Page 2 of The Girl with a Thousand Faces
On the far side, two men sat hunched over a small dining table, talking intently in low voices. They looked to be in their early twenties—young enough to be her sons, if she’d had children. One of them bore a rat tattoo winding around his neck, cheaply done and the ink bleeding across lines. The other wore a series of thin gold bracelets on his wrist. Both looked up as she entered.
“Cobra Lily sent me,” Mercy said, when they continued to stare at her in silence. “I hear the place next to yours has an exceptional ghost problem.”
“We are the ones who called on Cobra Lily.” Rat Tattoo rubbed his nose and added guardedly, “You are the exorcist?” His disbelieving gaze took in this early-fifties woman, stocky frame draped in a washed-worn shirt and battered shorts. The broken flip-flops on her feet and the fuzzy cat on her shoulder. The smattering of cheap tattoos on her skin.
“Ghost talker,” she corrected, cheerfully. “Not exorcist.”
His scowl deepened. “Even worse! We pay our dues, we pay them on time, and Cobra Lily sends some… middle-aged shopkeeper? What are you going to do, gossip it to death?”
Bao chose that moment to open those red, red eyes.
There was an intake of breath from both men, the shared recognition of a ghost cat. Maogui were no laughing matter.
For the first time, Rat Tattoo seemed to notice the branching lightning scar that ran from Mercy’s shoulder to her wrist, and his forehead creased in uneasy alarm. His hand drifted to the watermelon chopper that hung from his belt.
“Don’t you dare draw that knife! And I am here for what I can do, not for how I look,” Mercy said sharply. Middle-aged shopkeeper, indeed! Young people had no respect these days. “Do you want my help, or not? Hungry Ghost Festival is just around the corner.”
The men exchanged glances, clearly absorbing her warning. Ghosts were already a pain at the best of times, but during Ghost Month—and on the nights surrounding the festival in particular—they could be especially dangerous. The veil to the underworld was thinnest, and the dead at their strongest, on those inauspicious days.
“Fine, but you’d better be competent, little auntie,” Rat Tattoo said, releasing his chopper grudgingly. He had a strong Mandarin accent, although hisCantonese was very good. “The old lady died a few days ago. She won’t go away, nor will she let anyone inside for long, and she is violent if disturbed. That’s why we asked Cobra Lily for an exorcist.”
Mercy kept her face still and neutral. Almost everyone who died in the Walled City returned as a ghost, these days. Nothing unusual there; this city was a pit trap for spirits, its energy saturated with years of violence.
But those who died peacefully did not usually linger very long. Even those who died brutally could often be placated by offerings or apologies. Either these men were missing information, or they were hoarding facts.
“How did you know her?” she said. “Are you just neighbors?”
Unease flashed across Rat Tattoo’s face. “She was Ng Chungpo’s grandmother.” He gestured at his bracelet-wearing friend. “He lives here, next to her.”
Chungpo remained silent and drummed his fingers on the tabletop. For someone who had recently lost a grandmother, he didn’t seem very upset. Bored, even.
“I see,” Mercy said, when it became clear the bereaved man had no interest in replying. “How long has she been a concern? Was it you who chained everything shut?”
Her gaze kept straying to Chungpo’s bracelets; they did not seem like the kind of thing a streetwise young man would wear in these parts. She could imagine them having belonged to his dead grandmother, though.
“Few days.” Chungpo spoke at last, picking sullenly at his lip. “She keeps crying and ranting. Won’t talk to anyone. We only boarded up the door because we were afraid.”
Rat Tattoo leaned forward. “Will you banish her?”
“I will certainly speak to her,” Mercy said, carefully. “Can you let me into her place?”
Five minutes later, they stood crowded around as Chungpo jammed a key forcefully into the lock. Loose chain links slithered to the ground in a messy coil.
“Now what?” Rat Tattoo ran his thumb repeatedly over tobacco-stained teeth. “Do we stay here, or—”
“No. Come with me.” Mercy pressed a hand to the peeling wood and gently nudged it open, stepping inside.
With a mutter of swearing, the two young men edged reluctantly after her. A waft of cooler air rolled over them, pleasant relief from the sticky heat outside. Bao leaped down from her shoulder to stand next to her, tail lashing.
This flat was a more cheerful replica of the one she’d just left. A sofa bed in tolerable condition, the walls scrubbed clean, and Buddhist paraphernalia lining rickety wooden shelves. The old lady had been devout; there was a shrine to the wealth god, some small statues, a bowl of fruit left out for hungry spirits. A few ancient newspaper clippings were pinned to the wall, headlines shouting about the end of the war; they were decades old, yellow with age.
On the far side of the room, an elderly woman bent over a charcoal cooker, stirring something in a wok. A dark button-down shirt draped loose over her stooped shoulders, spine humped with age and poor nutrition. She did not look up at their entrance.
The ghost herself.
Quite corporeal, too. If not for the slightly translucent quality of her flesh, the old lady might almost have passed for a living woman. That solidity, and the degree of the coldness in here, suggested a spirit of notable strength.
Or notable anger.
