by Vann Chow
An Old Woman
Outside the stores, the street lamps were glowing ever brighter. Temple Street was getting busier and busier by the minute as the clock ticked closer to midnight. Fortune teller’s stalls, jade jewelers and hawkers selling all sorts of artifacts had lit up their signs and started to heighten their hawks, calling out catchy phrases about their goods on the top of their lungs. Among them, food vendors had already lowered their prices for the night, trying to get rid of all the perishable items such as barbeque meat buns and dim sum skewers they had prepared earlier during the day. Elise sat on one of the fold-up chairs and watched Michael worked around the store laboriously, waiting for him to finish.
Michael had only lowered the front metal gate for no more than five minutes when they heard a loud bang, coming from the back of the pharmacy. Then there was clatter of glass shattering and the rustles of plastic bags. Elise looked alarmingly at Michael who was standing by the cashier at the back counter doing a quick count of today’s sales. He too was surprised by the unexpected noise.
“Did you hear that?” Elise whispered to him.
“Shit. Not now.” Irritated. “I know what it is. Don’t worry about it. I will take care of it. You just sit there and don’t come in. I’ll be right out.” Then he walked out from behind the counter with an annoyed expression and went into the kitchen right away.
“D' you want me to…” Elise wanted to offer to go with him but he had already shut the kitchen door behind him as soon as he got in. Soon after he went in, another loud bang from clashing of metals came from the back and reached Elise's ears again. She jumped on her feet at the petrifying sound. A sudden fear came over her.
“Michael’s in there all by himself. What if it’s some drunkards who sneaked in from the back and wanted to trash the store? Or some self-empowered crooks trying to come up here to collect protection money? It’s not uncommon in this part of town. Gosh, I need to toughen up and go help him, whatever it is.” She told herself. It happened that the spoon they used for the turtle soup was still lying on the table. Elise grabbed it into her palm and started to inch her way near the kitchen door.
“HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU TO STAY AWAY FROM ME?!” A shrill furious female voice came from within the kitchen. “YOU FILTHY, DIRTY, HALF-WIT IMBECIL! I HAVE BEEN WARNING YOU ALL YEAR!” As if in reply to that, a loud, deep, earth-shaking roar bellowed from the mouth of a vicious creature which Elise couldn’t quite make out through the frosted window pane on the kitchen door.
. “WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU? YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO YELL AT ME LIKE THIS! I AM THE ELDERLY. I AM YOUR ANCESTOR, YOU INSOLENT ANIMAL.” The woman howled at her unfortunate object. “I HAVE GARBAGE STUCK TO MY EVENING GOWN, MY HAIR IS MESSED UP AND THE BANQUET IS IN A SHISHEN! WHAT AM I TO DO?”
“Shishen?!” Elise repeated under her breath, shocked. “It’s the time unit used only in the old times.” She said to herself. Her eyes scanned across the wall on her right, trying to remember where she had once saw the antique clock, hoping that she would catch a glimpse of the hour and minute hands of it in the semi-darkness. It’s exactly ten. The woman was referring to a banquet in a Shishen, which was exactly two hours away. What kind of unknown to her festivity warranted a banquet at mid-night, she wondered.
“Shut up! Both of you…I have a guest in there.” That was Michael’s hushed voice. There came a growl from the same unknown creature. It sounded like that of a dog. Then it was Michael’s voice again, “What are you guys doing here? The banquet is back in the mansion!”
“WELL, THIS IS MY PHARMACY!” The squeaky female voice replied.
Then a sneering voice was heard. It said, “I'm here to pick you up, by order of the master.”
“Can you guys argue later? Shhhh…” Elise heard Michael whispered to the others in the room.
“I CAN FLY THERE BY MYSELF!” The woman bellowed. “LOOK AT YOUR DOCTOR BROTHER! HE DOESN’T GO BURROWING IN TRASH CANS AND FEEDING HIMSELF ON JUNK. GOD HELP OUR FAMILY! HOW CAN TWO TWIN BROTHERS BE SO DIFFERENT?” On the background, the animal, most likely a dog, kept barking and howling.
All of a sudden, alarming sparks crackled out into the main floor from underneath the kitchen door. Luckily Elise had scooted to the side just in time to avoid being hit by it. The scuttling sparks zigzagged around the room like living beings and bounced off the bags on the floor and on the ceiling. One hit a fluorescence lamp on the ceiling and the whole place plunged into complete darkness immediately, except the trails that the sparks left behind them, creating some sort of mythical symbol in the air. The scene would have been magnificently delightful, kind of like watching fireworks, Elise thought, had it not been in such preternatural circumstance.
When Elise turned her head back towards the view-window of the kitchen door, however, she saw something incomprehensibly disturbing. There was only one shadow in the beginning but there were two voices coming from within: one male one female. Now, however, a third shadow was growing in size from out of nowhere and it was heightening. Its expansion only stopped when it has assumed a silhouette of a man, standing diagonal to the original shadow that had belonged to Michael.
Bewildered by the disturbing incidents happening before her eyes, her hands trembled involuntarily. She would have groped her way along the mirrored wall to the store front but then she remembered seeing Michael sealing it up with a bronze bulky padlock. “How did I put myself in situation like this! Following a stranger home! What was I thinking?!” Elise now hated herself so much she wanted to kick herself for making such terrible mistake.
“TELL ME, HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GO OUT LOOKING LIKE SUCH A FOOL? I CAN’T DO MY OWN MAKEUP! I DON’T EVEN HAVE REFLECTIONS IN MIRRORS!!” The woman cried aguishly.
The third voice now squealed: “That’s because you’re DEAD!” The voice belonged to a male, triumphed. “There’s justice in this world.” Laughing hysterically. “This serves you right!”
“Stop arguing, you too! Shhh…” Again that was Michael trying to hush the oppugnant duo, but it was no longer necessary, because Elise already heard everything.
“It’s not my fault. She started it.” The other man pleaded not guilty.
“ARGHH...IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO TALK SENSE INTO YOU! I AM LEAVING THIS ROOM. I DON’T WANT TO BE IN YOUR VICINITY. IT SICKENS ME.” The woman relinquished.
“No!” Michael screamed but it’s too late.
At that instance, something tore out of the kitchen door and stormed into the middle of the room, leaving the door swinging violently on its hinges. Shivers ran down Elise’s spine but under such dire circumstances, she beat down her natural instinct to scream and stayed put in her spot and tried to keep her eyes focused on the ball of flame.
Before her, she saw the flame transformed into a woman. Her entire body was wrapped in a blinding white ball of flame and her hair was a curtain of silvery long hair that flowed like waterfall behind her. As her swift body passed Elise, who had hidden herself just in time behind the counter panel, squatting, her hands clasped over her mouth trying not suppress any utterance that would announce her existence, the sheath of hair parted into many different branches on their own and tactfully rolled and coiffed her silver hair into an elegant bun on top of her head magically. What was more interesting, was the bluish flame that had now surrounded the woman’s body. Scraps of leafs and papers were lifted from her body as if they were repelled by her body and as they reached about an inch away from her skins, they all started to incinerate, burnt down completely into white ashes and fell around her shielded body like sand. As the flame died out, what revealed was a small, imposing woman in a 50’s style hair-do, wrapped in silky red body-hugging one-piece mandarin dress embroiled with purple oriental flower petals and pale green leaves that was tightly stretched around her lean body accentuated with a tiny waist. Her beauty was striking.
“Now this feels much better,” The woman said, satisfied with her own version of cleansing process.
“ELISE?” Michael has rushed out of the
kitchen now, calling her name, not seeing her and grew worried. “Elise, where are you? They are my family. You’ve nothing to worry about.” He started to run around the store looking for Elise behind every stash of goods.
“WHO?” The beautiful woman turned her head towards Michael abruptly, sensing a complication. “YOU MEANT THERE IS SOMEONE ELSE IN HERE?”
From where Elise was, she can now see the face of the woman. She had short, arched, carefully manicured eyebrows and her eyes were of a piercing blue shades. Her lips, so full and plumb, curled up naturally at the end when she spoke, were dipped in the deepest shade of red. Apart from the dark, menacing colors in her eyes and her lips, however, everything else was a pale white. At the news of an intruder, the last drop of blood seemed to drain completely out of her face and her brow knitted into a tight frown.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you the whole time!” Michael said helplessly, darting his eyes around the dimly lighted room looking for Elise. The woman let out a gasp.
“She’s over here everyone.” Hovering above Elise now was a man with the eyes of Michael. No, a second Michael, we should say, because this one just came out from behind the kitchen door, but he was completely naked, Elise observed, despite the darkness. His oily, sweaty chest had reflected glare to her eyes and his lower body was gracefully hidden behind the panel of the counter. Elise, taken aback by the situation froze on the spot not knowing whether she should be worrying about being discovered or about the hallucinations she was having of seeing two Michaels, or both. This person looked exactly like Michael. “It has to be a different person! The laws of physics do not allow a person to be in two different places at the same time. It’s impossible.” This thought ran in the back of her mind while her countenance betrayed how shocked she was.
“Poor creature,” the man naked said. “She looks scared.” He extended his thick, strong arm and lifted Elise out from behind the counter with such easiness as if she’s made of feather before she could even bring herself to scream. She was dropped onto a pile of something that felt like a meshed herbs in plastic garbage bags.
“Who are they, Michael?” Elise shouted, looking straight at the direction where she thought the original Michael was standing in the semi-darkness only lit by the residual glow of the flame around the woman and from the little amount of light filtrated into the store through the frosted glass separation to the kitchen. Ignoring everything else around her, she wanted a confirmation so direly from Michael that there was absolutely no one else in this room besides the two of them. “Who are they? Help me! Are they ghosts?” Her voice grew hoarse out of fear. She managed to take control of herself because she wanted to think that everything was just hallucinations and she didn’t want to come out sounding like a mad woman when it was all over. Perhaps it was the wine.
“TURN ON THE LIGHTS NOW, YOU BLOCKHEAD OVER THERE!” The woman yelled. “YOUR BROTHER DOESN’T HAVE NIGHT VISION. HE IS NOT A BEAST LIKE YOU.” The woman was referring to the other man that looked like Michael but was not him.
An explosion of light come forth blinding Elise’s eyes momentarily as the switch was turned. With her blurry squinting eyes, Elise struggled to open them and peeked out to see whom these other voices belonged to. In front of her, however, there was no one else but Michael whose hands were over his own eyes to ward away the sudden influx of the light rays, standing just a few feet away from her. There was a short silence but it was broken not too longer after.
“MICHAEL, WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING WITH HER. SHE KNOWS WE ARE HERE!” The now invisible woman said.
“I am going to faint.” Elise let out her final gasp of helplessness and blacked out in shock. Before the last second she lost consciousness, she felt the same pair of strong, muscular arms caught her before she hit the ground.
The House of Siu
There was squeaking and shrilling. Tattling, nervous gabbling and relentless bickering between voices. In an exquisitely decorated boudoir teeming with antique ornaments from the fifties right above the pharmacy, the air shifted from one with exploding reprehension to reciprocal condemnations. It shifted again from deep contemplation to one of concessions. Then a silent agreement befell the room.
With an aching head, Elise, now lying on a pink upholstery sofa, no doubt being transferred upstairs by the strong man who caught her when she fell out of consciousness, was first awoken not by the heated arguments of her companies that had been going on up till recently, but by a captivating procession of olfactory stimulations. Normally the cascade of smells would not alarm anyone who was within feet of traditional Chinese pharmacy jam-packed wide variety of eccentric, aromatic herbs and exotic dried animal parts. Yet the train of scents, sweet, then bitter, utterly heavenly then abruptly repugnant, had bombarded her so hard and so unexpectedly that as she sneezed, the force of the convulsive expulsion of air from her nose and mouth had bolted her upright. She opened her eyes to find herself in a strange room drenched in pitch darkness. Half a minute later, however, her eyes had adjusted to the lighting conditions and she was starting to be able to discern object from object in her surroundings. She stared out across the wide stretch of the room.
Not a soul in the boudoir. No glowing figure in flame and certainly no human.
Apart from having fainted in a strange room for an unknown amount of time, Elise felt quite alright for someone who experienced supernatural phenomenon. To confirm this feeling she quickly scanned down herself to check that she still had all four limbs and a head. There was still moist warm breath coming out of her nose. Elise wasn’t afraid anymore. If she was still alive now after witnessing these invisible ghostly entities from appearing out of thin air, then she supposed that they were friendly spirits after all. All she could think of was to look for some kind of explanation now, for the unusual avalanche of smell. Like a housewife weary of a kitchen fire, she carefully dislodged herself from the velvet upholstery bed and stepped down. The smell seemed to be coming from outside.
As she shifted towards the door, however, she found herself attacked by a whiff of one particularly strange fragrance. It’s almost as if it came from her. She held up her hands to her nose and sniffed. Yes, it was the same smell. She reeked of it. “They have doused me with some odd fragrance!” Elise exhaled. “What were they trying to do? Cleanse me of my mortal existence with their magical perfume?!” She now was bending down to smell her legs but as she was doing so, she caught a glimpse of herself in a full-length mirror in the room. She was wearing a big ball of pink fluffy fabric draped around her bodice, highly ornate, adorned with layers over layers of white laces ruffles. It’s almost looked like an 18th century court dress. “I am wearing a corset!” She gasped at her reflection in the mirror. Her reflection was one of elegance and expensive bearing. And her hair had been pulled back and stretched across the back of her head were locks and locks of tight curly hair. Amazed at the transformation, she wanted to touch the beautiful locks in the reflection. But as she fumbled on, she discovered that the locks didn't exist, nor did her beautiful dress. The lightness of her movement and the sound of stiff fabrics brushed against each other indicated that she, in real life, on the non-magical side of the mirror, was still wearing her original boring outfit she had worn for her first day of work at Bilious. The image of her dressed up reminded her of something the woman had said about going to a banquet.
“Madam Elise, do you enjoy the evening gown Master had prepared for you?” A short, kind faced Chinese woman appeared under the doorframe of the boudoir. Elise turned her head to find out that she looked exactly like Michael’s mom, yet her outfit was one of a typical Chinese servant in expensive homes of China from earlier times. Her hair all pulled back to a single long braid and she’s wearing a white worker's uniform with stand-up mandarin collar and a pair of black work pants. There was no mistaking. Elise was among people from the past. “I can summon the tailor again if you dislike it.”
“I…Don’t’ call me ‘Madam’, please. I am Elise! Don
’t you remember?” Elise moved towards the woman, held her hands in her own and pulled her closer. Her face did belong to Michael’s mom. Why was she dressed in the outfit of a servant, unbefitting her status in the family? Yet she knew there were more pressing matters than commenting on wardrobe malfunction. “Auntie, could you tell me what’s going on? I was in Chamber of Life and Nutrition with Michael when you and Uncle Siu left for the street opera, and then all of a sudden there were noises and sparks…”
“Madam,” the woman interrupted, “but we have never met! My name is ‘Chan Tsui’, people around here call me ‘Sister Jade’. My family has worked for Doctor Siu household for the last…thirty years. I have always been a servant in this household.” Elise dropped Sister Jade’s hands in shock, thinking that she must have heard it wrong.
“I am sorry, madam. Jade shouldn’t bore you with these boring details on the night of the wonderful banquet. Let me lead you to the jeweler and the shoe maker.”
“I have my own shoe…” She stared at her reflection in the mirror. She didn’t have any.
Elise was not expecting to see any change in architecture. She hadn’t figured out whether she had actually gone back in time somewhere between the moment Michael’s parents walked out of the pharmacy and the moment he entered the kitchen, or had people from the past leaped forward in time to scare their modern counterparts. Regardless of how the time skew happened, she thought she was still inside the same two-story concrete building that had housed the Chamber of Life and Nutrition. A typical building like this could at most be sixty years old, if it survived the Japanese occupation during World War II. In a most daring guess, she would say the house could be dated back a hundred fifty years ago when the deserted island called Hong Kong had become a colony of the British government, but she knew better. She doubted if they started using concrete already back then when the settlers came in. Her eyes, however, told her otherwise.