Chasing Moonflowers, page 9
The driver carried a lighted torch. Ahma sniffled as Ling approached. Ahma hugged her hard and then motioned to leave.
They rode home in silence. The movement of the cart brought them a temporary reprieve. Lost in her own thoughts, Ling sunk into her seat. Ahma didn’t prod her to speak. There was so much to consider. Ling’s mind didn’t have enough space to take in the enormity of the next steps. In order for their lives to continue, they couldn’t allow the Queen’s force to crush the strikers.
Back at home, Ahma and Ling transferred the sleeping twins back to their own beds.
Ahma’s face was riddled with worry. There was desperation in her voice. “Ming cannot stay in that awful place. They'll drain him. Those ghosts will have their way.”
Her uncle was in a precarious state. Why did the police keep him alive?
“The labor strike is in danger too,” Ling said as Ahma closed the bedroom door.
“We can discuss it tomorrow,” Ahma said.
Many people would die without action. Their business would evaporate. Their family would lose everything that they worked for. Something had to be done, but it was clear Ahma wouldn’t handle the situation.
In the moment, Ling decided she would’ve to be the one to help. She would hatch a way to free her uncle and prevent a battle that could destroy Kowloon.
Fourteen
In the safety of her room, Ling curled up with her father’s journal. How could her uncle be freed? She had no clue about the whereabouts of Lady Tun’s treasure. Could someone sneak or force themselves into the outpost? The locals couldn’t possibly stand up to an armory full of weapons. Questions circled her mind relentlessly:
What would her father do?
That night, she traversed Ba’s journal entries. Instead of sleeping, she explored his longings for elsewhere in lines of poetry.
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.
Having a father was part of a demented dream. Losing a father was common. But she couldn’t accept the simple answers. Not every parent was noble. Not every gentleman adhered to a code of morals. What if he had simply chosen not to come back? Was it too hard for him to be responsible for three children? What if she ran to the sea? Sailed her way through life? Maybe she could go with Joseph, like Emma had suggested.
As her body relaxed, something brushed against her ear. She turned to one side, ignoring the crawling sensation down her neck. She grumbled, touching a damp spot on her sheets. Had Gou been in her room? Then she felt cool water dripping onto her shoulders. Dread wormed its way into her stomach. A sliminess slithered down her arm. She opened her eyes slowly, afraid of what she might see.
Dangling from the window was a single eye. She squealed, swatting it to the floor.
From the ground, the purple eyeball gawked at her. Its tentacles were clumped together like roots. It beckoned her closer. It was grotesque, but somehow so… human.
Guilt overwhelmed her. They weren’t weird anomalies. The eyes had been a person, part of a whole being.
“Sorry, I panicked,” Ling whispered. Would the eyes forgive her for throwing them into the water? Somehow, they would understand.
As soon as she touched the eye, a tingling started at the top of her head. Images came through as droplets, invoking a familiar feeling. She was seeing a vision, except she wasn’t sleeping. She was dreaming while awake.
The vision showed her that the eyes had crawled out of the bay, hitched a ride under a cow, and snuck into her room. She was impressed by their fortitude. Why were they so determined to be with her? Why had these eyes picked her? She heard a tapping above. Lifting her chin, she saw the other eye holding a pebble with its veiny tentacles.
“Why did you come back?”
Jak ngan. Her interpretation of her uncle’s note shifted. Blindness, not seeing, was the problem and not the solution. Could the eyes help get her uncle out of jail?
She brought them back together and rinsed them in the basin. The eyes didn’t shine. Nothing improved when she placed them into the saline. Their color was less vibrant.
Had the polluted bay waters caused their dull state? The eyes sank to the bottom of the jar as Ling formed ideas. The orbs weren’t just part of a whole; the pair held complete consciousness by themselves. They seemed to absorb their environment. She hurried to the pantry and searched for ingredients.
When customers complained about lethargy, Dabak checked their retinas. The eyes and tongue were windows into the health of the internal body. Imbalances surfaced as striations on the tongue and stains in the whites of the eyes. When the liver failed to cleanse the body of toxins, the eyes turned yellow. Patients usually took remedies by mouth, inhaled incense smoke, or received needle pricks. Could submerging the eyes in an herbal concoction induce healing? She gathered sun-dried goji berries and chrysanthemum flowers. A tightness converged in her chest.
Depositing the white petals and red berries into the water with the eyes, she watched with urgency. The ingredients floated and then like snowfall dropped to the bottom. The color of the eyes began to brighten.
When she leaned closer, little tentacles shot out from the water. Ling met them with her fingertips. A current of electricity loosened her taut muscles.
She left her physical body. Ling’s spirit drifted elsewhere. She was on a rock, with waves lapping at her feet. Lady Tun’s shack loomed nearby. A fire raged inside the massive stove. The grasses in the marsh swayed, but Ling felt no breeze on her skin. This was a vision. A much stronger version than before.
When Ling opened her eyes again, she was on the floor in her room. The side of her head throbbed. Rubbing a tender area on her hip, she wobbled back to her feet. She must have blacked out. Where had seen been? Her shoes were drenched. She squinted at the eyes, which had sent her a message. “You want me to go back to the shack?”
The eyes bobbed up and down, churning in the medicinal soak. If eyes could be elated, this was it. The irises flashed a brilliant purple.
After changing into dry socks, she packed the eyes in her bag. She also gathered a candle, matches, a knife, bay leaves, and Dabak’s protective salve. Flipping out of the window like a fish gasping on the deck of a boat, she took note of the time. An hour past midnight. Another sleepless night. Distracted, she failed to pay attention to the uneven pavement. When she landed, her ankle rolled. She winced, muffling a cry. Inconvenient at best. Discomfort couldn’t stop her from following through.
The possibility of losing her uncle made her feel like there were tiny fish bones trapped in her windpipe. Life without Dabak would be bleak. She had worked at the store for years. Customers might not return at all without the doctor on call. There was only so much Ling could do before medical school. Could their family support her while she pursued higher education? Did the officers really believe her uncle killed Lady Tun? She knew she couldn’t confess the details about the murderer. With the ghosts, truth and justice were blurred. She had to prioritize her freedom over any superficial idea of fairness. After all, life was inherently unjust for the people in Kowloon.
She clawed at irritation in her throat, walking under a streetlight on the main road.
“Why must we keep meeting in the most awkward ways?” The familiarity of the voice distressed her.
When Ling looked up, Enlai stood under the glow. She slouched. There was no escaping him now.
“Perhaps we should not ever be meeting.”
“Better to be with me than Brother Tam.” He turned his lips into a frown. The top buttons of his shirt were undone, exposing a gold chain.
She recoiled. Unfortunately, this time she wasn’t invisible.
Enlai pushed his hair to one side. “He took a liking to you, but I told him we are together. I am a better choice. Unless….” His dark eyes pierced hers.
She stared back.
Enlai obliged her to him. Even love for her wasn’t a choice. How had Brother Tam garnered power in her life? She backed up. “If it is decided, then I’ll be on my way.” She moved sideways, gripping the bag.
Enlai expanded his chest. He towered two heads over her, no longer the skinny boy who she had once battled with marbles. “In the middle of the night? Only certain types of ladies roam the streets at this hour. It will be safer if I go with you.”
“No, absolutely not,” Ling said, preferring not to explain her movements to a thief. “I do not need help.”
His face fell. His voice lowered. “Everyone needs help. You helped me.”
She tried to keep her voice even. “If you want to assist, then move out of my way.”
“I just want to be friends again.” Enlai opened his arms and motioned for an embrace. “I am in a better position, do you not see?”
“Then return my father’s compass.” Ling backed away, holding her hands out in a preemptive block.
Enlai’s mouth twisted. “Was it not enough that I thanked you? Your father doesn’t need it, and eventually, I’ll get it back. It was an initiation present for my Luo Ban. But one day.”
The idea of him using her father’s Royal Navy compass as a gift to the Red Society’s leader infuriated her. Ling fumed at the insult. “You benefit at my expense.” Tears welled in her eyes.
She could see Enlai thinking about saying those hurtful words.
“Do not say it,” she warned him.
“Why must you deny it? He’s dead.” The statement came so casually.
Red flashed across her vision. Certainly, she had considered her father’s death somewhere on the Pacific Ocean. But this wasn’t for Enlai to dictate. She insisted on controlling her own thoughts. She rushed up to him, then stomped on his foot and elbowed him in the gut, knocking the wind out of him. Then, she ran.
But he was fast. He grabbed her wrist before she went far. “Caught me off guard.”
“You have new friends. Leave me alone.” She struggled against his hold. Her bag bumped against his stomach.
He chuckled. “With your dad and uncle out of commission, I can be your guide. Like Confucius says…. Trust your husband, father, brother, and then son. You need a man.”
Ling clenched her fists. Her father’s disappearance and Dabak’s detention made her sick. She was losing the people she loved most. People who believed in her autonomy. “I’ll get my uncle out.”
“I can do a lot for you. Trust me.” His smile didn’t match the desperation in his eyes. Curiosity crossed his face as he pried the bag from her hands. “What is this?”
“Stop stealing from me.” Her fingers held on as tight as she could.
“Relax.” He yanked the sack from her shoulder and rummaged in the pockets.
“Hands off.” Ling felt helpless. “You’ve always been greedy, ever since we were kids,” she said, trembling with rage. Back then, when he had coveted her shiny marbles, she’d let him have them. Back in the day, she hadn’t understood character. “Why bother me? I do not have anything.”
“Trust me,” he whispered, untucking the towel around the container.
“Do not look,” she softened her tone. This secret was one she couldn’t share.
Under the light, his expression froze. “What are these?”
His eyes filled with terror. The sight of the jar conveyed what Ling’s words and blows could not. Enlai threw the jar into the air and ran in the opposite direction.
Ling dove for the eyes, crashing into a bag of garbage. By some miracle, the jar hadn’t cracked. Limping into the shadows, Ling picked food scraps off of her coat and steadied her nerves. Why had Enlai acted so punishing towards her? The eyes glowed. Why did she endanger her life for random body parts? Her first priority needed to be protecting her family, not exploring strange visions.
She unscrewed the lid and asked, “Why am I going back?”
Instead of a vision this time, the eyes transferred words. The other worldly phrase spoken by Dabak at the outpost. Dho-ur conjured dark images. Venomous plants and rotting innards, parts of plants, and animals that couldn’t heal. The words Dabak had spoken earlier were the title of a text. It didn’t seem like the sort of book she wanted to read.
“Where would I get such a thing?” she asked.
The eyes didn’t respond.
Could it be in Lady Tun’s library? The small chance that she might unearth this volume was enough to continue on. Dabak wouldn’t lead her in the wrong direction. Would he?
Fifteen
Ling fumbled her way from the marsh to the shack. The murder had altered the seaside. Two nights after the full moon, shadows loomed longer and thinner over the way back. A blanket of fog entombed the heaviness in the bay, blocking the breeze. Muddled noises and smells floated down from the Walled City. An eerie quiet had settled over the peninsula, as if everything was dead.
A dark circle marked where Lady Tun had fallen. The congealed blood appeared like a hole to an unknown netherland. If Ling stumbled, then she would fall into an abyss and never find her way back out.
The door was ajar. The one-room house had been ransacked—shelves toppled, chairs overturned, and floors dug up. In the ruins, the ghost of a presence loomed. A black metal door stood next to a fireplace. There were no more treats to be found here. The stale stench of loss spiced the air.
Why did the eyes beckon Ling to return? There was no treasure. This hermit woman had no treasures in her shack. Ling questioned what she remembered from the night before. Lady Tun had lived before her mother was born. Yet, the ghost had appeared young, not like the frail old lady she ought to be. Had the moonlight played tricks on Ling?
She located an unbroken lamp and lit it with one of her matches. A glow spread into the cluttered space, illuminating ripped curtains, holes bashed into the walls, and a pile of books. Lady Tun’s mattress was torn and stained. Next to a cold fireplace, a large steel door was shut tight. She scanned the jumbled texts, attempting to locate out-of-place letters and words. An eeriness emitted from a flipped over wooden chair in front of the charred fireplace. The blood coated legs echoed the violence of the past. Had the figure killed someone else too? Fear spiked in her stomach. She desperately wanted to sprint home but waited for the feeling to pass.
Her bag wiggled. Splat. A curious squishing sound rebounded against the walls as if someone was walking in wet shoes. The eyes had escaped from the jar. Saline liquid spilled down her pant leg. Ling frowned. Had she not tightened the lid?
Crouching, Ling cursed at herself for heeding the eyes. Alone in the middle of the dark room, she wondered what she was doing here. A metallic clanking sounded, from the door, drawing her attention. What could be inside?
She had a knot in her throat, but she still walked closer. Soot and grime caked the door. The door handle felt warm under her fingers. She hesitated at looking inside. Hadn’t she seen enough horrible acts in this lifetime? But when she looked down, something sparked her interest. A small bow laid at the threshold of the oven. The accessory must have belonged to a little girl. Could someone be inside? She placed her hand on the door handle. She knew this wasn’t a good idea. But she pulled down against her better judgement. The hinges creaked.
“Hello?” Her quavering greeting echoed dully into an iron-walled space. Did the owner of the purple eyes sit behind the door? A rancid smell assaulted her senses. It was a mixture of ash and burnt flesh. Ling plugged her nose, wishing she hadn’t chased her curiosity. Some animal had indeed been cooked in here.
Escaping outside from the horrible stench, she realized that the eyes had wandered off. Wet lines marked their path, showing that the eyes had slithered toward the cliff. Leaning over the rocks, she searched the descent. The water had receded, exposing the boulders below. Ling lowered herself to the sandy bottom, trying to ignore the soreness of her injured foot.
She found the eyes perched on a rock covered in algae, beckoning Ling with their tentacles. When the tip of her finger touched the veins waving in the air, a message appeared in her mind: Move down the path. Ling cradled the eyes in a fold of her skirt while walking down the wet sand. Turning a corner, she found the mouth of a cave. She stopped and asked the eyes another question: “Why am I here?”
Suddenly, she was somewhere else. Her vision dangled, swaying back and forth. Shadows formed at edges of her vision, and she was looking into a dark room with different eyes. The glow from a hearth highlighted an empty chair, a dirt floor covered in fresh straw, and a table piled with cut onions and carrots. A long mirror hung over the fireplace, coated in ash and yellowed at the edges. Questions rang loud inside her mind.
It was obvious Ling wasn’t herself. She attempted to move a limb, but nothing shifted. A gust of wind swayed her back and forth like a swing. She saw trinkets hung around the front doorframe: straw figures, dried herbs, and forbidden symbols. On the next push, her form was launched high. She glimpsed a fisherman’s knot that attached her to a ceiling beam. A willowy woman entered, carrying a silver bowl filled with water. The hem of a velvet dress dragged behind.
From Ling’s point of view, hanging from above, she could only see the woman’s dark hair. A crown of mud and branches rested on top of her head. Brown sludge dripped from her face down her sharp nose. She moved with grand gestures, preparing the small space. Placing the bowl by the chair, she lit dried herbs and draped the seat with the white smoke. Ling had seen this ritual. It was for blessing a living creature before its sacrifice. Haze filled the room while the woman struggled with something large at the edge of Ling’s vision. A pig or a baby cow? The space was too cramped for anything full-grown.
Ling tried to move, but she had no limbs, body, or mouth. She could only watch as the scene unfolded beneath.
