The Girl with No Face

by M. H. Boroson

  His true form was not any normal tiger, but fifteen feet long and as tall as a horse, with three tails. Being a beast, Shuai Hu could slip between the worlds of men and monsters. He saw spirits as plainly as I did, and spoke with them.

  The last time I saw Shuai Hu, I’d come asking him to spar with me, as my husband used to; at that time, the tiger-monk had said, “I desire you.” I still remembered the way he looked at me when he said it. But then he told me to go away and leave him alone.

  I crossed the street and approached him now. The brawny man-tiger turned his good-natured face toward me. Seeing his dopey, lopsided grin and his round cheeks made me smile. “Daonu,” he said, formally, and tipped his shaven head in my direction. “I do not wish to see you again.”

  TWENTY

  Ididn’t know what it was about the monk. Perhaps it came from decades of meditation, or perhaps it was because he was a tiger; either way, he lacked the ability to hide what he was feeling. Looking in his perceptive eyes and his big jolly cheeks, I could interpret his expressions as easily as I could my father’s.

  “Brother Hu,” I said, “you do not truly mind seeing me.”

  He smiled dumbly, and a blush lit up his cheeks; even his bald scalp turned red. “Still,” he said, “even if your presence is not unpleasant, I find it easier to have you somewhere else, where I am not reminded of your existence.”

  “I have some questions for you, Brother Hu,” I said. “If you want to be spared the burden of my company, you need only provide me with answers and I will leave you in peace.”

  In that moment, his conflicted expression was almost cute, like a kitten unsure of what it actually wants, and I had to struggle not to laugh. “Daonu,” he said, “how I may be of help to you?”

  Over the next few minutes, I told him about the vampire tree and the dead girl whose soul was missing, the Rites of Investiture, the faceless girl, and Xu Shengdian.

  The big monk made a sound from his mouth that reminded me of wild cats, and a faraway look crossed his face. “I traveled through Peru for a while, some decades ago. There was an ancient tree, growing near a sugar plantation, and the locals would make an elixir from its leaves. When they drank the tea, they would dance and shake, have visions. The herb was said to alleviate suffering and heal sicknesses of the mind.”

  “Are you sure we’re talking about the same tree, Brother Hu? This one does not seem so benevolent.”

  “Of course it isn’t benevolent. You corrupted it.”

  “I am fairly certain I would remember doing that, Brother Hu.”

  “Not you personally, Daonu. Humans corrupted it. This sacred tree grew for ten thousand years, and its dreams interacted with the Peruvian people who drank its elixir. But then, humans started keeping other humans in chains.

  “Every time a slave died—these men of China—his corpse would be buried without ceremony, far from his ancestors. A portion of each man’s soul clung to his unsettled corpse. The tree’s roots grew around the corpses of the plantation workers, and its dreaming mind imbibed the dead men’s restlessness, their resentment. Their suffering infected the ancient tree, and it grew enraged. It had no agenda, Daonu, it wasn’t interested in freeing anyone; it just reflected their feelings.”

  “That ancient tree felt what the slaves felt, without understanding the reasons why,” I said. “So its feelings were not directed toward anyone, any individual, any group, and it wasn’t trying to improve things. You are saying it was hurt and angry, and it just wanted to lash out?”

  “Indeed,” he said. “It filled the air with aggression. I needed to leave, Daonu, I needed to go far away, rather than be exposed to its drive for violence. A long time later, I learned that there had been many brutal murders at the plantation, until men burned the whole area to the ground, and the land was considered cursed. I thought the tree had been eradicated.”

  “Unfortunately, Brother Hu, it seems as if Xu Shengdian harvested a number of that tree’s seeds, and their saplings grow inside people’s bodies, sprouting into vampire trees. They probably carry the consciousness of the ancient tree; they are part of it rather than its offspring.”

  The tiger monk nodded.

  “I think I understand Xu Shengdian and his ancient tree now, Brother Hu. I also need to ask, do you know of a means that would allow me and my father to enter the world of spirits, without leaving our bodies?”

  He raised a quizzical eyebrow, so I explained. “The last time I went out of body, things did not turn out so well for me. I would not choose to leave my father and myself physically unconscious, where we would be vulnerable.”

  “I do know of a means, Daonu,” the monk said, his eyes never leaving my face. “But it would not be to my preferences. If you enter the spirit world with your bodies, what would you do?”

  “My father and I intend to ride the railroad of the spirits. Are you familiar with it?”

  “I am,” he said. His face twitched, uneasy.

  “You are not comfortable with the subject, Brother Hu?”

  “The spirit railroad, Daonu . . . . It is beautiful, and, I think, it is helpful.” He struggled to find words. “But it was built by ghosts.”

  “What is the problem with that, Brother Hu?”

  He shrugged his powerful shoulders. “There are men’s souls out there, railroad workers, who worked all day building the tracks; many of them, when they died, received no formal burial, no funerary rites, so their ghosts just kept showing up to work.”

  “They didn’t realize they were dead,” I said. “You’re saying they just kept building the railways?”

  The tiger monk nodded. “They received instructions, sometimes, from unscrupulous spirits. Beings who knew they were ghosts and should move on, but chose instead to exploit them as free labor. The souls who construct the Railroad of the Spirits are little more than slaves.”

  The thought made me seethe. “Who was responsible for this, Brother Hu? Who planned the tracks and took advantage of the laborers’ lost souls?”

  “I believe the leader is known as the Ghost Magistrate.”

  The air from my lungs went out in a huff. “He’s about to be Invested as the Tudi Gong of this region, Brother Hu.”

  “Truly?”

  I nodded.

  “The fact does not leave me comforted,” he said.

  “My father needs to take a train to the Ghost Yamen,” I said, “in order to ascertain whether the Ghost Magistrate is worthy of the position.”

  “If he is unworthy, Daonu, your father will prevent this Investiture?”

  I nodded.

  “I know how you and your father can ride the train, and where you can catch it,” he said. “But there might be a problem.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  A damp wind blew through San Francisco. It blew along the bay, over the buildings, down the hills, and through Chinatown. And it blew over three people standing on the sidewalks of Dupont, with tensions rising between them. When people face off like this, it can mean a number of things. Perhaps one owes the others money; perhaps they are members of rival organizations; perhaps they comprise a love triangle.

  A less common configuration might consist of a man who is angry at his daughter for bringing along the third person, an ancient tiger wearing the shape of a human monk.

  “Brother Hu is sworn to do no harm,” I said, my voice straining. “He is a Buddhist.”

  “Is that meant to be comforting, Li-lin?” my father said. “Buddhists have murdered as many ‘heretics’ as any other religion.”

  Shuai Hu kept his head low. “Perhaps, Sifu, this is why the Eightfold Path is appropriate for me. I have murdered innocents; I also aspire to do no harm.”

  “Li-lin,” my father raged, “how could this animal even help us? We need to ride a ghost train, not travel with a man-eating monster.”

  “He says he can lead us to the train,” I said, “using special hairs at the tips of his tails.”

  My father’s lips tightened. “The huanhu
n mao?” he said. “It’s real?”

  Shuai Hu nodded, and I saw my father’s curiosity struggle against his anger. If there was one form of bribery my father had trouble resisting, it was an offer of knowledge.

  Trying to prod him in that direction, I said, “What is the huanhun mao?”

  Father looked like he had a bad taste in his mouth. “It is said that tigers have a special hair in the tip of each tail, which they use to reanimate the corpses of the people they’ve killed.”

  “Why would they want to animate corpses?” I asked.

  “To make them remove their clothes,” my father said, as if he were being forced to explain obvious things to a simpleton. “Tigers don’t want to chew on cloth to get to their meat.”

  “The scriptures I follow abjure me not to eat meat at all, Sifu,” the tiger monk said. “They exhort me to harm no one.”

  Father clucked his tongue. “Didn’t you extort a promise from Li-lin, once, which caused her to spare the life of my enemy Liu Qiang? Aren’t you the reason that soul-stealing murderer is still alive?”

  Shuai Hu lowered his head. “One may hope that man learns the error of his ways and chooses to pursue a path toward the enlightenment of all beings.”

  “Even your Buddhist scriptures are inconsistent, beast! ‘Do no harm,’ you say, your teachings forbid killing anything, yes? Forswear aggression? But then there’s the Pali Canon,” here my father took on a triumphant tone, “where your Buddha explicitly commands his followers to kill luosha demons.”

  “Perhaps someday, Sifu,” the tiger monk said, “the Buddha’s instructions about luosha demons might lead me to acts of aggression. Fortunately, in my centuries on earth, the only luosha demon I encountered was far beyond my abilities to harm.”

  I followed the progression of reactions across my father’s face; his arguments fell from his mouth, comprehension set in, and, looking thunderstruck, he squinted at the big monk. “You’ve been to Tibet?”

  “Yes, Sifu, I walked upon the land made from the living body of the giant luosha demoness Srin-Mo-Gan-Rhyal-Du-Nyal-Ba.” He pronounced the name with tones and rhythms that did not sound like any language I knew.

  “I have never seen her,” my father said, a glint in his human eye. Interest? Bribed by the offer of knowledge. “Are the temples still in place?”

  “To the best of my knowledge, Sifu, all thirteen temples still stand, pinning the demoness down. And though Gautama Buddha, in the Pali Canon, commanded his followers to slay luosha demons, a monster whose surface is a million square miles of mountainous land would not even notice if I tried to harm her.”

  “You have met Srin-Mo-Gan-Rhyal-Du-Nyal-Ba,” my father marveled.

  “She would not remember the encounter, Sifu,” Shuai Hu said, wryness turning up the edges of his human mouth. “I traveled much of Asia and the world before you and I met, thirty years ago.”

  My father and I both gaped at the tiger now. “The two of you met before I was born?” I asked, while Father was saying, “You remember that?”

  Shuai Hu smiled, as serene and as silent as any Buddha statue. “You stayed behind,” he said, “to help a friend.”

  “He was not a friend,” my father snapped.

  “Please,” I said, “will someone tell me what happened?”

  “When I was a teenager,” my father growled, his eyes never leaving Shuai Hu’s face, “some other students and I were carrying the ritual tools for Sifu Li and our senior brothers while they searched for a monster; their spells led them to a Buddhist monastery. Sifu Li and his senior students entered, while we juniors had to wait outside.

  “Minutes went by, and then the front door swung open, and the seniors fled out. Sifu Li himself, the most powerful man I had ever known, backed out of the door and retreated. Then a bald man strode out through the door. Like some kind of witch, that monk transformed into a tiger, gigantic, with several tails.

  “We juniors fled in terror. One of us, the runt among us, tripped over a rock. The beast stalked toward him. All I wanted to do was escape, Ah Li, but I couldn’t let one of my fellow students die. So I went back. I grabbed the weakling by his right arm and helped him to his feet. And then, do you know what that coward did? He shoved me toward the monster and scampered away. I was a teenager, holding merely the First Ordination, and my face was inches from a gigantic three-tailed tiger.”

  He paused. “What happened then?” I said.

  My father’s gaze on Shuai Hu was flat. “Why, beast? Why did you do what you did next?”

  The monk’s expression was all innocence. “Sifu, your act of courage impressed me.”

  “That’s why? That’s all? All these years, decades, I have wondered why the tiger . . . .”

  I waited for him to continue. When I had the sense he was not planning to say more, I asked, “What have you wondered about the tiger?”

  “I have wondered, for decades, why that monstrous tiger licked my face.”

  “He—” I had to stop myself from giggling.

  “Then he ran off into the night, leaving me with a wet spot in my trousers. And the human face of the tiger forever burned into my memory.”

  “Whatever became of the boy you rescued, Sifu?” Shuai Hu asked.

  My father’s expression grew sour, and he spit in the road. “A few years later he became a soulstealer, hurting people. To punish him, I chopped off the arm I had used to save him.”

  “Liu Qiang?” I said, incredulous. “You risked your life to save Liu Qiang? From Brother Hu?”

  My father scowled at me.

  “Don’t you see?” I said to my father. “You told a story involving a tiger and a fellow apprentice—”

  “Yes, yes,” my father said, “and the human is the one who turned out to be a monster. Spare me the obvious message here. Let’s go find the railroad of the spirits.”

  I took a few moments to talk to a friend.

  “I am sorry, Mr. Yanqiu,” I said. “You must stay behind.”

  He harrumphed. “I could help you, Li-lin. I could protect you. Didn’t you say I save you all the time, in other ways?”

  “Mr. Yanqiu, when I walk through the city streets, none of the living can see you. I do not need to worry for your safety. Where we are going, you will be visible to all the spirits, and vulnerable to them. You could get kidnapped, taken hostage . . . . It would put me in danger.”

  His crossed arms remained crossed, and he looked even sulkier. I’d won the argument; only my safety mattered to him, after all, and he would not bear the thought that he might place me in jeopardy.

  I’d won the argument, but I’d hurt his feelings. “I wish I could be thirty feet tall,” he muttered.

  “I am sorry,” I said, “so sorry. There will be warm tea for you when I return.”

  He looked up at me, moist, and I realized he was about to cry. Tea would not be enough, this time. I wondered how I could make him feel better, but I had no answers for that now.

  I returned to my father and the tiger. At last, then, we were underway.

  To find out what happened to Xu Anjing’s ghost, and to avenge her.

  To find the paper offering in the shape of a girl, who tried to sacrifice herself to protect me.

  To learn about this Ghost Magistrate, and decide whether he should be prevented from achieving godhood.

  Shuai Hu led the way, a tall, solidly built, bald-headed Buddhist monk in orange cloth robes. Most people could not see the tails swishing, slashing the air in his wake. Yet I could not only see them, but feel them, shimmering; my father and I were simply human, and we moved within the gauzy aura of the hairs at the tips of two of his tails.

  We followed Shuai Hu in silence, or perhaps it was awe, as the tiger in human shape led us down a flight of stairs that had not been there yesterday, through an alley that I was certain had never existed, up a ghostly wooden stepladder, and around a corner I would never be able to find without the guidance of this immortal tiger-man.

  The skyline
had been rewritten; it was Chinatown still, yet the geography was wrong, and though I had spent sixteen years inhabiting these twelve blocks, I knew if I strayed from Shuai Hu’s guidance, I would get lost, and perhaps stay lost forever; this was not Chinatown but the dream of Chinatown, and its ghost. I had spent days trapped here, once, exiled from my body into this forever of twilight beneath a golden moon, and I had spent that entire time disoriented and afraid, in the wild weird on the other side of my familiar world.

  Further and further we followed the Buddhist tiger, out and out and out of the ordinary, into and into and into the strange.

  Yao is the outlandish, the odd, a term for whatever fits in no category . . . except for yao. It’s in the word for goblin and the word for bizarre, the word for unorthodox teachings and the word for warlocks. All my life I felt as if the yao was following me, a creepy sensation, footsteps I would hear behind me when I walked alone at night but saw no one there.

  Now I followed the yao. I became the soft tread of footsteps along the hidden byways, and perhaps, if a human being sensed me brushing past, she would shiver at the touch of the unearthly, the intrusion of chaos creeping into her orderly world.

  At last these strangely altered roads led to a flight of stairs; not improvised wooden steps made of boards hammered together, but a concrete stairway leading upwards.

  Silently we ascended. The monk took the steps two at a time, at a loping gait which seemed natural to his stride; my father, not to be outdone, went up three steps at a time. I rolled my eyes and went up the steps one by one, while glowing mists hovered in the air, and eyes opened and shut in the tufts of vapor, watching. Watching us.

  Shuai Hu saw them as well. Smiling, he waved to them.

  Step by step, we walked up the stairs, and then we reached the platform for the spectres. What we saw there was astounding.

  I’d seen spirits, demons, and goblins since I was seven years old. Their shapes, multifarious, their sizes, bogglingly variable, their intentions, unknowable. Some have been mischievous, some malevolent, but mostly they had been indifferent; each of them was pursuing its own ineffable goal, which had nothing to do with me or the rest of the human world, so I had merely witnessed them riding the witchy air or doing whatever it was they went on doing.