The Whispering House
Elle had imagined a five-star resort. Infinity pools. Candlelit dinners on beaches. But what she got instead, courtesy of her husband, Ben, was a wooden homestay on the top of the hill, surrounded by dense jungle, humming cicadas, and the distant murmur of an ancient river.
“It’s authentic,” Ben said, grinning as they arrived. “This place has stories.”
The house was built in the old Bidayuh style—long, narrow, with intricate carvings of birds and ancestors on its beams. Their room was at the far end, raised on stilts. The bed was handmade from ironwood, draped in white mosquito netting. There was no Wi-Fi, no TV. Only wind, frogs, and the rustle of unseen creatures.
Elle was sceptical until that night. She awoke at 2am to soft drumming.
It came from the wall behind her. Not loud. Just enough to be felt in her ribs. She sat up. The drumming stopped. Ben mumbled in his sleep.
The next morning, she asked Aunty Sofia, the homestay keeper, about it.
Aunty Sofia laughed gently. “You heard the rumah bisik,” she said. “The whispering house.” She explained that the house had belonged to a respected dukun, a Dayak healer, who believed that certain houses “remembered” the souls that passed through them.
“The drumming?” Elle asked.
“Not spirits,” she assured. “Just echoes of ceremonies, love songs—maybe even warnings.”
Ben was thrilled. “We’re honeymooning in a living house!”
That evening, they lit candles on the veranda. The moon rose over the canopy. Aunty Sofia served them tea brewed with forest herbs, called bekah beras said to bless unions with clarity and patience.
“This isn’t what I expected,” Elle whispered, sipping slowly.
“But is it… better?” Ben asked.
She looked at him, his windblown hair, his hopeful eyes, the crickets serenading them and nodded.
Later that night, the whispers returned.
But this time, Elle wasn’t afraid. She closed her eyes and listened. The house seemed to hum around them, as if acknowledging their presence. She thought she heard a name. Or maybe it was the sound of her own breath syncing with Ben’s, steady and certain. When they left days later, Aunty Sofia gave Elle a small charm carved from ironwood.
“It’s carved from the same tree as the house,” she said. “Keep it, in case you need to remember Homestay De’Remin, the whispering house.”
Years later, whenever storms rattled their city apartment, Elle would press the charm to her chest and remember the honeymoon where the house itself whispered them into forever. —DayakDaily
Benedict Samling from Kota Samarahan is the Consolation Winner (Adult Category) in the ‘Homestay Odyssey’ writing competition organised by DayakDaily and supported by the Sarawak Ministry of Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts.
