'They will speak if they believe you can help them, but they are frightened and 
suspicious. They feel helpless without their mortal bodies, as if they are invalids.'
  There was a young girl of twelve or thirteen standing by one of the nearer shrines. She 
reminded Michael of the girl he had seen sewing at the batik stall. He approached her 
carefully until he was standing only three feet from her. She stared back at him with 
wide brown eyes.
  'Can you speak?' Michael asked. 'My name is Michael. Nama say a Michael. Siapa nama 
saudara?'
  There was an achingly long silence while the girl kept her eyes on Michael, regarding 
him with curiosity and suspicion. Something in her expression told him that she had 
suffered great pain.
  'Jam berapa sekarang?' she whispered in a voice as faint as a gauze scarf blowing in 
the evening wind.
  'Ma/am,' Michael told her. She had wanted to know what time of day it was and he had 
explained that it was night.
  Again he asked her name. 'Siapa nama saudara?'
  But gradually she began to move away from him as if she were being blown by an unfelt 
breeze. Other families began to move away too, to vanish behind the shrines. One young 
man remained, however, looking at Michael as if he recognized him. He was thin and 
frighteningly pale but quite handsome, with the thin-featured appearance of a man from 
the north, from Bukit Jambul.
  'He envies you,' the pedanda said, standing close by Michael's shoulder. 'The dead 
always long to have their mortal bodies restored to them.'
  'They seem to be frightened,' Michael remarked.
  The priest pressed his left hand against his deaf left ear and listened keenly with his 
right. 'They are. There must be leyaks close by. Leyaks prey on the dead as well as on 
the living. They capture their antakaransariras and drag them back to Rangda for 
torturing.'
  'Even the dead can be tortured?'
  'Rangda is the Queen of the Dead. She can put them through far more terrible agonies 
than they have ever suffered during their lifetimes.'
  Michael turned and looked around the graveyard. He heard a rustling sound but it was 
only the creeper trailing against the shrines. Nonetheless, the pedanda clasped his wrist 
with fingers as bony as a hawk's and drew him back towards the graveyard gates.
  'It is not wise to tempt the leyaks, especially since we are both in a death trance. 
Come, let us return to the temple.'
  They left the graveyard and stepped out into Jalan Mahabnarata. The street was 
completely deserted, although some of the upstairs windows were lighted and there was the 
bonelike clacking of mah-jong tiles, and laughter. The pedanda glanced around and then 
took Michael's sleeve. 'Be quick. If the leyaks catch us in the open, they will kill us.'
  They began to walk along the street as fast as they could without alerting hostile 
eyes. They passed two or three tourists and a fruit seller, all of whom seemed to be 
moving on a different time plane, moving so slowly that Michael could have snatched the 
durian fruit from the market woman's upraised hand without her realizing who had taken 
it. One of the tourists turned and frowned as if sensing their passing, but before he 
could collect his wits, they were gone.
  They were no more than three hundred yards from the temple gates when the pedanda said, 
There. On the other side of the street.'
  Michael glanced sideways and caught sight of a grey-faced man in a grey suit, with eyes 
that shone carnivorously orange. He looked like a zombie out of a horror movie, but he 
walked swiftly and athletically, keeping pace with them on the opposite sidewalk; as he 
reached the small side street called Jalan Suling, the Street of Flutes, he was joined by 
another grey-faced man. Their cheeks could have been smeared with human ashes; their eyes 
could have been glowing lamps from the night market.
  Taster,' the pedanda insisted. Now they made no pretence of walking but ran towards the 
gates of the Puri Dalem as fast as they could. The priest held up his robes, and his 
sandals slapped on the bricks. Michael could have run much faster but he did not want to 
leave the old man behind. There were three or four leyaks following them now, and Michael 
glimpsed their glistening teeth.
  They had almost reached the temple gates when three leyaks appeared in front of them. 
They were larger than Michael had ever imagined and their faces were like funeral masks. 
The pedanda gasped, 'Michael, the gates! Open the gates!'
  Michael tried to dodge around the leyaks and reach the gates. One of the creatures 
snatched at his arm with a hand that felt like a steel claw. The nails dug into his skin 
but somehow he managed to twist away and cling to the heavy ring handle that would open 
up the temple. The leyak snatched at him again, viciously scratching his legs, but then 
Michael heaved the gate inwards and tumbled into the temple's outer courtyard.
  The pedanda was not so lucky. The leyaks had jumped on him now; one of them had seized 
his left forearm in his jaws and was trying to pry the flesh from the bone. The other 
leyaks were ripping at his robes with their claws and already the simple white cotton was 
splashed with blood.
  Michael screamed, 'No! No! Let him go!' but the leyaks snarled and bit at the old 
pedanda like wild dogs, their eyes flaring orange. Blood flew everywhere in a shower of 
hot droplets. The noise was horrendous: snarling and screeching and tearing. Michael 
heard muscles shred, sinews snap, bones break like dry branches. For a moment the pedanda 
was completely buried under the grey, hulking leyaks and Michael thought he would never 
see the old priest again.
  But then, like a drowning man reaching for air, the pedanda extended one hand towards 
the temple. Michael desperately tried to grasp it, missed the first time but then managed 
to seize the pedanda's wrist.
  'Barong Keket!' he shouted, although it was more of a war cry than an appeal to the 
sovereign of the forests, the archenemy of Rangda. 'Barong Keket!'
  At the sound of the deity's name, the snarling leyaks raised their heads and glared at 
Michael with burning eyes. And as they raised their heads, Michael tugged at the 
pedanda'?, arm and managed to drag the old man into the safety of the temple courtyard. 
There were screams of rage and frustration from the leyaks, but none of them could walk 
on sacred ground. Their nails grated against the bronze doorway and they howled like 
wolves at bay, but they could come no further. Michael slammed the door and stood with 
his back to it, panting. The pedanda lay on the courtyard floor, his robes crimson with 
blood, gasping and shivering.
  'We must leave this trance if we wish to survive,' he gasped. 'Quickly, Michael. Take 
me back to the inner courtyard.'
  Michael helped the priest to his feet. He could feel the sticky wetness of blood, the 
sliminess of torn muscle. The pedanda~felt no pain because he was still deeply entranced, 
but there was no doubt that he was close to death. If Michael could not bring him out of 
the trance and take him to the hospital, the old priest would die within an hour. 
Breathing as deeply and as calmly as he could, Michael dragged the pedanda through the 
inner gate, the paduraksa, and back to the silken mats. The mask of Rangda was still 
there, covered by its cloth; the incense still smoked.
  'You must recite . . . the sanghyang . . .' whispered the pedanda. 'You are a priest