Black Water Sister

by Zen Cho

  “Ah Kong died in an accident,” said Ah Ma. “He was riding his motorbike and a car hit him. He died on the road there. No chance to go to hospital also. The driver of the car was OK. Hardly damaged the car.”

  Her voice was calm, her face expressionless. “Ah Kong, half the time if he’s awake, he’s drunk. Knowing him, sooner or later this kind of thing will happen. That’s what everybody said.”

  Jess wasn’t sure what Ah Ma was trying to tell her. “So the god had nothing to do with it?”

  “It was the god who caused the accident,” said Ah Ma. “Ah Kong was very lucky. All his life, no matter how useless he was, somehow it turned out OK for him. If not for the god, he would have lived until very old. But this big sister is clever. The way she did it, nobody can know. You believe or not?”

  Jess stared. She couldn’t read Ah Ma’s face, didn’t know what to think. If Ah Ma had been praying for her husband’s death, it would have been natural for her, an uneducated woman, to take the accident as the fruit of her efforts—the gift of a vindictive god.

  Yet the god was real. She could take control of your body, give you the strength to strangle a man, or stab him. Jess had felt that.

  But could the god move the hand of fate? Nudge a speeding car so it crossed paths with a man on a motorbike?

  What Jess thought of as her own mind—a rational place, under her control—said no.

  But there was a deeper part of herself that she didn’t control—a roiling sea just beneath the level of consciousness, from which unsuspected creatures emerged sometimes in dreams. And that part said maybe.

  It was tempting to suppress that part, pretend it wasn’t there or didn’t matter, as she had done all her life. But if she was going to fight Ng Chee Hin—and win—it was that part of herself that would do it. The part where the god lived.

  “Believe or don’t believe, it doesn’t matter,” said Ah Ma, taking Jess’s silence for incredulity. “That’s the power of the god.”

  “Why didn’t you ask her to run a truck into Ng Wei Sherng, then? Why use me?”

  “Because the god wanted to send a message to that useless bastard,” said Ah Ma. “Ah Kong was different. Nobody needs to know. This one, she wanted Ng Chee Hin to understand she is the one who did it. Then only he won’t go and disturb her altar.

  “But now no altar already.” Ah Ma straightened up, cracking her back as if it ached, though it wasn’t like she had a real spine.

  “Ah Ku was thinking of moving the temple,” said Jess. “He said the other gods wouldn’t mind.”

  “Correct. I told Ah Ku also,” said Ah Ma. “For the other gods, any place is OK, so long as the feng shui is good. It was only this big sister who needed to stay near the tree there. Now there’s no point for the temple to be there. It’s bad luck only. Without the altar, what is the god except a hungry ghost?”

  She gave Jess a sharp look. “You better watch out. After you spoiled the shrine, you think the god will want to help? You’ll be lucky if she doesn’t curse you!”

  “Oh, she’ll help,” said Jess.

  There was something strange about her voice. It was like the words rode on the breath of another person.

  Ah Ma’s head whipped around. She looked at Jess as though she had noticed something new about her and was outraged not to have registered it before.

  “Your aura is not the same already,” she said accusingly. “What happened to you?”

  “I went to consult a medium,” said Jess. “At Master Yap’s temple. Do you know it? It’s in Balik Pulau.”

  Something flickered in Ah Ma’s face. It was gone before Jess could pin it down, but if she had to guess, she would have said it was unease.

  “Balik Pulau? I don’t go there. Too far.” Ah Ma was attempting nonchalance, not very successfully.

  “I called out to you, you know,” said Jess, watching her. “When I was there. You didn’t hear me?”

  It was interesting having Ah Ma be the one who was trying to catch up for once. Jess was enjoying the novelty.

  “Where did you go after I destroyed the shrine?” she asked. “Were you running away from the god?”

  Ah Ma bristled. “Why I need to run away for what? I’m not the one who spoiled the shrine. If anybody needs to run away, it should be you! But no point you run also. The god will sure catch you.”

  The scolding seemed to work off some of Ah Ma’s bad temper. She said, less grumpily, “I went to see your cousins. Ah Ku’s children, Ah Yen they all.”

  Jess blinked. “Oh. You found another medium?”

  It should have been a relief. Instead it made her feel curiously desolate. She didn’t want to be anybody’s medium, but it wasn’t great feeling replaceable either.

  “I tried to talk to them. But they couldn’t hear,” said Ah Ma. “I even went to KL and talked to Ah Ling, the older girl. Like nothing like that. If I can go to UK, it’ll be different. The boy, Ah Ping, out of all the children he’s closest to me. He can see spirits also. If I can talk to him, he’ll sure hear me. But even going to KL already was not easy. I was so tired. Felt sick, like I had fever like that. I had to go back to the columbarium to rest.”

  “What columbarium?”

  “The place where they put me lah. They burned the body already, but the ashes they put there,” said Ah Ma. She paused. “I heard you call Ah Ma, but how can I come? If I come also, I can’t help you. You think I can fight Tai Seng Ia? He’s one of the biggest gods. If I try to fight him he will straight off wallop me!”

  Ah Ma looked guilty.

  Jess hadn’t been prepared for this. Nothing Ah Ma had said or done previously suggested she felt she owed anything to Jess.

  “You went to see Tai Seng Ia for what?” said Ah Ma. “I went off already what. You got what problem to ask him about?”

  Jess noted Ah Ma’s tacit admission that she was a problem worth seeking divine help to resolve.

  “There was the god,” Jess reminded her. “I was scared of her. I thought Tai Seng Ia could help. But the medium there told me there was nothing to be done. He said the god wants me to be her medium.”

  Ah Ma nodded, as though Jess was only confirming something she had already guessed. “Makes sense.”

  “Does it? I wrecked her shrine!”

  “When I came back from KL, I was thinking, ‘How come I feel so bad?’” said Ah Ma. “I talked to you when you’re in US also and I was OK. The big sister sent me to you, but why? You didn’t help me protect her temple also.

  “Then I realized. Must be she didn’t choose you for Ah Ma. She chose you for herself. She wanted me to bring you to her.”

  Ah Ma paused. She seemed to have more to say, but was having difficulty bringing it out.

  “If I knew,” she said finally, “I wouldn’t have taken you to the temple. But it’s too late now.”

  It was the closest she’d ever come to getting an apology from Ah Ma, Jess realized. An idea struck her.

  “What if I leave Penang?” she said. “You said you couldn’t go too far from the columbarium. She needs to stay near the tree in the temple, right? So if I went far enough, she wouldn’t be able to follow me.”

  The look Ah Ma gave her was all the more withering for its lack of malice. “If you tried before, maybe can. Now cannot already. Now you yourself let the god in. True or not?”

  Mr. Sim’s hands around her throat, with all the Monkey God’s preternatural strength in them. Ah Tat coming at her with a knife.

  I had to, Jess wanted to say. I had to do it, or they would have killed me.

  But there was no point. It was like a little kid protesting, “It’s not fair!” Life wasn’t fair. That was how it worked.

  “How can you tell?” said Jess. She remembered what Ah Ma had said earlier. “Is it something about my aura?”

  “Because you can see Ah Ma,” said Ah
Ma. “Even though this time I haven’t opened your eyes also. The god is inside you already.”

  Jess lowered her eyes. It wasn’t like she would have left Penang to flee the god anyway, she told herself—it was easier to think about that than to linger on what Ah Ma had just said. She needed the god.

  “You can ask the big sister for help,” said Ah Ma. “But are you sure or not you want what she has to give? She’s hungry, you know. Scaring that bastard won’t be enough for her.”

  The look in her eyes was distant. “Ah Ma gave her Ah Kong’s soul, but even that wasn’t enough. She wanted more. But it’s not easy to kill. If you’re angry at the man, if you can imagine his face when he dies, then only you can do it. After that time, with Ah Kong, I didn’t want already.”

  A memory floated to the surface of Jess’s mind. “What about the scrap rubber guy?”

  The effect of this was startling. Ah Ma jumped as though she’d stepped on a live wire. She stood for a moment, her mouth working soundlessly, before she sputtered, “Ah Ku told you what about him? How does he know? Who told him?”

  “Ah Ku didn’t tell me anything. It was my mom.” Jess peered at her. Ah Ma had gone old, white-haired and gaunt, her lips drained of color. “Uh, are you OK?”

  “Your mother knows?”

  “Knows what?”

  “You don’t pretend to be stupid,” said Ah Ma. Joke was on her; Jess was genuinely being stupid. “She knows about that useless bastard!”

  Jess couldn’t understand why Ah Ma was so shocked. Ah Ma must have known Ah Chor might tell Mom about her erring mother’s liaison. It was clear Mom’s grandmother had held Ah Ma up as an example of what not to do.

  “Yeah. Why wouldn’t my mom remember the ‘useless bastard’? She remembers you going off with him,” said Jess.

  Her brain registered what she was missing before her mouth caught up.

  That useless bastard. Jess was talking about the scrap rubber guy, the faithless loan shark boyfriend of Ah Ma’s hardscrabble past. But Ah Ma only ever used that term for one person.

  Jess’s jaw dropped.

  “The scrap rubber guy was Ng Chee Hin,” she said. “Ng Chee Hin was your lover!”

  Ah Ma was having a realization of her own. Comprehension, then regret, flashed through her eyes in rapid succession. Her face closed down. “What are you talking about?”

  If Ah Ma hadn’t powered through life on sheer aggression, maybe she would have learned subtler tactics. As it was, she was better at hectoring than lying.

  “Is that what this has all been about?” said Jess. “You’ve been trying to get back at your ex?”

  “You’re wrong already. You think I’m so sensitive?” said Ah Ma, abandoning denial. “Man is like that, very fast they lose interest. I knew. When that bastard didn’t want me anymore, I didn’t make noise. I went off and found my own house. Even after Ah Ku came, I never asked him for money.

  “The police came and asked me about that bastard, you know?” added Ah Ma. “Promised me this and that. When promise didn’t work, threatened this and that. Even then I didn’t open my mouth. He cannot say I simpan dendam.

  “But when he tried to take the temple land, when he said the god must go off somewhere else—then I wasn’t happy. I followed the god is because of him in the first place. Now that useless bastard wants to get rid of her shrine? Please lah! He didn’t want to marry me. Even when he made so much money, one sen also he didn’t give me. After all that, I still gave him face. But he’s not willing to respect me back. That’s why I had to stay, cannot move on to the next life. He must learn.”

  Jess was only half listening. Something about what Ah Ma had said niggled at her. Even after Ah Ku came, I never asked him for money.

  Ah Ma had been pregnant with Ah Ku when her husband died. She’d gone to her lover with a big belly. “She didn’t even wait to give birth first!” Mom had whispered, scandalized.

  No way, thought Jess incredulously. But she didn’t doubt the epiphany that had broken upon her. It settled in her mind like a fact, like something she had always known.

  It was amazing she hadn’t thought of it at the time Mom was telling her about Ah Ma’s life—but then, there had been a lot to process in that conversation. What wasn’t amazing was the fact that Mom hadn’t raised the possibility herself. Mom would never breathe the suspicion aloud, if it had even occurred to her. She was curiously blinkered about certain matters. Jess should know.

  Jess said aloud, “Does Ah Ku know Ng Chee Hin is his father?”

  That was whom Sherng had reminded her of when she met him at his café, the reason why he had felt so familiar. The narrow eyes, the gentle bemused smile. Sherng looked like Ah Ku.

  Ah Ma froze.

  Jess could tell Ah Ma was considering denying it, but then she looked at her. Jess could practically hear her think, It’s only Ah Min.

  “Nobody knows,” said Ah Ma shortly. She didn’t bother veiling the menace in her voice when she said, “You want to tell people, is it?”

  “Does Ng Chee Hin know?”

  Ah Ma raised her chin. Her hair was black again. She looked vulnerable, a defiant young woman, no older than Jess.

  “If he doesn’t want me, means he doesn’t need his son,” she said. “If he knows, he’ll sure want to keep Ah Ku. But I’m the mother. I’m the one who gave birth to him. That’s why. If you do bad things, you’ll have bad luck. You make all the money also doesn’t mean you’ll be happy. You look at that bastard! He’s so old but he has one son only, that Indian boy.”

  Jess saw that this had been Ah Ma’s revenge on her ex-lover—a revenge so purely satisfying even murder could hardly compare. She had deprived him of a son. There was probably worse you could do to a man like Ng Chee Hin, but not a lot worse.

  Of course, Ah Ma had been planning murder as well.

  “Is that why you wanted to kill his son—I mean, Ng Wei Sherng?” said Jess. “So Ah Ku could inherit?”

  Ah Ma started scoffing, “No lah! Nobody knows he’s the son. How can he inherit?”

  But her voice trailed off. She looked thoughtful.

  “Nowadays they can use DNA test to find out the father, right?” she said.

  Jess got to her feet. Her limbs protested at the position she’d forced them into for the past hour. She’d sat for so long in the warm bathroom that her T-shirt was damp with sweat. The place was a mess, and she’d need a minor miracle if she was going to dispose of the joss sticks and ash without anyone noticing.

  It had all been worth it. She wasn’t sure how she’d use it yet, but Ah Ma had given her a potent weapon.

  “I’m going to see Ng Chee Hin on Thursday,” she said. “You want to come?”

  TWENTY

  Jess didn’t know what someone who worked at a Moral Uplifting Society would wear. Her experience of Chinese religious institutions suggested a polo shirt would be a safe bet, but given she didn’t own any polo shirts, she decided to go formal. She was visiting the fifth richest man in Malaysia, after all.

  Most of her wardrobe was in storage, but she had access to a single formal outfit she’d bought for job interviews: a charcoal-gray sheath dress and a black blazer.

  When she saw herself all dressed up in the mirror, she looked like a stranger. A serious person, capable of doing a real job. Someone whose life consisted of more than getting jerked around at the whims of gods and spirits.

  Even Ah Ma thought she looked good.

  “Not bad ah,” she said. “But what for you did your hair like that?”

  It had caused huge drama when Jess had come home from a clandestine appointment at the hair salon with an undercut and a pompadour bleached platinum blonde.

  Mom acted like the world had come to an end. She could hardly have responded worse if Jess had come out as a lesbian.

  “How are you going to find job like that?�
�� she’d wailed. “Or get married? The man won’t want you, the boss won’t want you. You look like—like a bad girl!”

  Ah Ma was unlike Mom and Kor Kor and the rest of them in that Jess could answer her question with the truth.

  “I told you, Ng Chee Hin’s PA knows what I look like. I’ve got to distract her, or she’s going to work out something’s up.”

  Jess had done some internet research on the art of disguise. The series of YouTube explainers by a former CIA agent had been particularly helpful.

  Pooi Mun had encountered Jess as a teary girl with black hair past her shoulders. She wouldn’t be expecting to see Jess in the self-possessed young woman with blond cropped hair Jess now saw in the mirror.

  Admittedly the hair didn’t really fit her invented backstory, any more than it matched the corporate drag. But it was attention grabbing—and that meant, hopefully, Pooi Mun would have less attention to spare for recognizing Jess.

  Ah Ma was skeptical. “You cannot just buy a wig meh?”

  “It has to be convincing,” said Jess.

  Which was true. But the other reason she’d done it was she secretly, unironically loved her new hair. It made her feel brave, edgy. She looked hot.

  Sharanya’s going to freak out when she sees it, said Jess’s treacherous brain.

  Her mind closed over the thought, burying it. She couldn’t afford to dwell on the past. She had to focus on the plan.

  She did her face with her mind carefully blank. Pooi Mun had seen her with minimal makeup on, so she went for a heavier look than she’d normally wear for the office. Then she put large plastic-rimmed glasses on her nose.

  The finishing touch was the switchblade. She slipped it inside her blazer, just in case.

  “Good,” said Ah Ma, who’d helped her source the knife.

  Sejahtera Holdings was headquartered in a towering office block in glass and steel, more like something you might find in New York or Hong Kong than somewhere in Penang.