Page 83 of The Girl with a Thousand Faces
Sorry? You’re SORRY?
In life you were never an angry person, but cruelty and an unfair death have changed that. The parts of your soul which were soft and gentle are damaged, left behind in the body that was stolen from you and gifted, instead, to your murderer.
All that remains to you is rage unending, a consuming need for justice, and a terrible desire to breathe air. Such is the existence of a ghost.
Throw your head back and scream like an oncoming train. Even that does nothing to vent your cascading anger.
Why did she wait?you say, gnashing your teeth.Four months she swam with me. Why keep me alive so long?
“Every day, a ghost fights their nature. She likely did not intend you harm, not in the beginning. But in the end, her own darkness won.”
Then tell me her name, you snarl, standing almost toe-to-toe with me.I must find her.
“It will do no good, Siu Yin. There is a strong chance she won’t remember you.”
What do you mean?
“When a water ghost takes the skin of another, they begin to lose themselves. The process is not unlike reincarnation,” I say, quietly. “If Sea Sister does not return your body soon, she will be trapped in it—forgetting who and what she used to be. She will only know herself as a young woman without memories.”
No, that can’t be!The realization of that horrifies you beyond measure. The idea that Sea Sister won’t even recall her betrayal and theft is somehow worse than the act itself.I need her to know! I need to find her, at once!
When I still hesitate, you fall to your knees on the dark, rocky beach before me.Please, Lady Kwun Yam—I am begging! Who else can help me, but you? Who else knows my fate, except yourself? I can have no peace till I have spoken to my killer. I deserve an answer!
“What you seek is folly, but I cannot ignore such a plea,” I say, full of sadness. “If it will help you on the path to peace, then the truth is yours.”
I’m listening.
“Against tradition, and out of shame, your mother abandoned her family name when she met your father, and became Sung Daiyu. But as a child, her family name was Chen—and her sibling, who you know as Sea Sister, was called Chen Mei Chi.”
Chen Mei Chi, you murmur, repeating the syllables over and over until they are seared into memory.Chen Mei Chi. Chen Mei Chi. Chen Mei Chi.
“What will you do with this knowledge?”
Instead of answering, you bow low, palms pressed together in a show of gratitude.Thank you for your answer, Lady Kwun Yam.Straightening, you turn away from me and wade back into the deeper waters of the cavern.
“Where are you going?” I say, with rising unease. “Ghosts are not supposed to go wandering.”
Says who?There is steel in your voice.I will not be a weak prisoner spirit, lurking sadly in an ocean puddle, waiting for my next victim. This ghost goes to seek her truth, and her vengeance. I will have it if I must travel every continent, and live in every human skin.
“Do that, and you will lose yourself,” I warn. “Youcando that, but only through committing murder each time. And if you do take another’s form, you may well become trapped in it—as she has in yours. The strength of a water ghost is also her weakness.”
I am already lost, goddess, you say scornfully.Don’t worry on my account.
In legends and stories, water ghosts are lurking spirits who haunt the places where they died. Even Mei Chi was like that: tied to her sad little island, doomed to beg for validation and love from the very people who rejected her, and then tormenting their spirits when they withheld it.
But you, Siu Yin, are determined to be different. Because you have realized that you are not tied to a location, only to a person. Whether it takes five years or fifty, even if you have to slaughter dozens or hundreds, you will go forth into the world.
For the first time in your life, you are powerful. And you will never let theworld make you weak, ever again. In that at least, Mei Chi has inadvertently kept her word: she has made you strong, and free.
Violent and unstoppable in death as you never were in life, you fling yourself back into the ocean.
“Wait,” I call, voice supernaturally loud despite my humble form.
But, much like Mei Chi in her ghost years, you do not care to hear me anymore.
26WOMAN OVERBOARD
Thirty-three years ago…
