Page 71 of The Girl with a Thousand Faces
Up she rises, much too fast. But the pressure on your body eases as you ascend to shallower depths, and it gets a little easier to keep that breath in, air expanding in your lungs. That much is a relief.
Light grows around you, softening the dark. The tunnel widens rapidly. Deep ink giving way to paler and paler shades of verdant water until, finally, whole body hurting, you break the surface.
Ten extended seconds while you pant and gasp. Chill air floods your throatand chest. A pulse hammers in your head; it’s too much, too soon. You have the vague idea that diving and surfacing the way you have been is not really a good idea, though you don’t have the technical expertise to be more specific. All you know for the moment is that a headache is festering in your skull, and your joints feel a little odd.
Sea Sister is beside and beneath you, keeping your fatigued, dizzy head above water. You turn on your back and float, inhaling until the starbursts disappear from your vision and the rush of adrenaline dies down. Only then do you look around.
The underwater passage has brought you to a cave.
Wet walls drip and shimmer in the faint light. The rock is layered in striations of red and brown, the color of blood at different stages of freshness. Not all of it is enclosed; the wall behind you is partly open, with a large hole facing out toward the sea. Like an enormous window set into stone. Technically accessible by land, but you understand why Sea Sister did not take you that way.
Although it has a good view of the horizon, the cave’s “dry” entrance is treacherous: there would be a sheer climb to get in or out, and on the other side a maze of whirlpools and sharp rocks, which one would have to edge around to reach safer terrain.
The ceiling is high and rent with gaps. Sunbeams pierce the darkness, creating odd refractions and shadows. In heavy rain, this place becomes a forest of waterfalls, all dribbling and rivuleting away.
It is the Jiaoren Cavern, you realize with shock. Whose sea-facing entrance is difficult to access. The one containing a shrine to Kwun Yam, or possibly Ma Zu.
Slowly get to your feet in that chest-deep pool. Slowly turn around, half knowing already what you will see.
A stone temple rises at the far end of the cavern where the water is shallowest, carved straight into the rock itself, and illuminated by faint light, which trickles through gaps in the stalactite-riddled ceiling.
A thousand details catch the eye, all of them coalescing into a strange and surreal picture. Rough-hewn walls rise from the water. A pyramid roof protrudes outward, edges curled up like ancient pagodas, with a spike at the top. The entrance is open, no door in it, and within you can see something that looks like a statue, with a low-lying table—altar? shrine?—in front.
“Amazing,” you whisper aloud, and the sound reverberates in a multitude of soft echoes.
There is no one else here, yet the cave is noisy as a crowd. Every drop—and they are legion—seems to echo and reverberate; every lapping wave is a ringingslap. As you stumble forward, relieved to be in water shallow enough to stand, your sloshing is cacophonous. Sound cannot escape this place, bouncing and snagging on every surface.
Sea Sister stands up, comes to walk beside you. Water sluices off the bony angles and flat planes of her form. She doesn’t instantly burn or dry when out of the water, and that’s either from lack of direct sunlight, or something about the cave is special. Perhaps both.
She drifts to the side of the cavern, where there is a sort of crevice in the rocks, and wedges your glass bottle gift into it, very carefully. Preserving it where she can see. It’s rather sweet.
“It’s beautiful, this cavern.” The words boom and echo. “But why did you bring me here?”
This place is special to me.Her voice is the same as always, yet for the first time it strikes you that it doesn’t sound… quite right.Go, Siu Yin. Step within the temple.She lifts one hand, and points.
Cloudy water stirs with each step. At no point are your feet dry. Even in low tide, the ocean flows into the temple itself; the entire floor stands in several inches of salt water.
You hover just beyond the archway, unwilling to venture farther. The cavern isn’t well lit, and the interior of the shrine has no light at all, beyond what seeps through the archway.
A commanding statue waits within, and you recognize the figure at once. The peaceful face, the modest half smile. The multitude of arms and eyes, to reach all living creatures on earth. Long robes flow from head to toe. One hand holds some kind of relic, though time and tides have crumbled it to dust. The hat and clothes and relic remind you of Ma Zu, and you remember what your mother said about the villagers: that they viewed Ma Zu as simply an incarnation of Kwun Yam. An interesting belief, if unorthodox.
Step closer, peering into the temple. You have always known Kwun Yam as a lady goddess, but older texts sometimes portray them as a man. This statue is somewhere in between, the gender indeterminate and the features neutral. Kwun Yam transcends gender, and can be either. The statue is stunning regardless.
Curiously, you feel starkly different in here, in a way that is hard to explain. Cleaner, almost; as if your mind has been sinking into sand from the moment you arrived at this island, and something has rinsed it all away. You’re more awake.
Yes. Definitely more awake. The days on Shek Ham Chau have beencongealing together like soup left overnight. Standing in this temple is a cold slap of clarity.
“Why are we here?” you say, out loud. “Is this where I can become a jiaoren?”
You turn around, or try to, but Sea Sister grips your arms, keeping you facing forward.
Keep moving.
Is she even speaking? You’d think that would be an easy thing to determine and yet, for the first time, you’re unsure whether she is actually, physically talking, or you’re just… hearing her. Inside your head.
Keep moving, she says again, insistent, and points.Go into the temple. Go see.
You do as she suggests, stepping beneath the archway with extreme reluctance.
