“When you hear that the preachin’ does begin, bend down low for to drive away your sin, and when ya gets religion, ya wanna shout and sing, there’ll be a hot time in the ol’ town tonight.”
The audience crowed back, “There’ll be a hot time in the ol ’ town tonight.”
My feet took me beyond where I could hear the lyrics, and then the twanging rhythm of the piano was lost to distance as well. At last I crossed Columbus and returned to familiar territory. It warmed me to see faces that made sense to my eyes, tidy hairstyles, and the constant motion of men in unassuming clothes who walked to work or to home or to entertainment at all hours of the evening, along the road lit by parallel lines of red lacquered lanterns and its clutter of telegraph cables. Above me birds were cooing on an awning, and I turned and looked up to see gulls.
I observed them for a moment, in their scatter of color, black and blue-gray and white feathers, orange beaks and claws. Each had two eyes, and only two. They were seagulls, but they were not my seagulls.
I’d need to summon them, then. The Haiou Shen were spirit gulls, and shared a bond with me. Long ago, when the White-Haired Demoness streamed like plague through our village, killing everything, even the trees, even the birds, I hid at the bottom of a well, but I was not alone. A three-eyed seagull came with me. Her name was Jiujiu, and we whispered together while we hid, giving each other courage in the dark damp well, while the cries of the dying kept us both in terror all through the night. We both were powerless, yet it felt better to be powerless together.
Later, somehow, Jiujiu made her way across the Pacific, and joined another flock of spirit gulls. At least I thought that’s how it worked; not even I understood the workings of the Haiou Shen; for all I knew, she created this flock herself.
Last year the gull spirits had come to me with an offer: Protect us, and we will follow you. At the time I’d only held the Second Ordination, and it had meant a great deal that the wild nature-spirits chose me as their guardian despite me having virtually no power. The seagulls’ devotion meant the world to me; their trust in me as their protector meant even more than that.
The Haiou Shen could sense every change of weather, seeing the future in limited ways. The vague and murky nature of their prophecies often frustrated me, but this question would be simple enough. Of the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of spirit gulls in San Francisco, one was sure to have seen Xu Anjing’s ghost.
Calling the gulls would be simple. I only needed to burn a paper talisman.
I needed to be outdoors, and at least somewhat out of the way, so I headed toward the deadhouse where I worked, and entered a crawlspace between the building and the next. Then I withdrew my sheaf of talismans and shuffled through the stacked rice paper until I found the one I wanted.
Most of my talismans were inscribed on yellow paper, some on red, but only one sheet was blue-green. I withdrew it now. In orderly rows, small stampings depicted the shapes of birds; perhaps forty birds in each row, sixty in each column . . . . There were a lot of them.
I had to admit, I was looking forward to seeing them again, hearing their barking cries which sounded so human yet not, the murmur and mayhem, the raucous indignity of their wings whipping the air. The joyous madness of their flapping existence.
On my shoulder, Mr. Yanqiu waited while I lit a match and set the blue sheet on fire. I waited for the flame to crumble the edges into black ash, to crawl across the page until it touched the imprinted bird-shapes. Here was where the gulls would come, where my flock would gather in a hectic swirl of feathers.
I waited for the sound of wings to join the crisping of low flame and the susurrus of drumming human feet from the road adjoining this narrow alleyway.
I waited for the spinning dazzle of crying gulls, their wings shiny and blueblack in the late evening light.
I waited.
Flame nibbled down the talisman while I waited for my gulls to arrive. I waited, waited until the talisman was little more than a stub and I could feel the heat burning my thumb and fingers. I let the pain go on, and at last, mystified, I dropped the small unburnt remnant to the crawlspace ground.
Quietly, Mr. Yanqiu said, “What happened, Li-lin?”
Quietly I replied. “They did not come. I do not understand.”
“Another mystery, then?”
“This cannot be, Mr. Yanqiu. Even if I had done something wrong, even if they were angry at me, the talisman’s summoning should have brought them here. Something is interfering.”
“Li-lin, for something to interfere . . . .”
“How powerful must it be, you’re wondering? More powerful than me, obviously, but also strong enough to prevent the bond between the gulls and my talisman from summoning them.”
“How much stronger than you, Li-lin?”
“Far stronger. Oaths have power; the gulls are nature spirits; together this makes a dizzying amount of connectedness.”
“I see,” Mr. Yanqiu said. “Li-lin, do you think they could be . . . .”
“Dead, Mr. Yanqiu? I think I would know. I think I would have felt them die.”
“I didn’t know you could do that.”
“I can’t,” I said. “I mean, it’s not some gift of mine, or some discipline accrued through spiritual cultivation and internal alchemy. I just think the bond between me and Jiujiu from the well, and then the more recent oath, bind us in some unfathomable and permanent manner. If Jiujiu were dead, I would feel it in my bones.”
Mr. Yanqiu nodded. “So what are you going to do about this?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s another mystery, right when I can’t handle another mystery. I’m mysteried out, all out of solutions.” I chewed my lip for a moment. “Unless it’s related somehow.”
“What do you mean, Li-lin?”
“A vampire tree kills a girl; her soul goes missing; the Haiou Shen also are missing. And someone has undertaken Rites of Investiture, without the deities’ permission. I’m starting to wonder if there isn’t a single cause to all these problems.”
“I see,” Mr. Yanqiu said, cupping one hand over his iris to mime someone scouting the distance. “So what next?”
“I keep looking,” I said. “I keep trying to find the girl’s ghost, and the spirit gulls. Our next step is clear, though it will be a challenge.”
“What’s so challenging, Li-lin?”
“Mr. Yanqiu,” I said, “have you ever tried searching for a cat?”
EIGHT
Finding a cat is not so simple as it sounds. Cats hunt; they hide; they observe with cunning. Their sharp little eyes have scoured the landscape for every hidden alcove and secret passageway. A two-tailed cat spirit like Mao’er, who had survived by his wits for over fifty years, who had been on the prowl in Chinatown since the neighborhood was no more than shacks on a dirt road, spent stealthy decades learning his terrain. He knew Chinatown’s ground-level cubbies and rooftop pigeonholes so well that he could confound the pursuit of any stray dogs (and woe be to the hound who mistook Mao’er for its prey; the cat’s cruel humor, savvy wiles, sharp claws, and penchant for disappearing meant he could taunt a pack of wolves and escape unscathed).
Mao’er witnessed everything. He took little interest in the affairs of men and spirits, but he saw much, and noticed. If Xu Anjing’s ghost had fled past him, he would have watched; and he’d remember her too, if I could offer a tasty enough bribe. There was no guarantee he’d seen her, and no guarantee I could find Mao’er if he was not in the mood to be found.
But I had an advantage in my search: Mao’er and I had once prowled Chinatown together, for a night and a day. He led me to his hideouts and his rat-traps, his parlors near Fish Alley where he’d chomp upon stolen sturgeon, and warehouses where he could both hunt mice and pilfer dried cuttlefish. He lived like a vagabond king, an outlaw master of his terrain.
It took about two hours for me to find him, sprawling like an emperor on a heap of straw. If I knew him, the straw had already been warm when he
lay down, and he’d slipped to sleep in an instant.
At my approach, one feline eyelid quirked slowly open, showing me an inquisitive eye, and the mangy orange alley cat sniffed in my direction to ascertain my identity. Mao’er was a weary, broken-tailed, slightly-limping road-warrior of a tomcat, always surviving to fight another day and howl at the moon another night, with just a hint of mystical magnificence. He rolled now to his paws and stood on four legs, yawning, and licked a paw, observing me.
“Mao’er,” I said, “it’s good to see you.”
“Dao girl,” he said between licks. “Bring mousies?”
“Not with me,” I said, “but I will burn some paper mice for you.”
I hadn’t seen Mao’er in the last few months. After following me into battle, he’d gotten pretty banged up, and now he seemed less eager to engage in fightying—fighting, I mean.
“Here to kill rat, miao?” Mao’er said, warbling his meow into speech.
“No, Mao’er, I’m looking for a girl’s ghost. Have you seen one?”
He relaxed a little, preening, with a cocky look in his big eye and a faraway gaze in his small one. “Mmmmmaybe Mao’er seen her,” he said.
I squatted down to be eye-to-eye with him. “What will it cost me to find out?”
He gazed at me quizzically for a moment longer, then pushed himself up to his hind legs, looking unnaturally humanoid for just a moment, before his face shifted, his body altered, and he became a small boy with frizzy hair, wearing a fuzzy orange sweater. His teeth and eyes remained feline, beastly things, and his two tails flipped behind him in casual, unconscious loops.
“Kill rat?” he said. “Promisey?”
“There’s a rat you can’t handle? I don’t think I understand,” I said.
He said nothing, but he was eyeing Mr. Yanqiu with a hungry look. “Mao’er, no eat eyeball!” I scolded.
“Yes, please do not eat me,” Mr. Yanqiu said.
“Perhaps you’d be better off in a pocket, Mr. Yanqiu,” I said.
“I find this suggestion quite compelling,” he said, tucking himself away.
“Mao’er, I am glad to see you again, but you seem preoccupied with a rat, and I am trying to help a dead girl.”
Mao’er’s voice shrilled, and his tails pounded. “Badrat!” he said. “Meanrat! Hunty!”
“Mao’er, I find it hard to believe any rat would have the power to evade you if you’re hunting.”
“Not Mao’er hunty!” He screeched exasperation. “Badrat hunty chasey ghostgirl!”
I stiffened. “You saw a ghost girl?”
“Told you, miao!” he said, although he hadn’t. “Ghostgirl runrunrun, badrat chasey.”
“You saw a girl’s ghost run past, pursued by a . . . demonic rat?”
“Growl!” he said. “No saw! Mao’er fighty!”
“You fought the demon rat?”
“Mao’er mighty!” he said, and proceeded to demonstrate, raking claws in the air. “Mao’er fighty badrat, ghostgirl runrun, two hunty, two chasey!”
“So there were many of these demonic rats, pursuing the girl?” I said.
“Nonono,” he said. “Just rat.”
“So you fought a rat, and . . . Who was chasing the ghost girl?”
“Ratfriends,” he said. “Bigs.”
“Mao’er,” I said, “please, look at me now. Can you tell me how powerful this rat and his friends are? You have seen me fight. Would I be able to beat this rat?”
“Yesyes,” he said. “Closed eyes, Dao girl beats rat.”
“And these ‘bigs’?”
He shuddered. “Bigs beat Dao girl,” he said. “No eyes, no hands, Bigs beat Dao girl.”
“The big ones could beat me easily even if their eyes were closed, without even using their hands?”
Mao’er nodded. Sometimes it felt like I spent my entire life translating, in one form or another.
“You saw a ghost girl, and she fled, with the rat and the big things chasing her.”
“Told you ten times,” he said, “miao.”
I nodded. “Tell me about this ghost girl. Did you see where she went?”
A sudden, shrewd smile. “Want mousies!” he mewled. “Treats, miao.”
“You know exactly where she is,” I said. “And you’ll lead me to her, for a reward? You have a deal.”
“Ghost girl hidey,” he said. “Behind skunkplace.”
“Skunkplace,” I said, trying to work out what he meant. “The night-soil collector? The cesspit?”
“Nono poop,” he said. “Behind skunk . . . .” He struggled to find words, but could not. At last he extended a claw and touched it to the bottleneck gourd that dangled from my belt.
“Skunk in . . .”
I struggled to comprehend. A place in Chinatown where skunks are kept in bottleneck gourds?
Skunks in jars.
“Perfume, Mao’er? You’re talking about bottles of perfume?”
“Yesyes!” he said. “Told you.”
“Yes you did,” I said. “The ghost girl is hiding behind the perfume factory on Jackson?”
“Yesyes!” he said.
“Duncombe Alley,” I said. “I am in your debt, Mao’er. I will burn paper mice and many, many treats for you.”
A cul-de-sac in Ansheng territory, Duncombe Alley was a dark, squalid stretch lined with sleeping quarters and an opium den, culminating in a dead end. Scraps of old newspapers and withered straw crushed beneath my heels as I made my way between the wooden walls on either side of the alley. “You should have brought a lantern,” said Mr. Yanqiu.
Nodding, I took out a candle and a match, and lit the candle, cupping one hand around the small flicker to protect it from the wind.
It was dark in Duncombe, with crooked walls tilting haphazardly, and it smelled of fish and sawdust. The buildings on either side had been built close together, their rickety balconies nailed board-to-board from scraps and driftwood planks. When thirty thousand people live in twelve blocks, everything gets crowded, every inch of space is necessary.
Motion in the shadows: a rat scuttered past, sped into some cranny. This rat seemed normal enough to me.
I pressed further down the alley, with just the small glow of a single candleflame to illuminate my path. At a turn, something shimmered, reflecting the light: broken glass. I continued, and saw another reflection.
This was something more than a glass shard. It was silky, sticking out from behind a board that I would have thought a part of the wooden wall. I paused to extinguish my match and light another, and decided to step closer, then a small person bolted out of the hiding-place.
A girl, running. I did not pursue, because I did not want to frighten her, and because she was running toward a dead end.
She was smaller than I expected. Smaller than the corpse. She wore a buttonless blue silk jacket which opened over a layered silk blouse and a light green silk dress, and she wobbled when she ran, as if she had bound feet. Yet Xu Anjing’s feet had not been bound; foot-binding was rare among the low-born who made their way to this country. The running girl’s clothes weren’t normal garb, but like something out of an opera; the clothing of another era . . . the Song Dynasty, perhaps?
Why would Anjing dress in antique clothing? Why would her ghost’s feet be bound? Why would she be so small? I could only see one explanation: this wasn’t Xu Anjing at all, but a different girl.
Every bit of the sight of her was unusual. There were so few females in Chinatown, and rarely was one ever alone. Yet here she was, a young girl, fleeing in a panic, ducking behind anything she could find. Her hair was held back in a bun shaped like a butterfly. An ancient hair-style.
I imagined how she would feel when she reached the splintery wood wall that sealed off the alleyway’s passage, the moment when she realized she was cornered.
“Little girl?” I called. “It’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you.”
I saw her crouching at the end of the alley. Her back was to me, but
she looked about six or seven years old, a little younger than Xu Anjing. A memory of myself at that age flashed into my mind, unbidden and unwelcome.
Looking at the frightened child in the corner, I saw myself hiding in a well, while above me, terrible events unfolded.
“Little girl?” I called. No response. I inched toward her.
I was standing about ten feet away from the girl, taking delicate steps so I wouldn’t frighten her. “Little girl?”
Mr. Yanqiu went rigid. “Li-lin,” he began, his voice tense, and then the girl turned to face me.
There are all kinds of faces in the world. Some appear happy, some sad, while others hold emotions in, unreadable. Some faces are caught in permanent scowls. Others are sensitive as stringed instruments, transmitting even the slightest alteration of feeling. Some faces never mean what they seem, looking ready to laugh when on the brink of tears.
This girl was different.
This girl had no face.
NINE
Her blank visage was a thing of nightmare. It suggested erasure, silencing; when I saw the absent eyes, the missing nose, and the vanished mouth, I felt as if something fundamental had been violated, torn from existence. Looking at her made me blanch. I heard a strange, soft, screechy moan, and realized it was coming from my own lips. I shook my head, forced my voice to be silent.
The hair on her head suggested a face, yet there was none. From her forehead to her chin, there was nothing but blank skin. No eyes, no nose, no mouth. Her featureless blankness was complete; she reminded me of a chalkboard or a starless sky at night; nothing there at all.
I caught my breath, took a step backward. I couldn’t speak. I could only stare.
“What . . .” My question would have been addressed to her, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t speak to that mockery of a face.
The girl stood motionless as I backed away, trying to make sense of the heartwrenching image in front of me. I forced myself to look away and observe what else I could see. The silken clothing, layered in bright colors, looked elegant and expensive, but from another era; it looked more like a costume than an outfit. Her feet, I confirmed, were tiny crescents; unlike me, and unlike Xu Anjing, her feet had been bound to stunt their growth.
The Girl with No Face Page 7
