The Spirit House

by William Sleator

  The spirit wasn’t angry at him anymore. I knew that because of how she had turned against me this afternoon. That must mean he’d given her the pendant this afternoon. I hadn’t felt it in there today, but it could have been covered by the pig’s brain. “But I put the pendant in there weeks ago. You took it out weeks ago. Why did you wait until today to give it to her?” I asked him.

  He stood up and took a few steps away from me. “First, try giving lighter, other precious thing I have. Spirit still angry. Then today you say I not the real Thamrongsak. So I think you know something. Now time for telling you truth. So I give pig brain to spirit. And also give pendant. Spirit not so angry now. That mean safe to be friend with you again. Tell you truth. Ask for help from you.”

  I wasn’t satisfied. There were too many holes. If he’d known all along that the pendant would placate the spirit, he wouldn’t have gone on living under a cloud all those weeks. He would have given it to her right away.

  But I didn’t question him about it again; I wanted him to think I believed him so he’d trust me, and we could get out of here. “So … what kind of help do you want from me now?” I asked him.

  “Please, Julie.” He quickly sat down beside me again. “Help me … hide letter.” He sounded almost humble. “Letter from Sak. And help me know what to say to your parent.”

  “What letter? The one your friend told you about? Sak must have mailed it a month ago.”

  “No, not that one. Already take that, burn it. Another letter … about Sak coming to America.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Sak better now. Coming to America.”

  “What?”

  “Yes. Very good news. But want you to help me hide letter, so parent do not see. Help me know what to tell parent. Very important, nobody say anything to Sak about me.”

  “But Sak doesn’t have a ticket, Bia!” I said, exasperated. “You took it. Remember?”

  “Oh. Forget to say. Somebody give him another ticket. Chai write and tell me. Sak coming now. Don’t want him to know about me. Don’t want his parent or my parent to know what happen.”

  I shook my head, baffled. So much of his story did ring true. I had almost been able to believe that his innocent wish had backfired, that the ticket had been handed to him, and he had forgotten to pay the spirit in Thailand. It made sense of so much that had happened. Even the timing was right, in relation to the spirit house and the phone call and everything else.

  But I couldn’t ignore the two major flaws in his story. Why had he waited so long before giving the pendant to the spirit? And how had Sak gotten another ticket?

  And then I noticed that both of his hands were free. They had been all along. “Where’s the knife, Bia?” I asked him.

  “Knife?”

  “The knife you were holding, in the backyard.”

  He shrugged, as if it didn’t matter. “Must be I drop in garden.”

  I almost laughed. He hadn’t been chasing me with it! That, at least, was a relief. “Maybe … maybe we should go home now,” I said.

  “Hope you do not tell parent. I tell you truth about what I ask spirit. Am very happy Sak coming. But don’t want Sak to find out about me.”

  “All right. I won’t tell them right away.” I still didn’t believe Sak was coming. “I’ll think about it. Can you help me up?”

  He stood up and pulled me to my feet. My ankle had stopped hurting. I wasn’t sure what that meant, in relation to the spirit. And suddenly I was just too tired and bewildered to try to figure it out.

  “You believe me, Julie?”

  “I want to,” I said.

  We walked slowly. The rain had stopped now. On the way, he asked me again if I would help him check the mail so we could find and hide the letter before anyone else saw it. I told him that I would.

  But by the time we got home, they had already read the letter.

  16

  “Where have you been?” Mom said when I appeared, wet and bedraggled, in the kitchen doorway.

  Mom and Dad and Dominic were sitting at the table. Dominic had his hand on a large gray envelope with foreign stamps on it. It had been torn open. I moved toward it.

  “Julie! You’re getting mud all over the clean floor,” Mom said. “Can’t you think for once? Maybe you need to go to Thailand and learn how to take your shoes off in the house.”

  Things were back to normal. I wasn’t Miss Perfection anymore. I had kind of gotten used to it. But at least the spirit didn’t seem to be my enemy either—she hadn’t left me with a sprained ankle.

  “Is Bia with you?” Dominic said eagerly, lifting the envelope. “He … he better read this.”

  “He went right upstairs. I don’t think he … I mean …”

  “Get him down,” Dad said. “This is important.”

  I left my shoes in my room and knocked on Bia’s door.

  “Yes?” he said from inside.

  “They have a letter,” I said against the door. “They want you to come down and read it.”

  The door swung open. “Letter?” Bia said urgently. “They get already?”

  “I think so. It looks like it’s from Thailand.”

  He stiffened. “But they … must not see.”

  “It’s too late, Bia. They’ve read it.”

  His eyes darkened. He looked quickly back into his room, as though he wished he could hide there. But only a moment later his face went blank. He squared his shoulders and came with me down the stairs. I couldn’t help being impressed by the composure with which he was approaching this confrontation that I knew he dreaded.

  I was dying of curiosity, of course. “Please come and read this letter, Bia,” Dad said in the kitchen. “We need an explanation.”

  “But how did it get here?” I asked them. “It wasn’t in the mail today.”

  “I picked it up at the post office,” Dominic said. “Nobody was here when I came home—but there was this notice, attempt to deliver a package, from Thailand. Certified, Express Mail. I was curious. And it was just addressed to the Kamen family, so I thought they might let me pick it up. They wouldn’t have, if I didn’t have my photo ID with our address. But they finally gave it to me.”

  I was aware, as Bia and I bent over the letter, of what my first wish had been: that Dominic should discover the truth about Bia.

  To my dear family, the Kamens,

  How are you? I hope you are well. I am so happy to meet you soon!

  Thank you, thank you! I was so afraid you forgot about me. I was afraid you do not get the ticket my parents sent back to you. So, I am very happy when I receive the envelope from America with your return address on it and the international money order inside! Now I know you do not forget, and you are happy to hear the news about my miracle recovery from car accident, surely the work of prayer and the Lord Buddha.

  Perhaps you do not write a letter because you are very busy I can understand this. What you do instead is important thing—to send me the money for a new ticket, as I asked in my letter, so I can come to America after all. Thank you very very much for your great kindness to me.

  I have reservation on Asia Airways, flight 72, arriving at 16 o’clock on 20 October. Can you please send me telegram wire to confirm you know of my arrival, and are meeting me?

  Thank you again very very much with all my heart, and from my parents and grandparents also. You are kind and wonderful people. My happiness is so great I can’t express.

  From your new son, with all my heart,

  Thamrongsak Tan-ngarmtrong

  “Sak”

  The spirit had granted both my wishes.

  But why had it taken so long for my first request to be answered, when I had made it weeks ago? Had she waited until I had given her the bracelet because the pendant didn’t count, since it had already been pledged to her? I didn’t know.

  But I did think I knew why the end of Bia’s story—as he had told it to me—hadn’t made sense. The answer I’d gotten from the letter
seemed almost too good to be true.

  But what other explanation was there? Bia was the only person here who knew what had happened to Sak. No one else could have sent him the money—from America, with our address on the envelope. And I had thought there could be no actual proof of what Bia’s wish really had been! Now, here it was.

  The fact that Bia had tried to hide what he had done only made it more believable. Not to mention, Dominic had discovered the letter. That meant it contained the truth about Bia.

  “Okay, Bia,” Mom said. “Who sent this person the money? Who is he, anyway?”

  “I need to talk to Bia for a minute,” I said, before he had a chance to answer.

  “That’s not fair!” Dominic wailed. “We deserve to know what’s going on. Don’t we?”

  “You’re darn right we do,” Mom said. “Spill it, Bia. And Julie, you just keep out of it.”

  “Just let us—”

  The phone rang. Maybe we had a chance. The spirit made good use of phone calls.

  Dad answered it. “Oh, hi, Sam,” he said. Sam was his boss at the newspaper. “Listen, could I call you back in … What? You’re kidding! When?” He looked at his watch, then grabbed the pad by the phone and started scribbling.

  “What’s the matter? What happened?” Mom was asking him.

  “Come on, Bia.” I pulled him out of the kitchen.

  Dominic trotted after us. “I’m coming too. I deserve to know what’s going on.”

  “Fine, Dom.” It didn’t matter if Dominic heard us. “The pendant, the lighter, the other precious things,” I asked Bia, steering him through the living room. “Where did you sell them?”

  “What?” Bia stopped, staring at me.

  “That’s how you got the money for Sak’s ticket, isn’t it?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Sak got the money from America—in an envelope with our address on it,” I reminded him.

  “I sell thing to shop,” he said slowly. “Pawnshop, I think is word. Downtown. Lynette drive me.”

  “I knew what you said today didn’t make sense—about hanging on to the pendant all this time before giving it to the spirit. About Sak getting another ticket, out of nowhere.”

  “What are you talking about?” Dominic begged us.

  “Hold on, Dominic. We’ll tell you.” I thought of something. “Wait a minute, Bia. Couldn’t you have just sent him the original ticket? Or sold that one to get the money?”

  “Ticket only for America to Thailand—not work other way. And I can’t sell. Person who buy ticket only can sell. I ask. Anyway, it no refund ticket.”

  That was also true.

  “And,” Bia added, “not my ticket to sell. Belong to family. Only make worse, if sell that.”

  The ticket was the proof of what Bia had asked the spirit. If he had wished an accident on Sak, then he wouldn’t have sent him money—ruining his own chances here. He would have burned the first letter and forgotten it, telling no one, ignoring Sak’s request for another ticket. He probably could have gotten away with it. With no response, Sak would have given up and stopped writing. This letter was solid evidence that Bia meant no harm to Sak, that his wish had been innocent.

  “Why didn’t you tell me, Bia? Today, when you told me everything else, you should have told me about sending Sak the money for the ticket. It explains everything.”

  “Not tell because that my problem to solve, not yours.” And I knew, from his tone of voice, that he wouldn’t say anything else about it. This was one area that he would not share with me.

  He had done a genuinely noble thing, and yet he had tried to hide it from everybody. It was similar to the way he had pretended to dislike me in order to protect me from the spirit. I couldn’t imagine Mark doing that; I also couldn’t imagine Mark selling everything he had to send a distant relative the money for a ticket.

  Until now, I hadn’t imagined there was this side to Bia. I had thought his reserved manner was hiding something sinister, when in fact it was exactly the reverse. And now that I was beginning to understand what he was really like, my feelings for him were radically changing. I had never felt such admiration for anybody. Suddenly I was determined that, no matter what happened, I was going to keep on knowing him. I wouldn’t let him slip out of my life.

  I squeezed Bia’s arm, tugging him out onto the deck. “Everything’s going to be fine,” I told him. “Believe me.”

  “I don’t think so.” He looked around the dark yard. “Where you taking me?”

  “I have one more thing to ask the spirit, one more wish.” I didn’t know if Thai wishes went in threes, but most other kinds did.

  He resisted a little as we neared the spirit house. “Have to understand, Julie. Spirit not so angry at me today, because I give pig brain. But …”

  “But what?”

  “But not enough. Spirit never really forgive me. I never really be safe—until give spirit Buddha pendant. Because that what I promise. Soon, spirit angry at me again.”

  That was something I hadn’t realized. It only made me more impressed that Bia had given me the pendant in the first place, and then sacrificed it for Sak.

  “But the spirit granted my wishes. Both of them,” I said. “Look, I’ve got a plan. Take me to the shop where you sold the Buddha pendant. I’ll make a deposit, I’ll buy it back someday. And then I’ll give it back to the spirit”—I took a deep breath—“when I’m in Thailand.”

  “You? In Thailand?” Bia stared at me, his mouth open. For once I had really floored him.

  “I’ll go there. The spirit gave me everything else I wished for. Why shouldn’t she bring me to Thailand too? Especially if I promise to give her the pendant there. That’s what started the whole thing. That’s what she really wants. That will solve your problems with her. Not to mention, I’ll have a really unusual vacation.”

  He smiled at me, an open, natural smile, as though he was finally beginning to believe things might be okay after all. “A vacation in Thailand you never forget, Julie,” he said, his voice full of warmth. “I promise you that.”

  17

  There is a two-note chime as the seat-belt light blinks on. The cabin attendant makes the announcement in Japanese, Thai, and English: “Please fasten your seat belt, and make sure your seat back and tray table are locked in the upright position for our arrival in Bangkok.”

  I’ve been flying for twenty-four hours, awake most of the time. I was so dazed and exhausted when I changed planes in Tokyo that I almost missed the connection. But now my fatigue has melted away like the old makeup I washed off in the bathroom a few minutes ago. I’m bursting with energy and impatience as I peer out the window at the green and brown landscape, the tiny red-roofed buildings. In ten minutes I’ll be in Thailand. And I’ll see Bia again! It’s amazing how much I’ve missed him.

  Though I have to admit I did enjoy having Sak around. He was very different from Bia in some ways, very proper and studious. There was less mystery to him, partly because he wasn’t living a lie and partly just because his English was so much better. But there were similarities too—his rare but irresistible smile, his quiet voice, his beautiful manners, his respect for Mom and Dad and the teachers. And once he got over his initial shyness, he surprised us all with a crazy sense of humor. He was always finding something to laugh with us about. I learned a little Thai from him. I can’t wait until Bia hears me!

  Bia ended up telling Mom and Dad the truth, at my urging. Of course they didn’t think the spirit had done anything—that was nothing but coincidence! It was true that nothing really impossible had happened. And it actually worked to Bia’s advantage that Mom and Dad didn’t believe in the spirit. It freed him from any responsibility for Sak’s accident, in their eyes. They just thought the ticket had accidentally fallen into his hands and he had rashly used it, believing that Sak couldn’t. They were so impressed by what Bia had done to get Sak the money that they forgave him for pretending to be someone he wasn’t. Most important of all, th
ey understood why Sak, and his family, must never know who Bia really was.

  But there was no way we could pretend to Sak that another Thai boy hadn’t been living with us. Even if everyone in the family could have managed to keep Bia’s presence a secret—which was doubtful—the other kids and the teachers would certainly have mentioned him to Sak.

  The story we told everyone wasn’t too distant from the truth: the boy named Bia had taken advantage of Sak’s accident and come in his place under his name. But when Sak got well, we said, Bia insisted on going back, out of fairness to the boy we originally intended to sponsor. The school administrators were a little puzzled at first, but all it took was Sak’s passport to prove to them that this boy really was Thamrongsak Tan-ngarmtrong, and soon they accepted the situation.

  Sak was the most surprised by the story, and we gave him a few more details. We said Bia confessed to us that he had stolen Sak’s ticket and papers from the post office in Bangkok, where he worked at night cleaning the floors. “So strange, so strange,” Sak kept saying, shaking his head.

  It was fortunate that no one photographed Bia while he was with us, or Sak would certainly have recognized him. But what was most important was that Bia had taken the extra precaution of giving us a false nickname. He didn’t know he was going to do it, he said, until he arrived—and then the name Bia just popped into his head. His parents, and Sak’s parents, will never suspect he used Sak’s ticket to come to America. It was a kamoi, a thief named Bia, who stole the ticket from the post office—not Kob, who they believed faithfully mailed it.

  I’m the only one in our family who knows Bia’s real name is Kob. I’m the only one who knows his address in Bangkok. He and I have been writing to each other, but I haven’t shown anyone else his letters. And though I’ve been writing to him as Kob for eight months, I still think of him as Bia.

  I studied harder than I ever had before, and I did so well in school that Mom and Dad are rewarding me by giving me a trip to Thailand for the summer. I didn’t tell them that was the third wish I made.