Mount Emily Revisited

by Low Ying Ping

  They rode up the lift to the eighth floor in silence. It was only when the boy had rung the doorbell and they were waiting for a response did Patsy realise she had forgotten all about her mission for the past half hour. All her worries came back in a rush, exacerbated by the fact that nobody was answering the door.

  “When did you last see Charlotte?” Patsy asked.

  “Just yesterday,” the boy replied. “Perhaps they’ve gone out? Odd though, since we’d arranged to meet up at this time.”

  Patsy tried the handle on the cast iron grille gate, and it turned easily. Well, no cause for alarm, she told herself. Many people left their outer gates unlocked if they were at home. Suppressing her growing feeling of dread, Patsy swung open the gate then pressed the handle of the solid door. It shifted easily in her hand and the door opened with no difficulty.

  “Oh no,” she breathed as she took in the sight of the living room.

  The whole place was in a mess. All the drawers of the display cabinet had been pulled out and their contents strewn haphazardly about the room.

  The boy ran one hand through his hair. “What’s going on?” he muttered, stepping into the flat.

  “I’m too late after all,” Patsy whispered. She was speaking to herself, but the boy turned and gave her a sharp look.

  “What did you say?”

  Patsy didn’t answer. All she could think of was that she had ruined everything by being too late.

  Meanwhile, the boy was hurrying through the various rooms in the flat, calling out, “Charlotte? Auntie Min Ling? Uncle Kang?”

  No response. He came back to the living room where Patsy was still standing in shock. “We need to call the police to tell them about the burglary,” he said urgently. “Auntie Min Ling and Uncle Kang are probably at work and won’t be back till evening, and we don’t know where Charlotte is.”

  Uncle Kang? Who was that? And burglary? This couldn’t be a simple burglary! All these thoughts swirled inside Patsy’s mind and before she could help herself, she found herself sobbing as panic engulfed her.

  The boy looked at her in a mixture of helplessness and exasperation. “I’ll call the police,” he said, moving towards the telephone in the living room.

  “It’s not a burglary,” Patsy mumbled through her tears.

  “What?” He stopped and turned to face her.

  “It’s a kidnapping. Charlotte and Auntie Min Ling have been kidnapped, and it’s all my fault!”

  The boy ran his hand through his hair again and looked around the flat. There were notes lying in a drawer that had been yanked out of the living room display cabinet. “You’re right, it’s not a burglary. Burglars won’t have left all this money. But what do you mean it’s all your fault?”

  In answer, Patsy only cried even harder.

  “If it’s a kidnapping, then even more so the police should be informed,” the boy said.

  “The police won’t be able to help!” Patsy wailed. “Not against Midnight Warriors!”

  “Midnight Warriors?” the boy echoed. He stared at her for a moment, then seemed to reach a decision. “Okay,” he said firmly, “it’s time to share what we know.” He grasped Patsy’s hand and pulled her towards the dishevelled sofa. Patsy awoke from her daze with the new electrifying sensation of the boy’s hand holding hers. She looked at his hand, then the bloodied arm connected to it.

  “Your injuries! We should wash them or you’ll get an infection!”

  “No, I’m all right. We need to quickly find out…” The boy paused, then appeared to change his mind. “All right, let’s find some bandages or something first.”

  Patsy suspected the boy was thinking of something for her to do to try and calm her, and she was grateful for the distraction of hunting for a first aid kit and then tending to his wounds as they sat on the sofa with the medical supplies spread out before them. As she began wiping the torn skin on his arm with an antiseptic lotion, the boy cleared his throat and said nervously, “My name is Wu Ji, and yes, before you ask, it’s the same Chinese characters as Zhang Wu Ji in that Jin Yong sword-fighting novel, except that my surname is Guo, or Kwek in dialect. My mother sort of fell in love with Zhang Wu Ji reading that book while pregnant with me.”

  Patsy raised her eyebrows at him but said nothing. She was not a big fan of Chinese novels, but she loved the sword-fighting ones and she had read Jin Yong’s Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre at least three times. She thought it was awesome the boy was named after the hero in one of her favourite novels.

  “My name is Patsy,” she said almost apologetically, wishing she had a more significant name to match Wu Ji’s.

  “Well, hello, Patsy,” Wu Ji said. “So, how did I end up here? I was sent back from 2017 by a girl named Raine. You may not know her but—”

  “She’s Charlotte’s daughter,” Patsy interrupted, not wishing to appear ignorant.

  “Why, yes.” Wu Ji sounded pleased. “So you know her.”

  “I don’t know her personally,” Patsy admitted. “But I know the name.”

  “Right. Anyway, Raine and I sort of grew up together because our mothers are good friends. Several months ago—in 2017 I mean—Auntie Charlotte said that she had something important to tell me. She said she had met me when she was fourteen and I was sixteen.”

  “You thought she was bonkers,” Patsy guessed.

  “Oh no. Raine and I have no secrets from each other, and she had long told me all about being a Keeper of Time and time travelling. So I didn’t think Auntie Charlotte was mad. I was surprised though, to hear that I had a part to play in all this.”

  Patsy felt again that sinking feeling when Wu Ji mentioned how close he and Raine were. What’s wrong with you? she scolded herself. You barely know this boy! And there’s a crisis going on. Focus!

  “She told me,” Wu Ji continued, “that years ago, my mum went through a very difficult period in her life. Her ward had died in an accident, and she was left all alone in the world. She was depressed for many months. Fortunately, I appeared out of nowhere—a lost child, apparently. My mum saved my life and cared for me for a time, and that gave her the will to live on. She never knew it was me all along though.”

  “So Charlotte got Raine to send you back to 1988 to make the past come true.”

  “Yes, to save my mother’s life now, and so make it possible for me to be born,” he replied. “I’d heard my mum mention that boy before, but I’d not guessed it was me. So I arrived here about three months ago. It was a very odd experience, how it happened. Raine took me to the centre of time power in Mount Emily Girls’ School where she’s a student and used the Crystal of Time…”

  “So she did get in!” Patsy blurted out, feeling pleased for adult Charlotte’s sake.

  “Uh…well, yes,” Wu Ji said, looking puzzled at Patsy’s exclamation. “Anyway, she transported me back and I reappeared at the same spot, just thirty years earlier. I lost my footing on the slope and rolled down. I must have knocked my head when I fell because I lost consciousness. Charlotte—that’s the 1988 Charlotte who’s fourteen now—found me, and alerted my mum, who’s a teacher at Mount Em. When I awoke, I pretended to have lost my memory, so Mum took me home and has been caring for me since. Of course, I told Charlotte who I really was and what her future self had told me… ow, ow…”

  “Sorry, sorry,” Patsy murmured as she rewound the bandage less tightly around Wu Ji’s arm. She had been so engrossed with the new information she was learning she had half forgotten what she was doing. “It’s just that…you said your mum just lost her ward, and she’s a teacher at Mount Em. And your surname is Kwek! Does your mum happen to be Mrs Yvonne Kwek?”

  “Yes!” Wu Ji exclaimed. “You know her?”

  “She’s currently my teacher back in 2016,” Patsy said simply. It was more than that, of course. Yvonne Kwek, or Yvonne Yoong, as she was called before her marriage, was Maggie Lim’s guardian, and Maggie Lim had been one of her closest friends during her last time-travelling adventure.
>
  “I see. Well, that’s all there is to my story. What’s yours?”

  Patsy poured more antiseptic lotion onto a fresh piece of cotton wool and began cleaning the wounds on Wu Ji’s leg as she deliberated about how much to say. “Well, I travelled back in time once before this, and met the 1987 Charlotte. In 2016, the adult Charlotte came to me and told me that she and her mum had been kidnapped in 1988 and I had to travel back to save her. Before she could give me the full details, I accidentally got myself transported back here,” she concluded ruefully.

  “And this mess means they have indeed been taken,” Wu Ji said after a moment of silence, making a gesture that encompassed the whole flat.

  Patsy nodded, her hands growing still as she felt the panic rising within her again. She took a deep breath and focused on taping the last piece of gauze onto Wu Ji’s leg. “Not only that. I think the kidnapper must have searched the place for the Crystal of Time.”

  “Do you think they found it?” Wu Ji asked.

  Patsy shook her head as she said, “I don’t know.” She didn’t tell him that her senses had not picked up the crystal, so she knew it was no longer in the flat. Although she was new to her time power, she felt sure she would be able to sense the crystal if it were near, now that she knew what to look out for.

  They sat on the sofa for a minute, at a loss as to what to do. Patsy mulled over what she had just learnt over the past hour. So, Charlotte and Auntie Min Ling had been kidnapped, possibly that very day itself. The Crystal of Time was not in the flat, which meant that it had likely fallen into the hands of the Midnight Warriors. But something did not seem right. If they had already got what they wanted—the crystal—why the need to kidnap Charlotte and her mother? Was there something else they were after? And had they also taken the unknown third person Charlotte had mentioned?

  At that thought, Patsy remembered Wu Ji calling out an unfamiliar name when he first stepped into the flat.

  “Who’s Uncle Kang?” she asked.

  “Oh,” Wu Ji said, emerging from his own reverie. “That’s Ye Kang. Auntie Min Ling’s husband.”

  “What?!” Patsy exclaimed, thinking she must have heard wrongly. “Isn’t her husband long dead?”

  “Not that husband. Her new husband. They got married just over a month ago.”

  “Oh,” Patsy said, remembering that sixteen months had passed since she had last seen Min Ling in August of 1987. A lot could have happened since then. “It must be him, then,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “Charlotte in 2016 told me that the life of a third person was at stake. She said it was someone I didn’t yet know. I guess it must be this Uncle Kang.” Charlotte must have grown really fond of her stepfather to think his life was the most important among the three of them, Patsy thought. Or perhaps it was for her mother’s sake? Will I be able to rescue them in time? Or will Min Ling and Ye Kang die before I can figure out how to help them? Oh, why did I have to go and quarrel with Elena and end up transporting us here before Charlotte could tell me what to do? Once again, she felt the cold fear that she was not up to the task and would fail Charlotte.

  “It must be him then,” Wu Ji was saying. “We need to think how we can rescue them.”

  He said “we”, Patsy thought. Yes, she could enlist the help of this boy, who had so miraculously appeared in her time of need. He knew both the adult Auntie Charlotte and the teenaged Charlotte, and he knew about time magic. But although Wu Ji was from 2017, he did not seem to have been told about the kidnap, which meant he would not be able to tell her how they were to be rescued either.

  Wait, Patsy chided herself, don’t be so eager to accept his help. Could she even trust that he was who he said he was? She glanced at him surreptitiously, sitting so calmly and innocently beside her. Was his appearance in 1988 really just a coincidence? What if he was a Midnight Warrior, here to find the Crystal of Time?

  “You know,” Wu Ji said, disrupting her train of thought. “We can’t do this on our own. We need to get help.”

  “Are you still thinking of calling the police?” Patsy asked. “I told you they won’t be of much help where Midnight Warriors are concerned.”

  Wu Ji shook his head. “You’re right. If the kidnappers are who we think they are, the police won’t be of much help. But…” Here he paused, hesitation showing in his eyes. “Look, it may sound crazy, but I have this friend called Maggie…”

  “Maggie! Maggie Lim?” Patsy exclaimed.

  “Yes, that’s the one! She’s a Keeper of Time and might be able to help us.”

  “But that’s impossible! When did you say you arrived?”

  “Three months ago—in September of 1988.”

  “But Maggie had already died by then!” Patsy cried. “She fell into a flooded canal and drowned in August a year ago!” Then, remembering that in sword-fighting novels, anyone whose body was not found was often revealed to have somehow survived later on in the story, she added, “We saw her dead body.”

  “That must have been gross,” said a familiar voice from the door of the flat.

  Patsy swung her head around in surprise. The voice did not sound like Maggie at all, but someone else she once knew…

  A slim girl with large eyes and high cheekbones stood at the entrance of the flat. Patsy recognised her at once to be Joyce Teh, Elena’s mother, only fourteen years old in 1988. Joyce looked much like she did when Patsy had last seen her a year ago, except that her figure was slightly fuller and her hair no longer shoulder length but cut shorter in a stylish bob. Standing behind her was a beaming Elena, looking even more radiant than usual in her bright-eyed excitement.

  “Look who I ran into outside my grandpa’s house!” she chirped, then paused, taking in the state of the living room. “What happened here?”

  “I’ll explain later,” Patsy said evasively, wondering what in the world Elena was thinking to bring her mother here. Didn’t she remember her promise to Maggie to keep time travelling a secret? “Erm…this is Joyce?” Patsy prompted, shooting Elena a questioning look. When she and Elena had first travelled to 1987, their consciousness had resided within their mothers’ minds. However, when they departed, their mothers would not have held any memory of their presence. The 1988 Joyce should not even know Patsy and Elena existed. Why were Elena and Joyce acting so pally now? What was going on?

  “Yes, I’m Joyce,” said the girl, her eyes darting around the ransacked living room before coming to rest on Patsy. “And I’m also Maggie.”

  chapter ten

  aggie?” Patsy echoed, not daring to believe her ears.

  “We all thought Maggie had died when she fell into Rochor Canal,” Elena said. “But when she realised she was drowning, she sent her consciousness forward in time.”

  Maggie nodded. “And I ended up in Joyce’s mind. I think it’s because she’s someone I’m very familiar with.”

  “Back in 2016, Charlotte said usually it’s someone you have an emotional connection with,” Patsy said, getting up from the sofa and moving slowly towards the girl who looked like Joyce but called herself Maggie.

  “Joyce and your mother Mabel are my two best friends, so I guess that’s right,” Maggie said brightly, then her face fell and she sighed. “So my consciousness was kind of like a homeless ghost and settled inside Joyce—for now, I guess.” She puffed out her cheeks and sighed again.

  Whatever doubt Patsy had dissipated instantly. This was the Maggie she knew: the cheerful girl who loved to sigh and make her chubby cheeks look like little balloons. “So you didn’t die after all!” Patsy threw her arms around Maggie and squeezed her tight. “I’ve missed you so much!”

  “And I’ve missed you…a little,” Maggie said, then noticing Patsy’s confused look, laughed the carefree, tingling laugh Patsy had missed so much. “I went forward in time, remember? I entered Joyce’s mind only two days ago. To me, we’ve only been apart for two days!”

  “But how did you and Elena recognise each other?” Patsy asked,
still unable to wrap her mind around the whole thing. “When we last met, Elena was in Joyce’s body, and you were…well, in your own body.”

  “I was in the living room of Joyce’s flat when I saw someone peeping in through the window,” Maggie explained. “I went up and confronted the person.”

  “I was so taken unawares that I just told her my real name,” Elena chipped in. “And to make myself appear less like some random burglar, I said I was Charlotte’s friend.”

  “Elena’s not a common name,” Maggie took up the thread again, “and when she said she’s Charlotte’s friend, I wondered if she’s the Elena I know. It didn’t take us many more words before we recognised each other! By the way, I heard from Elena how you guys defeated the Midnight Warrior after I died. Well done!” She looked admiringly at Patsy.

  “Did Elena also tell you that I’m a…”

  “That you’re a Keeper of Time too? Sure she did! That’s so cool!”

  Patsy flushed with pleasure, though a part of her wished Elena had not told Maggie. It wasn’t that she minded Maggie knowing. She wanted Maggie to know. But it was her secret to tell.

  “So what’s going to happen to you now?” she asked instead.

  “I don’t know,” Maggie confessed. “I don’t have a proper body anymore. After I went into Joyce’s mind, I came here to look for Charlotte and Auntie Min Ling. Auntie Min Ling said my consciousness can’t survive indefinitely without a body, although she didn’t know either how long I can last like this. I might just die again, perhaps for real this time.”

  Before Patsy could react to Maggie’s dire prophesy, Elena interrupted her thoughts. “And who’s this?” she asked, pointing to Wu Ji with a quick movement of her chin.

  Patsy suddenly realised that all this time, from the moment Maggie and Elena arrived, Wu Ji had been totally silent. She turned to him and saw that his eyes were riveted on Elena, a slow blush spreading across his cheeks at the attention she was now paying him. And suddenly it was as if a veil was lifted from Patsy’s eyes. She didn’t know fully what she had been thinking during the short time she had been alone with Wu Ji, or what she had hoped for, but whatever it was did not matter anymore, for now she knew it was just impossible daydreaming. Of course Elena would be the one he would be attracted to. It had always been that way with boys.