The flight back to Bali felt like a fever.
I don't even remember booking the villa—just that I searched obsessively for the same one, the one with the wooden gate and stone guardian. But when I landed in Denpasar and took a Grab up to Ubud, something felt immediately... wrong.
The trees were taller. Or maybe they just felt that way. The roads narrower. The sounds quieter. When I arrived at the path to the villa, I expected the same gate, the same carved wood, the same shadows that once felt alive.
But it was gone.
Not the land—the land was still there. Still surrounded by rice paddies, still humming with the distant sound of gamelan. But the villa itself was sealed off. The path had been overtaken by weeds, the gate chained shut with rusted wire, and a sign nailed to one of the pillars in Balinese script I couldn't read.
I stood there for what felt like hours, unsure if I should climb over or walk away.
Then I heard the cough.
A dry, familiar sound behind me.
I turned.
Pak Wayan.
But older now. His hair had gone fully gray, and he walked with a cane. His eyes were the same though—sharp, unreadable, tired.
"You came back," he said simply.
I nodded. "I had to."
He looked past me at the gate. "Too late."
"What happened to it?" I asked.
He didn't answer at first. Then: "No one stays there anymore. Not after what it took."
"What did it take?"
He looked at me for a long time. Then said, "You."
---
He led me down a different path, through thick brush to a modest house on the other side of the hill. The air there was thicker—more humid, more silent.
Inside, his home was simple. No electricity. Clay walls. A small fire pit in the center with boiling water. He poured tea for both of us and sat across from me like we were about to bargain with something ancient.
"Tell me what you brought back," he said.
I told him everything.
The mirror. The whispers. The figure. The offering that arrived by mail. The second wooden idol. The eyes carved into it.
He listened in silence.
Then he said something I didn't expect.
"She's not angry. She's curious."
I frowned. "Curious?"
"You looked at her. Truly looked. That's rare. Most people only see shadows and run. You didn't."
"I wanted her gone."
"No," he said. "You wanted to understand her. And now she wants the same."
I said nothing. What could I say?
Pak Wayan took out a small pouch from beneath his seat. Inside was ash, smooth black stones, and dried petals. He gave me a wrapped cloth with a single phrase written on it in red ink: *Tunjukkan siapa kamu.*
"Show her who you are," he translated.
---
That night, I didn't return to a hotel. I stayed in his spare room, barely more than a bamboo mat and an oil lamp. I didn't sleep.
At 2:00 a.m., I stepped outside.
The jungle was thick with mist. Crickets whispered in pulses. Something moved at the edge of the trees. But I wasn't afraid—not in the same way. I felt watched, yes. But also expected.
I walked barefoot through the trail, cloth in hand, incense burning slowly in a clay dish I carried.
I reached the abandoned villa.
Even sealed off, the presence remained. The statue was cracked, moss-covered, but unmistakably turned in the direction of the jungle. As though still guarding something. Or someone.
I placed the cloth on the ground before it. Lit the incense. Then sat down.
And I waited.
---
At 2:44 a.m., she came.
Not through the gate.
Through the mirror.
Or something like it.
The air shimmered. The space in front of me bent—not physically, but perceptually. Like light warping underwater.
And there she was.
The woman.
Her dress was white, flowing—not the bleached white of laundry, but aged, ceremonial, organic. Her hair covered her face still, but her posture had changed. Less looming. More... curious, just as Wayan had said.
She stepped toward me, silent.
And I stayed seated.
I didn't speak.
I didn't flinch.
I simply looked at her—not like an intruder, not like a tourist—but like someone who finally realized they were the guest.
She knelt before the incense.
And I saw her face.
Not all of it.
But enough.
Her skin was not pale, but the color of aged bone. Her eyes—visible through strands of hair—were impossibly black, reflecting not just the flame but everything around it. She didn't smile. She didn't move. She just stared.
And then she whispered.
I didn't understand the words, but I felt them.
Inside.
Like heat moving through my ribs.
Then she reached forward—and touched my forehead with two fingers.
Cold. Not of temperature, but of memory.
And I remembered.
---
Not my memories.
Hers.
The first time she died.
Drowned. Not in water—but in silence. Betrayed. Left in a temple during a political purge centuries ago. She had been a priestess once. A gatekeeper. Until she saw too much.
They sealed her alive behind stone, thinking her visions would curse the land.
But the land remembered.
The land mourned.
And when the rains came, her grave broke open, and her spirit poured into the earth like ink into water.
Watching.
Waiting.
For someone to see.
Not just her—but the truth beneath her.
---
I gasped.
Fell back.
The vision broke.
She was gone.
The mist had lifted.
But the statue had changed.
Now it faced me.
And its expression had softened.
---
I returned to Pak Wayan before dawn.
He nodded, unsurprised.
"She showed you."
I could barely speak. My mouth dry. My eyes stung.
"Now what?" I asked.
"She may leave you now," he said. "Or not. She's not like other spirits. She's not revenge. She's not sorrow. She's truth. You looked. She looked back. That's all."
I wanted to ask more.
But he handed me a different cloth this time.
It was blank.
"You fill it now," he said.
---
I left Bali a week later.
This time, I didn't feel followed.
But the feeling didn't fade.
Because I realized something I hadn't before:
I never feared her.
I feared what she showed me.
That everything I believed about the world—the clean lines, the rational logic, the safe distance between the seen and unseen—was a lie.
She wasn't a ghost.
She was the land itself.
And I saw it.
And it saw me.
---
Sometimes, late at night, I still light incense.
Not to summon her.
But to remember.
Because the third eye doesn't close.
And some reflections aren't yours to turn away from.
They turn toward you.
And stay.