Pong passed the city limits, passed the last Charge Station, and zipped by the sleepy riverside villages. His boat rounded one bend in the river, then another. It was dusk now, nearly night. The river narrowed and the banks rose higher, growing into dark limestone cliffs with sides too steep for the jungle to cling to.
The river curled to the right, then back to the left, and Pong gasped. He jerked the boat’s tail up in surprise, cutting off the motor. The boat slowed and glided to a stop. High above him loomed the mountain of Tanaburi. He’d completely forgotten that he’d have to pass it on his way to the sea.
The cave mouth above was a yawning black chasm. Somewhere inside sat the Buddha statue, waiting for the rays of the next day’s sun. Pong stared at the ledge where he’d jumped to escape from Nok. That was two weeks ago, and yet it seemed so much longer.
Pong’s eyes traveled up the mountain to the place where he knew Wat Singh sat nestled in the jungle. Pong had thought about his teacher many times in the past weeks. He had accepted the fact that Father Cham had passed on, but here in the shadow of the mountain, Pong felt the loss all over again.
He clicked off his headlights and slid off the boat’s seat, lowering himself to his knees. The water had stilled and the boat swayed gently. Fireflies began to wink on and off in the air around him. Pong put his hands together and did something he hadn’t done since he’d left the temple: he prayed.
Pong waited to feel the presence of Father Cham’s spirit. After all, the monk’s blessing was finally coming true. Pong was about to get the one thing he’d always longed for: freedom.
A few more miles and he’d reach the sea. No more hiding, no more fear.
But Pong felt nothing. The river stretched ahead and behind him, empty. Tree frogs peeped loudly from the banks, but their song was too mechanical to be comforting. Pong felt completely alone. This wasn’t right. It shouldn’t be like this.
He raised his left wrist, pressed the red braided bracelet between his fingers, and shut his eyes. He took a deep breath. “Father Cham,” he whispered, “I’m about to fulfill your wish. I’m going to get what I’ve been looking for.” He held his breath. Still nothing. Pong sighed and opened his eyes.
The night had gone completely black.
Pong blinked, looking all around him. It didn’t matter if he closed his eyes or opened them. All he could see was darkness. Had the night really come on so quickly? Where were the fireflies? Even when he looked up, he couldn’t see any stars.
Nervous, he felt his way back to the boat’s rudder. He was about to turn on the motor when he saw a swirl of white hovering where the river should be. Pong gasped and stumbled, falling onto the boat’s seat.
The white swirl glowed. It flowed like smoke, but looked solid, like the strands of a silkworm web. It thickened as it whirled into a shape that floated in the darkness. Pong’s pulse beat fast in his ears, and goose bumps ran down the backs of his arms.
The white wispy shape formed the body of a man. The man lifted his bald head. It was Father Cham. Decades had been lifted from the monk’s face.
He was a man of middle age, with no stoop to his shoulders and fewer wrinkles, though he had the same cheerful smile. Pong realized that he must be seeing through some sort of window into the past. His heartbeat slowed as he watched, trying to pay more attention than he ever had in his life.
Father Cham faced Pong but stared past him, into the distance. Pong was so turned around that he couldn’t tell which direction was which. But he thought that Father Cham looked north, in the direction of Chattana. The monk’s smile disappeared, and his face filled with sorrow and worry.
Pong turned to follow Father Cham’s gaze and saw a pulsing orange glow hovering on the northern horizon. He knew he was seeing another vision from the past: the Great Fire.
A speck of white floated through the darkness out of the north. The little white shape drifted toward Pong. As it passed his boat, Pong looked down, and the white mist swirled into the shape of a baby tucked into a basket. The basket floated to Father Cham and stopped at his feet. He knelt beside it, his eyes full of tenderness and pity for the bundle inside.
Another white wisp of a figure stepped out from the darkness. He also wore monks’ robes, but he was much younger than Father Cham — a fresh-faced monk-in-training.
He bowed to Father Cham, who drew a braided strand from his robe and tied it around the young man’s wrist.
Father Cham whispered a prayer that echoed softly in the black night: “May you bring the light back to Chattana.”
Father Cham finished tying on the bracelet. The young man turned around.
His face was calm, but his eyes burned with a cold intensity that Pong immediately recognized.
It was the Governor.
Pong stared, trying to understand what this meant.
He remembered what Father Cham had told him the day before he died: There was a time, before I learned my lesson, when I did grant the types of blessings you are talking about. I wanted to use my gift to help people, to wish away all the pain and suffering in this world.
The figure of the Governor glided past Pong without looking at him. He walked north, toward Chattana. Father Cham watched him go out of sight, his face full of hope. But after a long moment, the monk’s expression turned to disappointment and then despair. He sank to his knees and covered his face.
But it was arrogant of me to think that I could fix the world with one wish. And my gifts went awry.
Pong shook his head in wonder. So this is how the Governor got his magic. The man had indeed brought light back to the city, but at a terrible cost. Without meaning to, Father Cham had brought sorrow to the very people he’d wanted to protect.
The wispy spirit of Father Cham rose to his feet. His face was still sad, but he wasn’t broken. He gazed north.
More tiny bundles of white floated down from the direction of the city. They glided past Pong like glowing lotus blossoms, cooing soft as kittens. Father Cham gathered each luminous baby to him and gave them bracelets. But now his blessings were of a different type:
“May you find wonder in everything you see.”
“May your thoughts be clear.”
“May others learn kindness from you.”
The babies swirled taller and became older as time spun ahead. Then they, too, glided away, some going south, others north, east, and west. Soon the darkness was filled with the glow of men and women who carried the blessings of Father Cham with them.
Pong watched the monk — who had aged now, into the wrinkled version that he remembered so well — as he blessed a little girl.
“May your courage never falter.”
The girl grew and grew, but this time she didn’t stop getting taller as she grew older. Soon she was a giant, almost as tall as the mountain. A cool breeze blew from the south, ruffling her long hair. When it passed over Pong, he breathed deep. It smelled sweet and sharp, like tangerine peels.
Pong craned his neck back to see the spirit of Ampai towering over him. She flipped up the collar of her jacket and grinned down at him. Tears filled Pong’s eyes as he watched her turn north, following the trail of the orange-scented breeze. She walked the path of the Governor, toward the city, covering a hundred yards with every stride.
Pong gazed after Ampai until she disappeared. When he turned around, the darkness was empty except for Father Cham. The old man now looked directly into Pong’s eyes. Slowly, he glided toward the boat.
Pong’s heart began to race again. The old monk reached out a white hand and touched the bracelet on Pong’s left wrist. He didn’t say anything. Instead, he looked at Pong, waiting for him to speak first.
Pong swallowed and said, “May I find what I’m looking for?”
Father Cham nodded and smiled.
How Pong had missed that smile! “You want me to find what I’m looking for,” Pong said, his voice crackling. “And I will. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Because I’m so close. I’m looking for my fr
eedom. It’s what I’ve always wanted.”
But Father Cham’s reaction wasn’t what Pong expected. He rubbed the side of his nose and tilted his head down, pretending to be very interested in the bilge at the bottom of the boat. It was the same exasperating thing he’d done back at the temple when he disagreed with Pong but wanted Pong to figure out why for himself.
Pong sighed. Even after death, the old man could be extremely frustrating. “But that is what I want. I want to be free — of course I do. Who wouldn’t want that?”
But even as he said it out loud, Pong knew it was only half of what he longed for.
He shut his eyes and saw all the days of his life winding back through time, like a river, leading to the one place he had never wanted to think about again.
“Namwon,” Pong whispered. “I thought if I escaped and ran away I could find someplace better. I thought the world outside would be different.”
Even here, in the presence of his teacher’s spirit, Pong felt those old words of the Governor hissing in his ear. The world is full of darkness, and that will never change. But now that Pong had learned the truth about the Governor and where he came from, the words didn’t hold the same power as before. They seemed thin and flimsy. Pong waved his hand in front of his face, as if brushing away cobwebs.
“The world wasn’t what I wanted it to be,” Pong went on. “Not Chattana. Not even Tanaburi. I thought if I ran far enough, I could find that perfect place where life is fair and everything is good. But even if I make it to the sea, even if I go all the way to the end of the world, I’ll never find a place like that. It doesn’t exist.”
Pong opened his eyes. Father Cham leaned toward him, his face held taut with expectation. Pong knew that whatever he said next would be important, and it needed to be true.
“You can’t run away from darkness,” Pong whispered. “It’s everywhere. The only way to see through it is to shine a light.”
Father Cham shut his eyes and smiled. He tilted his face to the sky, a gesture of relief and joy.
“Oh, Father Cham!” cried Pong, reaching one hand out for the old man. But the monk swirled away from him, like the smoke of a candle. The white mist vanished and the night lifted, and Pong found himself alone on the river.
Nok hurried back through the city, racing against the fading light. She’d finally managed to get a seat on the last passenger boat of the day coming back to Chattana. Now her trip north would be delayed, and she’d spent too much of her money, and on top of all that, she’d left her passport at the border.
She’d have a lot to overcome when she finally got back on the road. But for now she had to get to the Giant’s Bridge.
The border control agents had said that Ampai had died in a fire only hours after Nok’s visit to the Governor. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Especially not since the Governor was using that fire as a reason to crack down on the people.
A few days ago, Nok never would have believed that the Governor would be capable of something like this. But now her entire world had shifted. Nothing she had been told — about the Governor, or the law, or even herself — was true.
She tapped the skin on her left wrist for the hundredth time that day. She was still reeling from the shock of learning about her birth, but hearing about Ampai had shaken her out of it.
A woman had died.
What if more people died? Or got hurt? Or went to jail? The Governor had said he was going to punish the people for standing against him. Nok had to get to the bridge and tell someone. The people had no idea they were walking straight into a trap.
Luckily, the walkways in the city had thinned out. In fact, as Nok approached the Giant’s Bridge, the canals and alleys were almost completely empty. It was eerie, but she didn’t have time to wonder what was going on. She hurried to the bridge, which was also quiet. Usually, there would be tourists admiring the view and vendors selling umbrellas or cold drinks. But this evening, only a handful of people stood at the rails, silent and watchful, like animals before a storm.
When she reached the bridge’s midpoint, Nok halted. At the far west end, a man paced, cleaning his glasses on the hem of his shirt, again and again. Everything that she’d planned evaporated at the sight of him.
“Daddy!” she cried, dropping her staff and running to him.
He looked at her, his eyes wild and confused. “Nok?” He caught her in his arms and pulled her into his chest. “Nok! What are you doing here?”
Nok had been determined to run away from her family forever, but now that she was in her father’s arms, she couldn’t let go of him.
“We have been worried sick about you!” he said. He really did look ill. His clothes were mismatched and rumpled, and there were dark bags under his eyes. He held her out at arm’s length. His glasses sat crooked on his nose, but he didn’t bother to straighten them. “What’s this? What happened to your face?”
Nok touched the wound she’d gotten when the Governor’s guards threw her into the stable. “It’s nothing, Daddy. Just a scratch.”
He hugged her tight again, as if he worried she’d run off. “We heard you never showed up at the school in Tanaburi. We tracked you to your spire-fighting gym, but they said you packed up and left yesterday. Where in the world have you been?”
“Oh, Daddy,” Nok whispered, closing her eyes.
“Sweetheart, you can tell me,” he said, pushing the hair off her face. “Whatever it is, you can tell me.”
“I — I’ve made some mistakes,” said Nok, her voice cracking as she peeled her left arm away from her chest. She pushed her sleeve up to show her father the tattoo that was now visible on the surface of her scarred wrist. “I guess we both have, huh?”
Her father gasped and took her arm in his hands. He rubbed his fingers over the scars and across the tattoo. “But . . . how?”
“I went to see the Governor.” She pointed to the ink letters. “He did this with his powers.”
Nok’s father’s mouth distorted into a frown and he looked over his shoulder at the West Side with contempt. “How dare he!” he said through gritted teeth. “And did he . . . did he tell you everything?”
Nok nodded. “Yes, everything,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Her father cupped her face in his hands. “Nok, what do you have to be sorry for?”
Nok’s tears pooled on her eyelids and ran down, soaking her father’s fingers. “I just — I think I’ve messed everything up.”
Commissioner Sivapan pulled his daughter close and wrapped his arms around her. “Oh, sweetheart, you haven’t messed up anything. You are perfect, so perfect, do you know that? I remember when you were born. The moment I saw you, that was my first thought: she’s perfect.”
“No, I’m not,” said Nok, crying. “I tried to be, but I’m not.”
Her father held her by the shoulders. His own cheeks were wet with tears. “You are to me,” he said firmly. “You’re right, though. I have made mistakes. Many mistakes. But you were never one of them. I realize now that my biggest mistake was keeping the truth from you.” He looked down at the ground and let his breath out slowly. “Years ago, when I was a lawyer, I had an affair with a woman who worked in the coffee shop below my office. It was wrong, and I nearly destroyed our family by doing it.” He raised his eyes quickly to Nok’s. “I’m sure you feel ashamed of me. You’ve every right to be, but you mustn’t be ashamed of her. She was a good woman with a good heart.”
Nok shook her head. “She was a criminal. A robber.”
“She was struggling,” said her father. “And she had no family to help her. She worked very hard, but it was never enough. One day, a customer left his wallet at the shop, and she took it. I guess she was too proud to ask me for money.” He tilted his head down and nudged his glasses with his shoulder, but they didn’t straighten. “She was arrested and taken to Namwon. When I finally found out where they took her, I begged the Governor to release her, but he refused. That’s how you ended up being bo
rn there.”
“And she died,” Nok whispered.
Her father nodded sadly. “The Governor allowed us to take you out on the condition that I take the job as warden. Of course I said yes — I would have done anything he asked if it meant I could keep you.” He took Nok’s hand in his and rubbed the scarred tattoo. “I never regretted that you were born. I only regret how I handled it. I never should have lied about who you were.”
“But you did it for Mother,” said Nok before correcting herself. “I mean, for your wife.”
“She is your mother, and she loves you more than you can understand.” Her father closed his eyes a moment. “I hurt her very badly, but that was my fault, not yours. Somehow she found it in her heart to forgive me. When you were born, she wanted to adopt you right away. She has loved you like her own daughter ever since. Why, right now she has a search party out looking for you. She went to Tanaburi herself to try to find you. When she learned you weren’t there, she was beside herself with worry!”
“But our reputation . . . the family . . .”
Her father sighed and looked behind him at the orderly teak buildings of the West Side. “Your mother is trying to do her best for her children. She is just trapped by the rules we live by. We all are.” He tried straightening his spectacles once more before pulling them off in frustration and shoving them into his shirt pocket. Without the foggy glass screening them, his eyes looked bright, washed clear by his tears. “The rules are wrong, Nok. We never should have used them as an excuse not to do the right thing. We love you, and we’re proud of you. That’s all that matters.”
Nok sobbed. Her father hugged her tight to him, and she pressed her face into his shirt. He smelled like their kitchen and her mother and her siblings and himself all mixed together. She had the sudden strange wish that she could fall asleep right there, and he would pick her up, the way he used to when she was little, and carry her home and tuck her into bed.
Nok’s cheek rolled against her father’s chest pocket, crunching the glasses. They both sniffled and laughed as he took them out and cleaned them on his now-damp shirt. “These old things. I’ve got to get —” He stiffened as he put them on again.
A Wish in the Dark Page 20
