Salina Christmas

The great-grandmother of Sarah, the protagonist, and the maternal aunt of Syed Alwi, Sarah’s grandfather. Of Malay nobility, indigenous, Siamese and Chinese lineage, Moyang inherited her clan’s practice of magic, only permitted amongst the women of the family. She’s already an old lady when Sarah begins the narrative of The Constant Companion Tales. Moyang’s steely determination and fierce independence can be traced backed to her own great-grandmother, who, as a poor relation of a noble Perak family, chose to marry the son of a sinkheh – her father’s most trusted farmhand – to protect her family from oppressive rulers, greedy male cousins and the warring kongsi clans in the 1890s. During the Second World War and the Emergency period that followed, Moyang became a fearsome matriarch who’d do anything to protect her family.