Ch28: Premonition
845 Words
The smoke rose every night.
Sari had seen it before—everyone in the village had. The fires at Mbah Ratu's compound burned after dark, sending thick black columns into the sky. The old woman called it purification. The villagers called it ritual. No one asked questions.
But tonight, Sari watched it differently.
She stood at her window, the wooden frame cool against her palms, and stared at the smoke rising above the treeline. The moon was hidden behind clouds, but the fires were bright enough to cast an orange glow against the dark.
*The same darkness.*
In the dream, the black fog had swallowed the grey city whole. It had moved the same way—rolling, thick, hungry. And when she had woken, gasping, the first thing she thought of was Mbah Ratu's fires.
She pressed her forehead against the glass.
*It can't be.*
The smoke was just smoke. The dream was just a dream. There was no connection between the black fog in her sleep and the fires in her village.
But she couldn't shake the feeling.
She watched until the fires burned low and the smoke thinned to nothing. Then she closed the window and went back to bed.
The grey city did not come.
She lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to take her somewhere else.
It didn't.
---
The next morning, Sari walked to the edge of the village.
The path to Mbah Ratu's compound was unpaved, lined with overgrown grass and dark-leaved bushes. She had never walked it before. No one walked it unless they were called.
But she needed to see.
The compound was hidden behind a wall of woven bamboo, tall and dense. Through the gaps, she could see the tops of buildings—wooden structures with thatched roofs, older than the houses in the village. Smoke still drifted from somewhere inside, thin and grey, barely visible against the morning sky.
She stood at the edge of the path, hidden by the shadow of a large banyan tree, and watched.
A woman emerged from the compound gate. Old, older than Nenek, with grey hair pulled tight and eyes that had seen too much. She carried a bucket of water, her steps slow and careful.
Sari stepped forward.
"Excuse me."
The woman stopped. She turned, her eyes scanning Sari's face, her expression unreadable.
"Yes?"
"The smoke," Sari said. "What do they burn at night?"
The woman looked at her for a long moment. Then she looked down at the bucket in her hands. The water was dark—not clear, not clean. Murky, with something floating on the surface.
"The old ways," the woman said.
"What does that mean?"
The woman didn't answer. She shifted the bucket to her other hand and walked past Sari, down the path toward the village.
Sari watched her go.
Then she looked back at the compound, at the bamboo wall, at the smoke still rising.
She didn't go inside.
But she stood there long enough to see the snake carved into the gatepost—a serpent, coiled, its body forming a circle with no beginning and no end.
The same symbol.
She had seen it in the dream.
---
That night, she dreamed of the grey city again.
But the fog was there too.
It lingered at the edges of the sky, not advancing, not retreating. Just waiting. Watching. The same way the snake on the gatepost had watched her.
He was there, standing in the middle of the street, his hands in his pockets, his head turned toward the horizon.
"You see it too," she said.
"Yes."
"What is it?"
He was quiet for a moment. Then: "Something that doesn't belong here."
"Here? In the dream?"
"In our dream."
She felt the words land—*our* dream. Not hers. Not his. Theirs.
"The smoke is real," she said. "I saw it this morning. In my village. There's a woman. She burns things at night. The smoke is thick and black, and the same symbol is carved on her gate."
He turned to look at her. His face was still shadowed, but she felt his attention sharpen.
"What symbol?"
"The snake. Coiled. A circle."
He was quiet for so long she thought the dream had broken.
"That symbol isn't from Java," he said finally.
"How do you know?"
"I've seen it before."
"Where?"
He didn't answer.
The fog at the edges of the sky thickened. The grey city dimmed.
"Stay," he said.
The dream broke.
---
Sari woke with his voice in her ears.
*I've seen it before.*
She sat up slowly, her heart heavy in her chest.
He had seen the symbol before. Not in the dream—in his waking life. Somewhere real. Somewhere far from her village.
She picked up her notebook.
*The snake symbol is real. He's seen it before.*
*The smoke is real. It comes from Mbah Ratu's fires.*
*The fog in the dream is connected to the smoke in the village.*
*I don't know how.*
*But I'm going to find out.*
- Writer
