1958. Tan Keng Huat, 18, moves into Block 217,

Hougang — a newly built HDB flat where the

kitchen sink drips backwards at midnight. His

grandmother, Ah Ma Lim, died three weeks before

he enlisted. No one else would take the flat.

The HDB officer whispered: “She still cooks

there.”

He sleeps on the floor. Every night at 11:47,

the gas stove clicks on. No flame. Just the

scent of kaya — burnt sugar, coconut, egg —

thick as old incense. He sees her shadow: bent

spine, blue sarong, slippers missing a strap.

She stirs an empty pot. Always at the same angle.

Always three clockwise turns.

He doesn’t speak. He knows the rules. In 1943,

during the Occupation, Ah Ma hid rice flour in

her sari to feed the Chinese and Malay

neighbours. The Kempeitai caught her. They made

her cook a meal for them — then slit her throat

after she served it. The recipe? Kaya toast with

pandan leaf folded into the butter. Only she

knew how. The leaf had to be plucked at dawn,

facing east, while humming the old Malay lullaby.

After that, no one dared make it. The scent

became taboo. The flat became haunted.

Keng Huat needs the ghost to stop. He fakes a

relationship — leaves a photo of a girl from his

NS camp on the fridge. He tells the air: “She’s

coming for dinner.” The ghost pauses. The scent

fades. For three nights, silence.

On the fourth night, the stove blazes. Not fire —

a blue, cold glow. The pot fills with kaya.

Thick. Glowing. The ghost turns. Her eyes are

hollow. She holds out a spoon. The rules bite:

if the kaya is eaten by someone not blood, the

house collapses. If it’s not eaten, the ghost

drains the life from whoever sleeps in the flat.

He eats it. Cold. Sweet. The taste floods him —

his mother’s hands kneading dough in Kampong

Glam, his father’s voice singing “Rasa Sayang”

in the rain. He chokes. Not from food. From

memory. The ghost smiles. Her fingers brush his

cheek. Warm.

At dawn, he finds the folded pandan leaf under

the stove. Fresh. Damp with dew. The recipe

isn’t lost. It was never written. It lives in

the ritual. He takes the leaf. He burns the

photo. He starts cooking.

The next morning, the sink stops dripping. The

stove stays cold. But in the HDB corridor,

neighbours whisper: the old man who used to sell

kaya toast at the void deck? He’s back. Smiling.

Always alone. Always holding one slice, wrapped

in banana leaf. He never eats. Just offers. One

for the wind. One for the dead. One for the boy

who learned to remember.