The Mouse Deer Society

٨. A Dance of Horses

"Have you ever heard of the kuda kepang dance?" Suri asked, she was lazily holding her head on the counter as she waited for a customer to walk through the door any minute - the bakery had been awfully quiet that morning and Suri had already finished moping the floors and wiping the tables so she had been sitting in laborious boredom

Lyra was checking off some cake orders from the day before and was silently glad to be working like a machine since the bakery found a set of loyal customers in the first few weeks of opening. She nodded to Suri's question without a second thought, "Yeah, I saw a performance once. It was quite scary."

The kuda kepang dance is a folk Javanese dance whereby the dancers ride on "horses" made of woven bamboo or rattan (in modern times, some performances use "horses" created with cardboard and fabric decorated with paint and sequins).

The dance can be quite dangerous to the dancers since the performance is known to induce a dancer into a trance-like state; hence, another dancer or a shaman would need to exorcise them out of their spiritual possession.

"Why was it scary?" Suri was intrigued. "Well, I saw a dancer gets possessed and he was eating glass right off the ground," Lyra could feel the tingle of goosebumps on her arms as she remembered the performance with the dancer rolling his eyes into the back of his head until blinding whiteness eclipsed his pupils.

"Did you help the dancer, Aunty?"

"I didn't have to. There was another shaman there and besides, I was undercover so I couldn't reveal that I'm a Dukun at that time."

"If I have to perform that dance, can you teach me how to be safe from the spirits?" asked Suri which made Lyra finally looked up at her from her notebook, "Why do you have to perform it?"

"It's part of my dance class' curriculum. The teacher said we wouldn't really use any of the ancient techniques in the dance. You know, it's more like a modernised version of it."

"If you don't feel safe then we can talk to your teacher about it. You don't have to perform if you don't want to."

"But, I do want to. It's just that if you teach me some charms then maybe I would be more protected," Suri began to stretch in a relaxed motion as if what she was saying meant nothing but Lyra knew that Suri had been planning to tell her this.

Lyra was brought back to a rainy afternoon when she and a very pregnant Amelia were sitting at the back porch with a pot of black tea with honeysuckle for warmth. Amelia was cupping her belly and was waiting for the baby to kick when she suddenly asked, "Does being a Dukun makes you happy, Lyra?"

Lyra shrugged, not knowing there was more to the question, "I'm indifferent. It's just like a family business now, right? It's something that needs to be done." Amelia's expression was gloomy as the rain drizzled on the rose bushes just inches away from them - threatening to wet their shoes.

"I don't want my baby to be a part of this 'family business.' It's not right. We're playing with lives and spirits," Amelia seemed like she had been waiting to say this out loud and her practised words struck a chord in Lyra.

She never even thought of their Dukun practise being carried to the next generation until that conversation - in fact, it wasn't something that Lyra believed in so she quickly comforted Amelia, "Oh, Amy. You don't have to worry about that. She doesn't need to carry on our legacy. That's not her burden to bear."

Amelia looked right into Lyra's eyes; her piercing glare reflect regrets that Lyra will never know of, "Do you promise?"

Now in the humid bakery, Lyra only wanted to end the conversation of black magic, "I'm not sure that's a good idea. Your dad wouldn't approve," which annoyed Suri, "Then, we don't have to tell him. Why won't you teach me how to use magic?"