The Mouse Deer Society

١. Cloaked In Darkness

The sound of Meera's motorcycle gearing to a halt broke the hum of the still night. The ancient town of Temasek could be violently quiet in the hours before dawn and the silence surprised Meera since she had always been travelling through cities that came alive when cloaked in darkness. 

In Temasek, the townsfolk were wary of what lingers in the shadows; there is an unspoken rule that everyone must retire to their homes when the grey moon lights up the midnight skies. Stories about Great Spirits with large figures covered in black fur and of bodiless floating vampires staining the roofs of houses with their bloodied entrails - these were eerie tales told by the ancestors of this small town and they still haunt any willing listeners until today.

Of course, sightings of such beings were far and between - some were mere rumours that were printed on the front pages of tabloids filled with conspiracy theories - nevertheless to Meera and her family, the Ahmadis, these vile creatures were as real as you and me. 

Meera parked her heavy bike at the side of the road where just over the metallic divider was a sharp cliffside hidden behind thorny bushes. She quickly took off her helmet and with a sigh, walked towards the far edge of the cliff overlooking the town where the suburban streetlights lit up the dark landscape. 

Even though it had been more than fifteen years since she'd left Temasek, every tree, building and gravel road was the same as the day she took the train and headed towards the far south and never to return again until that night. "It's as if nothing's changed, right?" a too-familiar voice spoke behind her and Meera closed her eyes tightly; praying that she had only imagined it. 

Stepping under the light of the moon and greeting Meera with a sorrowful smile was her younger sister Lyra, clad in a black top with a preppy plaid skirt - a signature look of hers this past decade - and in her hand was what looked like a beat-up antique briefcase which Meera recognised as the bag Lyra bought in Paris during their holiday in the 1970s.

"I can't believe you're here," Meera said, more accusingly than she had meant to and Lyra retorted with a similar tone, "I can't believe you're here!" Meera scoffed and continued to stare at the town below while Lyra slowly closed the distance between them; physically and metaphorically. 

"A call would have been great, Meera. We really missed you," Lyra said.

"I have my reasons to leave and I never asked for you to look for me."

"I know you didn't ask but I had to. We were all worried especially after..."

"What?" Meera asked, daring Lyra to mention the incident that caused a rift in their family years ago. Lyra sighed dejectedly and thought better than to finish her sentence, instead, she turned to glare at the horizons of Temasek where the forests stretched for a few miles and barely touched the trees of a neighbouring town. 

"I'm guessing we're here for the same reason?" Lyra asked and Meera nodded, "The serial killings..." Lyra was afraid to ask but she knew it was the theory that was plausible enough to influence them both to return to their hometown, "Do you think it was done by one of us? Another Dukun?" 

About a month ago, what was only gossip whispered among the people of Temasek regarding the mysterious killings in their town became a shocking national headline. The murder victims who were all women were found in alleyways and under bridges; their bodies unclothed and covered in sleek grease and the killer left no traces for the police to even narrow down a list of suspects. 

Lyra read about the case in the newspaper while staying in a remote village in the Bornean jungle, where she hunted down a  River Spirit who was stealing fish from the fishermen's bamboo traps. She immediately packed her bags after she and the red-eyed twelve-foot River Spirit reached a consensus on protecting the villagers' farm animals from wild beasts and being rewarded with fish in return. 

Meera shrugged, "We'll have to stay here longer to find out but..." she dropped her denim jacket to the ground, and rubbed her hands together at the sudden jolt of the cold air on her tan skin, "Before we can actually do that, I think we might need to make some adjustments." As if on cue, Lyra also pushed her briefcase further from them, tied her shoulder-length black locks in a messy bun, and went closer to her sister who was now standing with her arms outstretched to the sky. 

"A little spell would do the trick," Meera murmured and Lyra's dark brown eyes widened, "A little spell?! Trying to make the whole town forget that we ever existed is not that simple." 

"Oh, I thought we could just 'wear' new faces and have a different identity. Do you actually think we should let the townsfolk forget about the Ahmadis' existence?"

"No, just that we - Meera and Lyra Ahmadi - ever existed. Except for maybe our brother-in-law and niece, I don't think they should forget about us," Lyra said and Meera gulped at the thought of reuniting with their youngest sister's husband, Ben, and daughter, Suri whom she had abandoned without a word when she left Temasek. 

"Are you sure we should go and see them?" Meera asked and Lyra gave an uncomfortable pause before answering, "We could watch them from afar for now and maybe think about that after we find who's behind all of this." 

The sisters were now facing each other and held their arms pointedly to the sky, their mouths parting slightly as inaudible incantations escaped from their rouged lips. 

While the people of Temasek sleep, a thin and transparent veil created by the sisters' ritual engulfed the town in a white mist and began to poison the townsfolk's dreams so that when they do wake up, they would not have any recollection that the sisters have made Temasek their home so many moons ago. 

Meera and Lyra Ahmadi will now be intriguing twenty-something strangers who were new to town, arriving with a blank canvas for their past and the pages of their future already bloodied with the bodies coated with black oil appearing all over the town.