by Zen Cho
There was a brief shocked silence. Yew Yen said, “Ah Ma?”
Jess covered the phone with her hand. “Warn me before you do that!” she whispered.
Ah Ma was unrepentant. “If I didn’t do, she’ll hang up on you. At least now she’s listening.”
Jess rolled her eyes and said into the phone, “Can you ask your mom to WhatsApp me when she’s picked him up?”
“That was Ah Ma’s voice,” said Yew Yen. “Is she there?”
“I can explain later,” said Jess. “But I need to get home—”
“Can you ask Ah Ma,” said Yew Yen urgently, “what should we do with the idol?”
“What? What idol?”
“The idol of the god.” Yew Yen lowered her voice. “Black Water Sister’s idol. Ah Tat went back to the temple and found it. He used superglue to fix. He managed to find all the pieces, so it’s OK, just cracked only. What should we do with it?”
Jess looked at Ah Ma.
Ah Ma shrugged, feigning indifference. “How am I supposed to know? You’re the medium. You ask the god lah.”
Jess waited. If she knew anything about Ah Ma, it was that she wasn’t good at keeping her opinions to herself.
Sure enough, Ah Ma couldn’t resist the temptation to advise. After a moment she said, “Most likely the god will want you to rebuild her shrine near the tree there. If you fix the altar, you’ll need an idol.”
The memory of the bodhi tree at the garden temple flashed through Jess, the rich smell of earth and leaf fall rising in her nostrils. That smell, the shape of the tree’s spreading branches against the sky, the vines rustling in the breeze—they were all mixed up with death, the Black Water Sister’s ignoble death as she bled out into the dirt.
Jess wanted to tell Yew Yen to throw the idol away, or bury it. But the god still had her in her grasp. Now, with Ah Ma’s prosaic ghost by her side, she felt as safe as she ever would. But tomorrow morning she might wake to find the god standing at the foot of her bed. She’d always be lurking at the edge of Jess’s vision, if Jess didn’t do something about her.
“Ah Ma says hold on to it for now,” she said. “I’ll come by tomorrow to check in on your dad and pick up the idol.”
“How come the police are letting him go?” said Yew Yen.
Jess hesitated. How much did Yew Yen know about everything? She couldn’t see Ah Ku disclosing much more to his kids than Mom had to her. But maybe Yew Yen had picked things up, growing up here, that Jess had had to have explained to her.
“I talked to Ng Chee Hin,” she said.
An intake of breath. “And he just let Pa go like that?”
“Well,” said Jess. “Ah Ma helped.”
Yew Yen was silent.
“Thanks, Ah Min Chee,” she said finally.
It felt weird to be called “elder sister,” a sign of respect Jess didn’t deserve.
“Don’t thank me yet,” she said. “Get your mom to pick him up first. Don’t forget to let me know, OK?”
She hung up and opened the Grab app.
“What are you doing?” said Ah Ma.
“Ordering a taxi.”
“Nowadays everything is through the phone,” said Ah Ma. “If you don’t have the phone, I think you cannot do anything.”
Jess made an affirmative noise. Grab was applying surge pricing, but she requested a cab anyway.
She was starting to come down from the adrenaline high of her encounter with Ng Chee Hin. Her feet hurt in the cheap black heels she’d gotten from Bata as part of her corporate drag, and she could no longer see the cleaner in the lobby.
For some reason his disappearance spooked her. It was like she’d dreamed him up.
She thought of home and bed with intense longing as Ah Ma grumbled about young people and technology, sounding for once like a normal grandmother. First a shower, then Jess would slip into soft, faded old shorts and a T-shirt. Maybe she’d watch some Netflix in bed before going to sleep. She could almost feel the texture of the blanket against her bare legs.
The shrill cheep of her phone startled her out of her reverie.
“Who is it?” said Ah Ma, watching her expression.
“Pooi Mun,” she said. “Ng Chee Hin’s assistant.”
“Don’t pick up,” said Ah Ma instantly. She paused. “Why she call for what? Better pick up.”
Jess had gone through the same internal back-and-forth. The phone hadn’t stopped ringing. She accepted the call, raising the phone to her ear with a sick rush of anxiety. “Hello?”
“Where are you?” said Pooi Mun. “Are you in a public place?”
“I—what?”
“You must go to the place with a lot of people one,” said Pooi Mun. She sounded breathless, like she’d been running—or like she was scared. “Go to Gurney Plaza. You know Gurney Plaza? It’s the shopping mall. Turn left and walk. Don’t go into any car. Don’t talk to anybody.”
“What’s she saying?” said Ah Ma.
“I don’t understand,” said Jess. “What are you—”
“You shouldn’t have come here,” said Pooi Mun. “You don’t know ah, who is Dato’ Ng? If you told me, I would have warned you. You’re a young girl only. You better go now! Go!”
The line cut out. She’d hung up.
A car was pulling up to the sidewalk where Jess stood. The light from the entrance of the building shone on its windows. The car was full of people. Men.
The certainty of having made a hideous mistake settled at the pit of Jess’s stomach. She turned to run, to find a well-lit place where she’d be among people, anonymous and safe—but it was too late. The cleaner had come up behind her.
TWENTY-TWO
The cleaner shoved Jess into the car before getting in himself. She fought, screaming her throat raw, even though she knew there was nobody around to hear.
She only shut up when someone hit her—a casual open-handed smack, like she was a naughty child. She sat gasping, her head ringing.
She was hemmed in, with the cleaner on her right and another man on her left. There were two other men in the front. The car smelled of cigarette smoke and sweat.
It was dark enough that it was hard to distinguish the men’s features. But then the car passed a street lamp. Orange light washed in, illuminating the driver’s face in the rearview mirror. It was Chief Thug, the man who’d beaten up Ah Ku at the garden temple.
They moved out of the street lamp’s glow and the night blanketed them again.
Jess was going to die.
She dug her fingernails into the flesh of her thighs, trying to think over the incessant siren wail of her terror.
The self-recrimination was almost as loud. How could she have been so fucking stupid? Did she really think she could beard Ng Chee Hin in his den and walk out unscathed? The plucky girl detective, trumping the gangster with a damning clue.
What an idiot. She was never going to get away with it. She knew too much and she was totally defenseless.
She looked under lowered lids around the car. She didn’t see any knives or guns, but that wasn’t to say the men didn’t have weapons, hidden on them or stashed away.
Nobody said a word. It was like she wasn’t even there.
Well, they had her and they were going to do whatever they intended to do. What did they need to talk to her about it for? It wasn’t like her opinion mattered. Unless she made it matter.
She cleared her throat. “Where are you taking me?”
She said it in English, sounding as American as she could. Her accent, her tone, said, “I’m the most important person here. I’m not just from a first-world country. I’m from the biggest fucking country, the best in the world, and you’d better respect me or we’ll bomb the shit out of you, because that’s what people like us do to people like you.”
The men ignored her. Jess�
�s body stiffened, the muscles going rigid, anger drowning out fear.
She’d dealt with these losers before. There had been more men in the garden temple that first night, the night she’d met Ah Ku and chased off the men who hurt him. She could handle these assholes. She had the forces of the underworld on her side.
Ah Ma! She kept her mouth shut, but the call went out from every part of her, body, mind and soul. She was almost surprised the men didn’t hear it. AH MA! Help me!
It was like dropping a stone in a well and waiting to hear the plop. Waiting while long moments passed, until the truth couldn’t be avoided any longer.
Ah Ma wasn’t there. Jess was alone.
“I said, where the hell are you taking me?” said Jess, raising her voice.
She sounded more hysterical than authoritative. The guy on her left seemed amused.
“Is OK, is OK,” he said soothingly, in Chinese-accented English. He put his hand on her knee. In the dim light she could make out a smile on his face.
Jess looked at her knee with his hand on it as though if she tried hard enough she could detach it from the rest of her body with the power of her mind.
She’d been trying not to think about what they might do to her before they killed her. Her stomach bucked and heaved. Maybe she could puke in their faces. That might put them off.
Without looking up from the road, Chief Thug said crisply, “Jangan bising. Don’t make noise.”
He didn’t need to say “or else.” Jess had no leverage here.
The creep shut up, but he kept squeezing Jess’s knee. His fingers were knobbly and cold from the AC. So she wouldn’t keep staring at them and wishing she was dead, she turned her eyes to the cleaner.
He was looking out of the window. If anyone had asked, she would have said he was the one she wanted to stab the most. Even more than Chief Thug, because he’d smiled at her and made small talk, all the while intending to help murder her. But there was something in his face that she hadn’t expected.
He was the weak link, Jess realized. She’d asked about his kids. Were they in elementary school?
“In primary school, yes,” he’d said. “They’re in Bangladesh.”
“You must really miss them,” she’d said. It had sounded dumb, inadequate, but she hadn’t known what else to say.
To the other men, Jess was nothing more than a warm body to fuck and dispose of. To the extent that she was a person, she was someone who’d pissed them off, humiliated them when they were doing their job. But she’d talked to this one guy about his life. She’d met his eyes. To him, she hoped, she was a human being.
They drove on in silence. Jess’s disorientation subsided a little, though fear was an insistent pulse beneath her thoughts. She hadn’t driven around Penang enough to know the streets well, and they looked different at night, but she thought they were going toward George Town.
That was good. There would be people there, witnesses who would make it harder for the men to hurt her. She’d have to be ready to act.
She had her plan clear in her mind by the time they were approaching George Town. As she’d expected, the narrow roads were still busy at this hour, lined with mamak stalls and backpacker bars thronging with people. Pedestrians crossed the road with minimal acknowledgment of the traffic. The car slowed down.
Jess couldn’t pause to think or she would get scared. She shifted in her seat to shake the creep’s hand off her knee, moving her arm across her front as though to protect herself. Her hand slipped under her blazer.
The creep gripped her knee harder, smiling meanly. That made it extra satisfying when she drove her elbow into his side, grinding the bone into his flesh to make sure he felt it. She lunged for the door, throwing herself over the cleaner and fumbling for the lock.
Shouts broke out around her. Where was the fucking lock? She felt hands swarming up her body and kicked back, her heel smashing into flesh. She hoped it was the creep’s face.
She felt the lock under her fingers, flicked it open and grabbed the door handle. She’d managed to get her legs under herself, losing a shoe in the process. Her knees were on the cleaner’s bony lap. He seized her around the middle. A small part of Jess’s mind noted that he was avoiding touching her chest.
She had the switchblade she’d hidden in her blazer open now. It was no time for regret. She slashed the blade across the cleaner’s arm. He yelled, letting her go.
The door swung open, thank fuck. Some asshole was holding on to her ankle, but she stabbed at his hand, heard him scream, pushed herself off the cleaner and hurled herself out of the car.
The road slammed into her. She tumbled like a kicked stone. The glow of headlights passed over her, vehicles screeching as they came to an abrupt stop. A chorus of indignant honks rose into the air.
She found herself on her back, looking up into Ah Ma’s face.
“You’re lying there for what? Run!” said Ah Ma.
Jess didn’t have the breath to answer out loud, but luckily she didn’t need breath to yell at Ah Ma. Where the HELL have you been?
“There was something inside the car there, blocking me,” said Ah Ma. “Couldn’t go inside. Must be those bastards went and asked a bomoh for help. These foreigners, their magic is tajam—very sharp. Shouldn’t get involved with them.”
Well, it’s too late now, isn’t it? Jess pushed herself up, but this proved to be a bad idea. Putting weight on her wrists sent red agony pulsing through her. She stifled a scream.
“Faster run,” said Ah Ma. “They’re coming!”
Jess looked back, though the movement made her head spin. The car had pulled over. Chief Thug and his men were getting out.
She was on the edge of the road, near the drain. A motorbike passed so close the exhaust gusted over her face, a warm stinking wind drowning out the stench of sewage for a moment. She didn’t know where her knife had gone.
“I can’t move.” Her voice came out in a rough-edged whisper, scraping her throat. “It hurts. Can you help me?”
Jess felt a delicate almost-sensation, like the wind ruffling her hair.
Ah Ma said, frustrated, “Cannot. That thing is still blocking. If I’m a god, it’s different. But I’m just a human. How can I fight these foreign spirits? You have to move yourself. If they catch you, you’ll hurt even more, you know!”
Jess started crawling, her body screaming in protest.
The shophouses immediately nearby were closed, their shuttered facades like a row of tombstones. But light radiated from the edge of the next block. Some kind of restaurant, not busy, but open. All she had to do was make it there.
It felt like a million miles away, like she was traversing the Sahara, though only a few storefronts lay between her and the restaurant.
When I get to the five-foot way, I’ll stand up, she told herself.
She got to a pillar and leaned on it while pulling herself to her feet. But when she tried to take a step, her ankle gave way. Something was wrong with it.
She fell against the pillar, her shoulder catching against the Ti Kong altar and knocking a glass bowl off the ledge. She heard it smash on the ground.
Just what she needed. Another damn god pissed off at her.
As she got up again, something came down on her back, flattening her out. Her face crashed on the tiles. Hands grabbed her, dragging her off the five-foot way.
She traveled bumpily over unforgiving ground. Chief Thug must be holding her, because she couldn’t see him—only the other men, following. Their faces showed nothing, neither malice nor anticipation nor dread.
They were taking her to the narrow, ill-lit back passage between the rows of shophouses, where they were less likely to be disturbed at their work. The air coming out of the passage was redolent of garbage, even more than the main road. It smelled like a place where things and people came to die.
There was someone standing at the entrance to the alley. A woman. Jess opened her mouth to scream, beg for help, but then she recognized her. It was the Black Water Sister.
The god met her eyes. Her face was a question—or rather, a statement.
It said, You can submit yourself to me, or you can meet an ugly death at the hands of these men.
You can kill, or you can die.
Jess was being borne past the god, a twig on the swift current of a stream. She had a moment to decide.
She’d told Ah Ma she was going to offer the god her service. She’d claimed the role of the Black Water Sister’s medium when speaking to Ng Chee Hin. Jess had drawn on the god’s powers, tasted her suffering, died her death. Arguably it was a done deal.
But until this moment, she hadn’t consciously surrendered. When the god had helped her before, Jess had been in control—or at least, it had felt like it.
This time, she couldn’t deceive herself. This would be going to the god, clear-eyed, and saying, Do what you will with me, and these men.
Either way—whether she offered herself up to the god in exchange for salvation, or whether she let the men take her, alone, into the darkness of the alley—she was going toward a death. Jess didn’t know how much of herself would survive the process, what of her would come out the other side.
But you had to die before you could be reborn.
Jess put out her hand. She was too far from the god to reach her. But she felt the god’s answering touch—a cool hand laid on the back of her neck, five fingertips resting lightly on her skin.
Jess’s head fell forward.
“Sister,” she whispered.
* * *
• • •
THE MEN TOOK Jess down the alley. The noise from the main road was muffled here. There was nobody around except Jess and the men who were going to kill her.
The god had touched her. Hadn’t she? The terrible shining certainty began to recede from Jess.
She’d got it all wrong. The Black Water Sister didn’t want her as her medium. The god had been waiting for this all along. This was Jess’s punishment for destroying her shrine.
