by Allyson Bird
Peeble saw the crazed look on Blow’s face as a blue crab edged closer to his feet and stopped, hesitating as if waiting for reinforcements. It didn’t have to wait long.
“Get him out of there. I’ll get the treasure to you,” Peeble gave in.
“Well—what are you waitin’ for? Go and get your divin’ gear.” Wanda motioned with the blunderbuss once more.
“Just one thing. How come you haven’t got your hands on it before now if it’s so close?”
“You’ll see,” Wanda replied, her half smirk breaking into a full grin.
An hour later, after checking his diving gear, Peeble was on the bottom of the inlet staring at a partially buried sea chest. Wanda, who apparently had no problem breathing underwater, swam to some nearby rocks and showed no inclination to come any closer. Peeble had no trouble fastening the hook to the old chain already around the chest, and he couldn’t help wondering why the other divers before him had failed to get the chest to a boat above. Or, at the very least, drag the chest across to where Wanda and the other women could get their hands on it. He looked across at her: she seemed eager to come and help him, but something was stopping her. She was undoubtedly a revenant—a supernatural creature—but seemed tied to the house, and no more than a little ways beyond it.
Peeble didn’t have to wait long before he found out what had defeated the other divers. He felt the current move him forwards slightly. He turned and saw that the sandy bottom was being stirred up by something—something big.
Out of the murky water came a face so wild in its countenance it terrified him. Wild, black hair floated around milk white eyes—the eyes of Blackbeard himself. He brandished a sword menacingly close to Peeble, who instinctively drew back. The sword hit a rock then fell to the seabed. It had come to within an inch of Peeble’s shoulder. He felt his feet sink into the sandy bottom as he tried to back away, but Blackbeard pinned him against the rock and was feeling for the knife that was tucked into his belt. Blackbeard was all fire and fury, the weight of the water hardly holding him back at all. Peeble looked frantically at Wanda, only a few feet away. She also had a knife in her hand and either could not, or would not come to his aid.
He felt himself weakening in the struggle and saw the dim glint of the knife coming up to his throat. Then he felt Blackbeard’s body slump slightly towards him and Peeble managed to push him away. Blackbeard tried to reach over his shoulder. Peeble saw a harpoon in the pirate’s back and looked around for the person who had fired it. He saw another diver swimming towards him and recognised the diving suit: it was his brother Blowfish.
Blackbeard was still struggling to get the harpoon out, when he stumbled backwards towards the waiting hands of Wanda. As she tore her knife across Blackbeard’s throat Peeble saw a look of victory in her eyes. In a violent rage she brought the knife down again and again until she hacked his head off. No blood stained the water.
It didn’t take long for Peebles and Blow to drag the treasure chest along the seabed to where the boat was positioned above them, to where Wanda was waiting with the other wives on the sandy sea bottom. The boys weren’t going to cross a woman who was not only undead, but had just finished off one of the most notorious pirates that had ever plundered the high seas. Exhausted, they then dragged themselves to the safety of the small boat.
Once on board Peeble took off his mask and coughed. “How did you get away?”
Blow smiled at his brother. “Come on, Peeble. None of those women had been laid for over two hundred years. There had to be one who would—”
“You’re kidding me—you didn’t!”
“Relax. I didn’t. I can’t say it didn’t cross my mind though, as they still look pretty good to me.”
“You’re one sick man, bro,” Peeble said, shaking his head.
He briefly thought how goddamned hungry he was and dismissed it instantly, remembering the bluefish. He straightened his stiff back and stretched. It was no good—he had to know. Against their better instincts, they both jumped into the water one last time.
Peebles and Blow saw Wanda sitting on the huge chest half buried in the shifting sand. They attempted to get closer but she put her hand up in a warning gesture, the red hair flying in the sea around her like tortured snakes. Her jaw drop mouthed the words:
“Not for you.”
There was a sudden movement of the chest and the jolt looked as if it would rock Wanda apart. She fell off. The lid slowly creaked open by itself. The two divers didn’t follow the wives as they unloaded the chest, bar by bar. They saw what Wanda had done to Blackbeard, and although his head would remain for all eternity, detached from his body, they really, really did not want to lose theirs.
Fourteen wives made off with the silver bars. Wanda, originally known as Mary Ormond of Bath, North Carolina, made sure the treasure was delivered to the descendants of the forty children of Blackbeard the pirate. After the many generations there wouldn’t be much to go around, but it was the principle of the thing that mattered.
Oh, and as an afterthought, Wanda placed Blackbeard’s severed head up in the rigging in The Sly Boy. No one ever knew it was real and people often commented on how grisly it looked. As for the smell, it was amazing what she could do with a little sweet apple and preservatives.
The Celestial Dragon
“The silence of pure innocence
Persuades when speaking fails.”
The Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare.
It was the wonderful taste of tiny, mouthwatering egg custard tarts that Lian remembered most about a trip she had made with her father. Her father, Victor Lee, had taken them on the 11 a.m. hydrofoil to Macau, and Lian had been disappointed that it didn’t travel fast due to a low fog that hung on the Pearl River Delta.
Once in Macau they sought out one of the little bakeries and Lian ate three egg custard tarts in a row—and her father just laughed at her and took the box away. Lian was tall for her age, a head taller than most girls of ten. Her teacher, Mr. Yimou, had often called her a dreamy girl, but Lian knew her father was proud of her. It showed in his brown eyes and his smile when he gently chided her.
Victor Lee had taken his daughter to Macau to buy an antique wardrobe. The trip had been two months before her father’s death and the wardrobe had been delivered the day after her father’s funeral. Lian’s mother had cried when it arrived. Three weeks had passed since the funeral and now the memory of the custard tarts made her feel sick and unhappy.
Victor Lee’s head, upon hitting the ground after falling from the roof thirty-seven floors up, had split open like a melon and a brown eye lay a few metres from the body. Lian knew this because she had returned from school and been about to enter the building at the time. And it was she who used her jacket to cover up what remained of her broken father.
Lian’s mother had been out shopping at the time of her husband’s death and Lian’s sister, Suki, hadn’t been seen for a week. Lian had no idea where she was. There had been a letter demanding a ransom of twenty-five thousand Hong Kong dollars that her mother and father had already paid, but Suki had not been returned to them. The police had no success in finding her and Lian and her mother were overwhelmed by the loss of half their family. The verdict on her father’s death had been suicide, through the grief of losing his daughter. But Lian knew her father would not have left them. Would he?
The New Year was only a day away and the apartment would usually be filled with bright gold and red banners. Last year, as a family, they had gone down to the Wan Chai harbour front and watched the colourful performers and floats. The air had been filled with the smell of the polluted harbour, only occasionally cut through with the faint aroma of cooked meat.
Lian looked up to the mountain from her high-rise apartment in Sheung Wan. Her room was directly above the hole, which was four apartments wide and eight deep. It had been left in the middle of the block for the spirit dragon of the mountain to get to the sea. It was to this spirit that she prayed now. The dragon,
she struggled to remember, was the symbol of strength, goodness, courage, and endurance.
Lian felt suddenly uneasy.
As a consequence of grief her mother had never left her bed since the funeral. Each day she slept, in her own dream world, where no doubt she found her missing daughter and her dead husband. Lian brought home dim sum for her every day, which she didn’t eat. So Lian would eat it, because she had to or she would get sick too, and there would be no one to look after her mother. The dim sum just tasted like egg custard to her.
“Mother, you need to eat.”
Her mother lay still, within the beige silk sheets that her husband had bought for her birthday in November.
“Tomorrow I will go to Mong Kok and buy you more silk and it will make you happy.”
Silence. Lian moved her mother’s dark hair from her pale face and brushed a tear away.
Lian remembered shouting at the policeman. “Why would my father kill himself? He loved us. He had no reason to do it.”
“People do strange things,” Detective Shan had replied with a shrug.
Lian was convinced someone had killed her father—but for what reason? Had it something to do with Suki? There was very little crime in Hong Kong, except mafia crime. Did her father owe money to someone?
The phone rang and broke the silence, but for the third time that week there was no one at the end of the line. With a sudden surge of determination, Lian searched for the box of New Year decorations and found them in a hall cupboard. She began to deck Mai Lee’s bedroom in gold and red. When Lian was sure her mother was sleeping she left the apartment to make her way to the Wan Chai harbour to watch the celebrations. As she left, she felt a hot wind on the back of her neck and the smell of smoke hung in the air. She thought of the mountain and her prayer.
The streets were packed with hundreds of people shouting, “Kung Hei Fat Choi—Kung Hei Fat Choi.” But she could not wish them a Happy New Year in return. More than once she thought she saw her father’s face in the crowd mouthing the chant, but she could not hear his voice above the rest. She wrestled with the idea of getting the traditional Jiaozi dumplings that they ate every New Year’s Eve—perhaps her mother would be tempted by them. Still, Lian could not get that taste of egg custard out of her mouth. She ate little these days too, and she noted how thin her pale wrists were getting.
An old woman fell against her and smiled an apology, thrusting a red packet decorated with gold dragons into her hand.
“Leisee,” she muttered.
“Not just lucky money,” the old woman shouted in her ear. And again she thought she saw her father’s smiling face in the crowd and felt the warmth of the mountain wind on her neck. A few paces more and another red and gold packet was placed in her hand, then a third, and yet another until she lost count of how many had been stuffed into her pockets, and thrust into her hands.
“I don’t need your money, really I don’t. My father is a wealthy man,” she said, struggling with her emotions as one more was given to her. She couldn’t remember the faces of the people who gave her the envelopes, only the feeling of good intention and wishes that were rapidly dissipated by her own confusion.
Lian ran all the way home, her pockets full of the packets and her heart racing with the effort—and a strange feeling of anticipation, as if something was going to happen imminently. The reflected lights of Hong Kong harbour danced strangely on the water. She put her key in the door of the apartment, her head swimming with the colour red, which brought back terrifying images of her father’s death. Her mother was still sleeping. After checking she was still breathing Lian hurried to her room and emptied the contents of her pockets on the blue cover. There were a dozen gold and red packets in total and the gold dragons on each packet glistened under the far-too-bright light of her room.
With shaking hands, she reached out and picked up one of the packets and carefully tore it open. Within it was a business card, that of one Richard Molk of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Nothing else; no money. Lian reached for a second and opened it. In it was five thousand Hong Kong dollars—a very large sum for lucky money. In the third was a cheque made out to her mother, Mai Lee, for five times that amount. Each envelope either held top dollars or cheques for sums of money made out to her mother. The last one contained something different: a photo of the Man Mo Temple. She recognised it because her father had once taken her there. The temple was very small.
She could taste egg custard again.
That night she had the most wondrous dream that everything was as it should be, with no broken father, no missing sister and a mother who was well and happy with her family. They were having a great feast in an enormous room, with grandmothers bouncing their grandchildren on their knees and singing songs of the old ones, even older than themselves, reaching back into antiquity. In a place of honour lay the dragon, strong and proud and watching over every one of them. The strange group seemed to know one another, as if they had been together for a long, long time.
In the morning Lian remembered the dream and her feeling of pride in her family, the memory quickly becoming a deep sadness. She left for school as usual, but instead of getting the MTR she decided to ring the number of the Pinkerton Agency.
“Good morning, the Pinkerton Detective Agency, how may I help you?” Lian lost her nerve and hung up. She was beginning to feel stupid but she had to make the call.
Again the woman’s voice with a high pitch tone answered.
“Can I speak to Richard Molk please?”
“Just one moment please.” Lian could hear music in the background. It was elegant and yet she found it hard to listen to, for she felt so very, very sick.
“Richard Molk speaking.”
“My name is Lian Lee, the daughter of the man who fell from the building in Sheung Wan?”
“Yes, yes I know of the name Victor Lee. How can I help?”
“I need to see you. I have money.”
“I really don’t know if I can help you—it was suicide—wasn’t it?”
“No, no Mr. Molk it decidedly was not,” said Lian in the most grown up voice she could muster.
Lian tried to coax her mother to eat dim sum, but after taking a little she waved it away. If there was not a glimmer of hope soon she would have to get help for her mother, or there would only be her left to place a candle in the window, with the wish that her sister would find her way home. Before she left, Lian made sure that her mother had plenty of water and snacks, which she placed on the small table by her bed.
Half an hour later Lian was in the smart Pinkerton office looking across the desk at Richard Molk, whom she couldn’t help noticing, looked a little like Jackie Chan.
“Well Lian Lee, with very little to go on I don’t see how we can proceed. The police have closed the case.”
“It’s not just about my father. I want you to find out what happened to my sister too.”
“I did hear about your sister’s disappearance. What happened there?” Molk rubbed the back of his neck with irritation. He had forgotten about how unusual the case was. He had been involved in cases regarding the kidnapping of young girls before, but those cases had been on mainland China.
“This is my sister Suki.” Lian handed him a photo of her. Molk couldn’t see anything about the girl that made her stand out from any other young teenager.
“How old is she?”
“Sixteen.”
Molk sat back in his chair and sighed. “Just sixteen?”
Lian nodded and looked away out of the window down into the busy street, awash with stall traders and shoppers. Perhaps her sister was not really far away, just trapped in a building close by.
“I have something else, Mr. Molk.” Lian gave him the photo of Man Mo Temple.
Molk’s leather chair squeaked as he leaned forward to take the photo. He looked at it, puzzled.
“I don’t see how this can help. Where did you get it from and why do you think it is connected to your father’s death?”
“It was given to me in the street. We could go there. I think I need someone to go there with me. I can pay.”
“It’s not about the money. You are too young to employ a detective.” Molk sighed. “Okay, look—I’ll go there tomorrow, ask a few questions and look around a little. It’s the best I can do.”
“One more thing, Mr. Molk.”
“Yes.”
“When you go to look for Suki, I am coming with you.”
Molk shook his head. “I can’t take you with me. Give me one good reason why I should.”
“Because I’m afraid, Mr. Molk. I think that the men who took Suki will take me too. I need to be looked after as well.”
Lian explained that there was no one to take care of her, and that her mother would be all right for the next twenty-four hours or so. Reluctantly, Molk agreed to take her with him and before he could ask, Lian held up her passport for him to see.
Molk rang his friend Remmy, who was steadily climbing his way up the ranks in the police force. With every new promotion it was getting harder to get information out of him.
“Remmy, what do you know about the disappearance of Suki Lee, the girl whose father jumped in Sheung Wan.”
“Not much to say, really. I was surprised a Hong Kong girl was taken as that usually happens on the mainland.”
“Do you have any leads at all? A note demanding the ransom was left on a seat in a church. You got nothing from that?”
Remmy seemed hesitant to reply but he owed Molk a few favours and perhaps could be useful to him again. “In my opinion the case was closed too quickly and there was some falling out with the police in Macau. There was some reason to think that is where she was taken. Initially.”
“Initially?”
“China is a big place. She could have been taken anywhere after that. There are plenty of families that would pay for a bride—but to take a Hong Kong girl, that’s unusual. And it would have been easier for them to kidnap a girl from the countryside. Why come to Hong Kong?” Remmy paused, “…there’s another thing.”