Misdirection

by Ning Cai

  Maybe this is it. I am too weak to keep fighting and losing too much blood.

  “Max!” Luce suddenly screams. “Don’t give up!”

  Martinus is directly above me. I drive my head forward and headbutt him in the nose, this time hearing a satisfyingly loud crunch of soft bone breaking against my hard skull. He emits a high-pitched screech and I push him off me.

  “Martinus Lye!” I hear a familiar man’s voice boom. Ashraf! “Put your hands in the air where I can see them now, or I’ll shoot!”

  “S-sorry, I’m so sorry,” Martinus mutters as he winces in pain, covering his injured face that is leaking blood down his pristine white silk shirt. “I’m so very sorry, officer…but this will hurt.”

  Quick as a flash, his other hand comes up, lobbing another throwing knife directly into Ashraf’s stomach. The police inspector fires but Martinus swiftly rolls out of the way, laughing as he watches the large man crumble to the floor, clutching his bleeding wound and succumbing to shock.

  “No!” both Luce and I cry as Martinus kicks away Ashraf’s pistol. He steps back over to me and unceremoniously yanks out the bloody dagger from my thigh. The Spectre’s son looks at me almost kindly. “I’ll try to make it quick. Do you have any last words?”

  Taking in a big breath, I close my eyes. Then I hear an angel’s voice.

  “Yeah, don’t be an asshole.”

  A single gunshot rings out and I open my eyes.

  Martinus is smiling but the smile does not reach his eyes. A trickle of blood seeps out from a clean bullet wound in the centre of his forehead. He falls hard on his knees before collapsing onto the floor beside me. Amberlyn stands stoically behind him with her smoking pistol. “You give the rest of us Christians a bad name.”

  She quickly kneels to check for a pulse on her unconscious partner as she speaks into her walkie-talkie. “This is Inspector Amberlyn Ng of CID requesting immediate medical assistance…”

  Luce rushes to my side, panic written all over her face. Behind her the sun is rising, painting the morning sky a vibrant red. She is talking to me, saying something, but I can’t make it out. I don’t even feel the pain any more. All I hear is static and my vision fades to black.

  SIXTEEN

  I DON’T KNOW where I am but I am floating; completely weightless yet blanketed in a soft, comforting cloud of deep and languid space. I am safe here. Far, far away from a world of madmen and murderers. Just me alone in my bubble of solitude.

  I hear the blood rushing through my veins; feel every breaking tide of breath that my lungs exchange. The pages of my mind sift through secret sands of buried memories, half-forgotten thoughts and broken dreams. My heart beats a song much older than time. The rhythm of life and death, and their mysteries far in between. Over. Under. There and back again.

  They appear before me now, the faces of my perished family.

  Mom. Dad. Danny.

  Exactly how I remember them. But it is all an illusion. The stage lights dim and like shadows of the night, they slowly melt into the darkness. No smoke. No mirrors. No more illusions. I am alone. Truly alone. Just me inside my bubble of loneliness. A void so quiet, I hear every splash of the teardrops falling from my cheeks. I taste the salt of tears upon my bitter tongue. Luce is right. When was the last time I cried?

  The last teardrop falls and like a razor-sharp shard of broken glass, it pierces through the thin protective membrane around me. My beautiful bubble pops. Bearing witness to its devastatingly beautiful destruction, I am in awe for just that split second before I begin my drop from a great height, a slave to gravity. I cannot breathe. I cannot scream. I cannot stop.

  And as I tumble into the sea of black despair and nothingness, a low hum of collective voices starts to swirl around me, like red-winged angels I cannot see. The buzzing of words from familiar voices, and the drumming of what feels like the rapture of falling rain, grow clearer and louder, with every beat pulling me towards consciousness…

  “Hey, stranger.”

  Luce. Her simple words, effervescent like a fizzy soda, fill me with great relief and I feel all fear start to ebb away. If Luce is here, then I am in a safe place. Blinking back the heavy fog of my mind, my weary eyes adjust themselves to the harsh light and I groan inwardly at the heaviness of my body and the dull pain radiating from my tightly bandaged thigh.

  It is a beautiful day out the window. The sun is shining brightly in an azure sky dotted with large fluffy clouds. An invisible breeze moves through the lush green before me, artfully playing the branches of full grown trees like graceful marionettes. I turn away from the window and meet Luce’s smiling face. With her long dark curls spilling over her shoulders, she leans forward, so close that our noses nearly touch, her brown eyes sparkling from behind her cat-eye glasses. “Look around. You are surrounded by so much love.”

  The polite chatter in the room dwindles as everyone turns around to face me. I recognise a range of raw human emotion; happiness, excitement, concern, jubilation, relief, unconditional love. It begins to overwhelm me and I feel myself start to panic. But Luce gives me a gentle nudge, and taking the cue from my childhood friend, I manage a small smile despite everything. “Hey.”

  It breaks the spell. Suddenly, everyone starts moving at once. Amberlyn lets Albatross loose and my dog bounds over, licking my face like there’s no tomorrow. Aunt Theresa fusses over me like I am five years old again. Jon almost falls over himself in the rush to get me a glass of water. CK ditches the game he’s playing on his new phone and offers to peel me a banana. Charlie, flashing his new arm cast like a badge of honour, politely lets me know that it is he, and not my best friend, who bought that single banana. Standing next to Luce, Gigi catches my eye but lowers her gaze. I notice a flicker of uncertainty and I understand.

  “I’m good. Don’t worry,” I say to everyone as I give my cousin’s girlfriend the tiniest of nods. She notices it and smiles back. I gratefully accept the cup of water Jon carefully hands me. I look around. “Where’s Ashraf? Is he okay?”

  “He’s going to be fine,” Uncle Glen’s deep voice reassures me as he strides into the room. Carefully passing my aunt a cup of hot coffee, the clean-shaven man sips on his own steaming beverage, a thoughtful expression on his face. Now that he’s all cleaned up, he could pass for the popular South Korean actor Ha Jung-Woo.

  “Fortunately, that throwing knife missed anything vital and Ashraf’s operation was a success. The doctors are confident he will make a full recovery in no time. But just to make sure, Dr Aisha is with him right now, that lucky fella.”

  I nod, comforted in the knowledge that the brave police inspector is going to be okay. I look up at Amberlyn, whom my dog has taken a fondness to. “Thanks for coming to my rescue, but how did you guys know I was in trouble?”

  She smiles. “You’ll have to thank Ashraf for that. He told me you were in danger.”

  “Remember how I told you I saved the app on his phone to test out your security camera?” CK says. “He noticed Martinus sneaking into your house. So he went back to warn you because your phone was broken. Speaking of which, thank you for saving me. Pa told me you sacrificed your beloved iPhone 4 so the Spectre wouldn’t get away.”

  “You are such a brave girl,” Aunt Theresa says and strokes my hair. “But my heart can’t take another shock at the possibility of losing you, Chilli Padi. Please move in with us. There’s more than enough room on the top floor of our shophouse for you and Albatross.”

  “No can do.” I shake my head.

  “My dear girl, why must you be so stubborn?” my aunt sighs. “We’re family, after all.”

  “Exactly, Aunt Theresa,” I smile. “So how about this: why don’t you and Jon come live with me? I don’t want to let go of the house yet; it’s all I have left of Mom, Dad and Danny. And you could rent out the upper floors of the shophouse or expand the restaurant if you want.”

  Jon laughs. “We’ll give that a think and get back to you.”

  Gigi’s phone rings an
d she excuses herself. Charlie saunters over with a black Sharpie, offering me the honour of being the very first person to sign his new cast. When I am finally done decorating it, Luce giggles at my grand masterpiece. I roll my eyes at her.

  “I know, I can’t draw for nuts.”

  “Impossible. Your drawing very sart!” Charlie makes a show of grand appreciation, nodding his head in approval like I’ve just drawn the Mona Lisa. “Thank you, Max. I really love what you drew. It looks perfect.”

  “Liar,” Luce laughs, crossing her arms.

  “So, what is it?” CK asks.

  “What is it? You’re asking me what it is?” Charlie guffaws. “Wahlao eh… Isn’t it so obvious?”

  “Uhm, no, not really.” My aunt tilts her head and squints.

  “Yeah, I can’t tell either,” Amberlyn says.

  “Sorry,” Uncle Glen says with a shrug.

  “What’s it supposed to be?” Jon asks.

  I raise an eyebrow at Charlie and he finally acquiesces. He gives a dramatic flourish with his other hand. “In your typically idiotic-syncratic way, this really is an exploration of the human condition, and the stuff of which nightmares are made. It is an image that truly encapsulates the existential angst we all go through in this journey called Life.”

  Everyone exchanges looks, and I burst out laughing.

  “It’s a cat, Charlie!” I say, feeling my eyes water both from the ache of laughing too hard and the pain pulsing from my leg wound. “It’s just a drawing of a black cat with a smiley face.”

  “Idiotic-syncratic, indeed,” Jon says, rolling his eyes as he walks out.

  Everyone starts talking at once, but our rambunctious chatter is not nearly loud enough to mask the heated argument that suddenly erupts just outside my door. Jon’s voice is raised, and my cousin hardly ever does that. Everyone immediately tries to ignore the fight, but it is hard not to eavesdrop.

  “Your name is not on the class register!” Jon shouts. “And don’t try to say it’s an administrative mistake, Gigi. I’ve tried finding you after class, but none of the students have even heard of you. Not even your lecturers. You’ve been constantly sneaking around, making calls, meeting people. We really need to talk about this. I need to believe that I can trust you. Don’t you walk away from me now, come back—”

  Luce shoots me a knowing look but before she can say a word, the new clean-shaven version of Uncle Glen saunters over, hiding something behind his back. Taking a seat on the side of my bed, his bright eyes twinkle as he smiles at me. “I’ve got something for you, Max. Well, two things.”

  “Sorry you lost your job.” I give him an apologetic look. “You were a great police inspector.”

  “Perhaps,” Uncle Glen says and shrugs his wide shoulders. “But I’m an even better investigator. And between you and me, sometimes it’s easier when there isn’t any red tape that governs what you do. You make up your own rules.”

  I smile, finally understanding where CK gets his rebellious streak from.

  “This is the first,” he tells me, pushing a shiny new mobile phone towards me. “My way of saying thank you for helping to stop the Spectre at the warehouse. I’m sorry about your original iPhone; I know the memories it stored must have been very important to you.”

  Staring at the new iPhone SE in front of me, I smile my thanks. While not the latest gadget on the market, it looks like a close twin to Mom’s old phone. I decide that I like it very much.

  “And here is the second surprise.” Uncle Glen presses a creased yellow envelope into my hands. “Go ahead and open it. It belonged to your Mom and Dad.”

  I shake the envelope and an old photograph tumbles out. Part of it anyway. Ripped in half and dated two years before I was born, it is a faded picture of my smiling parents with another scientist. Squinting at the blurry print, the mature Asian lady in the white lab coat is not someone I recognise.

  “That’s Professor Izumi Komachi. She’s retired now, but she spent the last few years working on a book. She’ll be doing a book signing next month when she’s in Singapore.” Uncle Glen rubs his smooth chin thoughtfully. “She was your parents’ colleague at COMET Labs, and maybe the best person to tell you about that top secret project they were working on. It’s just a hunch, but I think it could very possibly be the thing that got them killed.”

  “Where was she the night they were murdered?” I frown, studying the smiling Japanese woman’s gentle sloping cheekbones. “Could this Professor Komachi have killed my family?”

  “No, the professor’s alibi checked out. She was giving a TED talk about immunology on the very same evening your family was shot.” Uncle Glen motions for me to keep the damaged photograph. “If you meet up with her, you might be able to learn something new that will help us with their case. Fresh leads could help. I want to help. It’s the least I can do after all that you’ve done for my son.”

  I look at the new puzzle piece in my hands. Could this woman really help? Why was this photograph torn? Who else was in the photo with them? Why did Mom and Dad keep this picture?

  Tracing my fingertips along the jagged edges of the photograph, I gaze at the face of the smiling older scientist and then back at Mom and Dad, but strangely enough, their features suddenly start to get blurry. Squeezing my eyes shut, I see Danny in my mind’s eye, my special little brother sick in bed with chicken pox and laughing at my terrible drawing of a smiling black cat that looked nothing like a cat at all. My eyes get hot and wet at the same time.

  A small splash hits the corner of the torn photograph in my hands, landing at a spot just above my parents’ heads. I watch it roll down in the small space between them. And I smile.

  I no longer have to hold on to the guilt of being the only one to survive. I am going to throw myself into the deep embrace of life, in all of its mad, chaotic, awesome glory and continue my fight for closure and justice, never letting go until I have my family’s murderer begging for mercy at my feet. I make this vow to myself as the tears finally trickle down my cheeks, resisting the urge to wipe them away. At last, at long last, they flow freely.

  I let them.

  ♠

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  As I continue my journey down this amazing path called Life, I have come to realise that there’s the family you’re born into, and then there’s the one you make. Misdirection, the very first book of The Savant Trilogy, would never have been possible without some very important people whom I’ve had the infinite blessing to get to know along the way. There is much truth and wisdom in the saying: To be rich in friends is to be poor in nothing.

  I first learnt about acquired savant syndrome some years ago in a quaint little izakaya one snowy winter night in Tokyo. Award-winning dessert chef Janice Wong, a very dear friend of mine who also went to Methodist Girls School (which Maxine’s fictional Blackmore High is based upon), was sharing with me how she firmly believed her artistic creativity was suddenly sparked after the head trauma she received from a car accident. To me, savants are no doubt the closest that we have to real life X-Men, so this led to long nights of research about incredible people around the world who possess different “superhuman” gifts.

  A manuscript was written but later left abandoned at the back of my drawer when I got busy juggling four other books, various film and TV projects, and my main job as a magician/mentalist. But then in 2016, my best friend (to whom this book is dedicated) urged me to submit to the Epigram Books Fiction Prize. She hounded me and just wouldn’t give up. So the original draft of this book that you now hold in your hands was dredged up and submitted for the competition. Long story short, the novel was longlisted and I was offered a contract to turn my story into not just one but three books! So we have my insistent BFF to thank for The Savant Trilogy. Thank you, Pam… Now it’s time for you to start working on that book you’ve been thinking about for the last six years, and make it a reality!

  Much love also goes out to my publisher Edmund Wee and his incredibly passionate team who
tirelessly break glass ceilings here in Asia, by providing us Singaporean writers with an international stage. Thank you for believing in me. Mucho kudos to my dearest editor Jason Erik Lundberg for working closely with me in banging out this series that is so close to my heart. Misdirection is something I’d have loved to read when I was a bookish teenager still grasping to figure out my identity and what my Life’s purpose was (to my younger readers: trust me, you’ll still have these questions even at the wise old age of 35).

  Kisses to my wonderful family, especially my mother for sharing stories of our first home, a pre-war conservation shophouse at 30 Niven Road, which her grandfather once owned. My faded memory of the original façade’s brightly painted Peranakan-style pintu pagar (half-doors for

  ventilation and privacy) in front of the usual front doors, and the decorative vents above the windows on either side of the main doors, served as my inspiration for the fictional setting of My Sayang.

  Big hugs to my closest friends who never judge me; you have inspired me so much in different ways. You are my gurus, my comrades, my tribe. You’ll never know how much your very existence radiates like a lantern during my darkest hours. You are magical, and you all know who you are.

  Last but not least, to my long-suffering spouse, my knight in shining armour (the uniquely Singaporean “Ah Beng” kind), for patiently fetching late-night suppers or cooking at ungodly hours upon my ridiculous request, for knowing when to give me full support and when to grant me space during my creative process and for always stoically dealing with all my drama: thank you. We’re complete opposites, but this journey just wouldn’t be the same without you. 我愛你。

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Ning Cai is the author of the Singapore Literature Prize-shortlisted memoir Who is Magic Babe Ning? She is also the co-author of three additional books: a travel account (Adventures of 2 Girls, with Pamela Ho), a middle-grade novel (Magicienne, with Don Bosco), and a creativity self help guide (Game of Thoughts, with John Teo).