by Liz Williams
She hung the mirrors above the door, and suspended the charm between them, fixing it on its nail so that the goddess’ compassionate gaze was turned outwards and nothing could sneak in behind her back. More mirrors went on the back door, so that anything approaching would see its own ugly face and run screaming. She also attached a bunch of herbs above the stove and over the lavatory, just in case. Then she bent to light the spire of incense that sat in the door shrine. These precautions, against human and supernatural, having been taken, Mrs Pa brewed the blend of herbs that her dead daughter had carefully listed, drank the resultant mess, and lay down on the bed.
She dreamed that she was standing on the steps of the temple of Sulai-Ba, in front of the towering iron doors. The angles were somehow distressing to a human eye. How to get in? Mrs Pa wondered, dreaming. One by one, she climbed the steps, pausing to rest only when she reached the top. She looked down. The street seemed a very long way away, which was curious, because the flight of steps was not long. The people below resembled ants, in some trick of perspective.
Mrs Pa went over to the vast doors and put her hands upon them. The metal was cold to the touch, bitterly so, and rough. Tentatively, and feeling foolish, Mrs Pa knocked. Nothing happened. She stepped back and gazed up at the arching doorway, and as she did so she noticed a smaller door, off to the left, sandwiched between the columns of the portal and the edge of the doorway itself. This was ajar. How stupid of me, Mrs Pa thought. Her hands were balled into fists in her pockets. Even in the dream, the thought occurred to her: when I was a young woman, I wouldn’t have had the nerve to do this. This was what suffering and loss did, in the end; it gave you a strength you never knew you had. Thinking of her daughter, she stepped into the temple.
Inside, Sulai-Ba was airy and quiet. There was a strong saline smell, the smell of the sea marshes along the delta, and a familiar undernote which Mrs Pa had trouble identifying. Then she realised that it reminded her of the meat market on the pier: the same salty, bloody reek. Familiarity gave her courage. She was standing between two enormous columns, which ascended into the cavernous roof. Before her, were a series of connected pools: the cistern reservoirs. The dark water lapped gently against the stone. Mrs Pa walked round the cistern into the adjoining hall, and stopped short with a gasp.
In the middle of the hall, sprawled across the stone floor, lay a carcass. It was almost bare of flesh: the ribcage arched white and ghostly in the half light, tapering off into the knobbly vertebrae, and the long skull, with its large eye sockets and sharp hunter’s teeth, lay patiently on the floor, like a dog resting its head on the carpet. What was it? A dragon, surely. It could be nothing else.
Within the skeleton, something moved. Mrs Pa, thinking resolutely of all the times she had visited the meat market, walked towards it. She came round the end of the carcass to where the pointed bones of the tail snaked over the floor. From this angle, she was able to see into the ribcage. A solemn pair of eyes regarded her. Mrs Pa drew a sharp breath.
The child was so much like Mai at that age: the same serious eyes under the same thatch of black hair. She swallowed. The child’s cheek bulged outwards; he was sucking something. He tucked it into his mouth and said, “Grandmother?” He got to his feet and toddled forward, ducking his head even though the bones arced high above him. Mrs Pa crouched, with difficulty, so as to be on the same level.
“Your mother told me where to find you,” she said. Her voice sounded old and thin, quavery, and she spat into her handkerchief to clear her throat. “She didn’t tell me your name.” She tried hard not to sound accusing.
“I haven’t got one yet. This one—” he gestured towards the bones “—died, but it did not leave me a name. Maybe you could give me one?” He was very articulate for his age, Mrs Pa considered, but then, how old was he, this strange spirit child? She thought hard. She supposed she ought to give him his father’s name, but it sounded too prosaic, somehow. Then, dreaming, she saw the boat that had brought Mai and Ahn to their wedding, sailing out of the salt darkness with its crimson sails hanging in wind-blown tatters.
“Precious Dragon!” she said. This produced an alarmingly big smile. “Do you like that name? All right, grandson. Precious Dragon it is, then.” She was conscious of a sudden, inexplicable relief. “Shall we go home?” The little boy nodded, and stepped forward to take her hand. He was nicely dressed, she noticed, in a puffy cotton jacket and trousers. His hand was reassuringly warm. “Come on, now.”
Quickly, she took him out through the little door, closing it behind them. Outside on the steps of Sulai-Ba, the sunlight seemed to blaze, brightness consuming the air after the shadowy silence of the temple. The world seemed suddenly hot and real. Mrs Pa blinked. She looked down at the child, who smiled.
“Am I still dreaming?” she asked, unsure.
“No. You never were dreaming. The spell brought you to Sulai-Ba. You’re really here.”
“This is real?” Suddenly she was trembling and afraid. Reassuringly, Precious Dragon took hold of her hand. “It’s all right,” he said.
Holding her grandson’s hand firmly, and not knowing what else to do, Mrs Pa led him down the steps to the busy street.
There had been yet another road collapse, this time in Semmerang Anka, and none of the downtown trams to Ghenret were running. The emergency services, already overstretched in the area, were slow to react and even slower to clear the debris from the street. The collapse had brought down part of the Second National Bank, sending showers of supposedly shatterproof flexiglass into the street and severing the downtown cables. Three people were dead, a mercifully small toll this time. The collapse of the Dowsing Guild had left a legacy of infrastructural problems. Mrs Pa and Precious Dragon watched the emergency services as they made their impeded way towards the Anka. The carriers bore the bagua symbol of the Tu Chin Trade Company; presumably the services were on private hire to the overstretched National Bank.
Wisely, Mrs Pa decided to take her new grandson to lunch and avoid the crush, but when they finally found a café whose apparent hygiene was satisfactory to Mrs Pa, they discovered that a great many other people had the same idea. Still, there was no hurry. Precious Dragon waited patiently in the queue with his grandmother. He was a very well mannered little boy, she was pleased to see. When at last they were able to sit down, she ordered soup and noodles and bought him a fortune cookie; she had not done this for a long time. When the cookie was opened, it revealed a blank slip of paper.
“Oh, what a shame,” she exclaimed in disappointment, but Precious Dragon seemed quite pleased.
“It means that anything can happen,” he explained kindly. For a moment he looked completely unlike a small boy.
“I suppose anything can,” his grandmother said, slowly. She found that she was enjoying herself. It was a long time since she had had a child to spoil, or had eaten out at lunchtime. She smiled at her strange descendent, sitting opposite and he beamed back. The sweet, or whatever it had been in his mouth, was not in evidence. He was smothering his noodles with Extra Hot chilli garlic sauce. Mrs Pa regarded him in some alarm.
“Are you quite sure you’ll like that?” she asked, doubtfully. Precious Dragon nodded, with utmost conviction.
After lunch they wandered back out along Battery Road, turning up Step Street. From the top of the steps, you could see the harbour and the long uneven shore of Teveraya, so brilliantly illuminated at night but now almost concealed by a light mist. The sea brought all sorts of weather, for here in the heart of the city the sun was blindingly bright. They stood at the end of the steps and watched a ponderous tanker crossing the harbour.
“Are there boats where you live?” Precious Dragon asked.
“Lots, in the harbour near me, and people live on them, too. They have chickens, and cats, all sorts of animals.”
“When will we get there?” her grandson said, fidgeting.
“Soon.” The tram rattled past the foot of Step Street, so the service must be running again
. With relief, Mrs Pa took her grandson to wait at the nearest platform. Her feet were beginning to hurt, and her joints felt stiff with rheumatism. They had to wait a long time for the downtown, and Mrs Pa, sitting on the platform bench, nearly dozed off. She came to with a start and discovered, with a terrible sinking sensation that she had not experienced for twenty years, that Precious Dragon was not by her side. Frantically looking around, she spotted him peering in through a shop window. She almost boxed his ears in relief, but as she hastened towards him he turned and looked up at her, and for a moment she felt dizzy. She could no more box his ears, she realised, than she could box those of Elder Ko of the local temple. She almost apologised, but found herself saying, “What are you looking at, Precious Dragon?”
“A tiger!” he said. His eyes shone. It was indeed a tiger, stuffed and moth-eaten. She had never seen one so close to life. It was enormous, twelve foot from head to tail and its yellowing jaws were open wide, wrinkling the striped muzzle. A hum came from behind them.
“Quick! Here it is,” Mrs Pa said. They only just caught the tram in time. Precious Dragon sat craning his head back towards the shop until it was out of sight. Mrs Pa made a decision. Despite her painful feet, she got off the downtown a stop early and took Precious Dragon into the Singapore Road General Emporium. Upstairs, they had a toy department and in it, they had tigers, with staring glass eyes.
Mrs Pa bought him one, even though she couldn’t afford it. How often, after all, do you visit a demon temple and collect your only grandchild, newly arrived from the land of the dead? Precious Dragon was delighted with the tiger, and clutched it all the way home.
By the time they got back to Ghenret, it was late afternoon, and the sun was low on the water. Mrs Pa set about preparing dinner, shredding spring onions and cabbage, peppers and beef. Her grandson sat on the edge of the bed, hugging the tiger tightly and sucking something.
“What have you got in your mouth?” Mrs Pa asked. “Let me see.” She held out her hand and after a momentary oblique gaze he spat it into her palm. At first she thought it was a sweet, a gobstopper or something, but it was too hard and smooth, and it glowed faintly as if lit from within.
“It looks like a pearl,” Mrs Pa said.
“It is a pearl. Can I have it back?”
Normally, the last thing Mrs Pa would have done would be to return such a jewel to a child, but this was not an ordinary child and she felt disinclined to go against his wishes. She handed it back to him.
“Where did you get it from?” Mrs Pa asked, curiously.
“It came with me,” he said. He returned the pearl to his mouth. “It’s important,” he added.
All day, Mrs Pa had desperately wanted to ask Precious Dragon about his mother. There were so many unanswered questions, but something stopped her from raising the subject. She nodded and went back to her cooking. Precious Dragon remained sitting on the bed, swinging his feet and sucking the pearl.
10
With Pin’s spirit still lodged inside her, the demon crouched in the alleyway until the great eye had vanished, then she rose and made her way through a bewildering maze of alleys and back yards towards the city centre. Carried along in the demon, Pin occupied himself with watching the scenes that passed by him. He had not ceased to be terrified, but the fear was paradoxically so great that he could almost ignore it, and concentrate on minor details.
Hell was indeed remarkably similar to Singapore Three, in terms of planning if not occupancy. They had gone up Battery Road, and crossed over into Shaopeng, but whereas in Pin’s version of the city the central district was full of shops and teahouses and offices, here there was only a suggestion of life. Every building was dark and silent. Shadows watched them from the doorways as they passed and Pin sensed a growing anticipation in the air. They knew what was passing by, concealed within the demon’s carapace: a small, succulent spirit, rent prematurely from its body and still warm. Now, Pin understood why they said that ghosts were hungry.
He had never failed to honour the dead. Before she herself had died, his mother had impressed upon him the importance of compensating the ancestors for their current inconvenienced state. He had delivered food and incense and flowers to the legion of departed relatives, supporting them in the loneliness of the afterlife and ensuring that, on those days when the dead stride the city, they would know that he had honoured them and stay away. Yet Singapore Three was home to the limitless dispossessed, and when they died, who had they to comfort them? Many of the dead must be hungry indeed: forgotten by their descendants or simply the last of their lines. They waited now in the empty storefronts, and watched him with their avid gaze.
“Now,” the demon said. They had come out onto the topmost landing of Step Street. The derelict buildings of Shaopeng stretched below. Where the Eregeng Trade House had stood in his own city rose an immense pagoda. Its peaked roofs were wreathed in cloud. Balconies and balustrades covered its sides; carved dragons writhed. There was a subtle and indefinable wrongness about it.
“What,” Pin said, inside the demon’s mind “is that?”
“That is the Ministry of Epidemics,” an echoing thought replied. He had the impression that the demon was outraged at being addressed by a mere spirit.
“We’re going there?” Pin asked in horror, but before he could protest, the demon had leaped from the top of the steps. Even in this disincarnate state, however, he was thankful to be leaving behind the needle teeth and hollow tongues of the hungry ghosts of Shaopeng. The city wheeled below; glimpsed through the massing clouds. It was as though someone had made a rough sketch of the landscape of Singapore Three. The main roads, which followed the meridians, were still present and he could see the dark energy lines of which ran beneath them. The principal buildings of his own city were also mirrored. The pagoda towers of the Ministries of Storms, Water, Epidemics and Fire occupied their place, named silently by the demon as they passed, and there were other buildings, too, which Pin did not recognise. The Ministry of Lust: a fat scarlet blob below. The Ministry of War—a towering iron ziggurat and at this the demon’s heart inexplicably leaped. Fires burned blue in the spaces between the streets and beyond, where the sea should be, stretched a troubled darkness. Pin could hear the beat of the demon’s heart, like a drum in a well. The storm streamed by and the demon plunged, to come to a graceful landing on the steps of the Ministry of Epidemics.
“Where now?” Pin quavered. The demon did not answer. She strode through the double doors of the Ministry and stopped.
The queue, Pin saw, stretched down a corridor so long that the end of it was invisible. A thousand pairs of eyes turned curiously towards the new arrivals. Everyone smiled, politely, and gave a little bow. Muttering, the demon began to pace down the line. Pin looked into each face as they passed. Every manner of illness was represented here. He saw traces of smallpox and leprosy; cancer and Jiangsu fever and illnesses that he could not even name. The polite, ravaged faces turned away once the demon had passed, to resume their passive stare at the opposite wall. They were preserved in a dreadful patience. It is the manner of your death that marks you, Pin thought, not your life at all. What did anyone remember of his mother, except that she had been the chorus girl who had succumbed to a haemorrhage? How long had these spirits been waiting here? Pin wondered.
To him, the ordered line of the dead seemed sad but proper, a progression from the chaos of their last illness to this quiet hallway. Some of them wore costumes that had gone out of fashion a hundred years before, and their wearers seemed frail and thin as paper, bearing their wounds and tumours with a dignity that only the dead can attain. The demon blew lightly upon the doors and they swung open without a sound.
Inside the Ministry of Epidemics, it was quiet. The demon closed the door behind her. Pin gazed around him. The fragile, courteous ghosts in the corridor seemed to present little threat. The office in which the demon stood was a cavernous room, divided by screens and cooled by fans set into the ceiling. The desks were hid
den beneath mounds of paper; Pin recognised the red seals and ornate parchment coils that were thrown into the graveyard fires to placate the restless dead. Presumably, this was where they ended up.
“Oh, so much to be done,” someone mused.
“I have to speak to Lu Yueh,” the demon said. From around the corner of a desk stepped a small elderly gentleman.
“Good afternoon,” he said.
“Good afternoon. I need to make an appointment.”
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible. Lord Lu is out of town at the present moment, and is not due to return until after the festival. Perhaps someone else might be able to assist you?” he asked, helpfully. Pin studied him. The administrator wore a neat, dark robe. His eyes were entirely covered by cataract; giving his gaze a cloudy, indefinite quality. As he stepped forward, Pin looked down and observed that his feet were back to front. The toes of his elegant black slippers pointed behind him.
“I don’t think so, no. I need to speak to Lord Lu. It’s urgent.”
“Today is a holiday, after all. The echelons of Epidemics are as entitled to their festivities as the rest of us. Indeed, I plan to go home myself within the hour.”
“And no one else is available?”
“So sorry.”
“Very well, then. It’s always the same. If you want something done properly, you have to do it yourself,” the demon snarled. Wheeling around, she headed for a door set in the wall.
