The Knock Next Door

Part 1

My first night at Ibu Sari's boarding house, she handed me the key and said one thing: "If someone knocks at night, don't open until they knock three times."

In Indonesia, a kos is a boarding house where you rent a small room, and the landlady, the Ibu Kos, usually sets the rules. Hers was strange, but I nodded. I was twenty-three, broke, and the rent was cheap.

The first week was quiet. The room next to mine, number 7, had no name on the door and no shoes outside. I asked a neighbor about it.

"Empty," she said, too fast. "Always empty."

On the ninth night, I woke up at 2:13 a.m. to a knock. Soft, polite, two knocks on my door.

I lay still. Ibu Sari's rule said three.

It stopped. I almost laughed at myself and went back to sleep.

The next night it came again at 2:13. Two knocks. Then a pause, as if someone was waiting for me to answer.

By the fifth night I was checking the clock before bed. I started leaving the lamp on.

On the seventh night, I heard something new. Through the thin wall, from room 7, came the sound of someone knocking on their door. Two knocks. Then a voice, very quiet, almost kind:

"Dina? Are you there?"

My name is Dina.

I hadn't told anyone in the house my name. Ibu Sari only ever called me Nak, "child."

I pressed my ear to the wall. For a long time there was nothing. Then, from the other side, barely a whisper:

"Don't answer them. I did."

The next morning I knocked on Ibu Sari's door and asked who lived in room 7. She kept stirring her tea and didn't look up.

"Nobody," she said. "Not since she answered."

"Answered what?"

She finally met my eyes. "The third knock."

That night I set my alarm for 2:00 a.m. and sat up with my phone in my hand, staring at the door.

2:12.

2:13.

Knock. Knock.

And then, from just outside, in a voice that sounded exactly like mine:

"Dina? Open up. I'm cold."