The Weight of Our Sky(38)
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“Are you okay?”
The onlookers have dispersed, and we are alone in the middle of Kampung Baru. I can’t answer. I’m trapped in a web of numbers—the number of windows on all the houses surrounding us, the number of coconuts on those trees, the number of white pebbles on the ground, but only the white ones, not the others, the number of planks that make up the wooden fence of that house over there, anything but the recurring image of Saf being bludgeoned to death in the Rex, and the overwhelming feeling that I didn’t do a damn thing to stop it. Keep counting, Melati, keep counting.
“We have to get out of here, Mel,” Vince is saying, his voice low and urgent. “These villagers haven’t exactly given me the warmest welcome, and I don’t think the farewell is going to be any better. We have to go. Now.”
He grabs me by the wrist and drags me along unprotesting as he walks quickly back to where we left the car, keeping a watchful eye on our surroundings. I stumble along behind him, not really taking it all in, still counting as I go. A traitor. Does trusting Vince make me a traitor? How do I know I can really trust him at all? You can’t, the Djinn says, smiling winningly. You shouldn’t.
A quick escape, as it turns out, isn’t going to be possible. Jay’s car is a wreck. It looks like what happens to paper when you’ve crumpled it into a little ball and then try to smooth it out again, covered with large dents and scratches all over. Every window has been smashed, and broken glass is everywhere; it crunches under the soles of Vince’s brown leather shoes as he moves closer to survey the damage. Jay himself is nowhere to be seen.
“Stay back,” he tells me. “I need to make sure it’s safe.” My mind immediately leaps into overdrive: a bomb explodes, blasting both the car and Vince’s body into shreds; a man leaps out of the back seat, slicing Vincent’s head off in one blow. Before I even realize what’s happening, my shaking fingers are tapping furiously against my thighs.
“There’s no way we can drive this thing,” Vince says, emerging from the driver’s seat, checking his palms carefully for any slivers of broken glass. “We’re going to have to figure out another way to get home.”
“Where’s Jay?” I force myself to speak, my tongue thick and furry in my mouth.
“I don’t know,” Vince says, his brow creased with worry and frustration.
The numbers are failing. I’m meant to be keeping everyone safe, but everything is going wrong, and the numbers are failing. The world suddenly begins to tilt and sway, and I close my eyes to ward off the sensation of trying to walk on jelly, but all I see in the darkness is death. You’re failing, Melati, the Djinn whispers. You’ll fail them all. Just like you failed Saf.
I need to sit down.
It’s only when I sink down to the ground, resting my aching head on my knees, that I see it, half-hidden among the wild, untamed grass along the clearing’s edge: A crumpled blue square of cloth, with JS embroidered in the corner in navy blue thread, speckled with fresh blood.
CHAPTER TEN
I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG I sit there, clutching the handkerchief and trying to breathe. Vince says something to me; I can’t figure out what it is over the roaring in my ears, so I just nod and hope he’ll leave me alone, and he disappears. I know I should panic about this, but I’m too busy panicking about everything else to care. In his absence, the Djinn amuses himself by conjuring up imaginative ways for Jay to die and parading them through my head, in glorious technicolor. Come on, he says tauntingly, you know what to do. So I sit, counting each individual leaf on the coconut fronds overhead as they wave lightly in the breeze, weaving Jay’s handkerchief clumsily in and out of my shaking fingers, hating the Djinn and hating myself.
In the distance, the rumble of a motorcycle getting closer and closer knocks me out of my stupor. Bugger, I think desperately, jumping to my feet and running to crouch low behind the car. When I look down, I realize my fingers are shaking. Time to die, the Djinn sings gleefully.
The motorcycle stops right in front of the car and someone cuts the engine. From my vantage point, I can hear the crunch of gravel as the rider disembarks.
Protect yourself, I think, you need to protect yourself.
A waste of time, the Djinn snorts.
Shut up, you.
Just beside me, a large rock lies half-buried in the dirt, and I quickly reach over and begin to work it out with my fingers. Come on, come on. The footsteps are coming closer, turning the corner, I almost have the rock free, come on, come on. . . . I swing around, my arm raised, ready to bash the guy’s face in with my rock.
“Mel?”
It’s Vince, staring at me with a bewildered expression on his face.
I lower my arm, feeling a little foolish. “I was just . . .” I gesture to the rock, then shrug and let it fall to the ground with a thud. “Umm. Where’d you get that?” I say, pointing to the motorcycle behind us. It’s one the boys in the neighborhood would refer to as a motor kapcai, and from the way it shines in the evening sun, from the gleaming red and white of its hard plastic exterior all the way to the carefully polished black of its leather seat, it’s obviously the pride and joy of its owner.
He looks down, suddenly bashful. “I, uh, I kind of . . . stole it.”
Its owner, who, apparently, doesn’t realize it’s missing.