by Yangsze Choo
“So, Li Lan, we were happy to find out that you recovered. What a fright you gave your father!”
My impostor simpered and cast her lashes down.
“She was very confused when she came to,” said my father. “She didn’t even recognize me for a while.”
“Let alone me!” laughed the woman. “Well, I haven’t seen you for quite a few years, Li Lan, but I thought you might remember your own aunt.”
No wonder she looked familiar. This aunt was one of my father’s sisters who had moved away with her husband to Penang. Her daughter had been my dearest childhood friend. I hadn’t seen her for years, but life in Penang must have suited her, for she had put on a great deal of weight.
“I came when I heard you were sick, but what a surprise to find you up and about, and engaged to be married, no less!”
“Yes, it was quite a shock to me as well,” said my father. “The young man had been coming round, even though I told him she was sick and couldn’t see him, but suddenly last week he barged in and said he had permission to marry her. Luckily, Li Lan had just started sitting up the day before, otherwise I don’t know what we would have said to him!”
His smile was genuinely happy. I was surprised at the lump in my throat.
“It’s a good marriage, then,” said my aunt, approvingly.
“Yes, very good.” My father helped himself to some stir-fried kai lan. “It’s that boy from the Lim family. Do you remember him?”
My aunt frowned. “You mean the one—”
“The one who was originally betrothed to Li Lan.”
“Oh, I thought they had broken it off!”
“Isn’t it lucky that they changed their minds?” The girl at the table—that other me—gave a little laugh and reached for the steamed fish. Avidly, she scooped out the succulent cheeks, the best part, for herself, with no thought of offering them to her elders. I was consumed with icy rage. I knew that laugh.
Advancing toward the table, I shouted, “So this is how you repay me, you wretch!” But no one paid any attention to me. They continued to eat and talk calmly, as though I didn’t exist. She did, however, lift her head from her plate momentarily, and that was when her eyes widened. The color briefly drained from her face, then a small, secretive smile appeared. From within the eyes I could see Fan’s spirit peeking out at me. And clearly, she could see me too.
Dinner was a torment. In agony, I stalked round and round the table, shouting and pleading with her, but she paid me no heed. It became apparent that although she could see me, she couldn’t hear my voice. Fan sat smugly, clad in my physical body, eating like an ox and giggling like a fool whenever anyone spoke to her. After dinner she went upstairs, pleading indisposition. I went after her, trailing angrily in her wake and berating her until my voice was hoarse. She went into my bedroom and shut the door in my face. When I forced myself through the door, I found her sitting at the mirror, combing her hair and staring dreamily at her reflection. After studiously ignoring me for a while, she turned around at last.
“So you found your way back here. I’m surprised.” She yawned. “Oh, there’s no point in shouting. I can’t hear you anyway. I’m sure you want to know how I managed this. Well, it was very simple. I was always very curious about you, you know. Why you were so different. And of course, I didn’t really swallow that story about you coming from heaven.”
I ground my teeth in rage.
“Well, maybe in the beginning,” she conceded. “But when we got to the Plains of the Dead, I followed you and found your ancestral home. Afterward, I talked to the old concubine, the one who was screaming about your family and your mother. I found out all about your situation, although I still didn’t understand how you were so different from the rest of the ghosts. But I lost you then; I had no idea where you went, but while I was wandering around town a few days later I met this awful old man. He called himself Master Awyoung and he was very interested in what I had to say about you.”
The hairpins she was playing with had been my mother’s, and it stung me to see her casually toying with them.
“Anyway, Master Awyoung didn’t tell me much, other than the fact that he suspected you were half dead. I had the feeling that he dismissed me. Most people do, you know. But I had my own ideas. You really are stupid,” said Fan. “I would never have left my body alone like that. Especially such a young, beautiful body. Don’t you know anything about spirit possession? I hate to say this, but you’re far better looking than I ever was. It’s a pity that I won’t see my lover anymore, but physically he’s too old for me now. I’m going to have such fun with this body.”
I stood before her, so angry that tears streamed down my face. Fan grimaced. It was strange to see my own features move in unfamiliar ways, but I could clearly discern Fan’s spirit behind my face. It was utterly infuriating.
“Oh, don’t look like that! I have to admit, I almost lost my nerve at one point. When that man with the bamboo hat appeared right when I was about to enter the tunnel. If it hadn’t been for him, I would have left without you, but he frightened me. But then you said that he was devoured by the birds. So everything worked out well for me, even the exits from the tunnel. When I told you there was a door to the merchant quarter, you looked far too interested and of course, once I knew where your house was in the Plains of the Dead, it was easy to find it here.” She turned dismissively away from me. “Now I think you’d better go. There’s nothing you can do here. And your spirit is only going to get weaker and weaker until you fade away. I’m not going to talk to you anymore.”
I lunged at her, hoping that I could somehow dislodge her alien spirit from my flesh, but nothing happened. Fan merely closed her eyes—my eyes—and lay down on the bed. After a while, I realized that she had fallen asleep.
That night I stayed by my body for hours, watching Fan sleep the untroubled sleep of those with no conscience. I tried again and again to sink into my body, to lie cradled within that comforting flesh that had, even after my dislocation, still welcomed my weary spirit and given me respite. But it was not to be. My body now behaved like any other live person’s body. It repelled me. I paced round and round until I grew so exhausted that I collapsed on the floor, filled with grief and self-recriminations. Why, why had I ever left my body alone? Fan was right; it had been stupid of me. I had thought I could solve my own problems; I had never even considered the possibility that another spirit might possess it.
I couldn’t understand how Fan had managed to take over my body when I myself could not. And how too did she enter our household, which had been shielded with spell papers against spiritual intrusions? Did she know some arcane art that I did not? A thought jolted me upright. I should have gone to the medium. The medium at the Sam Poh Kong temple who had given me the spell papers in the beginning. She had said she could see ghosts. Maybe she could help me. I had been so distracted when I was first severed from my body that I hadn’t considered her, thinking only of following the thread that led me to Tian Bai, and one thing had led to another. I ought to see her as soon as possible. After all, even Er Lang had had need of her services. Thinking about Er Lang plunged me into fresh misery. Fan said he had frightened her in the Plains of the Dead, and I wished with all my heart that he were still with me. If he were, I thought bitterly, she would never have dared to do such a thing. But he was gone, and it was my own carelessness, my own stupidity in leading Fan to my house. Er Lang would no doubt have pointed that out, though if I could only
hear his voice again, I would gladly welcome even the most caustic comments. Pulling out his scale, I blew on it but as usual there was no answer. My eyelids drooped inexorably; I was so tired that I curled up in the corner like a dog and fell asleep.
When I woke up, the room was empty. Fan had left but there were traces of her presence. Face powder was spilled carelessly, and the clothes she had worn the night before lay strewn around the room. I would never have done that. Amah had trained me since young to be neat and tidy. Even as I thought this, Amah herself came trotting into the room. The sight of her, so tiny and withered, gladdened me more than I could express. I had missed her more than I could have imagined. Even her grumbling and nagging were dear to me now that I was so far removed from her. Like my father, she looked more careworn, shrunken as though she was steadily progressing toward dollhood.
“Amah!” I said, following her around. But she paid me no heed, merely picking up the clothes and straightening the bed. She wiped the dressing table clean of face powder and put away the pots of rouge and hairpins that Fan had left. The corners of her mouth turned down disapprovingly, but she made no comment aloud. Did she know that there was an impostor? I hoped fervently that she did. Then I remembered someone else who might help me. Quickly, I started down the hallway after Amah’s retreating form, but I had scarcely taken two steps before another bout of weakness overcame me. With trembling hands, I forced myself to stand up, only to be transfixed by the sunlight streaming in from the window. My fingers were now completely transparent. I gave a cry of despair.
How long I stood there, clutching my hands, I do not know. The sun moved overhead but time stopped for me. My existence had been brought to a single point, a mote of dust glimpsed through the unraveling substance of my hand. At that moment, it didn’t matter whether or not I had a past, or who had wronged me. All that consumed me was that I had no more future; my spirit was dissipating like vapor. It was a long time before I returned to my senses, and when I did, retching and shuddering, I was terrified by the loss of time. It reminded me of the hungry ghosts and how they stood motionless for hours, even days. Alone, unburied, with no funeral rites because no one knew my spirit was wandering. I would be lost forever, doomed to drift unanchored until the end of time.
At last I stirred myself. The very thought cost me a great deal of effort, but I finally shuffled along the corridor. As I passed the living room, I saw Fan sitting with her back to the door in a rattan chair. Amah sat nearby, sewing something with a mouth that was pursed over her thread. With a shock, I saw that it was the piece of batik that Yan Hong had sent me after I had won the needle-threading competition at the Lim mansion, so long ago it seemed. Now it looked as though Amah was making it up into a sarong to match a kebaya. I caught the tail end of Fan’s conversation.
“I asked you to get it ready by today, and it’s still not done.”
“What’s the hurry?” said Amah dourly. “You’re not in any fit state to go out.”
“Yes, but he might come again. In fact, I’m sure he’ll come today.”
I froze, a horrid suspicion forming. Fan sighed and stroked her hair (my hair) obsessively, like a woman caressing the pelt of a cat. “Really, I was surprised at how attractive he was.”
“Surprised?” said Amah. “And hadn’t you been mooning over him for weeks before you took sick?”
“Oh . . . yes, I suppose so. Fetch me a cup of water, will you?”
Amah got up obediently. I was surprised at this meek acquiescence, but at the door, she stopped. “Do you want hot water or cold?”
“Hot of course. I have to take good care of myself.” I couldn’t see Fan’s face, but I could guess at her smug expression.
A muscle in Amah’s cheek twitched. “That’s right,” she said. “You always like your water hot.”
I had no idea what prompted Amah to say this. She knew perfectly well that I hated hot drinks and had often scolded me as a child for chilling the humors in my body with cool water from the well in our backyard, or chipping away at the bits of ice that my father bought on rare occasions. Amah went down the passageway to the kitchen and I followed. There was someone else I was hoping to see.
In the familiar dim kitchen with its windows obscured by the star fruit tree outside, Old Wong was seated at the rough wooden table peeling water chestnuts. Amah reached for the kettle by the side of the stove and felt it with the back of her hand. With a grunt, she poured some warm water into a teacup. “Wrong cup,” said Old Wong. It was true. That was not the cup I was accustomed to using, but Amah merely shrugged and carried it out on a small tray. Old Wong raised his head as she went by, and it was then that he caught sight of me. At first he looked astonished, then he squinted as though he wasn’t entirely certain of what he was looking at.
“Old Wong, it’s me!” I cried. Still, he continued to stare as though he was befuddled. “Can’t you see me?”
“What happened?” he asked at last. Then in alarm, “Did you die?”
“No, I’m not dead. But that’s not me! You have to tell everyone!”
“What are you talking about?”
I was babbling, the words spilling out in my eagerness. Old Wong furrowed his brow as he tried to follow me, his paring knife suspended in midair. “Wait, wait,” he said. “Do you mean to say that some other spirit has possessed your body?”
When I nodded, he dropped his knife with a clatter and slammed his hand on the kitchen table. “Aiya! Little Miss, I told you not to go wandering! How could this happen? And we were all so happy you recovered. Sum liao! This is a terrible thing.” He rubbed his face vigorously, still muttering to himself, then scolded me until I burst into tears. “I told you! I warned you not to go away and leave your body!”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.” All the fine ambitions I had had about saving myself came crashing down.
Old Wong sighed. “I don’t know what to do, frankly. I could tell your father.”
“Father doesn’t want to believe in ghosts,” I said wretchedly.
“Your amah now, she might believe me.”
“Do you think so?”
“She’s been acting strange ever since you recovered. Not that I got to see you much the past week. I thought you were sick, so you didn’t come to the kitchen. But now that I think about it, perhaps she suspects.”
Hope burgeoned in my heart. “Can you tell her?”
“I’ll do my best. But that doesn’t solve your problem.”
“Can’t we find an exorcist?”
“We can try. But you don’t look like your spirit is in good shape.”
I nodded wordlessly. Was it so apparent even to Old Wong that I had lost substance? And now that I could no longer rest in my body, my deterioration in this half-dead state was accelerated. Even if Old Wong hadn’t been illiterate, I doubted that food offerings made to a soul tablet could halt it.
“That’s why I thought you’d died just now,” he said bluntly.
“I went to the Plains of the Dead,” I said. “I saw my mother.”
His eyes widened. “You went? What was it like?” Then he raised his hand. “No, don’t tell me. It’s not good for the living to find out too much about the dead. How did this spirit find you anyway?”
Miserably, I explained how I had inadvertently led Fan here.
“I thought it was strange that the first thing you did when you recovered was to ask for all the yellow spell papers t
o be removed from the windows. Well, I’m probably also guilty.” He sighed and rubbed his grizzled head. “When you left, I was afraid you couldn’t return, so I removed one paper from the pantry window, hoping that you could find a way in. That was my mistake, as I see. I thought I could watch that window since it’s in the kitchen, but clearly I failed.” Tears welled up in his eyes. Suddenly Old Wong banged his forehead on the table. “I’m also at fault for this situation!”
“What’s going on?” It was Ah Chun, our maid. She must have been out on some errand, for in one hand she carried an enamel bowl filled with blue pea flowers. Seeing Old Wong glower at her, she stammered, “I—I didn’t mean to be late. I went over to the Chans’ to pick bunga telang. I know you wanted to make pulut tai tai for the young mistress, but I heard the most amazing story!” Old Wong continued to glare at her, nonplussed, but she went on. “They said this house is haunted! I always knew it!”
The Chans were our neighbors three houses down. Their backyard wall was covered with the trailing blue flowers of a type of pea plant. These were much in demand for making glutinous rice cakes laced with kaya. Ah Chun loved to go over, as their cook was a great gossip.
“Cheh!” said Old Wong. “You should stop listening to such nonsense.”
But Ah Chun had noticed the red mark on Old Wong’s forehead. “Why were you hitting your head on the table?” she asked.
“It was an accident,” he replied angrily.
“But you were talking to someone. I heard you in the passageway.”
He scowled so hideously that she blinked, then continued, “Anyway, they said someone had seen spirits entering and leaving our house!”
