Tiger Lily (Dark Blossoms Book 1)

by Abigail Drake

  Miss Lin, Mr. Wan’s assistant, waved to me from the back of the room as she worked on another customer. “I’m glad you’re not dead,” she said, shouting to show her enthusiasm.

  If Mr. Wan looked as old as dirt, Miss Lin’s age was a total mystery. She could have been anywhere between thirty-five and fifty-five. She had that kind of face. I smiled back at her, not sure how to respond. I was glad not to be dead too.

  I cleaned my area with wipes before we started, but Mr. Wan didn’t mind. He knew I had an issue with surfaces. He set to work, chatting about the weather, and the routine and rhythm of the process soothed me. I adored having my feet massaged and buffed and my toes painted. I loved soaking my fingers until they were velvety soft, and the way Mr. Wan would blot them gently dry, caring for me like he would a small child. I even appreciated his color choice, a pale peach called Melancholy Baby. It went perfectly with the peach silk sweater and cream-colored pleated mini skirt I wore today. Miss Lin complained to her customer very loudly about buying a bag of stinky broccoli at the market, but even that didn’t bother me. I was in my happy place.

  Mr. Wan painted my fingernails with quick, even strokes. “So, you died, huh?”

  “Yes, I did,” I said, and waited for the usual questions. I considered making up something more interesting. The answers I gave seemed a bit disappointing. When I told people I’d been oddly at peace as it happened, they liked that part, but they wanted more drama, lights, and action. My story was kind of…boring.

  Mr. Wan, however, didn’t seem bored at all. He raised one bushy gray eyebrow and peered at me over his spectacles. “So…do you have a problem now, with ghosts?” He kept his voice soft, not that Miss Lin or her customer could have heard him. She’d moved onto ranting about cauliflower now. Apparently, Ms. Lin was having a serious issue with cruciferous vegetables this week.

  My mouth dropped open in shock at Mr. Wan’s question. “How did you know?”

  H sighed, putting the brush into the bottle of polish and swishing it back and forth as if trying to decide how to answer. “Dying can be like that. Once, when I was a young boy in my village in China, the same thing happened. A girl died and came back to life. We were all so happy, until we found out she hadn’t come back alone.”

  “What do you mean?” My fingers were still extended over the soft white towel that separated us on the table, but I couldn’t move. I desperately needed to hear what he might say next.

  He grabbed my left hand and went back to work, talking as he painted. “When you cross over the barrier between life and death, things sometimes follow you back. They might be ghosts, like in your case, or they might be something else. Something very bad. Something you maybe haven’t seen yet. Either way it is a problem.”

  “Why?” I asked, watching him. I liked Melancholy Baby. It just might be my signature shade for spring. Focusing on the color helped me remain calm at the idea that I might have issues bigger than the blobs or even Shadow Guy. I hadn’t seen him since the hospital, so I could probably take him off my list of things to worry about.

  I had OCD. It was a long list.

  Mr. Wan paused, the brush hovering above my nail. “It knocks the world out of balance. Dead things are supposed to stay in the dead place, living things in the living place. It’s like yin and yang. When there is no balance, terrible things happen.”

  “What kinds of terrible things?” It took a lot of control to keep my hands from shaking. “And what made the ghosts choose me?”

  Mr. Wan shrugged. “Perhaps they had unfinished business here. Perhaps they do not know they are dead. Or maybe they saw a living being and grabbed onto it because everything is so dead over there. You might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but there was something in particular that drew them to you. I cannot say. It is impossible to know for certain.”

  “What can I do about it?”

  Although he’d never answered my question about the bad thing, Mr. Wan had suddenly become a great source of wisdom for something besides impeccable cuticle care. He stuck my hands in the dryer as he considered it.

  “I am not sure. Let me see.” He got to his feet and shuffled to the back of the store, returning a few minutes later with a giant, dusty book. He set it carefully on the table, back side up, and I stared at the elegant Chinese characters embossed in gold across the green leather as he opened the book.

  He skimmed through it until finally he said, “Ah ha. Here it is. Trouble with ghosts.”

  He read the passage slowly, mumbling to himself. I tried to be patient but couldn’t stop myself from tapping my fingers on the table. He gave me a hard stare over the top of his glasses.

  “Miss Lily. You must learn to calm down.”

  I leaned closer, my voice a whisper. “To keep the ghosts away?”

  “No,” he said, frowning. “Because you are going to chip off your nice nail polish and say Mr. Wan does not do a good job.”

  I stopped tapping. “Could you please tell me about the ghosts, Mr. Wan?”

  “Yes, yes. First question, how many do you have?”

  I counted the blobs clinging to the tiger painting. “About twenty, I guess.”

  His mouth dropped open in shock. “That isn’t a haunting, that’s an infestation. Are they in my shop? Oh, very bad feng shui. Tell them to leave.”

  “They don’t listen to me. That’s part of the problem.”

  “Do you know anyone they will listen to?”

  “Yes,” I said, remembering how one dirty look from Zoe sent them scurrying.

  “Good, because you must figure out what they want and why they are following you around. Most of them could be confused, but others might need special help.”

  I didn’t even want to ask what that might be. I had an infestation of ghosts. This was even worse than when I got head lice in preschool from trying on all the hats in the dress up bin.

  Mr. Wan wrote something down in Chinese on a small slip of paper and handed it to me. “Buy this from Mrs. Chang’s shop on the corner. It is a powder. Sprinkle it around the room before your friend talks to them. Make sure you put extra near doors and windows. It should help them go back to where they came from.”

  “What if they don’t go back?”

  “Then you have bigger problems, Miss Lily. You must be like the tiger in my painting, ready to attack.” Mr. Wan made a small pouncing gesture with his hands and laughed. “I will call you Tiger Lily now.”

  “Ha. Funny,” I said, as Mr. Wan laughed at his own joke. The blobs wiggled on the tiger painting. They seemed to be laughing too. They didn’t look very scary to me.

  “Mr. Wan, I don’t understand. The ghosts don’t seem dangerous. Why do I have to be ready to attack?”

  He stopped laughing. “Because, Tiger Lily, it isn’t only these ghosts I am worried about. Try Mrs. Chang’s powder first. If that doesn’t work, we will talk.”

  My nails were all done, and it was time to go, but I still had one more question. “What happened to that girl, the one back in your village in China?”

  “Her?” he asked, shaking his head. “Oh, she went crazy. Okay. See you next week. Bye, bye!” He waved at me, smiling. I waved back, not exactly happy about that last little bit of information.

  I walked down the street to Mrs. Chang’s shop. Although only a block away, I’d never even noticed it before. It looked cluttered and dirty on the outside, and not much better on the inside.

  “Hello?”

  A bell tinkled as I opened the door. I could hear the faint sound of water coming from somewhere in the shop, like a fountain, but it was so dark inside it took a few minutes for my eyes to adjust. When they finally did, I jumped back in surprise. A little, old lady wearing traditional Chinese dress stood directly in front of me, so tiny she barely reached my chest. She had wisps of white hair pulled into a bun, and she walked with a cane held tightly in her gnarled fingers.

  “Mrs. Chang?”

  She nodded and bowed, chattering away in Chinese.
She took the slip of paper from my hand but didn’t glance at the note. She went straight to the back of the shop, going on and on in Chinese as she searched the shelves. She paused a second before tapping a box high on the top shelf with her cane and looking at me expectantly.

  “This one?” I asked, stretching to grab the box. Covered in dust, I sneezed as I brought it down, making Mrs. Chang laugh.

  “Yeah, that’s very funny. Dust mites are hilarious,” I mumbled to myself as I followed her to the cash register at the front of the shop. I’d need to bathe in sanitizer after this.

  She rang me up, wrapped the box in paper, and tied it with a string. I tried to be patient, but it took forever. Finally, when done, she handed it to me, bowing. I bowed back to her a few times, awkwardly, before heading to the door.

  “Good luck with the ghosts, Tiger Lily,” she said. I turned in surprise, but she’d already shuffled back into the bowels of her store.

  “Thanks,” I said, and heard her chuckle as I walked out into the sunshine.

  I had ghosts on my mind the rest of the day, and also as I tossed and turned in my bed that night. I finally fell asleep but woke chilled a few hours later because I’d left my window open. I got up to close it, shivering in my tiny white cotton nightie, and that’s when I saw him. Shadow Guy. He sat at the bottom of my bed, like he had at the hospital, and stared at me with the same sad, soulful expression in his brown eyes.

  I approached him slowly. Even though he looked like a guy, he was as much a ghost as the blobs, my constant companions. They hovered on the ceiling right now, waiting and watching as I move closer and closer. I stopped only inches away from him, my eyes locked on his.

  “Go back to where you came from, spirit.” I waved my hands in the air for emphasis, pointing to the window.

  He crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his head to study me, his brows drawing together in a puzzled frown. “Are you okay?”

  I stomped over to the window and reopened it. “Out, out, I say!” I used my most authoritative voice, but he didn’t budge, so I slammed the window shut again.

  “Did you forget to take your meds?” he asked.

  I scowled at him. “I’m not on meds. I’m trying to get you to move on. Go to the light. Please. Go to the light.”

  “You can see me,” he said, his voice low and rough. He wore a black T-shirt and jeans and seemed pretty buff for a dead guy.

  I sat down next to him on my bed. “Of course, I can. You’re right here. Why are you in my room, by the way?”

  He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. I saw you at the hospital, and I…well…” He paused a second, before finally spitting it out. “I followed you.”

  “You followed me?”

  He ducked his head, embarrassed. “I couldn’t help it. There was something different about you, and I needed to find you and ask you something important.”

  “What?” I asked, almost scared to hear what it might be.

  His eyes were intense. “Why are you able to see me when no one else can?”

  My shoulders slumped. “I don’t know. I had an accident and died for a few minutes. Apparently, now I see dead people. Lucky me.” I pointed at the black blobs that looked like they were doing laps back and forth across my ceiling. “Case in point. I see those guys, too.”

  He looked where I pointed. “What are you talking about?” he asked, a frown on his face. One of the blobs flew around his head, but he didn’t even glance at it. He looked confused. He couldn’t see them.

  I groaned in frustration. “Why am I seeing ghosts when even ghosts can’t see ghosts?”

  He gave me a pitying look. “Girl, if you aren’t on meds already, I suggest you try some. Who are you, anyway?”

  “Lily Anne Madison.” Force of habit, I automatically extended my hand to him. When he tried to shake it, his hand slid right through mine. The same thing happened with the blobs, so I’d expected it, but Shadow Guy obviously had not. He jumped off the bed, staring down at his hand with a horrified expression on his face.

  “How did you do that?”

  I tucked my hair behind my ears and folded my hands neatly on my lap. “I didn’t. It’s because you aren’t alive anymore.” I knew I spoke to him like I would to a small child, but I’d never had a conversation with a ghost before.

  Confusion, fear, and horror slid across his face. He had no idea what was going on here. When I came closer to comfort him, he backed up all the way to the wall.

  “Stay away from me,” he said.

  “Look, I want to help you. I have some magic powder that a Chinese lady sold me.” I pointed to the bag of white powder on my dresser.

  “Magic powder? Wait…did you give me drugs?” His eyes narrowed. “Is this some kind of joke? Are you one of Bambi’s friends from The Zone?”

  The Zone, a club on the far side of town, had a questionable reputation. I’d never been there myself, but I’d heard rumors about it.

  “Do I look like the kind of person who would give you drugs?” I put my hands on my hips. “And for that matter, do I look like the kind of person who would have a friend named after a cartoon character?”

  His frown morphed into a smirk as he studied me, taking in the thick white ribbon holding back my red hair, the eyelet and lace on my shorty nightgown, and the white feathers on my satin mule slippers. My toes peeked out the tops, and I had to admit Melancholy Baby was my color.

  “I guess not,” he said, “except for the cartoon part. I keep waiting for you to burst into song or tap dance or something.” He rubbed his face with his hands and paced. “This can’t be happening. It doesn’t make sense.” In spite of his tough guy demeanor, he seemed afraid. My heart went out to him. I couldn’t help it.

  I kicked off my slippers and sat down on the bed, my legs curled beneath me. Although rude and kind of annoying, Shadow Guy was also a lost soul and needed guidance.

  “Let’s start with the basics, and we’ll figure it out. You must be local since you know about The Zone. Tell me whatever you can remember. Who are you, and how did you die?”

  He marched over to me, strange since his feet didn’t make any noise. “My name is Nick,” he said, “and I’m not dead. Please get that into your stupid head.”

  I heard a strange swishing sound as a gust of wind blew through my room, in spite of the fact that every window had been shut tight. The wind ruffled Nick’s hair as he looked around, panic growing in his dark eyes.

  “Help me,” he said. He held out his hand, pleading with me, before he vanished, without another sound, into the dark, cold night.

  Chapter 5

  A rumor goes in one ear and out many mouths. ~ Chinese proverb

  I cornered Zoe first thing Monday morning at school, and she didn’t look happy about it. A group of Goth kids stood by the door to the art room, staring at us. She frowned. “Didn’t I tell you not to talk to me here?”

  “I know why I’m seeing ghosts,” I said.

  “Oh, goody.”

  “Can we meet later?”

  I tried not to be hurt that she was embarrassed to be seen with me. She was the misfit, after all, not me. I was normal…well, except for the whole ghost thing. I wrote down my address on a scrap of paper and handed it to her. She snatched it out of my hand and shoved it into her pocket.

  “I’ll come after school,” she muttered and brushed past me to join her friends.

  “She doesn’t like you,” said a deep voice in my ear.

  I jumped and almost dropped my books. Nick stood right next to me.

  “What are you doing here?” I hissed.

  He leaned against a locker, arms folded across his chest, and he looked good for a dead guy. “No idea, but I figured the only way I’m going to get any answers is to follow you around. No one else seems to be able to see or hear me.”

  “But I don’t know anything.”

  “I realize that,” he said with a smirk. “I don’t have many options.”

  “I’m you
r last resort?”

  “Kind of.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Hey, I’m not enjoying this either. Girls like you annoy me.”

  “Girls like me?”

  He looked me up and down, from my headband embellished with crocheted daisies, to my white blouse and buttercup-yellow skirt. He had on his usual black t-shirt and jeans. Those must have been the clothes he died in. I could see part of a tattoo on his right arm, peeking out from under the sleeve of his t-shirt. He looked like the kind of person who might have tattoos in other places too, and the idea of those other places made me uncomfortable.

  His lips curved into a naughty smile. “See what I mean? You’d never be caught dead with a guy like me.”

  The joke surprised me. I laughed so hard I snorted, earning a bunch of strange looks from students passing us in the hall. They couldn’t see Nick, but they could see me talking to myself and laughing. And snorting. As soon as they left, I gave him a hard glare.

  “Very ladylike of you, princess,” he said with a grin.

  “Not funny.” This time I tried not to move my lips as I whispered.

  “Yes, it was,” he said. “But I meant what I said before, Lily. I’m not dead, and I’ll keep following you around and bothering you until you agree to help me.”

  I rolled my eyes. The black blobs swirled around him like a fuzzy tornado. Maybe they also needed my help. That could explain why they followed me around too.

  “Join the club,” I said.

  My day quickly turned into a nightmare. Nick came with me to every class. He made fun of me in calculus, my worst subject, and took special joy in the fact that he seemed to know every answer long before I did.

  “Not a lot going on under that headband, is there, sweetness?” he asked with a grin. The worst part was he did everything in his head. He couldn’t hold a pencil, and there was no way he could use a calculator.

  In American Lit, he distracted me so badly I screwed up on a quiz. In chemistry, he startled me into dropping a beaker of acid and nearly burning my lab partner. In psychology, he listed every disorder and problem he thought I suffered from personally. He may have been right on a few of them. By lunchtime, I’d become a frazzled mess.