mind music, my nights littered with dreams of gushing water and that omnipresent door. In odd moments, I found myself researching crazy things, like “Empu for hire,” only to come up empty-handed. I unearthed one possibly relevant and interesting book online, but it was out of stock. Maybe I’d ask Heather about finding it, or another like it, through an interlibrary loan over the break. More than once, I peered through the aperture in the blade—the one Garrick said could foretell my future—but only ever saw what was right before my eyes.
I had to stop. I was becoming obsessed.
It first happened in early December, as I sat hunched over my work during office hours. My skin felt stretched, like it was pulling away from my muscles and bone. Someone was watching me. I turned around, but no one stood in the doorway. Neither was there a soul in the hall. Plenty of times after that, I felt as though someone was following me, but I never saw anything suspicious.
The sensation struck again the final week of lectures, where naturally many eyes (two or three pairs, anyway) were upon me. I stopped midsentence to scan the tiered hall, just in time to see a door shut. That afternoon, I found a slip of paper nailed to my office door, bearing a single word.
Eling
Foreign, and I didn’t know it.
I hoped Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” search would give me immediate gratification, but it just landed me on the Totton and Eling town council page. After several minutes of scanning similar pages—and just as I considered siccing one of the department’s TAs on the mystery—I typed in the phrase “eling means.” Javanese Mysticism appeared in several links. I clicked, skimmed one of the pages.
Eling means remember.
The site spoke of awareness, self-control, things experienced with the spirit. Nothing sensible. Nothing about the keris .
Another link sent me to a site called Joglosemar and a page that read something like a prayer.
I eling to my life … I love the life of soul, the real life, the life of light, the life of Atma (the place of life), which are eternal, which could guide me to reality.
I didn’t understand this, either, but my eyes fixed on certain things.
If I come back to where I belong, it will be a perfect life. I ‘eling’ to both of my parents, mother and father; I ‘eling’ to all my spiritual sisters and brothers. I ‘eling’ to true knowledge.
Breathe during your prayer, it said. Breathe like a pregnant woman. Fill your stomach with air.
You are going to be spiritually more sensitive and stronger. Some say you start to have the 6 sense.
Eling means remember.
Languages jumbled up in my mind as I did what I didn’t want to do: I remembered. My mother upset when Moira and I refused to sit for Candy Land, when we told her we only wanted to play outside alone. My father’s boat-building hands, holding our family together as well as he could. Poppy’s smile. His short lessons in Italian and Spanish, all before the stroke. My mother again, breathing like a pregnant woman, happy with the promise of a new life. Castine: the hill, the lighthouse, the dark, the wind and rain. Ian. Moira. Moira. Moira. In my mirror. Under my bed.
I got in my car and called Kit, my foot heavy on the accelerator, and felt a gush of relief when she answered.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Are you sick?”
“No, I’m not sick! Do you have some time? I’m practically in the parking lot of Betheny General.”
“Go straight to the cafeteria. I’ll meet you.”
A SMALL MIRACLE, Kit was sitting at a table in the cafeteria when I arrived. I gave her a hug, registering an antiseptic scent in her hair, then sat across from her.
“What’s up? You okay?” She offered me her dinner—a plastic-wrapped burger with sweet-potato fries and applesauce.
I wrinkled my nose. “I’m being followed.”
“What do you mean, followed?”
I told her what I’d felt, and about the keris and the book and the note. “Do
I had to stop. I was becoming obsessed.
It first happened in early December, as I sat hunched over my work during office hours. My skin felt stretched, like it was pulling away from my muscles and bone. Someone was watching me. I turned around, but no one stood in the doorway. Neither was there a soul in the hall. Plenty of times after that, I felt as though someone was following me, but I never saw anything suspicious.
The sensation struck again the final week of lectures, where naturally many eyes (two or three pairs, anyway) were upon me. I stopped midsentence to scan the tiered hall, just in time to see a door shut. That afternoon, I found a slip of paper nailed to my office door, bearing a single word.
Eling
Foreign, and I didn’t know it.
I hoped Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” search would give me immediate gratification, but it just landed me on the Totton and Eling town council page. After several minutes of scanning similar pages—and just as I considered siccing one of the department’s TAs on the mystery—I typed in the phrase “eling means.” Javanese Mysticism appeared in several links. I clicked, skimmed one of the pages.
Eling means remember.
The site spoke of awareness, self-control, things experienced with the spirit. Nothing sensible. Nothing about the keris .
Another link sent me to a site called Joglosemar and a page that read something like a prayer.
I eling to my life … I love the life of soul, the real life, the life of light, the life of Atma (the place of life), which are eternal, which could guide me to reality.
I didn’t understand this, either, but my eyes fixed on certain things.
If I come back to where I belong, it will be a perfect life. I ‘eling’ to both of my parents, mother and father; I ‘eling’ to all my spiritual sisters and brothers. I ‘eling’ to true knowledge.
Breathe during your prayer, it said. Breathe like a pregnant woman. Fill your stomach with air.
You are going to be spiritually more sensitive and stronger. Some say you start to have the 6 sense.
Eling means remember.
Languages jumbled up in my mind as I did what I didn’t want to do: I remembered. My mother upset when Moira and I refused to sit for Candy Land, when we told her we only wanted to play outside alone. My father’s boat-building hands, holding our family together as well as he could. Poppy’s smile. His short lessons in Italian and Spanish, all before the stroke. My mother again, breathing like a pregnant woman, happy with the promise of a new life. Castine: the hill, the lighthouse, the dark, the wind and rain. Ian. Moira. Moira. Moira. In my mirror. Under my bed.
I got in my car and called Kit, my foot heavy on the accelerator, and felt a gush of relief when she answered.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Are you sick?”
“No, I’m not sick! Do you have some time? I’m practically in the parking lot of Betheny General.”
“Go straight to the cafeteria. I’ll meet you.”
A SMALL MIRACLE, Kit was sitting at a table in the cafeteria when I arrived. I gave her a hug, registering an antiseptic scent in her hair, then sat across from her.
“What’s up? You okay?” She offered me her dinner—a plastic-wrapped burger with sweet-potato fries and applesauce.
I wrinkled my nose. “I’m being followed.”
“What do you mean, followed?”
I told her what I’d felt, and about the keris and the book and the note. “Do
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