The Girl with Ghost Eyes

by M. H. Boroson

  I knew what he was planning. Tom Wong wanted to go to war, and he wanted to have the better weapon this time. The Kulou-Yuanling would be his weapon. He’d start small. He’d kill Bok Choy and slaughter that side of Chinatown. The tongs would line up behind him, terrified to do otherwise.

  Constables would come. They’d bring muskets and pistols. Fire Medicine had failed before. The Kulou-Yuanling would slaughter the constables.

  The army would bring cannons. They would face a giant monster, and whatever evil spirits Liu Qiang could summon. Cannons are slow to load. Iron might have no effect against a Kulou-Yuanling. It would be a massacre.

  Tom wanted to teach the world a lesson. He wanted to punish the world for Rocket’s death.

  Something went whirring past me. I looked to the door to see what had caused the sound. When I turned back, Father was clutching his chest in pain. There were three spirit darts buried in his chest.

  15

  My father writhed, and a small moan escaped his mouth. Then I saw him exert self-control. His eye became clear and focused. Between gritted teeth, Father said, “It’s just an itch. No more than that.”

  It was worse than an itch, I knew. Spirit darts are not a major affliction, but they are more than a nuisance, more than an itch. My father was in agony.

  I should have seen them coming. I should have protected him. I had failed him once again.

  “Father, it’s—” I began, and then cut myself off. I looked at him on the infirmary cot. He was half-blind, swaddled in bandages, with his neck immobilized in a plaster brace. What would he do if I told him about the spirit darts? He’d probably storm to the temple and try a counterspell. The last time he’d left the infirmary, a monstrous dog had mauled him. I didn’t want my father to charge out again. I decided not to let him know about the spirit darts in his chest.

  Darts, not arrows. That was puzzling. A sorcerer looking to harm someone would fire spirit arrows. The darts cause pain, but they do no real damage. Three of them would cause a lot of pain, but no number would be sufficient to kill.

  Father was under attack, but his attacker meant only to torment him, not to do him any real harm. It was strange.

  And then I realized something else. The spirit darts had somehow been fired through the talismans outside Dr. Wei’s infirmary. That shouldn’t have been possible; they were my father’s talismans, and they were nearly impenetrable. Something must be wrong with them, and if spirit darts could get through, so could other forms of attack. Spirit arrows. Quanshen. Liu Qiang’s arm.

  The image came to mind of the spirit-arm snaking out at Hong Xiaohao, chomping down on him with its rows of needle-sharp teeth. Its pale white, fleshy scales. The cruel intellect in its three eyes. The sense that it knew me, knew me and hated me.

  The infirmary’s defenses had to be reinforced before some terrible attack took place.

  Father rubbed at his chest with a scowl. I stood and bowed. “I will go and get Dr. Wei, Father,” I said.

  His gaze met mine, acknowledging.

  I needed to find out how the spirit darts had made it through my father’s defenses, so I went downstairs to the infirmary’s front door. Outside the sun was shining. Street vendors lined up along Dupont Street, selling their wares. A man called out to all in range, offering to repair metal knives, forks, plates, bowls, and cups.

  I examined the string of talismans outside the infirmary’s entrance. They were triangular pennants, made of yellow cloth. There were three check marks at the top. The white hare of the moon, the three-legged raven of the sun, and the names of the Five Ghosts—Father’s orthodox spirit-generals—warped into ghostscript, in vermilion ink. The Seven Stars of the Northern Bushel, the names of gods, the bagua, Father’s seal. Everything was complete. Everything was flawless. Of course it was: my father had made it.

  Nothing from the spirit world could have crossed it. Not yaoguai, not ghosts, and definitely not spirit darts.

  I went back in through the front door. Inside, on a wall facing the door, was a bagua mirror—a round mirror in an octagonal wooden frame, its eight sides etched with the trigrams of the Yi Jing. It had been positioned impeccably. If something had somehow made it past the row of talismans, the bagua mirror should have deflected any spirit attack back out the door.

  I found Dr. Wei in an inner room. He was leaning over a big book of herbal recipes, following their instructions to measure herbal powders into remedies. His wife was with him, and she eyed me with a suspicious look. Her jaw was square, her lips pursed, and big bamboo earrings dangled from her lobes. Her ears had been pierced, several times.

  “I trust your father is comfortable, Li-lin?” asked Dr. Wei, adjusting his spectacles.

  “He has an itch,” I said. “It seems severe. Dr. Wei, is there a rear entrance to the infirmary?”

  He gave me a long, analytical look, and then he removed his spectacles. And then he smiled.

  “Why Xian Li-lin, it sounds like there’s a young man out front you’d rather avoid,” he said, grinning.

  I blinked at his response. Then I blinked some more. “Yes, Dr. Wei,” I lied, “that’s it exactly.”

  “You should come here early in the morning sometime,” he said with a smile, wiping his lenses with a cloth. “There’s one of my apprentices you might find appealing.”

  I said nothing. This was not where I wanted the discussion

  to go.

  “You don’t intend to remain a chaste widow, do you, Li-lin?” he said, and I winced.

  “I intend to honor my husband’s memory.”

  “Rocket was a fine man, Li-lin, but he was never the kind of person who would want anyone to be unhappy for his sake. You are in your twenty-second year?”

  “My twenty-third.”

  He shook his head. “A girl your age really ought to remarry, Li-lin. We are living in a new world now, and there’s no reason for you to live by old rules. You are young and beautiful. Chinatown is full of men who would appreciate a wife like you, even one with your temper.”

  “My temper?” I said. “Would you like to see it, Dr. Wei?”

  He smiled. “No need, I’ve seen it before. You’re practically my niece, Li-lin, you’ll behave.”

  I glared at him, hating the truth of it. He was someone I held in high esteem, and I would not be harsh with him, especially with his wife there.

  “Don’t you want the opportunity to give a man sons?” he said.

  “I wanted to give Rocket sons, Dr. Wei, because the world needs more men like him. But he was gone before that happened. Now please tell me, Dr. Wei, where is there a rear entrance?”

  With a disappointed look, he put his spectacles back on his face. “Yes, yes, right through there,” he said, and gestured toward a hall.

  I bowed, then raced down the hall and out the back door. It opened onto an alley. Hanging over the door was another string of my father’s talismans. I studied them; the ink was not so fresh as the talismans at the front, but their power was intact. Nothing short of a deity should have been able to get through.

  I stepped inside the door and saw another bagua mirror, perfectly positioned.

  I chewed my lip and thought. If nothing could have gotten in, then it could mean only one thing: the spirit darts had been fired from inside the infirmary. The person who fired them would have need of magical tools. The patients had nothing with them but infirmary clothes. The apprentices would not have enough privacy to perform a ritual. That left only Dr. Wei and—

  I sped down the hall, making sure my equipment was ready. My peachwood sword, my rope dart, my bagua mirror, my paper talismans, and some matches. I drew power into myself, what little power I could draw, and steeled myself for a confrontation. I was nervous, on edge. I had no idea what she could do.

  I burst back into the room. “Dr. Wei, I need to speak with your wife. Now.”

  My eyes locked onto hers. She suppressed a flinch.

  “Whatever for?” he asked, and before I could reply he sai
d, “Oho, female matters.”

  “That’s right, Dr. Wei,” I said. “I need to ask your wife some questions about those female matters.”

  He stood and closed the book of herbal recipes. “I should check on your father’s itch now anyway,” he said, and pushed his glasses higher up on his nose. He left the room and closed the door behind him.

  Swift as an arrow I crossed the room and shoved Dr. Wei’s wife against the wall. Her back slapped against the boards. She looked terrified. “What did you do?” I demanded. “What did you do to him?”

  “I don’t know what—”

  “Don’t lie to me, woman. I’ll tell your husband if I need to. He’ll search your things. What do you think he’ll do to you when he finds your yao shu tools?”

  The look on her face slipped from fear to outrage. She said, “It’s not yao shu,” and spit the last words.

  “Tell me what I need to know,” I said.

  “I will tell you nothing,” she said, “you Hanzu witch.”

  I stared at her. “People have cursed me for a witch before, but it was never a witch who made the accusation.”

  “I am no witch,” she said.

  I hesitated. I had focused on the wrong word. “You called me Hanzu,” I said. Most of the Chinese people in Gold Mountain were Hanzu.

  Hate seemed to steam from her eyes. “Hanzu! Always shitting on the rest of us. No ways matter but your own.”

  I looked at Mrs. Wei, pinned against the wall. I looked at her ears. The big bamboo earrings, the rows of piercings, the knots in her hair. “You come from one of the tribes,” I said.

  Her eyes squinted. “You think that makes me less than you, child? You think that makes me a savage, a witch?”

  “No,” I said, holding her in place. “Attacking my father makes you a witch.”

  “Your father,” she said, and there was venom in her tone. “The Daoshi deserved it.”

  I looked at her in disbelief. “Father protects Chinatown from evil spirits. His talismans hang over this infirmary’s doors, keeping you safe.”

  “Pfaugh,” she spat. “I heard him. I heard him talking about the Nuzhens. Filthy savages, he called them. Just like the Hanzu said about my people.”

  I kept my eyes on her and thought. Mrs. Wei had acted from old hostility. She brought hurt and anger here from another country, and all the old resentments sparked into a flame when she heard my father express his scorn for an entire people. If she was telling me the truth, she had attacked in response to hearing what he said a few minutes ago.

  If she was telling me the truth, she wasn’t part of Liu Qiang’s broader plans.

  I released her and took a few wary steps back, remaining in an alert posture. I watched her hands for stupefying powder, for magic gestures.

  She crossed her arms, regaining her composure. “The Hanzu came to my tribe and said, ‘You are Chinese now.’ They made us pay taxes to the Emperor. And the Hanzu brought the Daoshi with them, and the Daoshi said no one was to do Wushi anymore.”

  “Wushi?” I asked, surprised. “You practiced wild magic?”

  “My mother was our tribe’s Wushi woman,” she said, her voice husky and intense, “like her mother before her. She taught me to be a Wushi woman as well.”

  “Wushi rituals are unorthodox,” I said. “They invite chaos. Wushi practitioners call demons, ghosts, and goblins into their bodies. They dance all night, screaming and howling like feral animals.”

  Hearing my words, she looked at me with pain. “That’s not how it was, child. My family’s spirit servants protected our tribe for hundreds of years, but the Daoshi said they were strange monsters. The Daoshi killed the spirits who protected my people.”

  I took a breath. Mrs. Wei wasn’t working with Liu Qiang. I believed her. I even felt sorry for her.

  “Mrs. Wei, what you did to my father was unacceptable. A man came here for healing, and you sent spirit darts to afflict him. You bring shame upon your husband. You bring shame upon this infirmary, and you bring shame upon your ancestors.”

  Then she did something I never would have expected. She burst into tears, and then she prostrated herself on the floor. “It’s true!” she said, knocking her head against the floorboards. “It’s true. I have chosen a path of disgrace.” She hit her head on the floor again.

  I crouched down beside her, embarrassed. “Stop that,” I said, and took her by the shoulders. “Stop hitting your head, Mrs. Wei.”

  “How can I make things right, Li-lin? How can I recover from such a loss of face?” The woman was sobbing now. I felt uncomfortable.

  “Just,” I said, “just break the spell. Remove the darts. And never do this again.”

  She looked up at me. I was still holding her shoulders. Her face was wet with tears, and her nose dribbled. She nodded. “Yes,” she said, “I can do that.”

  She led me into her sleeping chambers. I looked at the spacious room, the large soft mattress, and envy stopped my breath. Dr. Wei had enough money that he and his wife could sleep in separate rooms. I grew up sharing a small room with my father; it had two cots, a table, a stove, and some shelves made out of scrap wood. My idea of home was a room where there were no chairs. There were workers in Chinatown who lived close together like fish in a net, twenty or thirty men in a single apartment. I was amazed to see that Mrs. Wei had a room of her own.

  She reached inside a closet and withdrew a small wooden chest. Within the chest there were gongs and strings and colorful strips of cloth, long sticks of incense, ornate bells and thick candles, packets of herbs and balls of powder. She took an indigo strip of cloth and tied one end around the doorknob. She held onto the other end.

  I watched her set up an impromptu altar, stacking two empty crates. Their open ends faced us; the altar had two stories. She walked to the door and placed a length of bamboo over the frame. “Copper girder,” she said, and there was pride in her voice. She walked back to the altar. She placed another length of bamboo on top of the boxes, and said, “Iron girder.”

  This was not so different from Dao magic, I thought. Then, taking a bamboo spike in one hand, she pushed back her sleeves and began to shake. Spasms moved across her body. Every part of her, arms and legs, twitched like a man in agony. I watched her tremors in horror. “Stop this, Mrs. Wei,” I said, but she continued to convulse.

  Her eyes were open. They stared blankly and were clear as glass. She grunted, over and over, rhythmically, as one might sound while being beaten. She shook, but it looked almost as if something was shaking her. Her loss of control was absolute. She twitched all over. “Stop this now, Mrs. Wei,” I repeated.

  Still grunting, she gouged at her arm with the bamboo spike. “Stop this!” I cried. She yanked the spike back and forth along her arm, and ribbons of blood began to appear. Simply watching it made me feel violated, like Liu Qiang cutting my stomach. What kind of magic demands its practitioners to degrade and harm themselves? “Stop this now!” I shouted.

  And then it was done. Her fit of spasms died down, her grunting came to an end. Her eyes returned to normal, as though a fog had cleared. She smiled at me and I found it ghoulish. “I needed to attach my bridge to the world of spirits,” she said.

  “Then you should find a different way.” I felt scorn harden in my voice. “A clean way.”

  Her smile vanished, and now she pursed her lips. Shaking her head, she took the other end of the indigo cloth and tied it to her altar. The cloth stretched out between the altar and the doorknob. I gasped.

  “The altar,” I said. “You tied your altar to the world.”

  Her square-jawed face broke into another creepy smile. “Yes, I suppose that is what I did. This is a spirit bridge, Li-lin. The altar is the center of my power, and the spirit bridge is the path I follow when I want to bring my power with me to the world of spirits. But you can see that, can’t you?”

  I nodded, and then I caught myself. I had just admitted that I had yin eyes. Somehow I had begun to trust this strange woman, an
d I didn’t think I wanted to.

  She shook her head, and her bamboo earrings shook with her, making a faint clatter. “My mother would have been so happy to train a girl with your gift.”

  I stared at her, and then it all hit me like a fist, all the isolation, the misery, the freakishness, that came from being what I was. “A gift?” I cried. “Having yin eyes is a curse. My condition loses face for my father, brings shame upon his ancestors. I see monstrous spirits all around me, and I can never shut them out, no matter how hard I try. I see loneliness and pain and anger where they’ve been festering. I’ve tried every possible remedy to get rid of this ‘gift.’ I drank water infused with talismanic ashes every day for over a decade and still my yin eyes afflicted me. A woman with yin eyes will lead a painful life. It is no gift.”

  Mrs. Wei’s eyes were wide, and she shook her head. “There are so many worlds,” she said. “China and Gold Mountain. The Hanzu and the rest of us. Men and women. The spirit world and the world of the living. Where do you belong, Li-lin?”

  Nowhere, I thought, but I said nothing. I belonged in my husband’s home. That should have been my life, wife of a great man and mother to his sons. But he was gone, and my world went with him.

  She sighed. “Here, Li-lin. Watch what I do next,” she said, and her hands moved deftly over the spirit bridge. She made finger gestures that reminded me less of Daoist shoujue and more of sewing. With delicate motions, her fingers found wisps in the air, so slender that they were nearly invisible. There were three wisps. She wound them around her fingers until they were tightly coiled, then she took a firm grip on the wisps with her other hand. She yanked her hands apart, and I heard the faintest of snaps.

  “There,” she said. “The spirit darts are no more.”

  The ending of the ritual had been simple and straightforward. Like a punch.

  “I need to go,” I said.

  “Will you …” she said, and then she trailed off. “What are you going to tell my husband?”

  I gave her a long look and considered what I should say. “Nothing,” I said. “Not now. But if you ever hurt anyone again, I will tell him, and I will tell everyone what you’ve done.”