Home Improvement: Undead Edition

by Harris, Charlaine

  Terrified at the prospect, I tried to persuade South Mountain Spirit that this idea was not a good one, that I would not be able to accomplish the mission, that it was bound to meet with failure.

  “Everything you say may be true,” my friend had said equably. “But answer this: what have you to lose?” I had no rejoinder. Moreover, I realized, even had I an answer, there is never any point in arguing with a mountain spirit. They will not be moved.

  I bade a glum farewell to South Mountain Spirit, who was bathed now in a tranquil, fading sunset, and returned to the monastery. As had been true for some weeks, the cliffside caves were the scene of much hubbub. The restorers’ hushed, delicate, painstaking work on the paintings and carvings in the caves’ interiors was balanced by the loud and messy sawing and hammering of the construction crews as they built temporary walls for protection and walkways and scaffolding for access. Clouds of dust kicked up by their vehicles engulfed men and tents before Desert Wind Spirit cleared them away. (She is mercurial and arbitrary, but not malicious, and she had told me she was quite enjoying all the bustling about, so she was trying to be helpful.)

  I made my way back to my cave, there to find Leonard Wu. He was, as usual, working with great care, as he cleaned the painting of the bodhi tree on the cave’s rear wall. I stood beside him for a time, watching his precise dabbing and brushing. Mother Tiger Spirit was curled at his feet.

  “Mother Tiger Spirit”—I made an attempt to speak with an air of authority—“Leonard Wu must go to the Trent Museum, in New York City, America, and personally request the return of the Buddha head.”

  Mother Tiger Spirit half-opened an eye and looked at me. “What?” I repeated my statement.

  She licked a lazy paw and rubbed at her ears. “Why?”

  “South Mountain Spirit has suggested it.”

  “The director of the Trent Museum, in New York City, America, has already refused this request. How could Leonard Wu persuade him any better if they were standing face to face?”

  “South Mountain Spirit says”—I forced myself to continue—“I am to go with him.”

  As with any feline, Mother Tiger Spirit’s countenance does not reveal her emotions. However, there was no mistaking her derision as she sat up and roared, “You? The quaking monk, to travel to the ends of the earth? With a man? What good will you be?”

  “I may quake, but over the years I have managed to protect this cave from demons—”

  “With the help of a good many of us, may I remind you! And from demons, not men! I saw you attempting to whisper to Leonard Wu. A very amusing sight. If you go to New York City, America, with him, he will not even know you are there.”

  Leonard Wu stopped his hand in mid-dab. He looked left, then right, then shrugged and continued removing millimeter by millimeter the dry remains of some long-ago desert plant that had been sent by a demon to take root on the painting. I had prevented it, but what a struggle that had been.

  “Nevertheless,” I said, “Leonard Wu must go to America, and I must go with him. You and the other spirits must guard the cave assiduously while I am gone. And,” I added, “you must persuade him to go.”

  “Because you dare not,” she mocked.

  “Yes,” I admitted. “Mother Tiger Spirit, I am, if anything, even less convinced than yourself of the efficacy of this journey. Certainly I am not eager to undertake it. But the head will not be returning if we do nothing. Surely, the possibility of having your former guardian back must be an attractive one.”

  “Indubitably,” she answered dryly.

  “Then,” I said, echoing my old friend, “what have we to lose?”

  After fixing a long, unblinking stare on me, Mother Tiger Spirit, as cats will do, gave herself a thorough bath while taking time to think. I waited. After she was finished, she did not speak to me, but with a swish of her tail padded over to stand beside Leonard Wu.

  “You must go to America,” she told him. “To the Trent Museum, in New York City.”

  Leonard Wu put down his brush and, with a cloth, wiped his brow.

  “You must speak to the director personally,” Mother Tiger Spirit continued. “He does not understand the importance of the return of the head”—especially, I thought, to me—“but once you have explained it, he will.”

  Leonard Wu had picked up his brush, but now he paused in his work, again looking left and right.

  “The statue,” Mother Tiger Spirit said, “must be complete. You will tell the people at the Trent Museum, and they will understand, and you will return with the head and reinstall it on the statue. Think how grand it will look! Complete and majestic, towering in this cave as it did for six hundred years, before it was taken away! Before we were left with this fool of a monk for a guardian,” she added.

  Leonard Wu arose, putting down his brush and cloth. He walked around the headless statue in the center of the cave, to stand and look up at it from the front.

  Mother Tiger Spirit bounded with him. “Majestic!” she roared. “Towering! Able once again to guard the myriad cave spirits from demons and fiends!” At that Leonard Wu frowned, looking, as South Mountain Spirit so often does, uncomprehending. “Towering.” Mother Tiger Spirit hastened once again to tell him, now whispering in his ear. “Complete. Majestic beyond measure!”

  Leonard Wu stood for a few moments longer, staring up at the headless Buddha statue. Then he spun around and left the cave, blinking in the sharp sunlight. I followed close beside him as he searched the camp for his chief assistant. “Qian!” he shouted, spotting the man. “I’m going to New York. This is ridiculous. I’m going to talk the Trent into giving us back that head.”

  I hastened to South Mountain to tell my friend of Leonard Wu’s plans. He was delighted. “Now,” he said to me, “you must go with him, and by that I mean you must accompany him on every step.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Even if I am to go, why can I not instantaneously appear at our destination, as I do when I come to visit you?”

  “You must stay at his side as he travels among men.” He was adamant, as mountain spirits often are. “It is my thought that perhaps you will become less alarmed in men’s presence if you spend more time among them, so that when you arrive at your destination you will find yourself capable of speaking to Leonard Wu, and able therefore to assist him in his mission.”

  As always, I did what my friend instructed. Alas, what he hoped for did not occur. The journey, I will admit, was interesting. We traveled by vehicle, as I have said, and also by two airplanes. Having never, either as man or as spirit, been among any clouds beyond those on South Mountain, I was awed. I did not think South Mountain Spirit would look askance at my briefly leaving the side of Leonard Wu to converse with a Cloud Spirit or two. I greatly enjoyed these talks and learned many things, though the conversations were fleeting, as Cloud Spirits are constantly on the move. But hovering in the airplane’s aisle as Leonard Wu ate, drank, read, and slept, I remained uncomfortable with the crush of people around, and the rest of our journey had not helped me in this regard.

  Nevertheless, we were here. Now, with Leonard Wu navigating among numberless humans, and I among an equally countless host of wraiths, we arrived at the Trent Museum.

  The building’s exterior consisted of grand white stone blocks interrupted by large windows. Its interior was dark wood and white plaster, similar in some ways to the temple in the town where I was born, though undeniably more grand. I gazed about, fascinated at the odd-shaped furniture, elaborate carpets, and unfamiliar paintings. Leonard Wu did not spare them a glance. He spoke to a young man at a desk and was immediately escorted up the stairs to a bright antechamber. I hurried to catch up. In the antechamber a young woman took over, knocking at a door and admitting Leonard Wu, with me beside him, into a large, dim, carpeted room.

  The room contained many things: furniture, books, paintings. My ghostly eyes ignored them all, fixing, the moment we entered, on that which sat serenely on a plinth against the far wall: the Buddh
a head. I raced toward it, Leonard Wu following almost as quickly. “Old friend!” I exclaimed. Leonard Wu gazed at the head, leaning in to examine it, stepping back to admire it. I said, “I am delighted to find you looking so well!”

  Calmly, the Buddha head replied, “I have been well treated, Ghost of Tuo Mo.”

  “You remember me?” I asked excitedly. “I am honored!”

  “Of course I do. We sat together for endless hours in prayer and meditation. Tell me, Ghost of Tuo Mo, how goes it with the cave spirits? I have been concerned for them since I was removed.”

  “They are well.” I proceeded to tell him all that had occurred since he had come to America. He interrupted once—“You?”—and laughed merrily, sounding not unlike South Mountain Spirit.

  “Yes,” I concluded. “I. I have done my best, and the cave has remained a small island of peace in the chaos of the world. But the task has been tiring and I am longing to move on to my next life. This gentleman is Leonard Wu. He is responsible for the restoration of the caves. We have come to take you back.”

  “Have you? That would be quite satisfying.”

  Now my attention was drawn from the head to the opening of the door. The large round eyes and unruly brown hair of the pale man who entered looked familiar to me and for a moment I thought I knew him. Then I realized that was because he so resembled Explorer Trent, whom I had seen at my monastery caves one hundred and three years ago.

  “Dr. Wu!” the pale man said, coming forward to shake Leonard Wu’s hand with both of his own. “I’m Walter Trent. This is an honor! Your reputation precedes you. Please sit down.”

  Leonard Wu did so, and the other man sat also, in a matching maroon leather chair. Leonard Wu said, “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Trent. Thank you for seeing me.”

  “Of course! How goes the restoration in China?”

  “Very well, thanks. That’s why I’m here, in fact. I’ll get straight to the point: I’ve come to ask in person for the return of the Buddha head from Cave Thirty-seven.”

  “Ah.” The young Trent appeared crestfallen. “I was afraid of that. It’s right here—you’ve seen it?” He gestured to the rear of the room.

  “Yes, just now.”

  “Impressive, isn’t it? Everyone notices it. It’s always seemed . . . alive, to me. You might think it would make me nervous, staring like that, but I actually like it. But I’m sorry you’ve taken so much trouble, coming all this way. I’m afraid I can’t give it back to you.”

  “Because you like it?”

  “No, no!”

  From behind me, while the young man was searching for words with which to explain himself, came a growl: “Because he’s an idiot!”

  I turned. A large, rotund spirit wearing white whiskers, a stiff-collared shirt, and a vested suit hovered in the doorway. He drifted into the room, until he was beside me. “The boy’s a lunkhead, that’s the problem. Who’re you?”

  “Explorer Trent!” I stammered.

  “No, I’m Trent.” He peered at me through a glass attached to his jacket by a gold chain.

  “Oh, yes, I know that. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—I’m just so surprised to see you!”

  “Why? This’s my house. And that’s my idiot great-grandson. Wait, I know you. You’re the monk from the cave where I got the Buddha head.”

  “I am the Ghost of Tuo Mo,” I said. “Yes. Why are you still here?”

  “Where? In the house? Can’t I haunt my own house?”

  “In the spirit realm. You must have died not long after I did. Why have you not moved on to your next life?”

  “Have no idea what you’re talking about. Next life. Didn’t expect to be here this long, though, I’ll grant you that. Thought I’d be getting some heavenly rest by now. Someone has to look after the place, though. Protect all this stuff from generations of nitwits.”

  I was fascinated. “Did the Lord of the Underworld not send you on to another incarnation?”

  “Hmmm? I met some fat red-faced fool, I vaguely remember. Ranting and raving. Asked me if I had any idea where I was bound for. Told him, as long as my numbskull son was in charge of the collection, damned if I was going anyplace. He said fine, and he sent me back here.” The spirit frowned. “Something like that, anyway.”

  “But as long as you are here, you cannot continue along the path.”

  “What path?”

  “To enlightenment.”

  “Can’t think what you’re getting at. You’re an odd one. Always were, if memory serves. What’d you say your name was? Moe? And what’re you doing here, anyway?”

  “I’ve come with Leonard Wu, to request the return of the Buddha head.”

  The spirit of Explorer Trent snorted. “Good luck.”

  “It is very important that the head return.”

  “It is? How come?”

  “Until it does, I cannot continue on to my next life.”

  “Next life? Listen, you mean, whaddaya call it, reincarnation? That what we’re talking about?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Well, I’ll be hornswoggled. You really get to come back as something else?”

  “Every being does. Yourself included. I cannot hope for another life as any being better than a man, but I do hope to have the opportunity to be a better man than I was as Tuo Mo.”

  “You’re making my head spin. And then what? Next man you are dies, you just go on like this forever?”

  “For quite some time, hoping to gain wisdom with each life. Until finally, you have reached enlightenment and can meld into the not-made.”

  “The what?”

  I was at a momentary loss, until I recalled something he had said. “Heavenly rest,” I told him. “I think it would be like that.”

  “Oh? Sounds pretty good.” He stroked his chin whiskers.

  “You will be on the same path,” I said. “Once you leave here.”

  “Hah. There’s the rub. I can’t leave until someone’s in charge around here who’s not a moron. When you look at these birdbrains, I think I have to plan on staying forever!”

  “Please?”

  He heaved a great sigh. “My son the idiot begat my grandson the jackass, who begat this simpleton here. Each one’s worse than the one before him. I should’ve gotten out when I had the chance.” He shook his head. “Can’t leave now, though. Not one of them has a clue about anything in the collection. Best I can do is make sure everything’s kept clean, gets repaired if it breaks, and stays together. That’s why Walter here won’t give you back the head. If I could’ve trusted any one of them even an inch I’d have let him make his own decisions about what stays and goes. But these imbeciles, they can’t be allowed to think for themselves, because whatever they do, it’ll be wrong! So I’ve drilled it into them: The collection stays together! Nothing leaves this house!”

  “And you are remaining in this realm to make sure they behave correctly?” I tentatively inquired.

  “You got it, Moe.”

  “But then . . . your next life . . . your path . . .”

  “Does sound good, got to admit. Made some mistakes this time around, I don’t mind telling you. That red-faced gent—what’d you call him, the Lord of the Underworld?—he pointed out a few. Might like a another chance, maybe see if I could correct ’em. But nothing to be done. Like I said before, can’t leave now.”

  I regarded the ghost of Explorer Trent. Compassion stirred what would have been my heart, had I been corporeal. I remembered my attachment to the cloths and carvings in the monastery caves. Over the century of my guardianship of the spirits, those ties had loosened, until, I realized, I no longer gave a thought to any of these objects. In fact, as I contemplated them now, a hopeful warmth suffused me—an impossibility, of course, in my disembodied state, but nevertheless the sensation I felt I felt—at the thought that these works, having been spread willy-nilly around the world, might even now be aiding in their journeys beings who would never have reached the caves.

  “You must l
et go of your attachment to these objects in your collection,” I told Explorer Trent. “Or you cannot move on.”

  “Well, that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? That’s why I’m here.”

  “But you cannot mean to remain.”

  “As long as dunderheads are in charge here, yes I do.”

  “As long as you remain here,” I said, voicing a thought that was new but, I was suddenly sure, correct, “ ‘dunderheads’ will be in charge.”

  “Eh? How’s that?”

  “Did you not say that each one is worse than the one before him? The Lord of the Underworld is clearly assigning, to be reborn in your family line, souls who, for whatever reason, must expiate the arrogance of pride—in their own intelligence and in their skills at decision making. Politicians, perhaps, or military commanders. They are reborn as directionless fools. As long as you remain attached to your collection, he will continue to send them here.”

  “That the way it is, huh? Well, as long as he sends ’em, I’ll stay here and keep ’em from mucking things up!”

  “You are not proposing to set yourself in opposition to the will of the Lord of the Underworld?”

  “You think if I did, I couldn’t take him down a peg or two?” The ghost of Explorer Trent swelled, then deflated. “Nah, really, that’s not what I meant. But as long as all my stuff’s here, and being watched over by morons, I don’t think I can leave. No, I don’t think so.” He frowned, narrowing his eyes at me. “Wonder if I can help you out, though.”

  While we had been conversing, Leonard Wu and Walter Trent had been in discussions also. The ghost of Explorer Trent turned to look at them now, so I did the same.

  “So do you see?” Walter Trent was inquiring anxiously of Leonard Wu. “It’s not my decision. Everything of my great-grandfather’s has to stay in the house.”

  “If I understand you correctly, though,” responded Leonard Wu, “that’s not written anywhere. It’s not a legal or contractual obligation, I mean.”

  “Well, no.” The young Trent shifted uncomfortably, provoking a snort from his great-grandfather’s ghost. “But it’s my mandate. Our mandate. Everyone’s understood that, from the time my grandfather took over. It’s the way it’s always been.”