by Zen Cho
And with that, the god was there. She stood by Ah Ku as though she’d been there all along.
No one warned Jess, so she looked incautiously right in the Black Water Sister’s face. It was only for a moment, before the terror hit, the bone-deep knowledge that she’d fucked up. It was the same terror she’d felt meeting Ah Ku’s eyes at that first encounter, when she’d seen the god in him—a precipitous feeling, like vertigo, as the world jerked into true perspective.
Instinct dragged her gaze downwards. She hunched her shoulders, as if she could make herself small enough to escape divine observation.
The Black Water Sister didn’t have one of those startling blue-black faces some idols had, wasn’t attired in period robes or anything you’d expect to see on a deity. She looked like an ordinary Chinese woman, in her twenties or thirties, wearing a light top and trousers. Physically, she was like anyone you might pass on the street.
But she wasn’t like Ah Ku or Sherng or the gangsters. She wasn’t even like Ah Ma or the Datuk Kong or the other, ordinary spirits in the garden temple. She was a hole punched out of a sane world, a channel for the sublime—or the horrific. Through her, the unthinkable was made real.
She came toward Jess.
I’ll die if she touches me, thought Jess, but the god touched her and Jess did not die.
It was the softest brush of a fingertip on Jess’s top lip. All at once inanimation settled on her, a heavy blanket, muffling thought and feeling. Blessedly removed from herself, she heard her own voice say gently to Sherng:
“You didn’t pray to me. You don’t know how to respect me. This is my place. You dare to come here?”
The words were in a dialect Jess didn’t know—not Hokkien or Mandarin or Cantonese, the latter two of which she didn’t speak but usually recognized. Yet she understood it all, the god’s speech translated, as she spoke, into the wordless language of the heart.
“Jess?” said Sherng stupidly.
His voice quivered. He had learned to fear now, but it was too late, for him and for Jess.
She saw without surprise that Ah Ma was standing next to her again. The ghost had to have stepped out of Jess’s body, because—oh fuck, oh God—the goddess was using it, speaking to Sherng through Jess.
Ah Ma put her hands together, bowing her head.
“Ah Chee,” she said, calling the goddess “elder sister.” “You want to do, or I do?”
The impassive face, with its deceptive youthfulness, turned to Ah Ma. “You do.”
The goddess raised her hand.
Jess saw that what would happen must happen. Her terror hadn’t gone away, but it was muted now. She felt almost comfortable, relaxed in her powerlessness. If she let go, she could fall asleep, and no one could blame her for what came next . . .
The goddess put her hand on the nape of Jess’s neck. It was like having a hot iron pressed against her skin. Jess screamed, convulsing, trying to jerk away.
Her whole self sprang back to life. She was afraid, yes, scared shitless—but she was also rich, thick, concentrated with rage.
Ah Ma melted into Jess as the goddess held the way open. Jess’s body was limp, submission forced from her by the hand on her neck. Only her pain was her own.
Ah Ma jerked Jess’s head from side to side, cracking her neck, rolling her shoulders. She reached out and settled her hands around Sherng’s throat, squeezing.
Sherng struggled, his arms and legs flailing. He kicked Jess in the stomach, taking her breath away, but Ah Ma only pressed harder.
The men stood around them, watching with respectful faces, like people who didn’t know anything about classical music listening to an orchestra. Mole Boy—Ah Tat, they’d called him—looked entranced, his mouth half-open with excitement.
I’m going to kill a human being, thought Jess. Agony shrilled through her entire body, pulsing out from the goddess’s hand on her neck. It will be my hands that do it.
The thought galvanized her. If it could hurt this fucking much even when Ah Ma and the god had taken her over—if Jess’s pain belonged to her—then her body was still hers, despite anything gods or grandmothers could do. They could take everything, they could swallow her whole, but her hands she would keep to her own damn self.
She tore her hands from Sherng’s neck. Gasping, he fell back. She wrenched herself out of the goddess’s grip and bent over, shaking until the teeth rattled in her head, shaking Ah Ma off her.
The scalding pain of the god’s touch had burned away the last traces of dizziness from the spiked chrysanthemum tea. Without the god’s help, Ah Ma couldn’t get a purchase on her. Jess heard the ghost shriek, “Useless girl!”
For a crystalline moment, she knew she had all of her mind and body back.
The men scattered, leaving the way clear. Jess noticed suddenly that the spirits were gone. Their absence was weirdly spooky, in this garden that was their place, their home as much as the Black Water Sister’s.
She snatched up the length of pipe Ah Ma had used to hit Sherng, and sprinted toward the bodhi tree.
She didn’t look back to see if the god or Ah Ma was following her. She slipped in the final stretch, but managed to avoid face-planting on the ground. Instead she landed heavily on her knees in front of the Black Water Sister’s worn effigy, in the perfect position to wield her pipe.
Jess heaved the incense urn out of the way. There was a handful of joss sticks in it, smoldering gently. The smell of incense was in her nostrils as she brought the pipe down on the statuette.
The idol’s face cracked. The men were shouting behind her, but she couldn’t hear the god or Ah Ma.
Jess bashed at the idol again. Adrenaline—and possibly the drugs—was affecting her coordination, but at such close range it didn’t matter, and maybe she had some supernatural strength left over from having been possessed. The pipe crashed into the goddess’s side, and the statuette shattered.
The men had stopped shouting. Jess didn’t bother looking back at them. She got to her feet and went to work on the altar.
It was easier than she would have thought to break it down. Time and exposure had done most of the work for her. Soon she’d reduced the altar to a jumble of splintered wood, the shards of the idol mixed up with the jagged panels of its shelter.
Jess straightened up, panting.
The incense urn stood at the side where she’d put it. Jess overturned it with her foot and smashed it with the pipe.
There. She was done.
She turned around.
The god was gone. So was Ah Ma. Only humans remained.
Sherng had picked himself up, but the men hadn’t tried to recapture him. They were all staring at Jess in dead silence.
Finally a man broke the silence.
“You’re crazy,” he said in Hokkien. He walked away, toward the path back to the parking lot. He picked up the pace as he went, and then he started running.
It was like a dam breaking. The other men followed, scrambling away as though the goddess herself was after them.
Jess dropped her length of pipe and looked at Sherng.
“Are you OK?” she said.
If she were Sherng she would be halfway across Penang by now, but apparently Sherng didn’t have any self-preservation instinct. His eyes were huge.
“What the—” His voice was hoarse. He paused, swallowing painfully. “What the hell was all that?”
Before Jess could answer, Ah Ku moved. Jess hadn’t realized he was still there.
Neither had Sherng, apparently. Alarm crossed his face and he bolted, heading off in the opposite direction from the other men.
Ah Ku didn’t even spare him a glance. He trudged over to Jess and looked down at the ruins of the altar. He sighed.
“Like that, we might as well clear out,” he said. “Stay here for what?”
Jess should probably run for i
t. Ah Ku had been in on Ah Ma’s conspiracy against her. He’d literally tried to poison her.
But weirdly, she didn’t feel afraid of him. Next to the god and Ah Ma, he felt like, if not an ally, a fellow victim, as vulnerable to the whims of gods and ghosts as Jess.
Then Ah Ku turned and slapped her.
“Stupid girl!” he said. “What will I tell your mother now?”
THIRTEEN
Jess held her stinging cheek, almost too shocked to be mad.
“My mother doesn’t even know I’m here!” she blurted.
It was the first thing that came into her head. But before she could find the words fully to express her indignation, Ah Ku walked off.
“Your mother is smart,” he said over his shoulder. “She don’t want to see, don’t want to know. I told Ah Ma, what do you expect? She’s educated. You think she wants to be involved in this not-three not-four business? Cannot say she’s wrong also.
“If you followed your mother, there won’t be all this trouble. Your surname is not Lim also. This”—Ah Ku’s gesture took in the garden temple, broken altar and all—“is not your affair. You shouldn’t have come here in the first place.”
Jess opened and closed her mouth like a fish, so outraged she felt winded by it.
“You’re standing there for what?” said Ah Ku. “Come, come.”
Jess hurried after him.
“I came because of Ah Ma,” she said. “She’s the one who dragged me into all of this. How was I supposed to know you guys were going to use me to attempt a murder?”
Ah Ku had the grace to look embarrassed.
“I didn’t want to be involved also,” he said. “But what can I do? Ah Ma is like that. Everything must do her way. If you don’t follow, even her own son she’ll curse. Old people are like that.”
“I disagree, I happen to know most old people are not murderers!” said Jess. “What were you guys thinking? It’s not like killing Ng Chee Hin’s son would have made him back off. All you would’ve done is piss him off and turn it into a big gang war.” She paused, disturbed, as the implications of what she’d said sank in. “Is that what Ah Ma wants?”
“No lah,” said Ah Ku. “Ah Ma is not like that. She’s clever to fight, but she doesn’t fight for no reason. She wanted to scare off that bastard, make sure he won’t come and kacau us anymore.”
“But—”
“If a human kills the son, Ng Chee Hin will be angry,” said Ah Ku. “Humans, he’s not scared.”
It took a moment for Jess to process this.
“So that’s why Ah Ma wanted me to do it?” she said. “She wanted Ng Chee Hin to know the—” Even the thought of saying the Black Water Sister’s name made the hairs stand up on the back of Jess’s neck. “To know the god killed his son.”
What was it Ah Ma had said when Jess asked why Ng Chee Hin wasn’t scared of the god? He hasn’t learned to be scared.
“Ah Ma wanted to teach him to be scared,” said Jess slowly. “But how would he have known? I would’ve been the sucker who got arrested.”
Ah Ku scoffed, “If you offend Ng Chee Hin, you don’t need to worry about getting arrested. His men will come to your house at night and catch you.”
“Great. Thanks, Ah Ku. I’m definitely not worried anymore.”
“You don’t need to worry. That bastard isn’t stupid,” said Ah Ku. “You think he’ll believe a small girl like you is willing to kill people? He knows one lah! When he finds out you’re Ah Ma’s granddaughter, he’ll understand. He’ll know, better not meddle in the gods’ business. If you offend the gods, they will punish you.
“But instead you went and broke the shrine.” Ah Ku shook his head. “I told Ah Ma she shouldn’t force you. If you don’t want to do, it won’t turn out well. But she said got no time to find another candidate. Ah Ma wants someone strong to be her medium.”
Jess stared at Ah Ku, incredulous. She couldn’t even take the lids off jars of pasta sauce without assistance—Sharanya was the lid remover of their relationship. “Then why me? Yew Ping can’t be the only young man in the family.”
“I’m not talking about whether you can beat people,” said Ah Ku. “What Ah Ma cares about is whether the spirit is strong. You’re so troublesome, it shows your spirit is strong. If not, how can you fight Ah Ma?”
“I’m the troublesome one? I’m not making her murder anyone!”
Ah Ku didn’t bother answering this. He went round the back of the roofed structure where he’d entertained Jess the first time she came to the temple, emerging laden with various cleaning implements—a broom, a bucket, a dustpan and brush.
“Nah.” He held the broom out to Jess. It was the old-fashioned kind they sold in sundry shops, nothing more than a bundle of long twigs tied together.
“What’s this for?”
“To clean up.” Ah Ku nodded at the broken shrine.
Jess looked down at the broom in his hand, then up at his brown, creased face, the eyes squinting a little in the sunlight. “You drugged me!”
“Aiyah, I made sure it’s a small amount only,” said Ah Ku. “I was trying to help you.”
“You also slapped me,” Jess reminded him.
“You think I’ll slap you if I don’t care?” said Ah Ku. “If you’re not my sister’s child, I would have run away already. Where’s everybody else? They cabut. You know why?”
He paused, looking expectantly at Jess.
“Because I destroyed the shrine?” she said.
“They’re scared the god will be angry,” said Ah Ku. “I’m your uncle, that’s why I’m here cleaning up. If not, I’ll be at another temple asking for charms already.”
He let out a deep hacking cough, grimacing. Jess had almost forgotten he had broken ribs.
She snatched the broom from him. “Why did you even come? You should’ve told Ah Ma you need to stay home and recover. You can’t let her bully you.”
“Hah!” Ah Ku seemed genuinely amused. “You should know what. That’s easy to say, hard to do.”
* * *
• • •
JESS WAS HOPING to avoid her parents when she got home. The events of the day had left her with limited resources to deal with familial demands.
But luck was not with her. Mom was in the living room when Jess let herself in at the front door. Mom was riffling through Kor Kor’s shelves, her back turned to the door. Jess thought of dashing for the stairs, but Mom turned before she could do it.
Jess froze. She’d tried to make herself presentable using the tissues in the car, but there had only been so much she could do. She still looked sweaty and disheveled, not like someone who’d spent the past five hours in an air-conditioned café working on job applications.
“Min, have you seen my book about herbs?” said Mom. She sounded frazzled. “Kor Kor wants to show Auntie Cheryl. Cannot find.”
She was evidently consumed by the problem of the missing book. Jess would be safe so long as she didn’t draw attention to herself. “Bedside table? I’ll go check. You guys going out?”
Mom avoided her eyes. “Kor Kor asked us to come to her small group.”
Jess was already making for the stairs, but she stopped with a foot on the first step. “Isn’t that a church thing?”
Mom had been steadily refusing Kor Kor’s invites to church-related events since they had arrived in Penang. She was always polite when she did it, but Kor Kor’s attempts to proselytize were one of her many grievances against her.
“The host is a doctor, he lives in Jesselton Heights,” said Mom. “Kor Kor says he always serves good makan. I told Dad, why not? It’s a chance to make friends.”
Feeling like she’d extended a foot over solid ground only to step into quicksand, Jess said:
“You have friends. You were just saying you know too many people in Penang. You can’t go anywhere
without running into them.”
“Is there anything wrong if we go?” said Mom. “Go and see only, cannot meh?”
Jess swallowed her indignation with difficulty. Knowing it was unjustified didn’t make it any easier.
“Of course. I don’t care,” she lied. “You guys can go to all the church things you want. I’m not the boss of you.”
Despite her defiance, Mom was starting to look anxious. “You don’t like, is it? Why?”
Before Jess could answer, Dad came barreling down the stairs, waving a thin paperback.
“Nah, here’s your book,” he said. “Let’s go. Late already. Eh, Min, you’re back? Finished already, your applications?”
Jess felt a pang of guilt. She hadn’t applied to a single job in the past week. “I got some in.”
Now that she had the book, Mom transferred her attention to Jess. “Maybe we should go to the temple and get a charm for you, Min.”
“What?” said Jess. “What for?”
Mom couldn’t know what had happened, could she? She couldn’t have found out from Ah Ku, surely. It hadn’t even been half an hour since Jess had dropped him off at his house.
“So long you’ve been applying for jobs, still not getting much interviews,” said Mom. “Sometimes the temple can help. They can give you a charm to change your luck. I got for you when you did your exams, remember? It worked, right?”
The memory caught up with Jess. The morning of her SATs, Mom burning the slip of yellow paper, covered with Chinese characters, over a bowl of water. The black specks floating in the water as Jess brought it to her lips . . .
“I aced my SATs because I worked like a dog and had no social life,” said Jess. “It wasn’t because of the magic ash you made me drink!”
“Don’t be arrogant, Min,” said Mom. “If you don’t understand, better don’t say anything. Don’t cause offense.”
Jess thought of herself an hour ago, crouching under the sun, sweeping the debris of the goddess’s altar into a dustpan. It was a little too late to take “don’t cause offense” as her rule in religious matters.