by Neil Clarke
Slowly, it turns its gaze on me, focusing on my presence. I pull off my mask and stare back. Its gaze feels hot, the eyes as red as burning coal.
Xiao Qian leans out from the palanquin, and her cry pierces the suddenly quiet night air: “Ning, run! Run!”
The wind lifts the corner of her dress, like a dark purple petal unfolding. Her face is like jade, with orange lights flowing underneath.
I turn and run as fast as I can. Behind me I hear the heavy footsteps of the Dark Yaksha. With every quaking, pounding step, shingles fall from houses on both sides like overripe fruits. I am now running like the wind, my bare feet striking the slate slabs lightly: pat, pat, pat. My heart pounds against my chest: thump, thump, thump. Along the entire frenzied Ghost Street, mine is the only living heart.
But both the ghosts and I know that I’m not in any real danger. A ghost can never hurt a real person. That’s one of the rules of the game.
I run towards the west, towards Lanruo Temple. If I can get to Yan Chixia before the Yaksha catches me, I’ll be safe. This is also part of the performance. Every Carnival, Yan puts on his battle gear and waits on the steps of the main hall.
As I approach, I cry out: “Help! Save me! Oh Hero Yan, save me!”
In the distance I hear his long ululating cry and see his figure leaping over the wall of the temple to land in the middle of the street. He holds in his left hand a Daoist charm: red character written against a yellow background. He reaches behind his back with his right hand and pulls out his sword, the Demon Slayer.
He stands tall and shouts into the night sky, “Brazen Demon! How dare you harm innocent people? I, Yan Chixia, will carry out justice today!”
But tonight, he forgot to wear his sedge hat. His egg-shaped face is exposed to the thousands of lanterns along Ghost Street, with just a few wisps of hair curled like question marks on a blank page. The silly sight is such a contrast against his serious mien that I start to laugh even as I’m running. And that makes me choke and can’t catch my breath so I fall against the cold slate surface of the street.
This moment is my best memory for the summer.
COLD DEW, THE SEVENTEENTH SOLAR TERM
A thin layer of clouds hides the moon. I’m crouching by the side of the lotus pond in Lanruo Temple. All I can see are the shadows cast by the lotus leaves, rising and falling slowly with the wind.
The night is as cold as the water. Insects hidden in the grass won’t stop singing.
The eggplants and string beans in the garden are ripe. They smell so good that I have a hard time resisting the temptation. All I can think about is to steal some under the cover of night. Maybe Yan Chixia was right: in a previous life I must have died of hunger.
So I wait, and wait. But I don’t hear Yan Chixia’s snores. Instead, I hear light footsteps cross the grassy path to stop in front of Yan Chixia’s cabin. The door opens, the steps go in. A moment later, the voices of a man and a woman drift out of the dark room: Yan Chixia and Xiao Qian.
Qian: “Why did you ask me to come?”
Yan: “You know what it’s about.”
Qian: “I can’t leave with you.”
Yan: “Why not?”
Qian: “A few more years. Ning is still so young.”
“Ning, Ning!” Yan’s voice grows louder. “I think you’ve been a ghost for too long.”
Qian sounds pitiful. “I raised Ning for so many years. How can I just get up and leave him?”
“You’re always telling me that Ning is still too young, always telling me to wait. Do you remember how many years it has been?”
“I can’t.”
“You sew a new set of clothes for him every year. How can you forget?” Yan chuckles, a cold sound. “I remember very clearly. The fruits and vegetables in this garden ripen like clockwork, once a year. I’ve seen them do it fifteen times. Fifteen! But has Ning’s appearance changed any since the year he turned seven? You still think he’s alive, he’s real?”
Xiao Qian remains silent for a moment. Then I hear her crying. Yan sighs. “Don’t lie to yourself any more. He’s just like us, nothing more than a toy. Why are you so sad? He’s not worth it.” Xiao Qian just keeps on crying.
Yan sighs again. “I should never have picked him up and brought him back.”
Xiao Qian whispers through the tears, “Where can we go if we leave Ghost Street?” Yan has no answer.
The sound of Xiao Qian’s crying makes my heart feel constricted. Silently, I sneak away and leave the old temple through a hole in the wall.
The thin layer of clouds chooses this moment to part. The cold moonlight scatters itself against the slate slabs of the street, congealing into drops of glittering dew. My bare feet against the ground feel so cold that my whole body shivers.
A few stores are still open along Ghost Street. The vendors greet me enthusiastically, asking me to sample their green bean biscuits and sweet osmanthus cake. But I don’t want to. What’s the point? I’m just like them, maybe even less than them.
Every ghost used to be alive. Their fake, mechanical bodies host real souls. But I’m fake throughout, inside and outside. From the day I was born, made, I was fake. Every ghost has stories of when they were alive, but I don’t. Every ghost had a father, a mother, a family, memories of their love, but I don’t have any of that.
Xiao Qian once told me that Ghost Street’s decline came about because people, real people, found more exciting, newer toys. Maybe I am one of those toys: made with newer, better technology, until I could pass for the real thing. I can cry, laugh, eat, piss and shit, fall, feel pain, ooze blood, hear my own heartbeat, grow up from a simulacrum of a baby—except that my growth stops when I’m seven. I’ll never be a grown-up.
Ghost Street was built to entertain the tourists, and all the ghosts were their toys. But I’m just a toy for Xiao Qian.
Pretending that the fake is real only makes the real seem fake.
I walk slowly toward the eastern end of the street, until I stop under the Old Ghost Tree. The sweet fragrance of osmanthus fills the foggy night air, cool and calming. Suddenly I want to climb into the tree. That way, no one will find me.
The Old Ghost Tree leans down with its branches to help me.
I sit, hidden among the dense branches, and feel calmer. The crows perch around me, their glass eyes showing hints of a dark red glow. One of them speaks: “Ning, this is a beautiful night. Why aren’t you at Lanruo Temple, stealing vegetables?”
The crow is asking a question to which it already knows the answer. The Old Ghost Tree knows everything that happens on Ghost Street. The crows are its eyes and ears.
“How can I know for sure,” I ask, “that I’m a real person?”
“You can chop off your head,” the crow answers. “A real person will die with his head cut off, but a ghost will not.”
“But what if I cut off my head and die? I’ll be no more.”
The crow laughs, the sound grating and unpleasant to listen to. Two more crows fly down, holding in their beaks antique bronze mirrors. Using the little moonlight that leaks through the leaves, I finally see myself in the mirrors: small face, dark hair, thin neck. I lift the hair off the back of my neck, and in the double reflections of the mirrors, I see a crimson bar code against the skin, like a tiny snake.
I remember Xiao Qian’s cool hands against my spine on that hot summer night. I think and think, until tears fall from my eyes.
WINTER SOLSTICE, THE TWENTY-SECOND SOLAR TERM
This winter has been both dry and cold, but I often hear the sound of thunder in the distance. Xiao Qian says that it’s the Thunder Calamity, which happens only once every thousand years.
The Thunder Calamity punishes demons and ghosts and lost spirits. Those who can escape it can live for another thousand years. Those who can’t will be burnt away until no trace is left of them.
I know perfectly well that there’s no such thing as a “Thunder Calamity” in this world. Xiao Qian has been a ghost for so long that sh
e’s now gone a little crazy. She holds onto me with her cold hands, her face as pale as a sheet of paper. She says that to hide from the Calamity, a ghost must find a real person with a good heart to stay beside her. That way, just like how one wouldn’t throw a shoe at a mouse sitting beside an expensive vase, the Duke of Thunder will not strike the ghost.
Because of her fear, my plan to leave has been put on hold. In secret I’ve already prepared my luggage: a few stolen potatoes, a few old shirts. My body isn’t growing any more anyway, so these clothes will last me a long time. I didn’t take any of the old copper coins from Xiao Qian though. Perhaps the outside world does not use them.
I really want to leave Ghost Street. I don’t care where I go; I just want to see the world. Anywhere but here.
I want to know how real people live.
But still, I linger.
On Winter Solstice it snows. The snowflakes are tiny, like white sawdust. They melt as soon as they hit the ground. Only a very thin layer has accumulated by noon.
I walk alone along the street, bored. In past years I would go to Lanruo Temple to find Yan Chixia. We would knock an opening in the ice covering the lotus pond, and lower our jury-rigged fishing pole beneath the ice. Winter catfish are very fat and taste fantastic when roasted with garlic.
But I haven’t seen Yan Chixia in a long time. I wonder if his beard and hair have grown out a bit.
Thunder rumbles in the sky, closer, then further away, leaving only a buzzing sensation in my ears. I walk all the way to the Old Ghost Tree, climb up into its branches, and sit still. Snowflakes fall all around me but not on me. I feel calm and warm. I curl up and tuck my head under my arms, falling asleep like a bird.
In my dream, I see Ghost Street turning into a long, thin snake. The Old Ghost Tree is the head, Lanruo Temple the tail, the slate slabs the scales. On each scale is drawn the face of a little ghost, very delicate and beautiful.
But the snake continues to writhe as though in great pain. I watch carefully and see that a mass of termites and spiders is biting its tail, making a sound like silkworms feeding on mulberry leaves. With sharp mandibles and claws, they tear off the scales on the snake one by one, revealing the flesh underneath. The snake struggles silently, but disappears inch by inch into the maws of the insects. When its body is almost completely eaten, it finally makes a sharp cry, and turns its lonesome head towards me.
I see that its face is Xiao Qian’s.
I wake up. The cold wind rustles the leaves of the Old Ghost Tree. It’s too quiet around me. All the crows have disappeared to who knows where except one that is very old and ugly. It’s crouching in front of me, its beak dangling like the tip of a long mustache.
I shake it awake, anxious. It stares at me with two broken-glass eyes, croaking to me in its mechanical, flat voice, “Ning, why are you still here?”
“Where should I be?”
“Anywhere is good,” it says. “Ghost Street is finished. We’re all finished.”
I stick my head out of the leaves of the Old Ghost Tree. Under the slate-grey sky, I see the murder of crows circling over Lanruo Temple in the distance, cawing incessantly. I’ve never seen anything like this.
I jump down from the tree and run. As I run along the narrow street, I pass dark doors and windows. The cawing of the crows has awakened many of the ghosts, but they don’t dare to go outside, where there’s light. All they can do is to peek out from cracks in doors, like a bunch of crickets hiding under houses in winter.
The old walls of Lanruo Temple, long in need of repairs, have been pushed down. Many giant mechanical spiders made of steel are crawling all over the main hall, breaking off the dark red glass shingles and sculpted wooden molding, piece by piece, and throwing the pieces into the snow on the ground. They have flat bodies, blue-glowing eyes, and sharp mandibles, as ugly as you can imagine. From deep within their bodies comes a rumbling noise like thunder.
The crows swoop around them, picking up bits of broken shingles and bricks on the ground and dropping them on the spiders. But they are too weak and the spiders ignore them. The broken shingle pieces strike against the steel shells, making faint, hollow echoes.
The vegetable garden has been destroyed. All that remains are some mud and pale white roots. I see one of the Monk’s rusted arms sticking out of a pile of broken bricks.
I run through the garden, calling for Yan Chixia. He hears me and slowly walks out of his cabin. He’s still wearing his battle gear: sedge hat over his head, the sword Demon Slayer in his hand. I want to shout for him to fight the spiders, but somehow I can’t spit the words out. The words taste like bitter, astringent paste stuck in my throat.
Yan Chixia stares at me with his sad eyes. He comes over to hold my hands. His hands are as cold as Xiao Qian’s.
We stand together and watch as the great and beautiful main hall is torn apart bit by bit, collapses, turns into a pile of rubble: shingles, bricks, wood, and mud. Nothing is whole.
They’ve destroyed all of Lanruo Temple: the walls, the main hall, the garden, the lotus pond, the bamboo grove, and Yan Chixia’s cabin. The only thing left is a muddy ruin.
Now they’re moving onto the rest of Ghost Street. They pry up the slate slabs, flatten the broken houses along the sides of the street. The ghosts hiding in the houses are chased into the middle of the street. As they run, they scream and scream, while their skin slowly burns in the faint sunlight. There are no visible flames. But you can see the skin turning black in patches, and the smell of burning plastic is everywhere.
I fall into the snow. The smell of burning ghost skin makes me vomit. But there’s nothing in my stomach to throw up. So I cry during the breaks in the dry heaves.
So this is what the Thunder Calamity looks like.
The ghosts, their faces burned away, continue to cry and run and struggle in the snow. Their footprints criss-cross in the snow, like a child’s handwriting. I suddenly think of Xiao Qian, and so I start to run again.
Xian Qian is still sitting in the dark bedroom. She combs her hair as she sings. Her melody floats in the gaps between the roaring, rumbling thunder of the spiders, so quiet, so transparent, like a dreamscape under the moon.
From her body come the fragrances of myriad flowers and herbs, layer after layer, like gossamer. Her hair floats up into the air like a flame, fluttering without cease. I stand and listen to her sing, my face full of tears, until the whole house begins to shake.
From on top of the roof, I hear the sound of steel clanging, blunt objects striking against each other, heavy footsteps, and then Yan Chixia’s shouting.
Suddenly, the roof caves in, bringing with it a rain of shingles and letting in a bright patch of grey sky full of fluttering snowflakes. I push Xiao Qian into a dark corner, out of the way of the light.
I run outside the house. Yan Chixia is standing on the roof, holding his sword in front of him. The cold wind stretches his robe taut like a grey flag.
He jumps onto the back of a spider, and stabs at its eyes with his sword. The spider struggles hard and throws Yan off its back. Then the spider grabs Yan with two sharp claws and pulls him into its sharp, metallic, grinding mandibles. It chews and chews, like a man chewing kimchee, until pieces of Yan Chixia’s body are falling out of its mandibles onto the shingles of the roof. Finally, Yan’s head falls off the roof and rolls to a stop next to my feet, like a hard-boiled egg.
I pick up his head. He stares at me with his dead eyes. There are no tears in them, only anger and regret. Then with the last of his strength, Yan closes his eyes, as though he cannot bear to watch any more.
The spider continues to chew and grind up the rest of Yan Chixia’s body. Then it leaps down from the roof, and, rumbling, crawls towards me. Its eyes glow with a deep blue light.
Xiao Qian jumps from behind me and grabs me by the waist, pulling me back. I pry her hands off of me and push her back into the dark room. Then I pick up Yan Chixia’s sword and rush towards the spider.
The cold blue l
ight of a steel claw flashes before my eyes. Then my head strikes the ground with a muffled thump. Blood spills everywhere.
The world is now tilted: tilted sky, tilted street, tilted snow falling diagonally. With every bit of my strength, I turn my eyes to follow the spider. I see that it’s chewing on my body. A stream of dark red fluid drips out of its beak, bubbling, warm, the droplets slowly spreading in the snow.
As the spider chews, it slows down gradually. Then it stops moving, the blue light in its eyes dim and then go out.
As though they have received some signal, all the other spiders also stop one by one. The rumbling thunder stops, plunging the world into silence.
The wind stops too. Snow begins to stick to the spiders’ steel bodies.
I want to laugh, but I can’t. My head is now separated from my body, so there’s no way to get air into the lungs and then out to my vocal cords. So I crack my lips open until the smile is frozen on my face.
The spiders believed that I was alive, a real person. They chewed my body and tasted flesh and saw blood. But they aren’t allowed to harm real people. If they do they must destroy themselves. That’s also part of the rules. Ghosts, spiders, it doesn’t matter. Everyone has to follow the rules.
I never imagined that the spiders would be so stupid. They’re even easier to fool than ghosts.
The scene in my eyes grows indistinct, fades, as though a veil is falling from the sky, covering my head. I remember the words of the crows. So it’s true. When your head is cut off, you really die.
I grew up on this street; I ran along this street. Now I’m finally going to die on this street, just like a real person.
A pair of pale, cold hands reaches over, stroking my face.
The wind blows and covers my face with a few pale pink peach petals. But I know they’re not peach petals. They’re Xiao Qian’s tears, mixed with snow.
Paul McAuley is the author of more than twenty novels, several collections of short stories, a Doctor Who novella, and a BFI Film Classic monograph on Terry Gilliam’s film Brazil. His fiction has won the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the Sidewise Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. His latest novel, Austral, set in post-global warming Antarctica, was published in 2017.
