The Girl with Ghost Eyes

by M. H. Boroson

  “Tonight?” he asked. His face registered fear.

  “Yes, dead man, the most freakish of spirits walk tonight. You know we cannot kill each other in the spirit world, but if we fight, we can harm each others’ spirit bodies. You would not want to face the Night Parade with a broken arm, Shi Jin. Give me my red string and I will give you your passport, so you may cross the gates and enter the city of the dead.”

  He snorted again, but this time, I thought, it was an expression of loss, not contempt. “My forty-nine days are long past, girl. The only way for me to get out of here is to possess you.”

  I had run before because losing would have meant more than just my end. At that time, losing would have killed my father. But Father would be safe by now.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and launched a flying kick at the ghost. I gave him no time to block or dodge. My heel connected with his massive chest, and he stumbled backward, trying to regain his balance.

  I took slow, deliberate steps, relaxing as I approached him. I brought forth in myself the experience of liuhe, the Six Integrations, so spirit could guide my skills and energy. I was an army now, hands and feet and knees and elbows working together. To beat him I would need relaxation, smoothness of movement, nimbleness, stability, and emptiness, but more than anything I needed strategy.

  Shi Jin lunged at me. I brushed aside the jab from his right arm, but the reverse punch he followed it with was quick and powerful. I weaved to the side and his fist swung by me, close and fast enough that I felt the wind of his swing in my hair.

  I chambered a leg and shot a kick into his ribcage. My foot thumped against his chest. Grunting, he sprang away. The kick probably hadn’t broken any of his ribs, but I was wearing him down. He brought his spirit body back into alignment, finding his centerline.

  Pedestrians stepped around him without seeing him, without knowing he was there. He stamped a foot, leaned into the opposite leg, and extended his right arm, with the palm facing inward. I recognized the form. It was bawang dou jia, King of Kings Shaking His Armor. A posture designed for powerful strikes. From there he could launch any number of large movements capable of shattering my bones.

  But any of those movements would leave him unprotected for a moment. And that was precisely what I needed. I needed him to swing hard and miss.

  I stepped rapidly forward and faked a lunging kick at the knee with his weight on it. He shifted back and lifted the leg, stepping forward into a kick of his own that likely would have broken me if it landed.

  The beauty of a fakeout is that I was nowhere near where he expected me to be. Instead of kicking, I dropped my foot to the cobblestones and leaped, twisting my hips and lifting up into the air. All the momentum of his forward kick added to the momentum I had built with my running steps, my lunge, and my leap. I raised my knee in a hard half-kick and drove it against the side of his head with a cracking noise. He fell backward and I was falling with him, but I wasn’t finished. I swung a foot at his neck and hooked his throat.

  We hit the street, hard, but he hit harder. I jammed my shin against his throat. He made a wheezing sound, struggling for air. I scrambled to my hands and knees but Shi Jin grasped my ankle in one huge hand. He yanked on my leg with unbelievable strength. To keep my knee from dislocating, I spun in the direction of his force, and brought the heel of my other foot down against his face.

  His nose broke with a wet crunch, and I felt his grip go limp around my ankle. I yanked it away and crawled out of his reach. Blood poured down over Shi Jin’s mouth and beard. The side of his head was a bleeding mess where my knee had torn off a chunk of his ear. Clutching his face in pain, he struggled to focus his eyes on me as I got to my feet.

  “Now,” I said, trying to conceal my weariness, “I will have my red string.”

  The ghost looked at me, his eyes raging over his smashed nose. “Cao ni zuzong shi badai,” he cursed—fuck your ancestors to the eighteenth generation. He dabbed two fingers into his blood, and before I realized what he was doing, he smeared blood along the red string.

  I stood in silent horror. The string wasn’t mine anymore. With Shi Jin’s blood on it, the string was ruined. It would no longer lead back to my body.

  I was trapped in the spirit world, the country of monsters, and I had no way to get out.

  3

  I stared at the frayed end of the string, smeared with the dead man’s spirit blood, and I wanted to scream. It would be a powerless scream, and once I began screaming, I would never stop. There was an ache growing inside me, despair, loss, and failure. There had been so much I still wanted to accomplish.

  I felt tears begin to form. I suppressed them.

  Shi Jin curled on the cobblestones, pressing thick fingers against his nose to stop the flowing blood. I stepped back and away from him, weary to the bones of my spirit. The red string had lost its connection to my body. It was useless now. Neither of us was getting out. There was no longer any need to fight.

  I looked up at the moon, shining its gray and gold light over the afternoon. I would never see the sun again, and I mourned that loss. I would never have a chance to avenge myself on Mr. Liu, prove my worth to my father, or reach a higher Ordination. The knowledge left a taste like bitter ashes in my mouth.

  I smoothed my long hair, thinking. Mr. Liu had come to Father’s temple with Tom Wong. And I had been led into an ambush. Did Tom know?

  No, not Tom. No friend of my husband would do such a thing to me. Tom might steal and he might lie, and he might kill a man in a fight, but I was his best friend’s widow. There was no way he would allow a man to cut a magic talisman into my skin.

  At that thought, my eyes cleared. There would be no tears. Mr. Liu had cut me. He had carved my skin while I lay helpless. He must have pushed back my clothes to reveal my stomach. No man had seen my stomach since my husband died, and now this man had seen me, touched me, and cut me.

  And it wasn’t even personal. He didn’t see me as an enemy, or even as an obstacle to whatever he was planning. He didn’t see me as a threat at all; all he saw in me was a useful tool. He wanted to aim me and shoot me like an arrow at my father’s heart.

  Where tears and hopelessness had threatened to overwhelm me, I was now overcome with rage. Mr. Liu had cut me. It was a violation, and I would make him suffer for it. I would make that snake-eyed, one-armed weakling pay for what he’d done to me.

  But how? Mr. Liu was a man of power. He’d broken the spell on my peachwood sword. I could haunt him from the spirit world—move objects around, possess people—but he was a Daoshi, of the Third Ordination or higher. If I approached him in spirit form, he could drive me away with an octagonal mirror, trap me in a bottleneck gourd, or burn a paper talisman and incinerate me.

  It wasn’t enough to wait and hope for the best. It wasn’t enough to rely on Father’s power and ingenuity to rescue me. I had to create my own opportunity. I needed help, that was clear, but I didn’t know where I could find it.

  Was there anyone else in Chinatown who could help, I wondered. If there was any other woman around with yin eyes, I didn’t know her.

  That left me with few options. Father could burn a talisman of spirit sight, but the spell would only last as long as the paper kept burning—a matter of seconds. I had slim chance of catching him during one of those brief spans of time. Neither youzi leaves nor the tears of a dying dog would be available. And if he sent his orthodox spirit servants, the Five Ghosts, for me, they wouldn’t help me re-attain my body. The Five Ghosts do not rescue; they annihilate.

  I couldn’t remain here, not if I wanted to warn Father about Mr. Liu. And I felt a need, after so many years of being forced to the margins, I felt a need to face the man who tricked me, the man who violated me. I needed to prove that Xian Li-lin is her father’s daughter, her husband’s wife, and no one’s victim.

  I needed to find a way out of this land of ghosts and monsters. It was evening. I could tell by the last stragglers at Fish Alley, the smell of stale fish. I
t was evening, and tonight, I knew, was the Bai Gui Yexing—the Night Parade of a Hundred Devils. The most outlandish among the monsters were going to walk tonight. These creatures were Yao, meaning they had no relation to the human world. They were grotesqueries, the nightmares of childhood. The breath at your shoulder when no one’s there? You might find polite, modern ways to explain the feeling, but you know in your heart that it’s one of the ghosts and goblins we call yaoguai.

  City lights had left them few shadows to inhabit. There was no place for them in a land of street lamps, telegraphs, and cable cars. They retreated to forests, fields, streams, hills, and mountains, or they lurked in the shadows. But tonight the world belonged to them. They were gathering in throngs, to romp through our cities. Ordinary people might even catch a glimpse of them, but no one would believe them. “You’re drunk,” they might say, or “you’re mad,” and jokes might be made about smoking too much opium.

  Such is the nature of the Yao. A man takes a wrong turn down a street he has traveled every day and finds himself somewhere unfamiliar. Shadows lean oddly, buildings look different, and something is moving at the edge of what you can see. Yao presses at the edge of the ordinary, making even your home feel strange. A shadow flits across the wall when no light source is moving. An old umbrella shifts strangely in the closet. Maybe for a moment you see human features in the window, watching you. And why is the dog barking at a dark corner? Nothing is ever as simple as it seems. At the edge of perception, weird things dance and howl.

  Would one of those weird things be able to help me? It was possible. I could strike an arrangement with one, draw up a contract, burn offerings, maybe even enshrine its image with the small deities of our temple. A contract with me would give it a relationship with the human world, ending its outsider status—if it restored my relationship with the human world.

  Of course, it was far more likely that one of them would eat me. Or gouge out my eyes and play with them like marbles. Or peel the skin off my spirit and wear me like a coat.

  I looked at the shining fish scales along the ground of the alley, and I shuddered.

  The thought of approaching the Night Parade filled me with dread. All the old childhood fears rushed through my mind, and I felt small and weak. I was defenseless. I had no peachwood sword, no paper talismans, no bagua mirror or magic gourd. If a single one of the freak spirits attacked me, I’d have no choice but to run, and I was thinking of approaching them when their power was at its height, the strength of numbers behind them.

  I shook my head. It was foolish, I knew. Pigs go willingly to the slaughterhouse, knowing no better. I knew better. I could look for the hundred horrors of the Night Parade, to face possible torment and possible salvation, or I could remain out of body forever, in a world without sun, without family, knowing I had chosen to hide from monsters.

  It was dark, and somewhere in the San Francisco night, they were out there. The freaks of the spirit world would be dancing, reveling in their obscene freedom, and I was going to find them.

  I was going to find the Bai Gui Yexing—the Night Parade of a Hundred Devils.

  4

  I have heard people say that anyone who watches the Night Parade will go mad. The monsters that populate the Night Parade are among the strangest of the ghouls and devils that trouble the human world.

  I had never witnessed a Night Parade. For many years, I had seen signs of the monsters’ passage through Chinatown. Occasionally, at night, I heard unearthly sounds of music, of festivities, coming from the street. I always heard it between eleven and one, the hour of the First Earthly Branch, when the forces of yin and shadow are at their peak; between eleven and one, when Father always insisted I remain indoors.

  Tonight I ventured out to the forbidden spectacle, looking for help in the unlikeliest of places.

  After Mother died, I swore I would never hide from monsters. But now I was actively searching them out, and not just one monster, or two; tonight I was going to find the Bai Gui Yexing. Among the horde of monsters, there had to be something that could help me find my way back to my body.

  I decided to wait for the monsters at the intersection of California and Dupont. It was here, in the evenings, where Father often stood with an iron basket, burning paper offerings for the dead. It was here where Father performed his public rituals. These red brick walls were grimed with soot from Father’s festival rites. Here I would feel at least a little comfortable facing a horde of spirits.

  A street lamp flickered at the corner. A pedestrian walked near me, his shoulders hunched as though it were cold out. But it wasn’t cold. On some level, he could tell tonight was different. He didn’t slow down or stop to read the bulletins posted on the walls. I watched him go, hoping he would make his way to shelter.

  Ding-ding-ding, went the cable car as it slowed to a stop. Ding-ding. Ding. The men climbed down, their queues swaying behind them. They were heading home or going out to gamble, and though none of them could see or sense me, they swerved around me as they walked, as a stream shifts around a stone. I marveled once more at the ways the living accommodate the things they cannot see.

  “Pungent tofu?” asked a boy. He was wearing a straw hat, and he held out a plate of tofu. He was pale-skinned, and his eyes had the glazed look of someone who has spent far too many hours

  working.

  “Pungent tofu?” he offered again.

  “You can see me?” I asked.

  There was no sign of comprehension on his face. “Pungent tofu?”

  I looked in his eyes and saw infinite sadness, infinite loss. There was a hollowness behind his eyes that seemed to go on forever. That was when I realized the boy was dead.

  “Pungent tofu?” asked the ghost again, extending his plate of fermented soy cake.

  “Not right now, but I thank you,” I said to him.

  Ding, went the cable car as it started to move again. Its driver had clamped it back on the fast-moving cable. Ding-ding, it picked up speed, ding-ding-ding, and there was another sound under it. The sound came dimly over the din of a Chinatown night, but it was clear, and it was music. The plucking of a pipa strummed through the air. It sounded like water on stones, like wind brushing through trees, and behind it, they came walking.

  It was the Bai Gui Yexing, and they came hopping, crawling, flapping, creeping, scraping, prancing, and floating, the devils in their multitudes. The shapes of the advancing creatures made me dizzy. So many were things I’d never seen, or never believed in, or had never heard of. The Daolu Registers list eighty thousand demons, but not even that could give name to the shapes in front of me.

  In the unearthly crowd I observed the familiar monstrosities before I could make out the incomprehensible and foreign. A red crowd of huli jing, fox spirits, followed the patriarch fox. He was a proud old beast boasting five bushy tails and a laughing cleverness behind his eyes. I had seen huli jing before, but they’d been younger than the master of this skulk.

  In the air near the five-tailed fox, ghost fires glimmered. When a fox walks through a graveyard, the last breaths of the recently dead climb out of men’s throats and follow the fox. They burn for weeks, a dim, blue, floating flame.

  Watching the foxes, I swallowed. The mischief of the huli jing may be innocent and it may also be cruel. Stories assailed my memory. The huli jing could be seductive vixens, harmless pranksters, or malevolent forces. I had no way to tell how dangerous these were. There were fox spirits who lived among people as wives and friends. Others engaged in mischief, turning a miser’s gold into moths, and there were some of a more malicious bent, who would push a blind child down a well.

  A pair of old shoes clattered near the foxes. The shoes were empty, but they proceeded with a man’s careful stride, following the rhythm of the music. A snake with two heads slithered past, singing to itself; colors of peach and sand mottled its sea-green scales. Nearby floated a paper lantern in whose glow I could see oversized features, eyes and a mouth and a protruding tongue, all c
rude and much too large, like a child’s drawing of a face.

  Next I saw a woman’s head. The head was no different from any Chinese woman, with her hair long and braided, but her body was far from the head. An elongated neck stretched out under the head, dozens of yards long. Her body traipsed behind, in a white, two-piece outfit, with broad sleeves and dark patterns along the blouse. Her neck curled around itself, writhing like a snake.

  My mouth was open, my eyes wide. It felt like I was witnessing the dreams of opium smokers. I did not blink.

  Shuffling along the ground was something like a centipede, only it was about three feet long, and it had a duck egg for a head. Someone had drawn a face on the egg in grease pencil. The head turned this way and that, looking about.

  My mind felt hazy, as though I were dreaming. I watched the Night Parade progress. There was a puff of black smoke that moved as though it were being carried along by a wind, but there was no wind, and the smoke did not disperse as smoke does. Within the little cloud I could make out the features of a human face, made of smoke.

  A man came walking. His skin was of a dark blue and he was taller than a human man standing upon the shoulders of another. He was barefoot, and his feet were reversed, heels in front and toes in back. His lips were long, an arm’s length from the rest of his face, and swung about as a dog shakes its tail. Gray birds flew around him, and he spoke to them in their language.

  “Pungent tofu?” asked the boy again. He swayed on his feet and stared at me with hollow eyes and an uncomprehending face.

  I couldn’t respond, too caught up was I in the ghastly figures of the Night Parade. The corner of Dupont and California would never be the same to me. If I managed to get back to my body, the streets would feel transformed.