Page 54 of The Girl with a Thousand Faces
Just an accident, whispers a young farmer, with bulging and bloodshot eyes. Rivulets of water run from his mouth when he speaks.
“Who—who are they?” you ask, unsettled and nervous. “Are they all villagers?”
“It’s the typhoon victims,” Mami says, steering you roughly toward the house. “I wondered if… when… they would show.”
“Oh,” you say, numbly. “What are they talking about?”
“The night they died. Ghosts repeat themselves often.” She dabs her eye quickly, as if embarrassed anyone should see a hint of emotion. “The typhoon killed so many, and wrecked all the farmland. A terrible tragedy.”
We did nothing!An old lady steps in front of you. Her chest and head are smashed, brains dripping down the back of her skull. Snapped ribs protrude from her belly, the sight making your stomach flip.
“Get in the house, and I will speak to them.” Mami says, giving you a firm push. When you hesitate, she adds, “We each find different ways to confront our dead. Please, daughter.”
She should know better than to let the ghosts gather like this, and you are no child anymore to be ordered around. But beneath Mami’s command you hear a plea that crackles with painful need, and out of respect, you reluctantly do as she asks.
Mami stands in the waving grass and whispers to the gathered spirits, arms outstretched in placatory tones. They flicker and flash and mill around her, seeming to listen.
It’s an uncomfortable sight. You sit in the front room, peering out of the window, watching her and reflecting. Ghosts as a general hazard you are very used to. You try to tell yourself that these ghosts are really not so different from the ones you grew up with.
But try as you might, you can’t extend that same sense of openness to the ghosts of Shek Ham Chau, and you’re not sure why.
Maybe it’s the way they operate as a group, which you find deeply unnerving. All the ghosts back home were individual people, individually locked in their own spiritual loops, trapped by personal grievances or lingering desires.
Never before have you seen a whole village, apparently caught together. All of them working, diligently, to keep their abandoned island immaculate, drifting repetitively through the houses they once lived in. Clustering around your mother like sprouting fungus.
It’s a little unnerving, if you’re honest.
Mami comes back after ten or fifteen minutes. Not very long. Whatever she said has stayed between her and them. She doesn’t share. You decide to get cleaned up, since she isn’t talking anyway.
By the time you emerge from your room, having washed down with a rag and changed clothes, she is preparing dried mushrooms and fish in the kitchen. The ghosts are nearby but no longer crowded around your doorstep. They linger at the tree line, glimpses of lost figures. Watching—benevolently, you hope—but not interfering.
“What do they want?” you ask, unable to stop staring.
“They are lonely.” Mami washes the day’s dust from her hands in preparation for cooking. “It has been quiet here, for a long time.”
She has been lonely, too, though she does not say that to you; knows you won’t understand. Knows she can’t confess to you these things in her heart. She cannot even say them to herself, let alone someone else.
“I see,” you say, nonplussed. “Should I write some fu talismans?” You’ve gotten quite good at doing warding fu talismans, over the past few years.
Her shoulders twitch. “I told you, they are friendly.”
“So were most of the ghosts in Hong Kong,” you say, frowning. Why is she being like this? “We still had wards to keep them out. Isn’t that why we brought so much temple ink?”
“These are family, and friends, not strangers,” she says, sharp and hot. “One of those ghosts is my aunt. One was a childhood friend. Another is my second uncle! You would not understand—”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” you interject, awkwardly. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Mami draws a ragged breath and passes a hand across her eyes. “Please, Siu Yin, let us discuss it in the morning. I am feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. It has been a long day.”
A thousand worried questions are jostling in your head, but you can tell it’s futile to try and get more out of Mami right now. Besides, it is evening, and youareboth tired.
Reluctantly, you swallow your questions and help her prepare dinner.
The days slide by. The war grinds on. Two months in, and Baba still hasn’t arrived.
You and Mami have stopped talking about him. There is nothing to say; he has either abandoned you, or become trapped in Hong Kong. Both possibilities are bad and so you each dive into your own distractions.
Every morning goes the same way: scarf breakfast as fast as you can eat, blitz through chores with record speed, and help with the farming, fishing, and fruit picking. It’s more efficient to split up, and increasingly you each work separately. The little garden is taking shape around you both, and at least that looks hopeful for the future.
