Black Water Sister

by Zen Cho

  More to the point, she was beginning to feel it no longer mattered. The main source of the problem, the Black Water Sister, had shifted her attention elsewhere, now that her altar had been destroyed. The construction workers didn’t have to worry about her anymore. Jess should know.

  Even so, she asked.

  “I told him about the accident,” said Sherng. “But we didn’t have a chance to talk it through. Then that whole thing at the temple happened, where you, um . . .”

  “Tried to strangle you,” said Jess. “Does your dad know about that?”

  Sherng looked away, uncomfortable. “No. No, I didn’t tell him about you.”

  “I owe you one there,” said Jess. “I wouldn’t be here, talking to you, if your dad knew what I tried to do.”

  Sherng didn’t deny it.

  She’d have to get off her ass and send those photos to someone who could make use of them to put pressure on Ng Chee Hin. It didn’t look like Sherng was going to be of much use.

  “What are the stories you heard about the temple?” said Jess, because she didn’t want him asking about the photos.

  Sherng shrugged. “Oh, you know. Mediums doing black magic. Beautiful women who appear at night, but they’re ghosts who want to kill you. Russell Lee’s True Singapore Ghost Stories kind of stuff.”

  Jess’s expression must have made it obvious that he’d lost her.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I forgot you’re American.”

  This made Jess laugh despite herself. “I’m really not.”

  “You’re not Malaysian lah, I mean,” said Sherng.

  That was also true. She wasn’t Malaysian or American. Just as she wasn’t straight but she definitely wasn’t gay, if anyone was asking. She wasn’t her family’s Min, but she wasn’t the Jess who’d had a life under that name, before her dad had gotten sick. Her beautiful life, with her beautiful girlfriend, her friends, her creative projects, her ambitions.

  It all seemed far away now. No wonder Ah Ma had found it easy to get into her head. She was a walking nothing—a hole in the universe, perfect for letting the dead through.

  She shivered.

  “You’re in trouble, right?” said Sherng. “What’s going on?”

  He looked sorry for her. It made Jess want to punch him, but it also made her want to cry.

  She couldn’t trust Sherng, but he was the only person she had to trust. He had been there at the temple, had seen what she had done. He’d seen it for what it truly was—something being done to her. He wasn’t family, wasn’t even really a friend. They owed each other nothing. That meant, maybe, she could talk to him.

  “You mentioned a woman in your message,” said Sherng. “You said ‘she’ wasn’t coming back for a while. What did you mean?”

  Jess looked down at the uneaten third of her cooling panini. She hadn’t been able to finish it. Her stomach hurt.

  She said, “Why didn’t you tell your dad about me?”

  She meant, Give me a reason to trust you.

  Sherng was quiet for a moment.

  “You know,” he said, “I don’t believe in ghosts and spirits. I’m almost the only one out of my friends and family who’s a skeptic. Malaysians are so superstitious. Everything that happens, it must be because of hantu.

  “But what I saw at the temple that night . . .” He shook his head. “I can’t explain it. Unless everyone else is right, and I’ve been wrong all this time.”

  He looked Jess in the eye. “Who was it who attacked me? It wasn’t you, was it?”

  Jess hesitated.

  But she needed somebody to talk to. Somebody who would believe her, whom she could confide in without worrying about exposing them to danger, or freaking them out. An ally—one she didn’t need to protect.

  “You know the real reason why I asked you to come to the garden temple?” she said finally. “It was my grandmother’s idea. She came with me that day.”

  Sherng’s forehead furrowed. “Then she went off, is it? I didn’t see her.”

  “No. You wouldn’t have,” said Jess. “She died last year.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Jess only had Ah Ku’s home number, because that was the number Ah Ma had known. She rang on Monday, hiding in the bathroom at the office.

  Inevitably, a woman’s voice answered. Not a young woman, either, which meant it had to belong to her affronted aunt.

  “It’s Sze Min,” said Jess. “Poey Hoon’s child. Is that Ah Kim?”

  “Yes.” The voice sounded distinctly unfriendly.

  “Sorry I didn’t come in to greet you the other day, Ah Kim,” said Jess. “I didn’t want to disturb you. Ah Ku needed someone to drive him back, otherwise I wouldn’t have come to your house without warning. I’m sure you were busy.”

  There was a pause. Then:

  “Stay in US so long, still clever to speak Hokkien. Not bad ah,” said Ah Kim. She sounded gruff, but also genuinely impressed.

  Jess enjoyed half a second of relief. Then Ah Kim said:

  “What happened to Ah Ku’s motorbike? Did he gamble it away or what? When he went out to meet you that time he had a motorbike, when he came back don’t have already. Don’t say you don’t know. You didn’t drive him there, so must be you were there when he lost it.”

  “Uh,” said Jess, but she was rescued by Ah Ku himself. She heard him saying:

  “I told you already, the motorbike broke down. Ah Hock took it back to his house. No need to interrogate your niece, like police only. You think she stole it or what?”

  His voice came down the line. “Eh, Ah Min! Calling for what?”

  “I need to talk to you,” said Jess. “Can we meet?”

  Ah Ku cleared his throat. “Cannot lah, Ah Min. After what happened at the temple that time, I better not go out so much. After that bastard comes after me. Cannot talk over the phone ah?”

  Jess glanced at the door. She’d chosen to make her call in the customer bathroom at the back of the showroom. The staff bathroom was right next to Kor Tiao’s office, and she’d figured her chances of getting interrupted by customers at nine a.m. on a Monday were pretty slim. She wasn’t hearing anything on the other side of the door, but she lowered her voice.

  “It’s kind of difficult,” she said. “I want to talk to you about Ah Tat.”

  That got his attention. “You know where Ah Tat is? He’s supposed to go to the shop today, but they all say he didn’t turn up. Not answering his phone also.”

  “He attacked me on Saturday,” said Jess. “Had a knife and everything. I guess he didn’t tell you?”

  There was a brief silence. The silence of shock, thought Jess—or the silence of someone who had just been found out? After all, Jess had witnessed Ah Ku’s participation in an attempted murder. He might want to get rid of her, too, especially if he intended to try again with Sherng.

  Ah Ku had said he’d only done it because of Ah Ma. It wasn’t clear what reason he’d have to want to off Sherng now, given he seemed resigned about having to move the temple. But what did she actually know about his motives?

  “Where do you want to meet?” he said finally.

  Jess let him choose. She was half expecting him to invite her to his house, which would have been awkward, but it seemed he didn’t want to bring this business home any more than Jess did. He asked her to come to a kopitiam not too far from his place, though it wasn’t till the weekend that he’d be able to meet.

  They fixed on Saturday, which meant there was a whole working week to get through before Jess would be able to see him. But it was a weirdly peaceful week—the quietest she’d had since she’d arrived in Penang, untroubled by gods or ghosts or portentous dreams. Maybe the blood Jess had spilled while fighting off Ah Tat had propitiated the Black Water Sister for a time.

  She avoided looking at the cut on her hand. It tended to send her mi
nd down unfruitful avenues, wondering what the god might want from her next—and when she would come to demand it.

  Jess arrived early for her meetup with Ah Ku. The kopitiam was in a corner lot at the end of a row of shophouses, open to the elements on two sides. The tiled walls were covered with posters advertising beer, soy milk, bird’s nest and various other delights, as well as the mandatory Chinese painting of a herd of horses. There was a row of hawker stalls selling noodles, rice, kuih and drinks along one side of the restaurant. A TV affixed to the wall was playing some K-drama, subtitled in Malay.

  It was busy, occupied by people eating breakfast. Jess went for a table on the five-foot way outside the kopitiam, positioned so nobody in the restaurant was likely to overhear their conversation. The stall nearest the entrance kept up a helpful din, with noodles sizzling in a giant wok, plates clattering and the uncle and auntie chefs addressing customers in a continual hoarse bellow.

  She was already sweating by the time she sat down. She wouldn’t be getting any relief from the ceiling fans spinning away indoors from here. But the table was visible from the restaurant and the road. Half of Penang would see it if anything . . . happened.

  Not that she thought anything would happen. It was Sherng who’d been worried about that. When, sitting in that Starbucks, she’d told him about Ah Ma and the god and everything that was going on, he said:

  “You need to talk to your uncle. He’s a medium, he’s the temple caretaker, he knew your Ah Ma best. If anyone is going to know what can be done about this Black Water Sister, it’ll be him.”

  Jess had hesitated. If she called Ah Ku, she might have to speak to Ah Kim, who was probably still mad at her and her mom. But Sherng misinterpreted the pause.

  “I can make sure you guys are watched,” he said. “If you’re concerned about safety. Razak can be there. He can make sure your uncle doesn’t try anything.”

  Jess gave him a weird look. “I’m not worried. He’s my uncle.”

  Sherng gave her a weird look right back. “He drugged you and tried to implicate you in a murder.”

  “Yeah, but that’s because Ah Ma made him do it.”

  Sherng frowned. “How old is he, fifty? You can’t blame his mom for everything he does.”

  “You haven’t met my grandmother,” Jess had said.

  She looked around now, checking the faces of the people around her and in the street. She’d told Sherng that she was meeting up with Ah Ku but she didn’t need backup; she would let him know how it went. It didn’t look like he’d sent Razak to watch her.

  Which was a good thing. It would have been creepy if Sherng had ignored her refusal of his offer. She was perfectly safe, Jess told herself.

  She tried not to look at the two red tablets affixed to the pillar by the table. There was a small ledge under each tablet, for offerings. The altar at the top was dedicated to Ti Kong, the Jade Emperor; the one at the bottom to Tua Pek Kong, the God of the Earth. The gods followed you everywhere on this island.

  Ah Ku was only five minutes late. Jess stood and waved to get his attention.

  “You want a drink, Ah Ku?” she said. “I’m going to order another teh peng.” She’d drunk most of her iced tea. The glass sat in a little pool of condensation on the table.

  “Don’t need,” said Ah Ku. He sat on the plastic chair Jess had pulled out for him. “What’s this about Ah Tat disturbing you?”

  Jess told the story, watching him—though she left out the part about having been on her way to see Ng Wei Sherng.

  Ah Ku didn’t look especially surprised, but he didn’t look alarmed, either, as Jess assumed you might if you’d been found out in a plot to murder your niece. He mostly looked disapproving.

  “This Ah Tat, he hangs out with these no-good kids,” he said. “They all talk big, want to show off. They’re always going to this so-called medium. He’s just a samseng who likes to act tough. Must be he advised Ah Tat to do. After you spoiled the god’s altar, Ah Tat was very scared. I gave him charms to fix his luck, but he was still worried. The medium must have told him he must take revenge on you to make the god happy.”

  Ah Ku sighed. “Stupid boy! He doesn’t know ah, the god doesn’t need his help to take revenge? If she wants to punish, she’ll punish. He doesn’t need to interfere. Don’t worry. I’ll scold him. He won’t disturb you again.”

  It was like Jess had told him Ah Tat had borrowed her phone and smashed the screen, rather than that he’d come at her with an actual knife. Annoyed, she said, “There’s no need to scold Ah Tat. He’s not going to try again after what we did to him.”

  Ah Ku looked amused. “You know how to scare Ah Tat ah? Small girl like you!”

  “It wasn’t me who scared him. It was the god.” Jess said deliberately, “Black Water Sister.” The name made her heart thud against her chest, a hollowness opening in her gut.

  But its effect on Ah Ku almost made up for that. He stared, horror wiping his face clean of all other expression. “What?”

  “She helped me deal with Ah Tat,” said Jess. “He’s fine, but he’ll be avoiding me from now on.” In the ensuing silence she flagged a waiter down and ordered a second teh peng. “You sure you don’t want anything to drink?”

  “What do you mean?” said Ah Ku, waving the waiter away. He lowered his voice. “The god came?”

  Jess waited till the waiter had gone back into the restaurant before saying, “Black Water Sister wants me to be her medium. That’s why I needed to talk to you. Can you tell me about her?”

  Ah Ku twitched at the god’s name. “Ah Ma told you what she’s called?”

  Jess nodded. She’d been wondering about the name. “Why is the god called that? She died where the temple is now, didn’t she? In a forest.” She thought of the pond in the garden temple, crowded with dozy terrapins. The water had been more of a cloudy brown than black, but maybe at night . . . “Is it because of the turtle pond?”

  “Pond? What pond?” said Ah Ku. “The temple is in Air Itam mah. Air hitam is Malay, means—”

  “Black water.” The prosaic explanation startled a laugh out of Jess. “Right. I should have guessed.”

  Ah Ku gave her a look of reproof. “You’re in this situation and you can still laugh? You don’t know only. This is very serious. How do you know the god has chosen you to be her medium? You had a dream or what?”

  “Yes,” said Jess, after a moment. “I had a dream about her. I went to a temple and they told me it meant she wants me as her medium.”

  Ah Ku ran his hands through his thinning hair, looking troubled. “Cham, cham, cham. Gone case already. I thought the god wanted to punish you after you spoiled her shrine, but I didn’t realize this is how.”

  “Is it a punishment?” said Jess, genuinely curious. She knew how she felt about the affair, but she’d thought Ah Ku might be more positive. “The temple told me it’s a blessing.”

  “What temple? Who told you?”

  “It was Master Yap’s temple in Balik Pulau,” said Jess. “Master Yap talked to me through a medium.”

  “Oh, it’s the god who said, is it?” said Ah Ku. “This point, you must ask humans, not gods. Any medium can tell you it’s not an easy life. Some more, this big sister . . .” He shook his head.

  “What?” said Jess. “Is she worse than other gods?”

  Her uncle didn’t answer. He cast his eyes down, looking troubled.

  As they sat in silence, the waiter came back and put Jess’s teh peng on the table. Ah Ku started fumbling for his wallet, but Jess had already got some change out in preparation. She paid before Ah Ku could.

  She cut off his objections, saying:

  “Ah Ku, I need your help. All of this—gods, ghosts, spirits—I don’t understand. I’m fighting for my life and I don’t know anything.”

  Tears rose unexpectedly to her eyes. Her first instinct was to h
ide them—but Ah Ku struck her as someone who didn’t like seeing girls cry. As embarrassing as it was, she let a tear roll down her cheek before wiping it off on the back of her hand.

  “No need to cry lah,” said Ah Ku, goaded beyond endurance. “It’s not so bad. When I was sixteen I already started dancing Kuan Kong. You look at me. I’m OK what.”

  “But this god is different,” said Jess. “Right?”

  As Ah Ku hesitated, she said, “I need to understand her. I need to know how to get away from her.”

  “If she chose you, there’s no such thing as getting away,” said Ah Ku.

  Master Yap had said the same thing. But Jess felt a kick of disappointment in her chest, as though, unbeknownst to her, it had been harboring a secret hope that Ah Ku would have a solution if she only asked.

  After a moment he said, “If it’s a big god, it’s not so bad. One of the high gods, like Kuan Kong, they’re not so violent. Their intention is good. They have more power, spiritual power. So it’s simple. If it’s a ghost, that’s different. In a way, easy also. You go to the temple, ask for a charm, can chase the ghost away already.

  “But this big sister, she’s not a ghost. She’s not a god like the high gods. She’s in-between. Being her medium is very difficult. Only someone like Ah Ma can handle.”

  “Because Ah Ma was tough?” said Jess. What was it Dad had said about Ah Ma? Things other people don’t dare to do, she can do.

  “Because she had no choice,” said Ah Ku grimly. “You think if she can choose, she’ll pray to such a spirit? Ah Ma was scared of the big sister also. But what to do? No other god can help her.”

  “She was sick, yeah, I know,” said Jess. “But why—”

  “Sick what sick!” said Ah Ku. “She was angry. Ah Ma had a hard life. Not like you. Your mother and father take care of you, right or not? Nobody looked after Ah Ma. Because she was poor, she was a woman, people didn’t treat her well. She didn’t like that. She wanted to give them back.”