Jax was surprised that the person spoke Chinese to him. He answered back. ‘Duibuqi, sorry, but I’m lost and I don’t know my way out of the park. Do you think you could help me?’
‘I said GO AWAY, ghost,’ the voice repeated. It sounded like a girl.
‘I’m not a ghost,’ said Jax. This person must be crazy. Then he suddenly thought, maybe they’re all crazy inside. The place is big, very big. Maybe I’m knocking on the door of a mental asylum!
‘Bah! You can’t trick me,’ said the girl. ‘Only a hungry spirit looking for someone to eat would be out so late at night. Go away, I say.’
She’s crazy for sure, Jax thought. He was wondering if he should just leave. But then, he reasoned, if it was a mental asylum then at least there would be doctors and nurses who could show him the way out. He decided to try again. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘I promise, I’m not a ghost. Can I speak with your doctor?’
A small hole above the brass knocker was unplugged and Jax saw an eye peer through it.
‘See, I’m not a ghost,’ he pleaded to the eye. ‘I just want to know how to get out of the park, that’s all.’
‘Humph!’ the girl said, replacing the plug. ‘Go away!’
Jax heard the music start up. There was no use trying again. He turned and looked out at the dark forest filled with mist. I’ll stay close to this place until it gets light, he thought. At least the music is comforting, even if they are all crazy inside.
Jax followed the wall around a little way and sat down, hugging his knees to his chest. He was cold, tired and hungry. And the thought of hot chocolate still lingered on his mind, making him more miserable. Drawing the hood of his jacket over his face to keep out the wind, he closed his eyes and tried to sleep.
Jax must have dozed off because he had no idea that anyone was standing beside him until he felt a nudge on his arm.
‘Lai ba,’ came a whisper out of the dark. Someone was squatting beside him.
‘What?’ asked Jax, still feeling drowsy. He looked up blurry-eyed. Then he recognised the voice. It was the girl from the gate.
‘If you were a real ghost, the music would have made you disappear by now,’ said the girl. ‘But you’re still here, so I suppose you must be human. That’s why I’ve come to get you. Lai ba, kuai, come on, hurry.’
Jax rose to his feet, smiling thankfully. The girl was a head taller than Jax but seemed to be about the same age. She took his hand and whispered. ‘Come, I will have to slip you in secretly. Stay close and when I do this,’ she put her hand behind her back and clenched her fist, ‘hide anywhere you can. The Abbot doesn’t like strangers, especially when the doors to the underworld are open and all the hungry ghosts are roaming about outside.’
‘Hungry ghosts?’ said Jax, amused. ‘Where are they?’ Then he remembered the creature in the lake and his smile quickly faded.
‘They are everywhere – out here.’ The girl waved her arm in a one hundred and eighty degree arc. ‘Come, quickly. And when we pass those two statues, don’t look them in the eye. If you don’t see them, they won’t see you.’ She giggled, covering her mouth with her hand. ‘They are not very clever guards, are they?’
‘What is this place?’ Jax asked as he followed the girl in through the gate.
‘It’s Whispering Cloud Monastery,’ she replied. ‘Now quiet, no more talking.’
They kept close to the shadow of the wall and skirted the wide courtyard. A metal cauldron shaped like a pagoda filled the air with the smell of burning incense. The first building they came to was a wide wooden structure with a black-tiled roof and upturned eaves. On each corner, gargoyles in the form of strange birds were lined up on the roofline. They looked like they were about to fly off into the night. A statue of a turtle with a snake curled upon its back guarded the entrance. All the doors were intricately carved and folded back, leaving a wide opening into a large hall. Inside Jax could see chanting monks dressed in pale-yellow robes, sitting on the floor. Their shiny bald heads reflected the flickering candlelight.
The girl signalled Jax to keep down. ‘Is that the Abbot?’ he whispered as a man in an embroidered blue robe came down the stairs. He was followed by a tall monk whose clothes were patched and worn.
‘No, the other one is the Abbot.’
‘Why does he dress like that?’ Jax asked, surprised that the head of a monastery would look so shabby.
‘He used to be from a very rich family. But when he came to the monastery as a young man, he put on monks clothes, and still wears the same ones today. Whenever he finds a hole, he just sews a patch over it.’
There was something strange about the way the Abbot walked, as if he was hovering or walking on cushions. Suddenly Jax realised what it was. The Abbot was actually walking about five centimetres above the ground. He turned to tell the girl, but she was already on the other side of the courtyard behind a stone fence, madly gesturing at him to follow.
Jax crept behind the cauldron just as the Abbot passed by, then ran across to join her. Keeping to the shadows, they slipped past the main building and around to the back. There was a smaller building behind that one and another behind that. The girl led the way up some stone steps and along a balcony, then through a lattice doorway into a long, dark corridor with small rooms off to one side and paper-covered windows on the other.
‘Jin lai ba, come in,’ the girl said, sliding open the door of the third room. Jax stepped in and she closed it quickly behind him. She then pulled down a lantern in the centre of the room and struck a match. The room immediately filled with a soft yellow light.
Taking off her pale blue beanie, the girl shook out her hair. Jax gasped when he saw her. She wasn’t Chinese at all, but had shoulder length, straight blonde hair and green eyes!
‘Wha… What are you doing here in a Chinese monastery?’ Jax asked, hardly believing his eyes. ‘And you speak Chinese.’
‘Of course I speak Chinese,’ the girl laughed, covering her mouth with her hand.
‘But you don’t even have an accent.’
The girl shrugged, adjusting her yellow robe. ‘I’ve spoken Chinese all my life, it’s the only language I know.’ She sat down on one of the beds, leant back on her elbows and began swinging her legs. Her straw sandals made soft swishing sounds on the flagstone floor. Jax sat down on the bed opposite her. ‘Are your parents here, too?’
‘No, just me.’
‘Then how did you get here? Where are your mum and dad?’
The girl gave a small sigh and Jax noticed sadness touch the corners of her mouth. ‘I don’t have any. I was left at the gates of the monastery when I was a few days old. Lao Bing heard me crying and brought me inside. It was lucky I had good lungs, otherwise I probably would have died from the cold. He said the heavens were so sad, the clouds cried for seven days. That’s why they called me Yu Yu.’
‘You mean like in rain?’ Jax traced the character in the air with his finger.
‘Yes, that’t the one. What’s your name?’
‘Mingzi. You know, as in bright one or clear one,’ Jax replied.
‘I like that name very much because it has both the sun and the moon in it. The Abbot says names are important. He says that each name has a colour and it must match the colour of the person it belongs to. If it doesn’t, then that person can become very sick.’
‘What colour is your name?’ asked Jax.
‘The Abbot said it should be blue, but when I get angry it goes bright purple.’ She smiled, hooking a piece of hair behind her ear.
‘And is that very often?’
‘Oh, only when I don’t get my own way.’ Yu Yu giggled behind her hand. ‘The Abbot is teaching me to see name colours.’ She half-closed her eyes and looked at him. ‘I can see your name, Mingzi. It is… yellow… yes, a pale yellow. I think that colour is good for you.’
Jax smiled. It was so easy talking to this strange girl. She seemed to understand him. Sometimes he felt good like that when he and Buzzy were talking about Ruby o
r the rats. But he had only just met Yu Yu, and already he felt comfortable with her.
‘Where do you live?’ she asked, unscrewing the lid off a hot-water jug that sat on the table next to her. She poured a glass and handed it to Jax.
Jax took a sip. The warm liquid felt good as it trickled down his throat. ‘On the other side of the city,’ he said.
Yu Yu sat up on the bed and crossed her legs. ‘Zhen de ma? Really? I’d like to go there one day. But the Abbot won’t even let me go outside these walls. He says that everything I need is in Whispering Cloud Monastery.’
‘What about school? How do you learn things?’ asked Jax.
‘The Abbott and the other monks teach me.’
‘What about friends then? Who do you talk to and play with?’
‘Lao Bing is my best friend, then there is Lao Lang and Lao Tan and Cook Fan.’ Yu Yu looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘But you, Mingzi, are the first one my own age.’ She looked into Jax’s eyes. ‘Can you tell me more about the outside?’
Jax tried to fight back a yawn. He covered his mouth with his hand and his eyes watered.
‘Aiya, dui bu qi. Sorry, I’m so thoughtless,’ said Yu Yu jumping up off the bed. ‘The Abbot always says I talk too much.’ She went to the door. ‘Lao Lang is away. He won’t mind you sleeping in his room for the night. Rest now, and we can talk more in the morning. I’m so glad you came. Wan an, goodnight,’ she said and slipped out of the room.
Jax took off his shoes and covered himself with the cotton mien bei. The last thing he remembered before falling asleep was the beautiful but mournful bell-like cry that came from the direction of the lake.
Whispering Cloud
Monastery
The next morning, Jax was awoken by voices around his bed. He pretended to be asleep, hoping it wasn’t the Abbot.
‘You should not have let him in,’ he heard a man’s voice say.
‘But Mingzi isn’t a ghost, Abbot.’ It was Yu Yu speaking. ‘If he was, the music would have made him disappear… wouldn’t it?’
‘Even so, you disobeyed me.’
There was a long silence. Jax could barely resist the temptation to open his eyes, but he was afraid of what the Abbot might do. He felt the Abbot lift up his hand and turn it over. Then Jax heard him give a long sigh.
The Abbot then ran a finger across the creature mark on Jax’s palm and Jax felt it growing warm. And, strangely, the cut his mother’s gold necklace had made across his hand stopped hurting.
When the Abbot spoke again, his voice had changed and it seemed to float inside Jax’s brain like a soft cloud. ‘This boy must stay… until the coming of the silver wind…’
‘Is that when all the ghosts go back to the underworld?’ asked Yu Yu.
Jax couldn’t pretend any longer. Here they were talking about him as if he were dead. And now the Abbot was saying he had to stay. All he wanted to do was go home. He opened his eyes and looked up at the Abbot’s face.
‘I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t stay,’ he said, propping himself up on his elbows. ‘My parents will be worried. They might have even called the police already.’
‘It is very dangerous outside at the present time,’ the Abbot said. His brow was smooth and wrinkle-free and his eyes, clear and deep.
‘I’m not scared to go out there,’ Jax protested. ‘If you show me the way to the main gate of the park, I’ll be quite fine to get home, sir.’ He swung his legs over the side of the bed, planted his feet on the floor and was about to stand up when the Abbot placed a firm hand on his shoulder.
‘On the fifteenth day of the seventh month,’ the Abbot said, ‘the gates to the underworld are open and many hungry ghosts are free to roam the human world. No one is safe out there. During these times, we play music to calm their restless wanderings. We cannot open our gates for fear of letting them in. So you see, Mingzi, you cannot go. Rest a while, then, when the time is right, you can leave.’
‘But… but… I have to go home…’ Jax said. He couldn’t believe that he was being held against his will. Wasn’t that like kidnapping? ‘My parents will be worried about me. They don’t know where I am.’
The Abbot laid his hand on Jax’s head and closed his eyes. Then, in a calm voice, he said, ‘I see you have been spending a great deal of energy thinking about your size. Is this true?’
Jax was surprised but he didn’t want to talk about his problems to a stranger. He glanced up at Yu Yu but she raised her eyebrows as if to say ‘don’t blame me’.
‘If you stay, I can help you grow in many ways,’ said the Abbot, as if he could read Jax’s mind. ‘Then you can return home, as bright as your name.’ The Abbot sat down on the bed. ‘There are three treasures in the universe. Do you know what they are, Mingzi?’
Jax shook his head.
‘They are the sun, the moon and the stars. Does your name not contain two of these treasures?’
‘Well, yes. It has the symbol for sun and the symbol for moon and together they mean bright.’
‘That’s correct. The brilliance that would shine over the world if the sun and the moon were in the sky both at the same time. It is a good name, a pure name and one that befits you.’
‘And its colour is pale yellow,’ added Yu Yu with a grin.
The Abbot smiled at her then poured a cup of hot water from the jug and handed it to Jax. ‘Did you know that humans also possess three treasures?’ Jax shook his head.
‘They are the vigour, the breath, and the spirit. The first two, well, you can learn them quite easily, and with practice and dedication they become treasures for you to use always. But the last treasure…’
‘The spirit,’ whispered Jax studying the Abbot’s face. In his eyes he could see a wisdom he had never seen in anyone else before.
‘Yes. The spirit. That is not so easy to train.’
‘Why?’ asked Jax, his interest slowly growing.
The Abbot picked up Jax’s hand. ‘This mark, Mingzi,’ he said. ‘Have you often wondered what it meant?’
Jax looked down and gasped. The cut had completely healed. There wasn’t even a scab or scar. Now the little creature lay stretched out, whole and glistening again in the centre of his palm.
Yu Yu bent over and peered at the mark and her eyes widened. ‘What is it, Abbot?’ she asked, touching it gently with her finger. ‘It’s so beautiful.’
Jax felt embarrassed. He wasn’t used to anyone looking at his palm and was about to withdraw his hand when the Abbot said something that made a chill go up his spine.
‘This is the mark of a Peng Master.’
‘A Peng Master! What is that, Abbot?’ Yu Yu asked.
‘You will both find out one day. But first, Mingzi must learn strength of mind, body, vigour and the breath. And you can only do this by practising gongfu.’
‘You mean real fighting?’ Jax said, sitting up straight. He loved watching gongfu movies but never imagined that he could ever learn to do it himself.
‘Yes, but to learn, you must be willing to stay in the temple. For with willingness comes acceptance and with acceptance comes an openness of the heart.’
Jax slumped back on the bed and sighed. ‘It would just be a waste of time, Abbot. I’m hopeless at sport.’ He didn’t want Yu Yu and the Abbot to know how weak he really was, but there was no use pretending to be something he was not.
‘Peng has touched you here,’ said the Abbot, looking down at Jax’s mark again. ‘He has chosen you. Therefore you must fulfil your destiny.’
‘My destiny?’
The Abbot nodded.
‘What is Peng? Is he a man?’ Jax asked.
‘All this you will learn in time, Mingzi. ’
‘Then how long will I have to stay here for? And what about my parents? They’ll be worried. They don’t know where I am.’
The Abbot looked out of the window and a shadow crossed over his brow. ‘I’m afraid you must be ready before the coming of the silver wind. And do not worry about your parents. Ti
me inside Whispering Cloud Monastery does not exist like it does on the outside.’
What did the Abbot mean by that? Jax wondered. How could time be different in the monastery? But then Jax thought of all the different worlds there are – the slow world of the starfish, the dark world in the Black Abyss. Could it be true that time could work differently, too?
‘Please stay,’ said Yu Yu, sitting beside him on the bed. ‘We can practise fighting together and make dumplings and look after the winter melons in the garden…’
Jax was confused. He wanted to go home, but he also wanted to stay. All his life he had hidden his mark from people, and now he had a chance to find out what it meant. To find out who he really was. Jax stood up and faced the Abbot. He had made up his mind. ‘I want to stay,’ he said.
The Abbot smiled. ‘Hao le, good. Go with Yu Yu and have breakfast, then come to the Courtyard of Imaginings. I will wait for you there and we can begin your first test.’ He gathered his patched robes together and left the room.
‘Hoh, ghost boy, the Abbot sure does like you,’ said Yu Yu jumping up from the bed. ‘We’ll have fun together. I am so happy.’
But Jax wasn’t so sure he had made the right decision. What test was the Abbot talking about? He hated tests. He wished he could ask Yu Yu but he didn’t want to show her he was afraid. She seemed so confident about everything.
‘Come on,’ said Yu Yu. ‘I’m hungry, let’s go eat breakfast.’
Jax followed Yu Yu down the corridor and across the courtyard to the shi tang, a large dining hall where about thirty monks were sitting at wooden tables. They all looked up when Jax entered, then bent their bald heads and continued eating. The sound of chewing and the ting ting click click of chopsticks against porcelain rice bowls echoed throughout the hall. Yu Yu handed Jax a bowl and showed him how to help himself to millet porridge and su baozi – vegetarian buns.
‘That’s Lao Fan, he’s the cook.’ Yu Yu pointed to a red-faced man making baozi.
Cook Fan smiled at them. Beside him were stacks of bamboo steamers, smoking furiously with freshly cooked buns.
Hidden Monastery Page 5