tracks from another elephant, and no boot prints from the workers.
In the middle of the elephant’s tracks, a thin line stretched toward the forest, as if something had been dragged across the mud.
Kham poked at it with the tip of a stick and found a long, circular black mark. A faint smell of something burnt drifted up.
Old Chan happened to walk over and see it. He quickly covered the mark with his foot.
“Don’t touch it.”
Kham looked up. “What is it?”
“Forest soil bears all kinds of marks. Don’t ask about things you shouldn’t.”
“If it’s an animal track, then we should be able to tell what kind of animal made it.”
Old Chan fixed him with a grim stare. “Kham, you’ve only just entered the forest. Don’t be so quick to think everything needs an answer like it does in the market or in your father’s house. Some parts of the forest have owners. If you don’t know the way, don’t go in.”
Before Kham could ask anything else, a bell rang from the accounts hut, calling the workers to prepare for hauling logs. Plai Saen startled so hard that his chain clanged against the wooden post, but he refused to leave the pen.
Boss Suea arrived with several more workers.
“What’s going on? Why haven’t you taken him out yet?”
“He’s not ready today,” Kham answered.
“He could haul logs yesterday. Is he pretending to be sick today?”
Suea rapped on the pen’s fence with a stick. Plai Saen let out a low rumble and backed away until the chain went taut.
Kham stepped in front of him. “Don’t hit him.”
“Don’t you order me around.”
“He’s afraid of something.”
“What would an elephant be afraid of? The forest is his home.”
Suea walked over and gave Kham a light shove on the shoulder, but it was hard enough to make the young man stagger backward. The workers around them fell silent. No one wanted to get involved in the camp boss’s business.
Kham clenched his fists. He thought of Father Nil’s warning: a shotgun or modern medicine couldn’t help with everything. But this time, what stood before him wasn’t the forest curse. It was an elephant in a panic, and he wouldn’t let anyone beat it into submission.
“If you need logs hauled, use another elephant,” Kham said slowly. “Saen isn’t going.”
Suea raised his stick as if to strike, but Plai Saen lifted his trunk and roared, making the wooden floor tremble. Several workers stumbled backward. Even Suea froze for a moment before swearing and ordering another elephant instead.
That day, Plai Saen was left in the pen, and Kham stayed with him the entire time. He gave him water one bucket at a time, wiped his forehead with a damp cloth, and checked the wound on his ankle. He had no fever, but every muscle in his body was unnaturally tense.
Around noon, one of the workers named Klae came over. He was a young man in his early twenties who spoke bluntly and had never believed in ghosts.
“I heard the bell last night too,” Klae whispered. “But it didn’t come only from the forest.”
“Then where did it come from?”
“Under the cot I was sleeping on.”
Ming, who was eating nearby, immediately choked. “Don’t joke about that.”
“I’m not joking. At first I thought it was a rat. When I got up to look, the bell went quiet. As soon as I lay back down, it rang again beneath the floor.”
Klae held out his arm. The hairs stood straight up in a line.
Kham asked, “What’s under your cot?”
“Nothing but dirt.”
Old Chan, passing by, stopped to listen. Without turning to look at them, he said, “Tonight, don’t leave camp after the bell rings three times.”
Klae laughed awkwardly. “Old Chan, you’re always saying stuff like that.”
But no one laughed with him.
By evening, black clouds had gathered over the mountain ridge. Hot wind blew in from the deep forest, replacing the cool breeze. The smell of damp earth and pungent wildflowers spread thickly through the camp. The flock of birds that usually perched in the branches all took flight at once.
Plai Saen began circling the pen. He struck the ground three times with his trunk.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Kham watched the rhythm. Then a bell began ringing from the forest.
Jingle...
Everyone in camp went completely still.
Jingle...
Klae dropped his rice bowl.
Jingle...
The lamps in the sleeping quarters went out one by one, though no wind passed through. Black smoke coiled above the wicks before the last flame abruptly went dark.
From the edge of the forest came the cry of an elephant.
It wasn’t Plai Saen’s voice, nor that of any elephant in the camp. The sound was low, deep, and so long that the ground seemed to tremble with it.
Plai Saen answered at once, pulling against his chain until the wooden post creaked.
“Don’t let him out!” Suea ordered.
Several workers rushed in to grab the ropes, but Plai Saen whipped his trunk and sent two of them tumbling. Kham ran forward and stood directly in front of him, raising both hands.
“Saen, look at me.”
The bull elephant kept facing the forest, his eyes red with terror.
Kham moved closer one step at a time. “Look at me. You don’t have to listen to that sound.”
He placed his palm on the elephant’s trunk. Plai Saen trembled all over, but at last he lowered his trunk.
Suddenly, the sound of claws scraping across tree bark came from the edge of the forest.
Screeech...
Kham looked up. The darkness between the trees was thicker than usual, as though a huge black shadow stood layered behind them.
“Who’s there?”
There was no answer.
He drew the ritual knife from his waistband. Its dark metal caught a flash of moonlight, and then an icy wind swept across the back of his neck, even though the air around them remained stifling.
The black shadow moved.
It took only one step, but the entire line of trees shuddered with it.
Kham didn’t retreat. He stood between it and Plai Saen, though his heart was pounding so hard his chest hurt.
Then a voice rose from the darkness—not a human voice, not an animal’s, but a hoarse, dry whisper that seemed to seep up from beneath the earth.
“Re... turn... what’s... mine...”
Plai Saen screamed and tore through the rope.
Kham spun and grabbed his neck strap. At the same time, the black shadow in the forest vanished, leaving behind only a set of huge footprints sunk into the wet earth and a single brass bell lying at the forest’s edge.
Three ancient symbols had been scratched into the bell.
Kham couldn’t read them, but the ritual knife in his hand began to tremble faintly, as if it recognized them.
Old Chan came to a stop beside him, his aged face deathly pale.
“You saw it, didn’t you?”
Kham kept his eyes on the bell.
“What is this?”
Old Chan answered in a faint voice.
“The forest curse boundary... and we’ve just set up camp across its path.”