the Story Shop

by Peter Ponzo

  A young man answered the phone. He said he was Tai Zuan, the son of Liu Zuan, that his father had disappeared and, after a few months, he had given up searching. The court's decision was that the old man, Liu Zuan, was presumed dead and that the son, Tai Zuan was the understood heir to the estate. Illia asked for the price, was pleased with the response and asked the son to meet her for lunch in the restaurant on the first floor of Dominion Towers. She said she would treat him to lunch, buy the store and add an extra 5% to the asking price. Tai seemed pleased with the arrangement and agreed.

  Lunch for Illia was a salad. For Tai, it was a rather large steak with a side order of fried rice and onion rings.

  "So where did your father go?" Illia asked.

  Tai choked down the last piece of steak, coughed and wiped his lips.

  "We don't know. My wife and I have been searching for months. My father came to town fifty seven years ago and never left Toronto. He never travelled, never had a holiday, just stayed in his apartment above the curio store."

  "Does he have other relatives?" Illia asked.

  "In China, he had a brother and some cousins, I think. But he never writes to them." Tai paused and popped the last onion ring into his mouth. "My father was born in a small mountain village in Jilin Province in Northern China. His father died when he was a young man and, with some money from the sale of his father's property, he came to Canada and bought the curios shop. I don't know if any of his relatives are still alive, in China. However, he brought a young Chinese girl to Toronto when he was twenty, I believe. He married her and had one child...me. My mother was very young when she died of tuberculosis. My father became somewhat of a hermit. He almost never left his store. He did write to people in China, importing the things he sold in the shop. I was never a part of that enterprise so don't know where the stuff came from."

  Illia and Tai sat in silence for several minutes.

  "Why are you interested in the shop?" Tai asked, finishing the last of his lunch.

  "I've visited the shop many times," Illia said. "I have been impressed...no, I've been fascinated with the artifacts. When I saw that the shop was for sale, I couldn't get the thought our of my mind. I could own a curio shop."

  Illia smiled. So did Tai. He handed her the sale documents, she signed, they had it notarized by an attorney in the building and Tai gave her the keys and left with a cheque for more than he had hoped to get for the old shop. Illia told her secretary that she'd be gone for the rest of the day, then she left to inspect her latest possession. This was bound to be an exciting day.

  Chapter Two

  She had to rotate the key several times, but the door eventually swung open with a squeak. She told her driver to take the day off since she intended to spend the time in the shop. The store was wall to wall junk, great junk, charming junk. It was delightful, the smell of cherry blossoms was everywhere. The various pieces leaned against each other, lay atop each other, chaos, a confusion of relics. Only one object lay alone, on a table, with no nearby artifacts. It was a gleaming olive-coloured skull, apparently made of jade. Illia picked it up. It was very heavy and actually seemed to be warm. The teeth were tightly closed, the vacant eyes dark and foreboding. There was a cardboard box by the wall. She decided she'd pick a few good pieces and put them in her office. The jade skull was first in the box. It took an hour to select six more pieces to put in the box. One was a delightful China Doll, a child dressed in iridescent blue with a bright red hat covered white polka dots.

  Illia had never been in other than the showroom, so she was looking forward to seeing the other rooms. There was a room in the back, clearly for storage. There was a staircase to a dark and damp cellar with nothing but an ancient furnace. When she climbed the stairs to the apartment she was surprised to find it neat, clean, sparsely furnished and again smelling of cherry blossoms. Old man Zuan kept his rooms much more organized than his display shop. There were some tables, chairs, a cot, a few small lamps, a small stove and fridge and many old Chinese calendars on the walls, all showing dates at least five years old...but with splendid scenes from China.

  After an hour browsing the apartment, inspecting the contents of all the drawers and puzzling over the Chinese characters in a small book, Illia returned to the exhibit room at ground level. She checked the calendar on her cell phone, saw that she had no appointments or meetings that evening and decided to take the box of special items home, to clean and polish. When she bent to pick up the box, it was empty except for the jade skull. Had she forgotten to put the other items in the box? No, she was quite sure there had been six pieces as well as the skull. Then she noticed that the teeth were slightly parted. There was something red between the teeth. It was a piece of cloth with white polka dots. That was from the hat of the China doll. Someone had been in the shop while she was upstairs. Someone had stolen the pieces in the box, but why had they chosen just those pieces?

  It was quite late in the evening when Illia collapsed on the couch in her living room, holding a tall glass of chilled white wine. She lived in a palatial and elegant condo on the waterfront. She had no boy friends that she considered serious associations, few friends of any kind, no relatives other than a sister she didn't like. Her parents had died when she was quite young, she struggled to make ends meet, got a job in real estate and was so successful that she started up her own company, hiring only energetic and eager single women who were down on their luck. Now, at age thirty seven, Illia had one of the largest real estate enterprises in the city.

  She stared at the jade skull on the coffee table. The skull was the only thing she brought home–except for the small book with the Chinese characters that had been in the apartment. Any other objects could wait another day. It seemed to be smiling at her, its mouth partially open. It sat beside a small bonsai. She would bring both to the office in the morning. They made a perfect pair, she thought. She finished her wine, lay back on the couch and closed her eyes. The shop was enchanting. Why had old man Zuan left? If he had spent most of his life in the apartment above the showroom, where would he go? Why did he not tell his only son? Why was the jade skull so prominently displayed while all the other pieces were crammed together, haphazard, disordered, chaotic? What did the Chinese writing say, in that small book? Tomorrow, she would ask Wen-qi, a Chinese agent she had hired last year to cover the Chinese district in the city.

  Chapter Three

  Wen-qi sat and waited for Illia. It was a beautiful office with large windows facing the bay, walls filled with leather bound books and a walnut disk that was completely bare except for an office phone...and a jade skull. When Illia came in, Wen-qi was staring at the skull.

  "Hi Wen," Illia said. "I see you've met my skull."

  "That is beautiful piece of jade," Wen-qi said. "In Chinese culture, jade symbolizes nobility, perfection, constancy, immortality."

  "Aah, that's interesting. For me, it's just a gorgeous piece of art."

  "My name, Wen-qi, actually means sparkling, like jade."

  "No kidding? Then I clearly have the right person to ask questions. Would you like coffee, tea, anything?"

  "Thanks, but no."

  Illia sat at her desk and pulled out a small book from a drawer, handing it to Wen-qi.

  "Could you tell me what's written here?"

  Wen-qi opened the small book and frowned.

  "This is very old Chinese Kaishu script. I'm not sure I can read it all...but I'll try."

  They both sat in silence for some time, Wen-qi groaning softly, shaking her head, turning pages back and forth.

  "It's all about that jade skull," she said, eventually. "It's apparently very, very old and worth a great deal of money."

  "It says that? It's worth a lot of money?"

  "No, not actually in those words. It says something more like it's precious, unique. The person who is writing all this says it came with him when he first came to Canada. He had stolen it from a monastery and–wait, I'm not sure but I think he came to Canada in ord
er not to be caught with the stolen jade."

  Wen-qi looked up. "I think you have something quite uncommon," she said. "Something that possess certain special features."

  "What features?"

  Wen-qi frowned. "It doesn't say, only that you must be very careful."

  "Careful? Why?"

  "It doesn't say." Then she paused. "I'm afraid that's all I can gather from this ancient text. Most of the other text refers to other items in some shop, items that vanished, items that were somehow associated with the jade skull."

  Illia stood up. "Wen, I thank you. You've been very helpful. By the way, how are things going in Chinatown?"

  "Booming, I'm pleased to say. Every Chinese immigrant wants a place near Dundas and Spadina...and they come with lots of money. Most can't speak anything but Cantonese, though some do speak Mandarin. I have no problem with either language, however. By the way, the writer of this document," she said, pointing to the small book. "He's clearly old Mandarin."

  Wen-qi shook Illia's hand and left. Illia sat where Wen-qi had sat and stared at the skull. She rotated the object so it faced her. There was a light in the eyes, from the window it seemed. She rotated the skull, but there was no hole in the back, yet the eyes were luminous. Scary. She pushed it aside and pulled her schedule from a drawer. Meetings all day, a quarterly report to write, many memos to read. It would be busy, but the evening was free of encumbrances. She could revisit the shop and take home a few other items.

  Chapter Four

  It was shortly before ten p.m. before Illia got home, carrying a box with a dozen small items, mostly porcelain. She put the box in a corner and placed the skull on the coffee table, next to the bonsai. She needed a stiff drink. When she returned from the dining room where she kept her stash of alcohol, she noticed the bonsai had wilted. That was unusual because she watered it diligently and it had survived years as a healthy and robust plant. Now the leaves were brownish and seemed very dry. In fact, the plant was leaning more than usual, away from the skull. Illia collapsed on the couch and stared at both the skull and the bonsai. Was the skull smiling? Its mouth seemed more open than she remembered. She leaned forward. A dry and wrinkled bonsai leaf was stuck between its teeth. It had happened before, with the red and white polka dot hat from the China Doll. She recalled the comment of Wen-qi: the skull possessed certain special features. Did it eat nearby things? Was that the reason it stood by itself in the curio shop?

  The next morning the bonsai was gone. There was a hint of cherry blossoms in the air.

  Illia was shocked and frightened. She phoned Wen-qi and was told that such skulls often came from a Jade school in a Mongolian, Northern Chinese area and Illia should consult a Chinese mystic to gain whatever knowledge the skull can give. Other than that, Wen-qi could provide no further suggestions, not even the name of a mystic. Illia immediately searched for mystics in the city and found just one. She left the office early, grabbing the jade skull from the desk, and headed for a seedy part of town.

  The so-called mystic lived in a ramshackle building on the edge of the city. Illia knocked and when the door opened she was startled when a young girl answered.

  "I am looking for ..." she began.

  "Yes, come in," the young girl said, stepping aside the let Illia pass. "Go in there and sit."

  Illia entered a dark room that smelled of cherry blossoms, yet slightly medicinal. She sat and looked about. There was nothing on the walls and only two wooden chairs. Soon an old woman came in, helped by the young girl who immediately left.

  "Show me," the old woman said.

  Illia handed her the jade skull and the woman ran her hand over its surface, her eyes closed, whispering something that Illia could not hear.

  After a time the old woman said in a rasping voice, in surprisingly good English: "Energy…great clarity... very profound...not of this earth...destroy it."

  "Why is it dangerous?" Illia asked. "How...?"

  "Quiet now, " the old lady whispered. "You must destroy the evil thing or it will consume you. "

  Then the she rose and left, leaning heavily against the wall as she left.

  "Wait! I have a question. Please, what is that aroma, cherry blossoms. I've smelled it before, in the curios shop, in my apartment when..."

  The old woman turned and said in a hoarse voice: "Cherry blossoms, an emblem of love yet they signify the fleeting nature of mortality." Then she left.

  Illia sat for a while but no one came. The fleeting nature of mortality. The skull iwll absorb you. What did that mean? Did the skull absorb the hat of the China Doll and the bonsai? Illia left, confused.

  When she got home, she placed the skull in a deep drawer, an empty drawer. It this object possessed mystic powers, did they include the ability to make things disappear? Did it have the ability to make old man Zuan disappear? Illia undressed and crawled into bed, but had difficulty sleeping. So many strange things associated with the jade skull. So many unanswered questions. After a long time contemplating she fell asleep.

  Two weeks later the police arrived. Illia Jaworski had not shown up at the office for two weeks. She had not called in. She had not left text messages for her associates or even so much as a note in her office. When the police entered her apartment, the first thing they noticed was a jade skull on the coffee table. It glowed, its mouth was wide open and there was a pale light in each eye socket.

  What was also quite unusual was the smell: cherry blossoms.

  Mas stared intently at the small blue planet.

  "Llik!" he grunted, sliding his scaled hand swiftly across the console, stopping over the Llik key. Yllas seized his hand and dragged it slowly to the key labelled Sgnir.

  "Nmad!" Mas grunted. The words exhaled like escaping steam.

  He gazed at the Sgnir label and understood. A long digit unfurled and punched the key, violently.

  Seventeen fireballs erupted from beneath the ship, heading unerringly toward the dark side of the blue planet.

  "Enod!!"

  ASSOCIATED PRESS - Last night, seventeen countries in Europe and East Asia reported the mysterious appearance of crop circles.

  Chapter One

  Tlaloc was angry. The fish had left Oceanus and Mazu was the reason. She had appealed to the gods when it was forbidden to do so. She had appealed to Anapos and Galene and even the monstrous Gorgon sea spirits. Surely Kanaloa would censure her for such irresponsible acts, yet the Supreme had ignored Mazu's prohibited pleas to the sea gods. In any case, the bigger problem was to provide nourishment where none existed. The sea was barren, sterile, empty of creatures except for the citizens of Oceanus.

  Tlaloc knelt by the statue of Tethys, his personal deity. It was forbidden to pray at this time, so he caressed her marble brow, ran his fingers across her cold lips. He would wait until the sun's rays brightened her face. Then his appeal would be sanctioned and he would ask that the fish return to Oceanus. He had asked during the last sun cycle, but he would ask again...and again. Tlaloc had also appealed to the sphinxes that lay across the plains, but they had ignored his prayer. The tombs built by the Olmecs within the giant pyramids–they might reveal an explanation since the vanishing of sea creatures had happened before, as was written in the sacred books. Yet, Tlaloc was responsible for Oceanus nutriment and could not wait for each sun cycle to make his appeals to the gods. The stores of foodstuffs was diminishing, but he had a plan. It required the permission of Kanaloa the Supreme, but surely that would be forthcoming. What other solution could there be?

  Chapter Two

  The throne was a huge clam shell, lined with mother of pearl, sides studded in precious stones. Kanaloa was old, his eyes were partly closed, he stooped forward, his beard hanging to his stomach.

  "Why do you bother me," he said. "Do you have anything worthwhile to say of the shortage of foods, my dear Tlaloc, or do you come to complain of Mazu and her appeal to the gods? She is young and concerned and I shall not punish her for that youthful exuberance."

  "N
o, no Supreme, I come to ask for your blessing. I have a plan and I feel that it is necessary for the survival of our small community. Will you let me explain?"

  Kanaloa nodded his head, leaned back and closed his eyes. Tlaloc described his plan, slowly, with elaborate gestures. Then he paused waiting for Supreme's reaction.

  "You fool!" Kanaloa shouted, his eyes now flashing green, foam rising from his nostrils. "Since the days of Atlantis we have kept our distance from the over-sea world. We take extreme precaution to eliminate any form of communication with over-sea life...especially human life. Have you learned nothing of our history?"

  "No, no, Supreme. I do not suggest any form of communication. I mean only to absorb over-sea vessels, those that ply the surface and those that fill the sky. We can do that and the life we collect will fill our food storage tanks."

  Kanaloa looked skeptical. Then he waved his hand, violently. A column of bubbles rose from his fist. He said in a loud voice: "So be it!" Tlaloc was ecstatic. His gills quivered.

  It took less than a week for Tlaloc to arrange the absorption. The release of methane gas from the vaults beneath the sea bed would rise and reduce the density of the water. Buoyancy would vanish and any over-sea vessel would sink. The first such event yielded several dozen humans whose bodies provided sustenance for weeks. The citizens of Oceanus were overjoyed as was Tlaloc and, more importantly, Kanaloa.

  The disappearance of over-sea vessels continued for years. It would come to be known as the Mystery of the Bermuda Triangle.