Page 81 of The Girl with a Thousand Faces
Rise to your full height, and stride dripping out of the sea.
A woman is waiting.
No, “woman” is the wrong term. If you tilt your head, from one angle she is an elegant lady of ageless features, draped in flowing robes. Tilt the other way and he is a young man with high cheekbones and a sculpted body. Viewed straight on and unblinking, they are an androgynous figure, handsome features and a beautiful head of hair, an infinity of arms curving from an impossible number of shoulders.
It is me, of course.
It always has been.
“Hello, Sung Siu Yin.” I meet your dead gaze with my divine one. “Do you know who I am?”
You stalk through the shallow water, approaching slowly. Even at night, in a covered cave, the dryness begins to tighten your skin and make it itch. The ocean does not relinquish a water ghost easily. But what is a little more pain when you are already suffering without end?
Lady Kwun Yam.Lips move but no sound comes out. You’re communicating as Sea Sister once did, and your words don’t need air. Only thought.Or is it Lady Ma Zu? I never did get to the bottom of that.
“I am they. Kwun Yam, or Guanyin, or Avalokitesvara. All those names and more. Some believe that I incarnated on this earth as Ma Zu, among others.”
I saw your statue, in the temple. And in the dream.
“That’s right.” I incline my head.
My aunt, Mami’s sister, asked you to remember her.
“I did as she asked. She was one of my worshippers, blessed with a touch of my power, and she deserved to be remembered.”
Is that why she became a ghost?
“The memory of a goddess is a dangerous thing,” I say, a little sadly. “There is a hint of the divine in that girl. She had a great connection to the sea, and to the spirit world. A soul of her power would always have returned as a ghost, but because of me, she isevenstronger. Her body lingers here, never fully deteriorating, the bones trapped in perpetual rot.”
So you’ve been here the whole time, just “remembering” her?you say, caught somewhere between incredulity and anger.Don’t you have better things to do?
“I am, and can be, in many different places at once. In all places where I exist, I am busy.”
Why speak to me now? Why did you not help me sooner?!
“It is easier for gods and ghosts to speak than it is for gods and mortals,” I say, gently, “and you are now numbered among the dead, Sung Siu Yin. But I did try to help you, when you were in my cavern. I let you see the truth of her, and I told you to flee.”
What good did that do?you demand, fists curling tight in fury.She still killed me!
“I am sorry. I cannot puppeteer mortals or ghosts, however much easier that would make my work.”
Just tell me where she is!You cannot howl, so the wind does it for you, screeching over the headland and whistling down into this cave.Where is my cowardly murderer?
“She is gone. Days ago, now.”
Gone?! Gone where?
“She came to the surface, and a passing patrol picked her up.” I pause. “For whatever it is worth, Sung Siu Yin, I am very sorry.”
None of that sentence makes a jot of sense.
How in the hells did a boat pick up a spirit?
“It didn’t. The boat picked up a living woman.” When you continue to stare, I say, in a low voice, “Did your mother never tell you stories about water ghosts?”
She did, of course, but you’ve forgotten in the moment. The facts were lost amidst the shuffle of fresh wounds and bewildering betrayals.
So I explain it to you again.
