Page 76 of The Girl with a Thousand Faces
One final scream, and the ghost of Shek Ham Chau flings herself violently into the cavern’s waters. A sucking whirlpool forms from the speed of her departure as she plunges down and out, away from the cavern.
“Go, young one. Now, while the tide is low, and the rocks can be crossed.”
You whip your head around. There is no one else here.
But within the shadows of the temple, light is glimmering across the statue’s stern face. My eyes, looking out at you, through one of my many avatars.
“Lady Kwun Yam?” you whisper. “Do you speak, goddess?”
The lights flash stronger. “GO! There is no time to explain. Get your mother and leave, before it is too late!”
Shakily rise to your feet, and look upward through the crevice. The sky is darkening, thickening. A storm is brewing. Sea Sister’s childlike rage is building to a storm.
Exhaustion fills you. It is years in the making, this tiredness. Grief, fear, stress, loneliness are all things which wring the body and tax the heart, and you have carried so many of those for so long, despite your youth.
But the murdering spirit of your aunt is coming to drown Shek Ham Chau yet again, until you are as dead as the rest of the village. Until you are a lonely raging spirit, like she is.
So you get to your damn feet and you run, out of the cave mouth over jagged, slick rocks, on hands and knees. Fast as you can, like your life depends on it.
Because it does.
24IF SHE’D LOVED YOU MORE
Thirty-three years ago…
One upside to Shek Ham Chau being small is that it does not take you long to get home. Perhaps fifteen minutes of running hard, and you finally arrive, still caked in muck. Feet sliced and battered by sharp rocks.
A vision of the underworld greets you. Ghosts drift, lumber, and throng near the house. Some sit on the ground outside, their dripping and storm-lashed forms looking almost relaxed. Others pick away at the garden or the roof, as if working. Some are lost in re-enactments of their own deaths. Most of the village is present, not just Mami’s family.
Guilt creeps over you, for ignoring your mother so much these past few months. It hasn’t been healthy, the way she’s been drawn into the ghost life of her childhood. And sure, it isn’t fair how Mami prefers the company of the dead to spending time with you. She chose to reject you first. But she is your mother, and you gave up on her. You found it easier to escape with the shuigui and let Mami speak to those who could never answer her with joy, light, or life.
That decision is on you.
“Mami?” Calling out in advance, in case she is spooked by your unexpected return. “Mami, where are you?” Up the two creaking steps, press your palm to the left-ajar door and ease in.
Mami kneels in the living room, eyes closed, surrounded by a swirling tangle of spirits. Some caress her hair, her skin. Others speak or sing in her ear. Some play their bamboo flutes, as if soothing her. Mami’s skin is tinted with a strange, sickly pallor, and her body sways to a disjointed rhythm. It is far worse than simply speaking to the ghosts; this is intimate and intrusive, grotesquely so.
You are reminded of yourself, not an hour ago, in the cavern. Standing outside the temple, charmed by a dead girl. Maybe you and your mother are not so different after all. It strikes you with a sudden cold fright that, just perhaps, both of you are equally lost in this place.
“Sung Daiyu, wake the hell up!” Yelling her proper name, because you no longer care about disturbing her, and she isn’t responding to “Mami.” Time to rouse from the nightmare. To the ghosts, you yell, “Stop dancing, you demented pieces of shit!”
The dead villagers halt their chaotic whirling, turning to look with eyes bulging from bloated faces. Being rude to ghosts is extremely shocking.
“You… are back early,” Mami answers at last, sounding drunk. But there’s no alcohol on the island, hasn’t been for months since she finished those measly few bottles of beer. “Early… why are you… early?”
“Aiyah, will you listen to me!” Can’t help it; you grasp her shoulders, giving her a hard shake. Her teeth clack from the force. “Little Sister is summoning a storm. Just like the one that drowned your village! If we don’t leave the island, we’ll be caught in it!”
“You… swam with my sister,” she says, in a flat, confused tone. “I said… I told you to stay away from the temple. The ocean.”
A hot flush is creeping through your face. “Why? So I wouldn’t find out how everyone abandoned a child to her death? Is that what you don’t want me to know? Because it’s too late for secrets!”
“We didn’t kill her,” Mami snaps, anger pulling her together. “She fell,she fell! It was an accident, Siu Yin! It could easily have been me.”
“Ghosts come back when they aren’t laid to rest!” You’re shouting and can’t stop. “Her bones are in that cavern, Mami! Why didn’t anyone bury her?”
She cringes. “Some of the men, the elders… they said it was fate. Said she was cursed, and touching her would bring us back luck. The Catholic priest spoke a prayer over her bones, and everyone thought it would be enough.”
“Well that clearly wasn’t true, was it?”
