When his physical restoration was complete, Ven offered silent thanks to the quivering Alister, before turning his fury on the murderous couple who stood in shock in front of him.
“Monster,” the woman Maery managed to say, before pulling at her husband to run away.
When he was struck by lightning, Ven had lost much of his cache of helpful implements. What little survived vanished in the mudslide that followed. All he had left were the words he knew, whose use without a focus drained him very deeply. He shouted one and stomped on the wet earth, causing mud and stones to splatter over the retreating couple.
The woman Maery found that she could neither move nor speak. Alarmed, she tried to turn her head toward her husband, but found the motion next to impossible. Everything seemed so slow. Her vision darkened, until she could no longer see. The sounds around her seemed deeper, lower in pitch, and soon she could not hear.
The man watched his wife turn to stone and screamed for mercy, for the brief duration that his throat remained flesh.
When there was only the sound of the falling rain, Ven regarded the two statues with contempt and pushed both over into the mud.
He knelt by the mule, making sure he had not caused death. Alister looked at him with tired but proud eyes.
“You’ve saved me in more ways than you know,” Ven told him. “Thank you, Alister.”
And he ran toward the well.
TENET FOUND THE black-skinned creature squatting over a crack in the earth at the bottom of the well.
The sight of it filled her with revulsion: it seemed primarily composed of a huge maw, overcrowded with teeth; its skin shimmered black but was broken in places. Though it seemed to have no eyes, Tenet felt the baleful force of its stare.
Tenet felt images intruding into her mind with the weight of weariness. Desperately she sought to spark her Craft but found she couldn’t. The ebon creature’s thoughts caressed hers, twining and intertwining, insinuating itself into the core of her being.
Stop stop stop
To Tenet’s horror, she found her body obeying the creature’s unspoken command. As if through the eyes of a stranger, she watched herself go closer and closer to the foul creature.
Stop stop stop
Her mind was filled with images, persuading her that her death was inevitable, that the creature needed to feed to do what it needed to do, that it was the first of many sent ahead to prepare the way, that when its kin came, the world would be reduced to blessed emptiness.
The ebon-skin’s maw salivated with anticipation. It showed her how futile it would be to fight, how it had influenced a man and woman in the village above and persuaded them to hurl their fellow villagers down the well one by one, how its presence twisted the natural order, how it would savor the taste of her eyes.
Tenet tried to scream, tried to move, tried to run but instead closed the distance between her and the creature. She watched helplessly as she offered her pained arm to the foul thing’s maw.
No no no no no
Tenet involuntarily shuddered as its black tongue, notched with sharp bones, cut open her arm from elbow to her palm, pausing only to delicately slice open a path to the tip of her middle finger.
No no no no no
“Tenet!” a voice boomed from behind her.
Ven? but how how how did you Ven please help
Tenet felt the ebon-skin’s control weaken, as it turned its attention to the new intruder. She bit back the pain, cradling her bleeding arm as she huddled nauseously on the ground.
“V-Ven?” she managed to say. “Run! Run!”
“Leave her be, rank thing,” Ven shouted, swiftly picking up a pebble and hurtling it at the creature. As it flew in the air, Ven uttered a secret word, causing the stone to expand in size in accordance to his will. The massive boulder struck the ebon-skin and broke apart with tremendous force, but with no apparent effect.
The quality of air changed in the chamber below the well, becoming thick and fetid, as the black creature extended its thoughts to Ven, taunting his strength, showing Ven how his demise would fuel its power.
Ven fought wildly but found his thoughts turned askance, as the creature commandeered his body. He began to walk to the creature.
“No!” Tenet shouted. She triggered the spark of her Craft, igniting the Traitor’s Way with the flame of her anger and fear, and focused on the abomination.
To her dismay, she saw only emptiness: no lines nor patterns presented themselves, no schema nor structure to exploit, no rules or governances to affect. She had no power over the creature.
Ven was near enough for the ebon-skin’s twisting serrated tongue to reach.
“Ven!” Tenet turned her Craft to him, seeing the totality of his being, the green lines of his subdued will, the radiant concentric circles of his virility, the intense shades of his spirit—the entire intricate pattern of his being. She recognized the unmistakable imprint of Alister, deduced the reasons and results of her friend’s assistance, and saw the bold blossoming of deep emotion in Ven’s heart. Above all that, she surmised, was the invisible influence of the ebon-skin.
I don’t need to see you
She provoked the lines of Ven’s humanity, stroked the circles of his pride and dignity, realigned the patterns that altered his behavior, pulled taut the strings of his personal identity, and freed him.
In the instant that he was liberated from the control of the foul creature, Ven spoke the most terrible word he knew: it was the word that provoked spring, that banished winter, which made mountains grow and enabled birds to defy the pull of the earth. It was the word upon which all his druidic magic rested, the essence of transformation, the secret of that all living things knew, only when their minds were at rest. And he spoke it directly to the creature.
From her position on the ground, Tenet, bleeding and bereft of power, could only watch in hope. Kill it kill it kill it
In the face of such naked expression of truth, the ebon-skin shrieked, portions of its distended face forming virulent pustules that erupted stark yellow and brown fluids, thick and noisome. From its wide open maw dark-colored ichor spewed forth, as the creature regurgitated all the undigested remains in its belly.
It took a step back and fell into the crack in the earth behind it.
Exhausted by his expression of the word, Ven shifted his gaze away from the fissure and began to make his way toward Tenet.
“Thank you,” he whispered as he approached. “For saving my life, though I was supposed to be the one to save yours. That—that creature, what was it?” Ven paused for breath. “Listen, I have to tell you about Alister—”
“No, no!” Tenet shook her head vehemently, her voice hoarse with fear and memory. “Don’t turn away!” It will come back I know I know I know it will
From the dark fissure, the creature’s sinuous tongue lashed out, and, catching hold of Ven’s legs, pulled with all its strength.
Ven fell forward, smashing his face on the ground, violently flailing his arms to gain purchase, as the creature dragged him with unnerving speed toward the crack.
Tenet extended her good arm toward Ven, heedless of the pain that beleaguered her.
“Take my hand!”
For the second time that day, their eyes met in clear-cut epiphany.
When Tenet met Ven’s bloodshot eyes she realized that he would not take her hand, would not risk her being dragged away as well. How just like a man
When Ven met Tenet’s wide eyes, he realized a sublime and powerful truth: she would never give up.
“Live, Tenet,” he shouted. “I choose you to live.”
“I choose life for both of us,” she shouted at him. Stretching her arm to the limit, she grasped his arm. “I will not leave you!”
Ven smiled through the pain of his struggle and kicked and shook and thrashed about with all his might, with all he could muster. The ragged edges of the tongue cut wildly at his legs, stripping away skin, but quickly began losing its grip.
“Fight it, Ve
n,” Tenet screamed. “Fight it!”
Unable to hold on, the creature suspended in the fissure released its hold, its tongue recoiling back into its maw, and at last plunged into the murky depths that it first came from.
The silence that followed was punctuated only by the tortured breaths and pained gasps of the two figures sprawled and bleeding on the damp ground, their hands clutched together.
Tenet strained her voice and broke the stillness.
“You know, we still have to somehow seal that hole and get out of here.”
IT WAS VEN’S idea to bury the village and the well in an avalanche the following morning, after he explained the provenance of the two eerie statues near the center of the cursed place.
Tenet agreed to his suggestion, but only after they both made certain that the mule Alister was fine. Tenet embraced her loyal companion, before she withdrew her influence from the surroundings and ended the rainfall she had called for earlier.
Side by side they stood on a faraway ledge, covered almost head to toe in the healing mud that Ven had created, hours after they were able to leave the well.
Tenet showed him where the mountain was weakest, and that was where Ven caused the mountain to fall. Neither took pleasure in the devastation.
When the landscape finally settled in its new configuration, after the last stone fell into place, they began to limp in the direction of the setting sun, alternating riding on the sturdy mule Alister, with a warning intended for the neighboring states and kingdoms concerning ebon-skinned threats from the depths of the world.
“Do you think they’ll believe us?” Tenet asked.
“Between you and me, we have the scars to prove our words,” Ven replied with a grimace.
“You know, Ven, you never apologized for attacking me first.”
“You were the one causing the rain to fall.”
“You were the misguided druid who didn’t know enough to discover what was truly the cause.” Tenet reached from Alister’s back to scratch one of the mule’s big ears.
“I could say the same about you.”
“I’m not a druid.”
“And the world is grateful that you aren’t.” Ven edged ahead, favoring his better leg.
“Ha!” Tenet exclaimed, carefully attempting to dismount. “Feel like a little lightning today?”
Ven looked back at Tenet, with a smile as bright as the sunlight, and extended his hand to help her.
“Try me.”
Tenet returned his smile, bolts of lightning the furthest thing from her mind.
I believe I will
TAKE APPROPRIATE PRECAUTIONS
GHOSTS OF WAN CHAI
SOME THINGS ARE severed slowly over the course of days, weeks, months, and years. There is nothing dramatic, no identifiable turning point that you can look at and say, “There. That’s where everything went wrong.” Instead, there is this terrible dawning of insight, a dim epiphany that things are no longer as they were; that the person who you once cared for and believed cared for you no longer feels the same way; that everything that was once certain and true and irrefutable is now impossibly grey and has the consistency of smoke—as if everything that mattered was gathered surreptitiously, bit by bit so no one notices, then set fire to, and all you can see are the ashes in the air. You subject yourself to a barrage of questions beginning with: “Was it me?” and “What did I do or not do?” And of course there are no answers. Those who leave take the answers with them, packed in their suitcases, carryalls, and branded shopping bags.
In Hong Kong, some of those who are left behind wear grey. When they begin to suspect that a leave-taking has taken place without consultation, explanation, or rationale, they come to Tien Lo’s shop, hidden behind an old bar perpetually marked for demolition, off Lee Tung Street in Wan Chai, where everything for sale is grey. There they buy an article of clothing from the old man—a shawl, a sash, a hat, a blouse, a shirt, a tie, a pair of socks. The store always has customers, locals and expats and visitors both legal and illicit, shuffling around, picking things up, trying them on, looking in the full-length mirror at themselves from head to toe, seeing if grey suits them, which it invariably does. In despair, the need to buy something, to own something, is powerful.
Others left behind take to wearing beaded bracelets, thin and fine black leather straps with a single small object strung through. They buy the strings at Shakespeare Ng’s embroidery store near Spring Garden Lane, where sixty years ago a notorious Communist underground cell network hoped to provoke change. They provide their own personal item of memory. Some carry miniaturized picture frames with blurry snapshots; some use pendants invested with sentiment—Filipino seamen landing at Fenwick Pier are especially guilty—others have metal dog tags etched with the name of the one who left them.
And there are those who eschew grey attire or bracelets and walk the streets of Wan Chai like ghosts, unable or unwilling to sublimate the pain of the long goodbyes in any other form. They can be seen on any given day, tracing the paths they once walked with friends and lovers, tourists for a weekend or residents for life, counting each step in silence, their lips forming the shape of silent numbers. They are convinced that when they reach a certain digit, they will at last understand exactly why they were left behind and perhaps finally come to accept their solitude.
One of the most mysterious ghosts in Wan Chai is a Filipino domestic helper’s daughter. Every day she describes the perimeter of her neighborhood with her feet, beginning just before dawn at the gates of her house, down to the Southorn Playground where she goes in circles, ignoring and mostly ignored by the laborers who rose with the sun, waiting for work; then down south to St. Francis School along Kennedy Road, which she haunts in a perfect square pattern, stopping only when the distant cannon of Jardine Matheson marks the middle of the day. That is when she unfolds the napkin that contains her lunch, a thin mayonnaise sandwich or a bit of dried fish with rice, there on the balding grass next to the wire fence. Afterward, she stands up to continue her routine, walking down the busy streets, oblivious to the delighted tourists who take digital pictures of her, with her, next to her. They smile and pose beside her as she walks, matching her footsteps, while one of their companions hurries to take the photograph. Her final stop, where she spends the rest of the day, is an alleyway next to the police headquarters along Arsenal Street, in the west. There, excepting only the inconvenience of black rain, she stands until the sun goes down, counting numbers over and over again, quietly.
Equally mystifying is Dr. R. of Jaffe Road, claimed by some to be the result of an amorous indiscretion of a certain visiting Philippine national hero, years before his martyrdom. On the balcony of his apartment above a cha chan teng restaurant, he sits in a sculpted metal chair, oblivious to the tumultuous orders for milk tea and dim sum, below. The chair is shaped like a hand, and he rests quietly in the hollow of its palm, an unlit cigarette between his quivering lips. His brown suit is always immaculate, pale yellow tie in place and a like-colored pocket square smartly tucked in. In his hands he holds a photograph, creased and worn by endless folding and unfolding, the image long since faded. The loss of the actual picture does not matter; he has long since committed it to memory. Filipiniana scholars who seek him out and try to talk to him leave with their curiosity unsated. Dr. R. never responds to queries.
One of the ghosts who will tell his story at the slightest provocation can be found at Lovers’ Rock, near Shiu Fai Terrace. In the shadow of the famous rock, reputed to grant happy marriages, Noel de Mesa recites his sad and strange experience to anyone who cares to listen: In December of 1992, he and his beautiful bride Anna take a PAL flight from Manila to Hong Kong, just hours after becoming man and wife, a growing tradition among middle-class Filipinos, for whom the temptation of honeymooning in the shopping capital of Asia—less than two hours away—is a formidable force. Finding their initial hotel of choice overbooked upon arrival, the slightly distressed but still happy couple eventually secure lo
dgings at a small three-star along Tai Yuen Street, amid the hustle and bustle of huckster stalls selling herbal medicine, silk garments, and fried food. The concierge requests that they wait for a few hours until their room is available, and the newlyweds comply. They leave their luggage at the hotel and begin to explore the city, braving the MTR Island Line to nearby Causeway Bay, hand-in-hand. At some point, Anna complains of a mild headache brought on by the excitement and tells Noel that she’s heading back to the hotel. Noel offers to take her back, but Anna assures him that she’s fine, that it’s only an MTR ride away, that she certainly can find her way back, and he says and she says and he says but ultimately she gets her way, and Noel gives her a kiss and says he’ll follow after he checks out the comic book shop along Sugar Street, which Anna wasn’t really interested in doing in the first place.
A couple of hours later, purchases tucked under his arm, Noel returns to Tai Yuen Street, finds the hotel, and waits for his turn at the front desk. A bit tired from walking but possessed of a newly married man’s desire to spend the evening with his new bride, he asks the man at the desk for his room key. The hotel employee checks his register and informs Noel that he is not booked at the hotel. Noel insists that he is, that, in fact, his wife Anna had returned to the hotel earlier, and points to the cordoned-off area in the lobby where the absence of their luggage can only mean that his wife is already in the room. The front desk clerk checks again and tells him that there is no such person in the hotel. The manager gets involved, as Noel makes a scene, and both in a breach of hotel protocol and in an attempt to calm him down, shows him the registry. Noel breaks down completely, and the police are summoned. In the days and weeks of investigation that ensue, the hotel is cleared of suspicion based on the startling evidence from Immigration that Noel de Mesa arrived in Hong Kong alone. Anna, his phantom bride, is never heard from again, and Noel becomes a resident ghost in Wan Chai.
But while the reasons for leave-taking are opaque to most, they are crystal clear to some, and often it is not the cause but the reality of endings that matters. They, too, become ghosts, because sorrow is a potent colonizer.
How to Traverse Terra Incognita Page 6
