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THE GIRL AND THE GHOST

THE GHOST KNEW his master was about to die, and he wasn’t exactly unhappy about it. He knew that sounded bad. You’d think, after all those years together, that even he might have felt a twinge of sadness about the whole situation. But it’s hard to feel sorry for someone when: a) you’re a ghost, and everyone knows ghosts don’t have hearts, and b) that someone made her living out of forcing you to make other people miserable. He stared at her now as she lay on the narrow bed, gray and gaunt in the light of the full moon, her breath rasping and shallow. Watching her teeter slowly toward the end was a bit like watching a grape slowly become a raisin: the years had sucked the life and vitality out of her until she was nothing but a wrinkled shell of her former self. “Well,” she wheezed, squinting at him. Well, he said. “One more for the road, eh?” she said, nodding to the full moon out the window. And she grimaced as she offered him the ring finger of her right hand, as she had done so many times before. The ghost nodded. It seemed frivolous, but after all, he still needed to eat, whether or not his master lay dying. As he bent his head over the wrinkled hand, his sharp little teeth pricking the skin worn and calloused from time and use, the witch let out a sharp breath. Her blood used to be rich and strong and so thick with her magic that the ghost could get himself drunk on it, if he wasn’t careful. Now all he tasted was the stale tang of age, the sour notesthat came with impending death, and a bitter aftertaste he couldn’t quite place. Regret, perhaps. It was the regret that was hardest to swallow. The ghost drank nothing more than he had to, finishing quickly and sealing the tiny pinpricks of his teeth on her skin with spit. It is done, he told her, the words familiar as a favorite song, the ritual as comforting as a warm blanket. And I am bound to you, until the end. The witch patted his horned head gently. Her touch surprised him —she had never been particularly affectionate. “Well,” she said, her voice nothing more than a sigh. “The end is now.” And she turned her head to the window, where the sun was just rising over the cusp of the world, and died.

Ayomide_kusimo · Urban

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35 Chs

chapter 28

Girl

OUTSIDE,BEHINDTHEcoffee shop, Suraya and Jing paused to catch

their breath. Jing wore an expression of sheer disgust. "Ohmygod,

Sooz, do you think I drank it? Is that why it tasted so bad? What if I

just drank, like, cockroach juice coffee?" Her face took on a distinctly

gray shade.

Tell your friend to relax,Pink said, peering up and down the tiny

alleyway that stretched on beyond the back door. We arealone now.

As if to prove him wrong, a lone cockroach skittered past, making

soft clicking sounds against the cement floor, and causing Jing to

jump as though her toes were on fire.

. . . except for that one, he acknowledged.

"That was . . .odd," Suraya said slowly, and though shelooked

straight at Pink as she said it, she noticed he was very careful not to

meet her eye.

He made a great show of shrugging his little grasshopper

shoulders. The only odd thing was howthey ever passed a health

inspection with an infestation like that.

"Did you have anything to do with that?" She hated to ask, mostly

because she had the nagging feeling that she knew exactly what the

answer would be, and wouldn't like it at all. And maybe Pink knew

that too, because all he did was look away.

"I needa shower," Jing muttered, rubbing her arms as if she

could still feel the march of tiny cockroach legs on her skin. "Or two

showers. Fifteen, even." Ding,went Jing's phone. "Stop it, Ma," she

muttered to herself.

"No time for that," Suraya told her. "We've got a cemetery to

visit."

And a body to find.

Jing wrinkled her nose. "Okay, then, captain. Lead the way."

Tucked away from the crowded town center, the cemetery was trim

and neat, the grass free of weeds, the head- and tail stones of each

grave scrubbed clean.

Suraya had thought she would be a little afraid of it, even in

broad daylight. There was something about the idea of knowing

bodies were hidden in the ground beneath your feet that intimidated

her. Yet there was nothing scary about this place or its bodies. It was

too clean, too organized, too arranged, like the sterile, fluorescent-lit

aisles of a supermarket.

"So . . . how do we even do this?" Jing asked, scratching her

nose.

"I don't know," Suraya said."But we know we're looking for a

small grave. It's a start."

"Not much of a start."

"It's all we've got," Suraya pointed out. Her head was starting to

hurt. "Let's split up. You too, Pink."

He hadn't expected that; she could tell from the way his little body

stiffened, almost imperceptibly. But she needed, more than anything

right now, to be alone.

As you wish.

He bounded off her shoulder, and the three began to move in

different directions in the narrow spaces between stones.

Remember,Pink called out. Look for children. That will limit your

search somewhat.

Suraya repeated the words for Jing, who nodded but said nothing

in reply.

For a long time, the only sound in the cemetery was the faint

whistling of the wind whirling through the trees that shaded the graves.

The sunwas bright, and Suraya's eyes soon grew tired from trying to

make out the names on each headstone, some spelled out entirely in

the curving Arabic script that she had to work harder to recognize.

She paused beneath the spreading boughs of a tree so gnarled with

age that she couldn't even tell what fruit it might have once borne,

and wiped the sweat off her brow. Then she reached into her pocket,

where the marble lay snug inits cloth trappings. She wanted to feel

the smoothness of its surface, the reassuring weight of it in her hand.

She wanted to be comforted by its gentle, oddly familiar warmth.

But not this time.

As she reached down to brush it with her fingers, she felt it—a

sharp bite of electricity that made her squeal.

She stared at her hand in confusion. Get a grip, Suraya, she told

herself firmly. It's just a marble. Steeling herself, she reached into her

pocket again.

This time her agonized yelp echoed across the cemetery,

bouncing off the stones until it reached Jing and Pink, who turned to

her with puzzled faces.

"You okay, Sooz?" Jing called.

"Fine," she called back. "Just . . . uh, tripped."

Be careful, Pink told her.

"Stop nagging," she muttered under her breath. Gritting her teeth,

she plunged her hand into her pocket and grabbed the marble firmly,

ignoring the shot of current that immediately jolted through it and

buzzed in her ears.

The marble was vibrating.

"What in the world . . ." Suraya tried to remember to breathe, but

she couldn't seem to get it right. For a fleeting instant, she

considered throwing the marble as far away from her as she could,

gathering up her friends, and going home.

Then she remembered the pawang, and all that was at stake

here.

She stared at the quivering orb resting in the palm of her hand.

"Okay, then," she whispered."You wanted my attention. Now you've

got it. What do you want? What do I do with you?"

She half-expected a voice to answer from within its glassy

depths, but there was only silence.

Feeling slightly foolish, she held it to her ear, listening for

instructions that never came. Then she surreptitiously rubbed it with

her fingers, the way Aladdin rubbed the lamp, in case there was

even the slightest chance a genie would appear.

None did.

In despair, sheheld the marble up to her eye, trying to see if

there was a message she might have missed within.

Instead, as if she was looking right through it, she saw a tall, thin

figure sitting in the tree. He had a gaunt, pale face and dark,

mournful eyes that were trained directly at her.

The thing opened its mouth.

"You sweat a lot," it said.

Suraya blinked. Then she blinked again. She took the marble

away from her eye, and the being in the tree disappeared. She put it

back, and there he was again. He was clearly there, even if he

wasn't entirely solid; she could see straight through his body to the

pits and grooves and contours of the branch he sat on.

"Don't talk much, do you?"The ghost, as it was becoming

obvious to her this thing was, regarded her closely. Shecould just

make out the faint outline of the plain T-shirt and loose black pants

he wore, the oval shape of the black songkok perched on his shaggy

head. He looked like he was in his early twenties and somehow also

as if he had been around for a very, very long time. "I'd expected