Shadow Among the Leaves
Ana Sun

Some mornings, when I step out my front door, two hundred feet above the forest floor between trees shimmering with dew, that moment—so long ago now—still catches me off guard, transfixing time to stillness. That moment: when Titi climbed into a tree just like these to retrieve a wayward drone. His scrawny frame, a speck high up in the canopy, lost in a sparkling sky of deep green, his skin as brown as the belian he was scaling. 

“Ti! Turun!” Get down, I’d yelled, my voice dampened by branches laden with lianas, buttress roots towering over my trembling eleven-year-old body, giant ferns squeezing me out. We shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t have agreed to come. Heart in mouth, I watched him climb. Higher, higher. How would he ever make it down? 

For a whole minute, Titi stopped moving. I couldn’t see him anymore. I shouted again. His impatient words crackled in my ear through our paired implants, “Don’t distract me! I’m nearly there!”

That was Titi: determined, stubborn, brave—to the point of being reckless sometimes.

A cold shock stings my cheek, scattering the memory. I wipe away the splash of fallen dew from my face. On a nearby leaf, a grasshopper chirps a hesitant solo among a chorus of cicadas. A tingle crawls up my skin, the unease rattling me to my core.

Flashbacks this intense—it’s been a while.  

I shiver, despite the day’s rising warmth, despite the microfine, temperature-control mesh that covers my entire body up to my neck, from wrist to wrist and down to my ankles, barely visible under shirt and trousers spun of bark fibres. My hand reaches for my grandmother’s necklace I’d kept as a protective charm—and finds nothing. It’s been lost for years, but even now, there are days I wish for it.     

Shouldering my pack, I lower my house to the closest levitating walkway. Like a few residences closest to the river, my house floats anchored to a host hybrid tree, running on a combination of embedded solar cells and nanoleaves higher up in the canopy. Most other buildings in town are stacked on scalable stilts, but out here on the fringes, I enjoy the gift of being alone. 

Pain has a way of dulling over time; like patina on silver, revealing cracks, deepening crevices.

I steal a breath, two.

Titi didn’t die that day. No, that wasn’t how he died. 

The walkway takes my weight and counterbalances it, wobbling a fraction. To my left, the Rajang River runs the clear colour of light tea, glistening through mangroves that capture power from its flow. The Rajang of my childhood had been murky and brown, choked with silt from upriver logging. To think we used to swim in that dirt. Floods during the wet monsoon regularly swept logs and debris downriver, stifling everything to death.

It’s so different now, since the logging stopped. Titi would be there in the water every day if he could.

Somewhere behind me, the deep-throated bark of a hornbill punctuates the air, followed by a flutter of wings. The next walkway hangs suspended between trees; I adjust to its slight swing, taking the turn for the town, leaving the river behind.

He’d be twenty years-old today. And I’d be teasing him: that by the Chinese way of counting, he’d be twenty-one. He’d scrunch up his face, punch my shoulder, remind me that I’d still be older by a couple of months no matter what. I’d never learned how his family—how his people—counted the years. The moment to ask had long since passed, even if we’re all on friendly terms, even if they’d gone out of their way to remind me then that I wasn’t to blame. Just as well, I blame myself often enough. Would today’s Titi be stout, strong like his father? Or lean and lithe like his elder brother James? 

I pinch the back of my hand until it hurts. Fabricating things that have never happened—will never happen—won’t get me anywhere. Placing one foot ahead of the other, I count time by the passing shadows of trees, a ritual to keep me in the present.

A small child stands on the next walkway segment, reaching up and plucking what seems like leaves off a vine. I recognise her from one of my classes: the daughter of one of the medicine women.

“Good morning, Lilian,” I call out.

She turns, a flash of panic fading behind her eyes, but she does not run. I smile, she struggles to do the same. Always the quiet kid, often aloof, she’s the youngest of the class at five years old but likely one of the brightest.

“Selamat pagi, Cikgu Sng,” she addresses me formally. Once a teacher, always a teacher, even on a day off school.

“Collecting…leaves?” I teach music and elementary maths; recognising plants has never been my strong suit. 

“Yes, for Mak,” she replies, but her gaze wavers, distracted. 

Strange child, perhaps just shy. 

“Alright, well. Say hello to your mother for me.”

“Of course,” she says, furrowing her brow, focusing on something behind me. The urge to glance back, to follow her line of sight rises in my chest—but I resist. 

Her eyes dart to me, a mix of fire and fear. “Cikgu, who… who is that person following you?” 

She points a quivering finger beyond my shoulder.

That rattling unease I’d been feeling since leaving home grips me in its ice-cold vice; again, I reach for the protective charm that’s not been around my neck since childhood. 

Slowly, I turn around. 

Nothing. 

No one.  Pak Ong’s steamers expel billows of vapour, nearly as white as his hair. The kopi tiam resembles a modest house without walls, hovering close to the ground. Every morning, he lowers it while he cooks at his stall, taking advantage of the cooler air near the forest floor. High above the tiam, two smaller buildings—his residence and Madam Tan’s—peek through the branches of their host trees. I spot her there at the back of the tiam, busying herself behind the counter with coffees and juices, under the watchful altar of the Kitchen God and a family shrine teeming with offerings, wisps of incense smoke curling heavenwards. 

Strange how we still call places like these tiams—shops, a word which no longer makes sense—we don’t buy or sell things, not anymore.

Lilian had bid a hasty goodbye, leaving me to wander into town on my own as if I harbour a curse. No one could have followed me—my house is at the end of a path. A chill ripples under my skin. I shake it off.

Madam Tan sees me first. She always seems ageless; hair dark and curled, skin pearly pale with a lively glow.

“Jiak ba boi?” she calls out to me over the din of Pak Ong’s stoves, the greeting of children of immigrants, several generations of hardship stamped into our language: have you eaten yet? 

Her niece, a lanky teenager named Grace, exits the back kitchen with two bowls of steaming noodles, one in each hand for two guests at a table. She flashes me a grin, I nod a hello, and likewise to their patrons—parents of some kids from school. 

Pak Ong looks up at my greeting of good morning uncle and his face, already lined with time, crinkles into a broad smile. Hands coated in rice flour, he beckons me towards his stall. “Siaw Xian! Morning! Come, I’ve just made a fresh batch of your favourite.”

Grace hurries over to intercept, intent on leading me to a table. “Haven’t seen you lately, Cikgu! Not eating here today?”

In return for teaching their children and their grandchildren, the townsfolk are more than happy to feed me whenever I can’t be bothered to cook.

“Sorry but,” I over-exaggerate my false regret with a shrug. “Not today because—”

Because I must head into the forest—and make it back before sundown. But I can’t tell her that.

Grace scrunches her nose in disapproval. “You can have noodles here now and Pak Ong’s kuihs for later?”

I laugh.

“Don’t hassle,” Pak Ong shoos her away. To me, he says, one adult to another. “Your usual?”

Yes, three steamed buns with marinated filling, two pieces of kuih salat—sticky cakes with a base layer of rich glutinous rice. Never acquire things in fours—no need to invite bad luck. I extract a small, insulated bag from my pack and hand it to Pak Ong.

“Oh, and five huat kuih’s please.” I point to the pink, fluffy cup-shaped cakes, their tops split open like geometric flowers in bloom.

Pak Ong throws me a quizzical glance. “That’s not—”

“Just for a change,” I cut in. “Besides, you make them so nice.”

The flattery must have worked because he grabs the huat kuihs with a pair of metal tongs, then a few pieces of ang ku kuih which I didn’t ask for—stuffing the lot into the bulging bag.

“Wait—Uncle, not too much!” But he’s already sealed it for me to take away.

“I’m finishing up early, might as well give you extras.” 

Extras? Pak Ong normally makes just enough food for the day; any leftovers he’d bring to the town hall at sundown to be shared amongst those who need or want some. 

He shrugs, pointing the tongs into an empty patch of air. “Meeting over at the town square—midday.”  

Today? Obviously, I haven’t been paying attention.  

Pak Ong notes my confusion. “Some people want to raise the old fort, some people don’t. They’re fighting it out today.” 

An old debate, one that comes around every few years.

Just like that, my chest clenches, my breath catches. I push the memories aside.

The last time I’d passed by the fort, it had been barely visible. Like the remains of the old town by the Rajang, most of it lies underwater. A symbol of a long-ago empire—something we’d once been proud of—left behind to fester while we’d moved the citizens further inland, rebuilding everything for resilience. 

My hands close around the insulated bag, heavy with food for later, and slip it into my pack.

“If we raise it,” I say, thinking aloud, “we’ll have to repair it…”

Pak Ong swaps the tongs for chopsticks. “That’s why I’ll be arguing against it. Why waste the effort? There are other things we should be doing.”

To preserve history, or to let it rest—and let the uncomfortable past slip away?

“Midday, right?” I ask. 

“Ridiculous time. It’ll be so hot.”

Midday—when people from the region venture in for meals, run errands, meet friends. In a practical way, it makes sense.

Pak Ong has wound himself up into a mood, so I excuse myself, bidding a good day to Madam Tan, Grace, the patrons. But before I manage to leave, Madam Tan thrusts a large bottle of ice-cold water into my hand—going to be a hot day lah, take this—then waves me off.

In a town like this, one puts on a cheerful disposition regardless of how you feel inside. Everyone knows everyone, avoiding an explanation is less effort. Hiding a grimace, I turn away, stepping briskly onto the walkway that tilts upward.

Ahead, something rustles. I stop. None of the leaves in the trees are moving—not a bird, not a creature. Maybe— 

“Titi? That you?”

But I hear nothing, see nothing.  Were we friends? I’d always described Titi as a friend. But when we met, I’m not sure I had a notion of what a friend was—not at the age of five. We just liked being together.

It must have been a town family event. I’d taken my favourite toy tiger for company. Titi had been running around, expending that boyish excess of energy, but stopped when he saw me and my tiger. He said hello, reached for it—somehow tearing the whole tail off.

I’d been too shocked to cry. Titi was horrified, apologetic, promised to repair it. 

I didn’t believe him. 

The next day, he brought the tiger back. It now wore bright red stitches on its fake yellow fur. Somehow, it felt right that it should bear the scars of its trauma.

“My father showed me how to fix it,” he said, a mix of sheepishness and pride. 

Awestruck, I asked, “What’s your name?”

“Call me Titi.” A mischievous smile played on his lips.

“That’s your real name?” I’d been sure I heard an adult call him something else.

“No, but isn’t that how you call ‘younger brother’ in your language?” 

“We’re the same age—” I protested. He wouldn’t hear of it. 

He’d been Titi to me ever since. To others, he was Joe, or Joseph whenever his mother got cross at him. When we grew old enough to wear implants—a common compromise for kids to roam free while our parents kept busy—Titi asked to pair with mine so we could chat in the evenings while he remained with family in their longhouse, while I stayed at home above our shophouse in town. 

He had a habit of prattling endlessly about whatever fascinated him at the time. Many of our conversations started with his rhetorical questions, Did you know—? 

Did you know our fort was the place where several tribes brokered peace? 

Did you know it took them fifty years? Fifty years! Just to build the original road that reached our town?

My usual answer: “No, Titi, tell me more.”  

I’d mostly read books about other worlds—where dragons resembled terrifying giant birds with long necks and wide wings instead of snakes with clawed feet, or ships that travelled to other planets. Titi definitely had been more down to earth; I’d been the spaced-out, dream-weaving basket case.

But we found a common love for building things. Titi had a gift for craft, I’d always been good at math. Between the two of us, we made robots that scuttled like insects—just for fun. The mis-programmed drone that ended up in the canopy? That should’ve been a bird that could climb trees. 

By the day that Titi so stubbornly rescued the bird-drone, our town had already begun changing. The hospital, the town hall, and the library had been moved inland onto telescopic pillars or scalable stilts to reduce disruptions if the Rajang were to flood. Next: the temple, churches and masjid, shophouses and homes. We cleaned out the old town, salvaged what we could, letting the earth—and water—reclaim the rest, giving way to the forest.

Warmth seeps from the walkway onto the soles of my feet. I hitch my pack higher onto my shoulder, feeling the weight of Pak Ong’s food package, ignoring the thin layer of sweat forming on my skin—the mesh should deal with it. The birds have quieted as the day warms up; I might regret not sticking to my original plan. 

It’s hard to tell where the edges of the river truly are. I follow the walkways leading to the disused pier, hovering over rice-growing rafts in the shallows, shouldering thousands of tiny green spears reaching for the sky. I turn around, squinting into the rising sun. You’d have to know where the town is to see it: houses, buildings lifted up among the leaves, their roofs sometimes brushing up against branches. Walkways bridge the spaces in between, automatically sensing differences in height. 

Titi would’ve loved how this place looks now. 

Did you know our fort was the place where several tribes brokered peace? 

His voice echoing in my ears, I sit cross-legged on the pier—the closest I can get to the fort without being in the water. The remains of its roof loom under the surface, an elongated pyramid. The walls still seem structurally sound. Belian—ironwood—doesn’t rot. 

We’d taken a swim in the fort once, when the brown river water reached only halfway up its walls. Titi had wanted to see inside.

“We’d get in so much trouble!” I’d objected. It had been drilled into us: don’t swim in the river when the silt got bad—a crocodile looks exactly like a floating log. 

“I brought the empurau drone, we’ll be fine!” He grinned at me, pointing to the fish-shaped contraption under his arm. “Or are you just chicken, Little Fairy?”

Somehow, he’d pick up the habit of calling me by the meaning of my name whenever he thought I was being too virtuous. 

We dived off the pier, swam down through the open doorway. The doors and window shutters—long missing. Nothing like cool water on hot skin. We splashed to the surface on the inside, our heads bobbing under the roof as we trod water in semi-darkness. 

Light slipped in through the shutterless windows above the waterline; sad rectangles cut from empty walls. This had been once a museum, but any trace of the past had been entirely stripped away.

“There’s nothing here!” I complained, my voice bouncing off the walls, the low roof. “We could have just sent a drone to scout this out.”

“Yes, but now we can say we’ve seen it!” Titi punched a victorious fist wetly into the air, narrowly missing a wooden beam.

“No! We can’t tell anyone! I’ll get into so much trou—”

Something moved in the water, sliding fast from one window to the next. I gasped, pointed. Titi spun around, shining the light from our drone straight into a hideous, blinking eye. A crocodile. 

“Don’t move!” Titi’s voice hissed through my implant. 

My heart threatened to thump out of my ribcage. My fingers closed around my grandmother’s necklace, tracing the lines of flowers carved into jade. Calmly, Titi tracked the creature’s drift across the surface, training the drone’s powerful light, covering the length of the rough, scaly shape. It had been seen, lost the element of surprise. We might yet get lucky. 

“Get out of here? Now?” Full sentences eluded me. My teeth chattered—not from the cold water. 

Titi’s eyes focused elsewhere. I could trust him, couldn’t I? He was a child of the jungle, he’d get us out safe. 

“On my mark—we make for the pier, ’kay?”

His hand gripped mine, and the rest—the mad rush through the doorway and out of the water—dissolved into a frenzied blur. We clambered onto the pier, dripping wet, panting, our breaths shallow. I touched my hand to my chest, where there ought to have been a necklace. 

“It’s gone!” I whispered, half hysterical.

“Yes, the croc—”

“No, my necklace!” I wailed, choking on the words. “My grandmother’s necklace!”

Without warning, Titi took me into his arms, letting me sob into his damp shoulder. By then, he’d grown taller than me. 

But we didn’t die that day. That wasn’t how Titi died. 

I stare at the wavering shadow of the roof, a dark shape just under the river’s gentle ripple, history lingering just out of reach. A bird tweets from the riverbank, looking for its mate.   

Would Titi have wanted it raised?

“Better to leave things be,” I’d have argued. 

“And just let it rot?” I can picture his face, creasing into a rare scowl. 

“You forgot, Ti, the walls are belian. No more crocodiles here now, people can swim to it if they want.”

“That’s not my point!” There, his stubborn tone, voice cracking. “It’s just wasted here! We could make it ours again, turn it into something new. Embrace the past—”

I pinch the back of my hand once more. This—this used to happen all the time when Titi first died, where I’d slip into conversation with him in my head. 

Today. His birthday. Maybe that’s why I’m lapsing again. 

The sun hangs high in the air. Nearly midday.

“Miss you, Titi,” I whisper under my breath.  

That rustling sound, as if a breath of wind extends a hand to ruffle the leaves of the trees around me. 

There is no breeze.  The temperature in the town square borders on unbearable, the heat—a heavy blanket. 

Doubt chews at my insides. Should I have gone on into the forest instead? 

Too late now.

Someone had the idea of draping strips of fabric across the square to keep the midday sun off our backs, but still, the old asphalt baked beneath our feet. Fine cracks criss-cross the uneven grey surface. Situated within an unusual clearing, this part of the town remains firmly on the ground—it might have once been a basketball court adjacent to a school. The municipal building has been lowered to one side of the square. Ascending walkways line the edges, decorated with clay urns exploding with flowers. The rest of the forest surrounds us, never far away.

Hundreds of people from the town and nearby longhouses have gathered, milling around temporary tables and chairs spirited from somewhere, greeting each other, making small talk. Pak Ong’s laughter rings through the air, my granduncle’s son spots me through the crowd and waves. Here and there, a few distant cousins. Most of them I recognise as parents of students.

A prickling unease creeps over the back of my neck; the distinct feeling of being watched. I search the faces of the townsfolk around me, but none pay me any heed.

“Thank you all for coming.” The mayor’s kindly voice comes through a little too loud on speakers mounted on the decorated walkways. “Apologies for having this out in the heat.”

“Better than rain!” someone shouts from the crowd.

“Very true.” The mayor laughs. “Let’s ride our luck.”

I stand on tiptoes, trying to see the woman addressing the crowd from one corner of the square. 

“Today we’ll discuss whether we should reclaim the old fort—an important decision, I’m sure we agree on that. We’ll be using our outcomes today to provide options for a vote, to capture the decisions of citizens who can’t be present. I assume you’re all aware that this can’t be a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ referendum question.”

Some laughter. I don’t get it, but then, I don’t follow the politics. 

I wipe the sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand, gritting my teeth, ignoring my jangled nerves. Is it just the buzz of excitement getting to me? 

A sudden, disorderly movement, bodies shuffling. The mayor has asked everyone to self-declare their initial allegiance—for, against, undecided—by standing in different areas in the square. I blend myself into the group of undecideds. 

We self-organise, note our opinions, discuss, persuade each other to our points of view. Groups merge and reform, the process repeats. I bury my restlessness—trying to focus, appear engaged. The noise of conversation, like rain on a leaf. The applause as the mayor closes the meeting, a full-blown monsoon.

In the end, the townsfolk seem mostly in favour of reclaiming the fort. But next, we need to decide on how.

My stomach rumbles. I should have taken Grace’s offer of noodles. The sun has already begun its slow descent. I should get moving if I want to make it home before dark. 

Someone is pushing through the crowds towards me. Titi’s eyes, but somehow different. Titi’s hair but longer. Older, taller. Knots twist in my gut as the young man, garbed in jeans and a plain t-shirt comes close.

James.

“Xian?” Like Titi’s voice, but deeper, richer. “Thought it was you. Have you eaten?” 

I don’t know how to feel, but my lips smile of their own accord. 

“No, I joined on a whim, forgot how long these things go for.” I wave vaguely at the thinning crowd. “How are you, your parents?”

His turn to smile. “We’re all well. You can come visit us, you know that, right?”

Outwardly, I nod. My insides churned, apprehensive. His family had been like my own to me when Titi was alive. When I lost him, too absorbed in my grief, I’d lost them too. 

James gestures towards the library. “Getting lunch before heading back to my duties. Would you like to—” but he stops mid-sentence, as if he’d just seen how I’m attired. “You’re going into the forest today?” 

Shadows flit behind his eyes. Silence slides between us, a slithering snake. Pain, the numb aftermath of a scorpion’s sting. 

“I see,” he says, without waiting for an answer. I’m grateful for not having to explain.

I force myself to meet his gaze. “Another day?”

His smile stretches into a grin, his true feelings tucked elsewhere. My heart burns; Titi’s grin, but surer, more confident. “You know where to find me.”

I watch him deftly hop onto a walkway, a feigned spring in his step. He turns around before the next segment, gives me a little wave.

Yes, another day. Another day when the past finally releases me from its grasp, when I can look towards tomorrow, and not drown in what might have been. The last floating walkway towards the forest slants downwards, its last step barely visible under a clutch of fern. Humidity stifles, but the mesh I’m wearing helps me adjust—it’ll keep the leeches off and mosquitoes at bay. I venture into air pungent with rot and fungi roused by the day’s heat. The earth beneath my feet sinks soft under old leaves, layers of past flattened by time, breaking down into their molecular selves, back to stardust. The cicadas have begun their drone again; a bird’s call warns their flock of my approach. 

When had I last been here? The trees have grown, the undergrowth has thickened, but if one’s heart could be a compass, then the body knows; my feet find their own way forward into our old playground.

I’d been at home, upstairs in our shophouse doing my homework, listening to a Mozart sonata I had to learn by heart for an exam. My parents had been on duty somewhere, mum with the engineers, dad—probably teaching that day. 

Titi said he’d come by later. He’d sounded excited for some reason. “I’ll bring ais kacang, and huat kuih. And maybe a surprise.” 

“Ais kacang and huat kuih? They don’t go together!” My protests against his zany ideas—the norm.

“So?” came his retort. “It gets eaten all the same!”

Sweet of him to bring treats on days I had to work hard. 

Rain poured down suddenly, heavily, drumming loudly on our roof. Nothing to bat an eyelid at. Rain like this never lasted long.

Someone hollered in the street downstairs. I glanced up briefly from my books, hoped they found shelter from the rain. More yelling, different voices now. My attention wavered; curiosity won. I got up, opened a window onto the street, peered out. A few people rushing towards the river, their voices loud, urgent, fingers pointing, hands gesturing, getting thoroughly soaked. Something didn’t look right.

Pulling on a raincoat, I hurried down and followed the crowd. The Rajang had swelled. Scores of logs swept down, screeching against the wooden sampans docked in the pier.

Someone else screamed. “In the water! He’s in the water!” 

There, I saw him: Titi’s arms, fighting the rush, reaching for a log but unable to grab hold. Titi’s hair, plastered over his face, his dark head, bobbing up for air. Something glistened in his hand before it disappeared under the deluge. How did he—? Why did—? Someone shouted his name—perhaps it was me. Shouted until my voice turned hoarse, until he disappeared under a floating log, until brown water consumed him, rippled over where his body had been. Someone found me, someone grabbed my arms, someone stopped me from jumping into the river right then. Someone took me home, gave me dry clothes.

Titi died that day. That—was how he died. 

I don’t remember how they found the body. I barely recall the funeral.

Sometime afterwards, James brought me a few of Titi’s remaining robots. I didn’t—couldn’t—touch them. One day, I spotted the empurau drone entangled among other unidentifiable parts. I charged it up; it still worked. 

Maybe I wanted to relive that day we swam inside the fort, maybe that was why I’d checked its visual logs. Reels of grainy images revealed the river floor as the drone circled around the fort. In the days leading up to his death, Titi had been using the fish-robot to look for my lost necklace. 

A cacophony of bird calls jerks me to my senses. The forest warps time and space, and sometimes, you could end up walking into a different world. 

I find the place in a small clearing between trees, the land rising to one side. 

The forest grows, the forest thrives. The ferns have flourished since I’d been here last. I push back the tangle of green, and there—the small headstone, a cross carved into it. James told me that the family had given baya, buried him with his favourite books, clothes, maybe a football. Knowing that Titi had been well prepared for that other place doesn’t make it hurt less—but somehow, it helps. 

I tidy a little space in front of the gravestone, lit a single candle a safe distance from stray fronds. 

Should I pray? I’d never learned how to pray. 

“Happy birthday, Titi-ghost.” My voice strange, out of place. “I brought you your favourite—well, one of them. Ais kacang wouldn’t have made it in this heat, sorry.”

Laying down three pink, fluffy huat kuihs in front of Titis’s gravestone, I sit down onto the earth and bite into the ones that I’d kept for myself. A shared meal between the living and the dead: steamed sweet-rice nothings, soft bites of pleasure. Salt from tears mingle with the sugar on my tongue.

Behind me, flickers of light mark the town some distance away, buzzing with the presence of other human beings getting on with the early evening. Beyond it, the Rajang flows—stoic, serene.

A sigh escapes me. “We’re in a good place now, Titi. Wish you were here to see it.” 

How he’d have loved the way we’re embracing the past, owning up to how history shaped us, reconciling who we have been—to who we are.

A few trees away, something rustles. Fear squeezes my chest. A shadow, soft at first, materialises among the leaves, a familiar silhouette. I dare not breathe. 

Happy birthday, Titi-ghost. See you next year.