chapter 21

Ghost

THENEXTDAY,the ghost watched the scene unfold from his perch,

right at the corner of where walls met ceiling, cloaked in shadows.

The coffee table was laid with what he recognized as Mama's

good lacy table runner, the one Suraya had "borrowed" once to wrap

around her waist like a fancy princess skirt; that had earned her an

earful when Mama found out. The carefully polished silver tray on

top of it held plates of treats, a large red-capped jar of murukku, and

the ornate cups with matching saucers that they only used for

guests.

He hadbeen listening the whole time, of course. He wasn't sure

who Mama's "expert help" would turn out to be, but he'd seen many

"spiritual practitioners" in his time, and they were almost always true

to type: men with beards that ran the spectrum from black to white,

from those who truly wanted to help and believed they could to those

who wanted nothing more than the feel of crisp new notes of money

in their palms.

This one was . . . different.

Pink crept carefully out of thedarkness to get a better look at the

plump, bespectacled man who sat in the living room now, nibbling on

leftover Eid cookies and drinking sweet, hot tea. "Delicious," he said, as he reachedfor yet another one of the biscuits stacked on the

delicate china platter, the layers of flaky dough making asatisfying

crunch as he bit down to get to its sticky center. "What do you call

these things?"

"Heong peng."

"Ah yes, a Perak specialty, am I right?"

Mama nodded stiffly. "I grew up eating them; I am very fond of

them."

She called him Encik Ali. He had a sprinkling of hair on his upper

lip and chin that could probably pass as a mustache and beard if you

were feeling kind enough that day, and he was wearing round

glasses with thin black frames and smudged lenses, and apale gray

jubah. Cookie crumbs and stray bits of murukku nestled in its folds.

Suraya sat in the chair opposite, hands folded in her lap, pale and

watchful. Pink searched her face for some sign of what she thought

about all of this and saw nothing but skepticism behind her mask of

politeness. He couldn't helphimself; he felt his nonexistent heart

swell with pride. That's my girl. Don't fall for their nonsense.

"Mmm, mmm." Encik Ali nodded after he'd heard Suraya's story,

mopping the dregs of tea from the corners of his mouth with the

flowery napkins Mama had made Suraya dig up from deep within a

kitchen drawer. "It does seem to be a classic case of pelesit, yes.

And from yourmother, you say?" He turned to Mama, his eyebrows

quirked questioningly. "She was a . . . practitioner of . . . those types

of things?"

"She was a witch," Mama said flatly. "And she could not stop

even if she tried. It's part of why I left, a long time ago."

"Indeed, indeed," the man muttered, nodding again. "And no one

can blame you for it. It cannot have been an easy childhood. . . ."

"Back tothe matter at hand," Mama said, raising her voice to just

shy of outright rudeness. "What can we do, Encik Ali? Can you help

my daughter? She is a good girl, a girl who does as she's told. She

doesn't deserve to be swept up in . . . all of this."

"Mmm," he said again, scratching the patchy hair on his chin. "I

believe I can, yes. You know I am a pawang, and we have certain

powers. Somepeople call a pawang hujan when the drought hurts

their crops and they want to call upon the rain. Some people call a pawang buayawhen a crocodile threatens the safety of their villages

and it needs handling. Me, I am a pawang hantu, and they call me

when they have problems of a . . . spiritual nature. So you did the

right thing."

Pawang hantu?Pink felt a sudden cold prickling tiptoe up his

back. He had not expected this man, this bumbling, genial, crumb

dusted man, to really be able to handle ghosts and monsters. Could

he really do this? Could he really be Pink's downfall?

Was this . . . fear?

The pawang turned to Suraya. "Can you withstand a few more

days of this, child? Are you strong enough, brave enough?"

"I think so," Suraya said. "I hope so."

"Mmm, very well then." The pawang dabbed at his shiny forehead

with his napkin. "The full moon is in five days."

"That's when I usually feed him," she said. "For . . . for the

binding."

The pawang nodded. "That is when whatever rituals and

incantations we use are most powerful, you see. And he needs you

then, no matter how angry he may be with you. Your blood is the

only thing keeping him tied to this world. Your blood is the bait." A

stray piece of murukku fell out of a fold onto his lap; he picked it up

and absentmindedly popped it into his mouth. "A full moon is a

marvelous and fearsome thing," he said, chewing thoughtfully.

"My mother used to say the same thing," Mama said, thenclosed

her mouth quickly, as though she'd said too much.

"I don'tdoubt it," the pawang said quietly, his voice all gentle

sympathy. "But it is also a tricky thing, moonlight. It's like adding

sugar to a cake. Add a littleand it makes a raw mixture palatable.

Add a little more, and an okay cake becomes great. A littlemore and

a great cake becomes a culinary masterpiece, enough to bring

grown men to tears. A little more . . . and all is ruined."

"What does that mean?" Suraya asked, and Pink wondered the

same.

"Only that we must be careful," the pawang said, turning his

warm smile on her.

"Will she be all right?" For the first time, there was hesitance in

Mama's voice. "Will it . . . will it hurt her?

"No, it shouldn't hurt. Not for her."

Suraya looked at him through narrowed eyes. "Will it hurt him?"

In that moment, Pink loved her so hard he thought thecavity

where his heart ought to be would burst.

"Him?" The pawang raised an eyebrow at this as he carefully set

his teacup back down on the coffee table. There was a clink as glass

hit glass. "Surely you mean it, child."

"I mean him," she said stubbornly. Pink noticed Mama's lips, now

pressed together so tightly a piece of paper couldn't have passed

between them. "What will happen to him?"

The question seemed to leave the pawang nonplussed. "Well. He

would go away."

It was at that moment that you might have heard a sharp hiss

from the darkest corner of the room, if you were listening.

"Forever?"

"If we do it right."

The room suddenly seemeddarker. Where it had been bright

afternoon sunshine just seconds ago, clouds now loomed on the

horizon, dark and angry and flickering with lightning. Mama got up

then, crossing the room to close the windows against the gathering

storm.

"Will it hurt him?" Suraya asked again.

The wind turned the rain into sharp, thin whips that lashed

unceasingly against the tin roof; it turned the branches of the trees

outside into fists that pounded hard against the windowpanes.

The pawang smiled. "If we do it right," he said again, and behind

those smudged lenses Pink thought he detected a peculiar gleam.

Suraya shivered, and Pink shivered with her.

"Do not worry, child," the pawang said kindly. "I will keep you

safe. Noharm will come your way. But this thing that haunts you . . .

it will keep hurting you unless we banish it, get rid of it forever. Do

you understand?"

She waited a long time to answer, and in the minutes that ticked

by, Pinkwanted to yell out, tell her that he would not hurt her again,

that hecould not help himself sometimes but that he would try so

hard, so much harder than he was trying now. He could not imagine a world in which he could never see her or be near her again, and he

did not want to.

"Encik Ali is asking you a question, Suraya." Mama's teacher

voice cut through the silence, the note of authority unmistakable. It

was a voice that demanded you sit up straight and pay attention and

keep your eyes on your own paper. It was a voice that demanded

answers.

"Yes," Suraya said softly. "I understand."

Outside, the wind howled as if it were a wild beast that someone

had stabbed in the heart.