‘Shine your torch down here,’ I say, pointing my light at the place where the loose floorboards are. I kneel down and prise up the boards again.
‘I’ll go down while you stand guard. Or would you rather go?’ I say.
‘No, I’m the better ghost-hunter. It’s best if you go. Then I’ll be ready to protect you. And here, you’ll need this to destroy those black talismans.’ Ting Ting throws me a small pouch filled with powder.
I put my weapons bag next to the opening and slip down into the hidden room, taking only my torch, the pouch of powder and a box of matches.
Everything is just as I left it yesterday – the boxes stacked on top of each other, the strongbox sitting on the dusty shelf, my own footprints on the floor.
I lift the lid carefully. Almost immediately, waves of dread and sadness sweep over me. Forcing down my terror, I open the pouch and sprinkle the powder over the black talismans. I shudder as they shrivel and shrink as if they are alive!
‘Hurry up,’ Ting Ting whispers. ‘It’s getting colder by the second up here.’
I hold the box of matches in my trembling hands and push out the small tray. I take out a single match. But as I do, the beam of my torch extinguishes. I’m left in total darkness.
‘Ting Ting,’ I whisper, looking up through the opening. ‘What happened to the light?’
There is no answer.
I quickly strike the match. The flame ignites and a strong smell of sulphur fills my nostrils. But as I’m about to throw it into the strongbox, an icy breath from above blows the match out. I take out another match and light it. The same thing happens.
Shen Da Pai is here. I can feel him. And now I’m trapped like a mouse down a hole.
I step back against the wall, my breath rasping in my throat. I want to cry out but force the sound back down, squeezing it into a hard ball. A wave of nausea makes me groan. I cover my mouth with my hand.
A horrible grating laugh rings out like the point of a knife being dragged across glass. It fills me with terror. Ting Ting has disappeared. My weapons bag is out of reach. And I can’t strike a match to destroy the black talismans in the strongbox. I feel so helpless.
But then I remember something. I still have my ghost song. Nobody can take that away from me.
I take a breath, close my eyes and begin to hum. I imagine walking around the inner garden of Bao Mansion, gathering energy from the rocks, the trees, the plants, the soil and the spring-fed lake. With each breath I feel more and more energised, as if my mind is an open window and fresh air is pouring in.
My ghost song spreads out in front of me and I feel Shen Da Pai moving away, recoiling like a snake that has met a wall of fire.
Now is my chance. I jump onto the boxes and climb out of the hidden room, my ghost song pushing a clear pathway in front of me. I don’t know where Shen Da Pai is. In the dark I grope around for my weapons bag, take out my coin sword and stand up. I turn around on the spot, the sword held in front of me, spreading my ghost song in an ever-widening arc around the room. If only I knew where he was, I could aim the notes in his direction.
I hear Ting Ting cry out in pain in another part of the house. Who is she fighting?
My concentration wavers, and in that split second Shen Da Pai attacks. It’s as if he has his hands around my throat and is crushing my voice box! I try to sing but only a muffled groan comes out of my mouth.
Without eyes to see, and no voice to sing my ghost song, I’m useless to fight Shen Da Pai!
The dark seems to grow deeper, the air in the room even colder than before. Then something brushes my cheek. Long icy fingers run down my face. I feel as if I’m standing on a cliff and Shen Da Pai is an angry sea, battering the cliff with huge crashing waves. Soon I will fall.
If I could see him, I might have a whisker of a chance. I remember Por Por saying that if I want to listen for a ghost, I need to hear the sound behind the sounds around me. So if I want to have ghost eyes, perhaps I need to see behind the darkness, not into it. It’s worth a try.
I relax my eye muscles, not focusing on anything, and try to think of the dark as a curtain that needs opening. I see a chink of light through the folds. It grows bigger and bigger as if it’s rushing towards me, filling the whole room.
Then, amazingly, I see Shen Da Pai standing about a metre away. He’s wearing a long scholar’s gown and holding the black talisman feather I saw in the strongbox. His face is much uglier than I imagined. Deep lines are etched into it. His body is slightly bent as if he’s already lost some of his power. Did Por Por do this to him?
I pretend I can’t see him while I try to figure out what to do next. My coin sword is useless as I’ve hardly practised using it at all. And without my voice – my one true weapon – I have nothing left.
Shen Da Pai circles around me. Every time he waves his talisman feather in the air, a wave of nausea hits me. My whole stomach heaves and I retch again and again as the walls of Bao Mansion shake with his laughter.
I put one hand on my belly to steady it. That’s when I feel the kazoo in my pocket, the musical instrument I bought at the market in Shanghai. I can’t sing … but I can hum!
I turn around so Shen Da Pai can’t see what I’m doing. Then I bring the kazoo to my mouth. I start out really soft and low at first and gradually turn to face him. He shakes his head as if an annoying fly is around him.
My humming grows louder and louder. It is a reedy, buzzing sound.
And it’s working!
Shen Da Pai doubles over as I direct my strange song at his head, then his arms, then his chest and stomach. Lastly, I hit his legs, chopping his knees with short, sharp, buzzing notes. He collapses to the ground.
Quickly I raise my sword over his crumpled body and write invisible talisman symbols in the air. It’s as if Por Por is here, telling me what to do. If he’s not destroyed completely he can come back even stronger than before, she tells me. So I repeat the same symbols over and over again. My arms ache but I don’t stop until he is a wisp of vapour.
Then I take the kazoo out of my mouth and, with one small breath, blow him away.
I hear Ting Ting scream in another part of the house. I run down the corridor and into a small room. I find her hiding underneath an altar table.
‘Where have you been?’ she yells. ‘I’ve been fighting Shen Da Pai for the last half an hour.’
‘What?’ I say, surprised. I squat down beside her. ‘But I was fighting him in the other room. I destroyed him. He’s no more.’
Realisation dawns on Ting Ting’s face. ‘That’s what he must have done. Some ghosts, the really powerful ones, can split in two. But it does weaken them,’ she says. ‘I don’t know where he is now.’
‘He’s over there in the doorway,’ I whisper.
‘You can see in the dark?’ Ting Ting says. ‘But it takes years to master that skill.’
I shrug.
Shen Da Pai limps towards us, his legs weak and wobbly. His face is horribly wrinkled now, as if his flesh might fall off. ‘This time I will get rid of both of you just like I did to your por por,’ he says in a small whispery voice.
With fury I leap out to face him, and Ting Ting follows. She hurls the discus-like weapon through the air, knocking Shen Da Pai off balance. The weapon comes back to her hand like a boomerang. The ghost stumbles and falls. I’m surprised at how calm Ting Ting is, not agitated or emotional like I thought she would be. I strike out with my ghost song now that my voice is free.
Ting Ting glances at me, a small smile of admiration on her lips. Then, raising her knotted rope, she snaps it at Shen Da Pai. It licks the air like a long white tongue, sending the ghost spinning. Shen Da Pai has become a formless grey mass, weakening with every second. He looks for a way to escape. I quickly seal the door, the windows, and all the cracks in the room with my ghost song, weaving a spider-like web over every tiny opening. There is no way out for him now.
And so, with one long, piercing note, I dissolve his spirit for
ever.
We search the whole of Bao Mansion for Por Por. I don’t want to believe that she is dead. I look upstairs. Ting Ting searches downstairs, then together we go through the servants’ quarters and the inner garden. We call out her name. We look in every place we can think of, but we can’t find her anywhere.
‘Just using our eyes is not good enough,’ I say to Ting Ting as we stand in the reception room.
‘What do you mean?’ she asks.
‘Well, lately I feel as though I’m connected to Por Por somehow. Like there’s a thread that joins us together. And no matter how far away I am from her, I know where she is … or I should know. So I’ve been thinking, if we both stand very still, maybe one of us can feel this connection more strongly and it will lead us to her.’
Ting Ting looks at me with grudging respect. ‘It’s worth a try. But wait. Shouldn’t we destroy the talismans in the strongbox first?’
I had forgotten all about the strongbox. Ting Ting was right. Even though the ghost of Shen Da Pai no longer existed, those evil things still held power over Bao Mansion.
We go back to the hidden room. This time Ting Ting goes down while I stand guard. I see her strike the match and drop it into the box. The light is so bright that for a moment I have to look away. A horrible acrid smell like a rubbish tip on fire fills the room and I hear Ting Ting coughing. Then it’s dark once more.
‘Those things were so disgusting!’ Ting Ting says, climbing out of the hole. She wipes her nose and mouth with her sleeve then spits on the ground.
‘While you were down there I got this strong feeling that Por Por is upstairs somewhere,’ I say. ‘And I know in my heart that she is still alive.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ Ting Ting replies.
We search every room upstairs but they are all empty. Finally, we come to Por Por’s old room.
‘Hey, what’s that?’ Ting Ting points to a big crack under the window with something jammed inside it. She crosses the floor and pulls out a flat parcel wrapped in newspaper. She unwraps it carefully.
We both gasp when we see that it’s Por Por’s very own mingshen mirror. But where is Por Por?
‘Wait,’ I say, filled with dread. ‘There’s something inside it.’ A flicker passes underneath the glass. The figure is grey and shadowy at first. But then the image grows closer and clearer. My heart sinks when I see Por Por standing in a bleak empty space, staring out at us, looking lost.
‘Por Por!’ I say, running my hand over the glass as if I can reach out and touch her.
‘Are you all right, Por? Are you hurt?’ Ting Ting says.
Por Por looks blankly around at her surroundings. She doesn’t know we are here. She can’t see or hear us.
‘How are we going to get her out of there?’ I say in desperation.
‘We can’t,’ says Ting Ting. ‘Once a ghost-hunter is trapped in her own mirror, she is trapped there forever.’
‘But there must be a way to unlock it,’ I say, even though I remember Por Por herself telling me the same thing.
Ting Ting leans against the wall and a single tear rolls down her cheek and drops onto the mirror.
The surface quivers like clear jelly. It’s so slight, I almost miss it. I peer closer.
‘Ting Ting, wait!’ I say. ‘Look at the mirror. Your tear, it did something to the glass!’
‘What?’ She looks down. Another tear falls onto the surface and this time we both see it quiver. ‘It’s true!’ Her face breaks into a huge smile. ‘Quick, sit down with me. We have to cry as many tears as we can.’
‘I think I know an easier way,’ I say.
I lead her down the stairs and out to the inner garden. I kneel down beside the lake. ‘Your tears dissolved the surface of the mirror because they’re pure,’ I explain. ‘I remember Por Por telling me that no water is purer than the water in this lake. So it should work in just the same way.’
I hold the mingshen mirror just below the surface. At first nothing happens. But then, just as before, the surface grows wobbly like clear jelly and slowly begins to melt away. I see Por Por clearly now, lost inside a deep cavern. She still can’t see or hear us. And unless she climbs out herself, I’m not sure how we’re going to free her. We can’t just plop her out into the water like we do the ghost fish. And I’m definitely not going to put my hand inside the mirror. I look at Ting Ting.
She raises her eyebrows then shrugs. ‘It’s worth a try.’ She takes the mingshen mirror from me and turns it upside down over dry land. Then she taps it on the back once, sharply.
As if by magic, Por Por plops out, rolls along the ground in a tight ball and stops when she gently hits a large boulder.
She sits up and looks around, dazed. Then she says accusingly, ‘What are you doing?’
We hug Por Por like she’s a baby, laughing and crying and all trying to speak at once.
I lie in a sleeping bag on the floor. I’m exhausted, but I can’t sleep – too much excitement always does that to me. My bones ache and my muscles are sore. And my throat – I can’t even begin to describe how that feels.
Ting Ting rolls over in her bed and looks down at me. ‘I was thinking,’ she says. ‘We have a lot in common, you and me. You lost your mother. I lost my parents. We have the same por por and we are both ghost-hunters. We could almost be sisters.’ There’s a softness in her voice as she speaks to me. ‘Do you mind if I call you xiao mei, little sister, from now on?’
I smile into the darkness. ‘I would like that,’ I say.
‘Goodnight then, xiao mei,’ Ting Ting says.
‘Goodnight.’
For the very first time since Mama died, I dream about her. She’s in our back garden at home, kneeling on the ground. I come through the wire door and catch it with my foot before it slams. Mama hates loud noises, and I don’t want to scare her away. I wonder what she’s doing, because it’s the middle of the night.
She looks up, smiles, and beckons me over.
‘I am planting tomorrows,’ she says, pushing a strand of runaway hair behind her ear. ‘They grow especially well if they’re planted under a full moon.’
I look up at the sky. The moon looks like a paper cut-out glued between the clouds.
Beside Mama is a bucket. She takes out a silver tomorrow, the size of a small peanut, and puts it on the ground. The thing wriggles around, then works its way into the soil leaving a tiny bit poking out the top. Next she takes a blue tomorrow, the shape of a star. It spins like a ballerina on pointe then burrows down into the soft earth.
‘Do you want to help me plant some?’ Mama asks.
I nod and kneel down next to her. I look into the bucket. Each tomorrow is a different shape, colour and size. The bucket is full to the brim.
‘Choose whichever one you like,’ she says, then raises her eyes and looks out over the garden.
I follow her gaze. I see she has already planted thousands of tomorrows that stretch all the way to the horizon and back.
‘They are all there waiting,’ she says.
‘Waiting for what, Mama?’ I say.
‘For you.’
The path up Mount Mystery isn’t an easy climb. The steps are small and slippery, carved into bare rock. Only a few times a year, when the mist lifts, can the summit be seen from the Isle of Clouds. And today is one of those days.
‘Are you brave?’ Por Por asks as we begin the climb.
‘I’m learning to be brave,’ I reply.
‘Good. Watch carefully where I place my feet. This mountain can be extremely hazardous.’
Tall trees studded with shiny red berries line the path. But as we climb higher, the trees thin out, leaving only a few lone pines growing out of rocks. Way below us is the Isle of Clouds. It looks tiny from here, its canals like silver snail trails winding between rows of houses.
A blanket of white cloud creeps over the valley, blocking the view. It’s as if Por Por and I are the only people in the whole wide world.
Up, up, up we go. Th
e air is so thin now it’s hard to breathe. My backpack feels heavy, even though the only things in it are Mama’s ashes and a water bottle. My legs feel weak.
But then the sweet scent of mimosa from some other place urges me on. And I find a new strength.
‘Not far now,’ Por Por calls down to me.
The wind dies to a whisper all of a sudden and a singing silence fills the empty space.
Por Por gives me her hand and pulls me up.
The summit is a forest of huge rocks. Sometimes the rocks disappear, then reappear as the mist swirls and eddies around them. They look like ghosts moving in and out of this world.
We sit and rest for a while. We don’t talk. I don’t want to break the silence. I take the box with Mama’s ashes from my backpack and stand up. It’s strange, but I don’t feel like crying. I’m not sad like I thought I would be.
I open the lid and wait. A soft wind lifts the ashes into the air. I hold my breath as they swirl in spirals. Then the white blanket of cloud beneath us suddenly blows apart and the whole landscape of town, canals, bridges and fields opens up.
The ashes scatter, falling over the Isle of Clouds like sprinklings of gold dust in the sunlight.
Por Por smiles. ‘Now your mama is a beautiful white crane, free to fly wherever she wants to.’ Her voice is soft like the beat of a bird’s wing.
I feel around in my pocket for the letter Robbie gave me. I place it under a small rock. This is what it says:
dear Mummy
I hav to new snails corld Boris and Carlo they eat lettus and poo a lot of green poo hop you like it in heven
I love you from Robbie
Por Por, Ting Ting and I are back in Shanghai and I’m packing for home. I rang Papa last night just to make sure he and Robbie are coming to the airport to meet me. He sounded excited, not just because I’ll be home soon, but because he has started a new series of paintings.
A Ghost in my Suitcase Page 10