Mount Emily Revisited

by Low Ying Ping

  Text copyright © 2016 by Low Ying Ping

  Illustrations by Chee Jia Yi

  Published in Singapore by Epigram Books

  www.epigrambooks.sg

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without written permission of the publisher.

  National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Name(s): Low, Ying Ping.

  Title: Mount Emily revisited: a novel / Low Ying Ping.

  Description: First edition. | Singapore: Epigram Books, [2016]

  Identifier(s): OCN 946459025 |

  ISBN 978-981-4757-16-4 (paperback) | 978-981-4757-17-1 (ebook)

  Subject(s): LCSH: Teenage girls—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. |

  Time travel—Fiction.

  Classification: DDC S823—dc23

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First Edition

  For my husband,

  Kien Hui—my rock, my haven

  chapter one

  h no, Mum, you’re not doing this to me again,” Patsy Goh protested.

  “I’m really sorry, dear, but it’s not my choice,” Mabel said. She stood at the doorway of Patsy’s room, giving her daughter a helpless and apologetic look.

  “It’s just so unfair!” Patsy cried. “You just went with Uncle Pat to New York last year and now you two are off to New Zealand! When will it ever be my turn to go anywhere?” She knew she was being petulant and that her mother expected more mature behaviour from someone who had proclaimed many times that “Fourteen is not that young anymore,” but the injustice of the current situation was too much for her to keep her emotions in check.

  When Patrick Seng had decided to take his sister with him to New York to accept a book prize last year, he had said it was to repay her for providing him with the first line of a Chinese poem that had launched his poetry career when he was seventeen. What he and Mabel did not know was that it was actually Patsy who had provided him with that first line, not Mabel, when Patsy’s consciousness had time travelled twenty-eight years into the past and entered her mother’s body. It took all of Patsy’s willpower not to blurt out the truth.

  “You know that your Uncle Pat sees me as his closest family, since he’s not married, and he really wants me to be with him when they announce the winner of the New Zealand Poetry-in-Translation prize,” Mabel said.

  “He sounds as if he thinks he’s going to win,” Patsy sulked.

  “Not true. It’s precisely because he doesn’t know if he’s going to win, that’s why he wants me there for support,” Mabel corrected her. Her voice was still calm but Patsy could tell from the stiffening of her lips that her mother was starting to lose patience.

  “Please, Mum,” Patsy begged, hating the plaintive way she sounded yet not able to help herself. “The New Zealand trip falls during the December school holidays so it’s just perfect for me to go. Please…”

  Mabel clicked her tongue in annoyance. “Enough, all right? This is not your decision or mine. The award ceremony organiser is only sponsoring two tickets, and your uncle has already submitted my name. You’re only fourteen and have many more years to travel the world if you wish. Stop being so spoilt and go to sleep. It’s late.”

  With that, Mabel shook her head and left Patsy to wallow in self-pity in her bedroom. It had been about a year since she returned from her adventure in 1987, and already she was starting to feel as if all that had only been a dream. Back in 1987, she had played a central role in averting a time crisis, yet now, in October 2016, she was just an average teenager again. An average teenager with no accomplishments to speak of, who could be ignored and put aside whenever it pleased the adults.

  It was fortunate that she could still talk about what had happened with Elena Tan, her best friend who had time travelled with her, or she really would wonder if she had imagined the whole thing. Several times, she had been tempted to tell her mother or her Uncle Pat about it, but she resisted the temptation. Firstly, they would think she was crazy or making up stories. Secondly and more importantly, she had promised Maggie Lim—one of the last Keepers of Time—back in 1987, that she would keep the secret of time magic safe. And after Maggie had died to protect the time stream, the least Patsy could do was to honour her promise to her dead friend.

  At the thought of Maggie, Patsy’s mind turned to the other two remaining descendants of the fast-dwindling sect of the Keepers of Time—Maggie’s cousin, Charlotte Pang, and Charlotte’s mother, Lee Min Ling. When Patsy and Elena had left them in 1987, Charlotte had been thirteen and Min Ling in her late thirties. Were they still alive now? Charlotte would be in her early forties and Min Ling in her sixties. Would they still recognise each other if they met?

  Patsy sent Elena a long WhatsApp message detailing her latest quarrel with her mother and lay down in bed to wait for the reply. But although Elena was an avid user of WhatsApp, her messages often flooding Patsy’s mobile phone, she herself was often not very prompt in responding to Patsy’s messages. It was with a heavy feeling of discontent that Patsy at last drifted off into sleep.

  She awoke with a start, her eyes snapping wide open. It was still dark. Her bedroom curtains moved slightly, touched by a gentle breeze, but otherwise all was still. She had no idea what time it was. What was it that had awakened her?

  Then she heard it again—a double tap near the foot of her bed, as if someone was rapping his knuckles on the glass pane of her window. Patsy’s bedroom was the only one in the flat that overlooked the apartment block’s long corridor on the sixth floor. Her parents’ room was at the back of the flat.

  Patsy shrank back into her blanket, too frightened to move or call out. The curtains stirred again, and this time she saw it was not caused by the wind. It was a hand.

  Not daring to look away from the window, Patsy groped about in the dark until her hand connected with the shaft of the badminton racquet that she knew leaned against her bedside table. Just as her fingers curled around the racquet’s handle, the hand at the window managed to get a firm grasp of the curtain and yanked it aside. Patsy raised her racquet, then let it fall with a gasp when she saw the pale face peering in at her through the window grilles.

  “Elena!” she cried in a loud whisper, crawling over to the end of the bed and kneeling on the mattress to face her friend. “What are you doing here?”

  Elena Tan whispered back, “Come on out. Let’s go downstairs to talk.”

  “What time is it?” Patsy asked, still feeling rather dazed at the turn of events. She squinted at her bedside clock and managed to make out the hands in the semi-darkness. “It’s 2am! Elena, are you crazy?”

  Elena did not reply but gestured again to Patsy to join her outside.

  “I can’t,” Patsy said, throwing a despairing glance at her door to check that it was closed. “My parents will throw a fit if I sneak out in the middle of the night! What happened?” Now that she was close enough to Elena, she could see that her friend’s eyes were puffy from crying and her usually immaculate shoulder-length bob was in a mess.

  “My parents are fighting again and I couldn’t stand it anymore so I climbed out of my window,” Elena said, her voice shaky but defiant.

  “You what?” Patsy exclaimed. She knew Elena would want her to focus on the first part of her sentence but the second part was so shocking she could not help reacting to that instead. “You sneaked out? You have to go back now! Yo
ur parents will be so worried if they discover you are missing!”

  “They won’t,” Elena said. “After they’re done fighting, Dad will stomp out of the house and Mum will lock herself in her bedroom to cry. Nobody will remember my existence as long as I turn up for school tomorrow so the teachers don’t call my parents. Come on out. Just for an hour or so.”

  Patsy felt her insides twist. She wanted very much to be with Elena in her hour of need, but she was afraid to leave her flat in the middle of the night without her parents’ permission. Where has my adventurous spirit gone? she wondered. How was it that those days of solving mysteries and saving the world were still so vivid in her memories, yet seemed a lifetime away? She had tried, but failed, to bring those days back, and her sense of adventure seemed to have died as well.

  “I can’t,” Patsy said, feeling utterly miserable. “Can’t you try to understand? You should go home too. We’ll talk on the phone, all right? Call me when you get back?”

  Elena stared at her sullenly, then her face began retreating from the window.

  “Wait!” Patsy called in a desperate half-whisper, but Elena had disappeared.

  chapter two

  atsy sat motionless by her window for several seconds, stunned by what had just happened. Then she leapt to her bedside table and picked up her mobile phone, intending to send Elena a message. When she looked at the screen, her heart sank. There were five unread messages from Elena. She quickly unlocked the phone and scrolled through the messages:

  “World War X broke out at my house. Call me when free.”

  “Think I’m going to run away.”

  “Sorry about your uncle’s trip. Talk now?”

  “Call me soon?”

  “Call me?”

  Looking at the time stamps, Patsy saw that they had all come in between 11.30pm and midnight. That explained why Patsy had missed the messages. Her mobile phone was set to mute all messages that came in between 10.30pm and 7am to avoid disturbing her parents. She had been asleep when the messages had come in. She began typing:

  “Just saw your SMS. Let me know when you’re home?”

  Patsy sent the message and lay down in bed to wait. It was impossible to sleep, and she kept picking up her phone to check if there was any reply. After an hour, Patsy sent another message:

  “Where r you? Home?”

  No reply came, though when Patsy checked her phone several minutes later, she could see from WhatsApp that her messages had been read and that Elena had last been online only several minutes ago. Was Elena deliberately ignoring her? Was she offended that Patsy had not gone out with her into the night? She called Elena and waited till the ring tone shut off automatically when no one picked up.

  Close to 4am, Patsy dozed off. When her alarm clock rang at 6am, she jolted awake and groped for her mobile phone. Still no messages. Groggy, she lay back in bed for half a minute, then forced herself to go through the motions of washing up and dressing for school.

  Both Patsy and Elena attended Mount Emily Girls’ School, which derived its name from being located on the picturesque site of Emily Hill. On her way there, Patsy kept checking her mobile phone. What had happened to Elena? Had she made it home safely? As the public bus neared the school, Patsy’s concern for Elena started evolving into irritation. It was just so typical of Elena to make her worry like that. Sure, perhaps Patsy had let Elena down by refusing to sneak out at night. But couldn’t Elena see that it was the wrong thing to do, and that she could not expect Patsy to break all the rules she had grown up with, just because Elena herself had done so? And having let Patsy know that she had sneaked out of her house and was running around alone in the middle of the night, surely she owed it to Patsy to at least tell her she was safe? It was too unfair to punish Patsy by refusing to answer her messages and making her worry like that.

  And then there were the messages. Did Elena really expect her to be reading and replying to messages in the middle of the night? If it was so urgent, couldn’t she have just called?

  Thinking of the messages, Patsy felt herself growing warmer with annoyance. She had texted Elena first about how upset she felt about her mum going on yet another trip with her Uncle Pat. Elena had not bothered to reply to that message at first, only texting Patsy about her own troubles. It was only when Patsy did not reply to her first two messages did Elena make a perfunctory show of sympathy for Patsy’s situation. How was it fair that Elena could ignore Patsy’s problems but demand attention for her own so wholly?

  Patsy got off the bus at Selegie Road and walked up Mount Emily Road in a grouchy mood. When she reached the school, she hurried to her classroom and it was with both relief and anger that she saw Elena already there, talking to several classmates. She was all prettied up in a neatly-pressed pinafore, with well-groomed hair, a stark contrast to how she looked when she appeared at Patsy’s flat the night before.

  Touching her own unruly hair that had been hurriedly tied in a sad-looking ponytail, Patsy felt again that all-too-familiar sense of inferiority she had around Elena. She knew how plain-looking she was, whereas Elena, with her well-defined features and large, expressive eyes, seemed to be growing prettier by the day. She had thought herself cured of her inferiority complex during their time-travelling adventure a year ago, when she had found some measure of self-worth in helping to avert a time crisis, but as time passed and the adventure receded, she felt herself falling back into her old ways. Enough self-pity already, Patsy told herself irritably.

  Patsy strode up to Elena and dropped her bag on the floor beside her seat. “Where have you been all night? I thought something had happened to you!” she demanded, arms akimbo.

  Elena gave Patsy a sharp look, her brow gathering in a deep furrow. Excusing herself from her group of friends, she pulled Patsy away to a quiet corner of the classroom. “What are you trying to do?” Elena hissed. “Trying to purposely get me into trouble?”

  “What?” Patsy spluttered, surprised at the unexpected attack.

  “Blurting out I’d been out last night like that…”

  “Oh,” Patsy said, dismayed when she realised how indiscreet she had been. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

  “If I’d known you can’t keep secrets, I wouldn’t have gone to your place yesterday,” Elena said, turning to go.

  “Wait,” Patsy called after her, but Elena had gone back to her friends and was soon talking and laughing loudly with them.

  It wasn’t long before Patsy discovered that Elena had switched seats with another classmate so that they were no longer sitting together. That old trick, Patsy thought, shooting Elena a furtive look of exasperation. She always does that when she’s angry with me, as if to show that the power of bestowing her friendship on me lies with her.

  However, as the school day wore on, Patsy found her irritation melting. Am I justified in feeling angry? Or was I really wrong to turn her away when she came to me in the middle of the night?

  chapter three

  he next few mornings, Patsy would arrive at school half hopeful that things had gone back to normal. Sometimes it happened like that—Elena would suddenly get over whatever it was that upset her, apologise profusely to Patsy for being overly-sensitive, and they would simply be friends again.

  At times like those, Patsy would not feel like forgiving Elena so easily. After all, Elena’s apologies always felt insincere—they always seemed to happen so conveniently when Elena wanted Patsy’s company for something, such as when she wanted to embark on some adventurous scheme. And her apologies were always so exaggerated they made Patsy feel uncomfortable, almost as if she was being forced to say “It’s okay,” when deep down, she did not feel that it was really okay.

  Yet, despite her misgivings, Patsy often found it difficult to hold out against Elena’s earnest entreaties. Not least was the fact that Patsy felt flattered by Elena’s attention—to think that of all the friends the glamourous Elena had, she still chose to do her most exciting stuff with Patsy. In fact, that wa
s how they had ended up time travelling a year ago—Elena had dragged Patsy off to try to find the body of their school’s legendary ghost, and they had dug up a time crystal instead.

  But now, each morning when Patsy entered the classroom, she would look around eagerly, then feel her hope dashed to pieces once again when she saw that Elena had not shifted back to her usual seat. How long would it take Elena to get over her upset this time?

  Things had still not improved a week later. As Patsy waited at the bus stop after school, her mind went back to her friendship problems with Elena. For the hundredth time, she pondered if it was really her fault, and if she should approach Elena to apologise. She wondered why it was taking Elena so long to get over their quarrel, then told herself that she did not care whether or not they became friends again.

  These thoughts were rampaging through Patsy’s mind when she felt someone’s eyes on her. She looked up, then turned away quickly, her pulse quickening. She had not been mistaken. A middle-aged lady sitting at the next bench of the bus stop was openly fixing her with a steady gaze. After a few seconds, Patsy glanced up again. The lady was about 40 years of age, petite, with long, slightly wavy hair framing her pale face, and she was still staring. What does she want? Patsy thought nervously.

  Patsy looked around. She was alone at the bus shelter with the lady. The horde of students that usually flooded the bus stop just after school dismissal had already departed, for Patsy had left school late that day after her choir practice.

  Patsy slipped her hand into her pinafore pocket and grasped her mobile phone. Should she call her mother? Or Elena? But what would she say? That a woman at the bus stop was creeping her out? It seemed too ridiculous.

  The lady stood up and walked towards Patsy.

  Patsy’s hand tightened around her mobile phone, yet she didn’t pull it out. There was something in the lady’s eyes that felt warm rather than frightening, and reminded her of someone she once knew. Is it really her? Patsy wondered. No, it can’t be…