chapter 29
Ghost
THEYSATONthe curb in a row outside the cemetery, first the ghostly
form of Hussein, then Jing, Suraya, and Pink each casting three
long, thin shadows in the waning sunlight.
The ghost cleared his throat awkwardly. "So, um. I have no idea
what kind of weird scavenger hunt you girls were on, but this was
really fun."
"This was fun for you?" Jing scratched absentmindedly at the
border of where skin met cast, and Suraya nudged to make her stop.
"I mean. I don't, uh, get many visitors myself."
"Why not?" Suraya's voice was gentle, and Pink knew howbadly
she wanted to keep Hussein from hurting. If there was anything he
knew from histime with Suraya, it was that she could never bear
anyone to feel pain, not eventhe bullies who had plagued her for so
long.
Pink could see the ghost shrug, trying to put on a cloak of
bravado he clearly didn't feel. "They stopped coming one year, my
parents. It's been a long, long time. My guess is they died, and now
they're buried somewhere else. Somewhere far away from me."
Pink's nonexistent heart broke slightly for this ghost, who ached
for a family long gone, and for himself too, though he would never admit it. In her own way, the witch had been family—she had created
him, after all, and for a longtime she was all he had known. He
wished he could say he cared for her more than he did.
There was silence.
Then Suraya spoke. "I will come back, you know. To seeyou. I
will."
Hussein smiled. "I'd like that very much." He sighed. "It wouldn't
be so bad if I wasn't having so much trouble remembering their
faces. I remember them in fragments: the smell of my father's cigars,
the pattern on his favorite sarong. The way my mother's hands felt
on my face when she put talcum powder on me before school, the
songs she'd sing while cooking in the kitchen. But I can't for the life
of me remember their faces." He pushed back a handful of ghostly
hair. "If only I had a picture or something."
A picture.
The little girl with the lopsided pictures and the lopsided smile.
The letters, pleading at first, and then suddenly cold. Do not
contact us again.
Pink stiffened. I remember.
Suraya looked at him. "Remember what, Pink?"
"What?" Jing was suddenly alert. "What does he remember?"
The village. The place I wasborn . . . made. Hefrowned, trying
his hardest to pull it from his memories, turn fragments into
something whole, solid, usable. Jambu trees in the garden. A round
pond. A blue-domed mosque. And something else. Something about
where they lived that always made the witch say . . .
Elephants never forget, he said.
"What?"
Something the witch used to say. It was one of his earliest
memories. Light filtering through damp, dark earth, and the witch's
face, creased with smiles and wet with tears.Elephants never forget,
and I never want to forget you, she'd crooned.
"Is anyone else confused?" Jing asked. "Or is it just me?"
The witch lived in a village with elephants in its name. Gajah.
Suraya relayed this information to Jing, who pulled out her
phone, still dinging incessantly. "That . . . narrows it downa little bit, but not by much. You'd be surprised how many kampungs in
Malaysia have gajah in the name."
"Try Perak, Jing," Suraya said. She looked at Pink. "Remember
what Mama said before? To the pawang, that time? He asked her
about the biscuits, her favorite ones. She said she grew up eating
them."
A Perak specialty, he called them. I remember.
Jing jabbed furiously at the screen. "Which one, you think? Batu
Gajah or Kampung Kuala Gajah?"
"Which one has a mosque with a blue dome?"
There was a pause.
"Kampung Kuala Gajah," Hussein said softly.
Pink, Suraya, and Jing exchanged glances. "How do you know?"
Jing said, frowning.
"I went there once." The ghost shrugged. "We were on the way
back toour kampung for Hari Raya—you know, Aidilfitri with the
grandparents and all. My dad likes . . . liked . . . to stop at small
villages we'd never been before when we were on long trips like that.
Made itlike an adventure, you know?" He paused to clear his throat.
"There was a great warong near the mosque. Trays and trays of
dishes, all still fresh and steaming. Masak lemak pucuk ubi and
sambal bilis petai and ikan keli bakar and this huge spread of fresh
ulam with the most amazing sambal belacan." Hussein smiled at the
memory. "Anyway, I remember eating and panting a bit because the
sambal belacan was proper spicy, and looking up to seethat blue
dome shining in the sun. We went there when we were done, to pray
Zohor."
He stopped and sighed, staring up at the painted sky. "I miss my
parents. I miss food, too."
"No kidding." Jing rubbed her stomach, which was making
strange noises. "That story made me hungry. And also made me
miss my mom. Just a teensy bit."
And it was at precisely that moment that Jing's phone began to
beep incessantly, like a fire alarm. Hussein's eyes widened. "What is
happening?"
"It's my phone." Jing wore a puzzled expression.
"That is a PHONE?" Hussein's mouth hung open in wonder. "It's
TINY!"
The noise was starting to make Pink's head hurt. Make it stop
that infernal noise.
"Jing," Suraya spoke through gritted teeth. "What is happening?"
"I don't know. What's . . . oh." In the light of the screen, Pink saw
her face grow pale.
"What is it?"
Jing held up the phone for them to see.
At first, Pink couldn't figure out what he was looking at. It looked
like a map, the type that reduces buildings and roads to lines and
squares. A bright red circle glowed in the center of the map, and the
words LOCATING PHONE scrolled over and over again on top of it
in a never-ending loop.
Suraya's eyes widened. "Is that . . . ?"
Jing nodded. "She's using the Find My Phone app to locate us."
What does that mean?
"I don't know," Suraya said, her voice shaky with panic. "I don't
have a phone, remember? What does that mean, Jing?"
"It means she's using my phone to pinpoint our exact location."
She pushed her sweaty hair back off her forehead and grimaced. "Of
all the times for my mother to figure out how technology works . . ."
Hussein leaned close to Pink. "Kind of glad to be dead at the
moment, really. Kids these days seem to have very stressful lives."
You are not wrong.
There was one final, long beep, and then the phone was
silenced.
The two girls looked at each other. Then, slowly, they looked at
the screen.
PHONE FOUND.
Jing let out a breath. "They're coming for us."