by Shirley Marr
That sounded nice.
“Would you make me a mixtape?” I asked.
Despite being a ghost, he could still blush.
He grinned back at me.
“Listen carefully, Amy. You will realise that the one I made for you is playing right now, and has been playing from the start.”
Mum was outside the store, wheeling the vintage pushbike in for the night.
“Amy! What did you do? You’re completely white.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Did you kick over some joss sticks? Pee on a sacred tree? I shouldn’t let you wander around by yourself at night – who knows what demon you might pick up.”
She stopped just as she was supposed to put her arms around me.
“Here,” said Mum. She started plucking flower heads from the bouquet in the basket. “Put your hands out.”
“What is this for?” I asked as Mum continued combing through, looking for ones of different shapes and colours.
“I want you to take a seven flower cleansing bath.”
“I smell pretty good,” I said, sniffing my armpit.
“Don’t be smart.” Mum added the last flower to my pile. “You have some sort of negative energy stuck to you; I can sense it. Go upstairs – now!”
“Okay, if you insist,” I replied. Mum shooed me through the door and my eyes swept past the window display.
The white dress on the mannequin stood next to its friend the gold dress. Mum had teamed it up with a pair of black velvet Eighties pumps, a long string of pearls and short black lace gloves. It looked great. I was sure that Logan would call it something like “neat-o”.
Something in me yearned for that dress. I wished someone would just buy it and put me out of my misery.
Our bathroom was too small to hold a bathtub, so instead of soaking in bubbles with flowers floating all around me, I sat in the shower with an ice-cream container filled with the shredded petals and a mixture of tap and rosewater – my ah ma’s recipe.
I splashed some of it onto my face and let the hot water of the shower run down my back.
“Have you washed me away yet?” Logan’s voice came from outside the bathroom door.
I rubbed out a strip of the steam on the shower screen with my finger and peered through it. “Hang on a moment.” I took the ice-cream container and dumped it over my head. Gaahh! It was freezing!
“I’ve done it. Have you been vanquished?” I called out.
“Yup!” came the reply.
“No, Amy, I’m right here,” said Mum as she tapped on the door.
I combed the petals out of my hair, turned off the water and threw on my underwear and a bathrobe.
“Remember not to clean up the flowers, Amy,” called Mum. “They’ve soaked up the negative energy. I’ll pick them up later with the long barbecue tongs.”
I opened the door and smiled at Mum. Then, when she wasn’t watching, I saluted to Logan.
I went to my room and sat down on the bed. What a day. If someone out there wanted a new angle on a paranormal romance, come talk to Amy Lee.
Mum came to sit on the bed next to me.
“Mum, I think I understand what ghosts are now,” I said.
“I don’t think you do,” said Mum. “I’m scared, Amy. I’m scared for you and I’m scared for myself.”
I’d never see her as nervous as this, even though generally she was a pretty paranoid person.
“There’s still something following you around, isn’t there?”
I nodded, my eyes falling on Logan, standing in my doorway with his hands in his pockets.
“Do you want to know the truth about your Uncle Phillip?”
“Uncle Phillip jumped from the top of a construction site,” I said glumly. “Was he pushed by a ghost? Did someone see it? I didn’t think normal people could see ghosts.”
“Your Uncle Phillip was like you. Sarcastic and a rationalist.”
I glanced at Mum and back down on the floor again.
“But during the last few days of his life, he started to go downhill mentally. Your aunt told me that he started to see things – in particular a woman.
“We call them fox spirits, Amy. Hor-li kui. Remember the bedtime stories I used to tell you? They appear as attractive women or men, but nothing good comes out of them. They only appear to fool and trap you.”
I remembered all right. I remembered the time I crawled under my bed and slept there the entire night. I was totally freaked out because Mum had told me about creatures that came out of the dark, transformed into humans, ate your heart and then ran back into the woods.
“I’m not being forced to do anything I don’t want to do,” I replied.
“How do you know?” Mum asked.
I didn’t.
“Can you honestly say that you wouldn’t do anything he asked you to?”
I glanced up at Logan and then at Mum.
No.
I was in love with him. I was in love with a dream or a memory or an idea. Or a horribly painful but utterly beautiful combination of all three.
“How is that different from liking real boys?” I asked.
“You’re dealing with a ghost,” said Mum. “You don’t know what he’s capable of. I’d say that was very different.”
“Then get rid of him,” I said. The water from my hair, dripping down my forehead and onto my face, felt like tears.
“I wish I could. But I can’t. It’s something you have to make the decision to do yourself. And I know that you’re not ready. I know you will come to me when you are. Right now, all I can do is protect you.”
Mum reached into her blouse pocket. She took out a small red velvet holder, shaped like a tiny square envelope. From it she unfolded a frail yellow piece of paper, inked in black script and stamped in red.
Protection paper. What I called a “fish” as a young girl, because the word in Hokkien Chinese for that and the protection paper were the same.
I watched as Mum lit the corner of it with the barbecue lighter she’d brought up. As the paper flamed upwards, she dropped it into my bedside mug and placed the porcelain lid on top.
I sat with Mum, shaking just a little, before she passed the mug into my hands. I stared at the water in it. The black paper ashes had sunk to the bottom and for some reason it was oily on the surface.
Diligently, I took a sip.
I imagined the pieces of ash swimming in my belly.
“I trust you know what to do,” said Mum. “But I can’t lie and say that I’m not still scared.”
I could see Mum looking down at my shoulder, at the spot where my birthmark would be underneath my robe.
“Thanks, Mum.”
I put the mug back on my bedside table and I lay down on my bed. I could feel myself seeping into the pillow.
“See you in the morning, Amy.”
I lay there for a while, tracing the dragon pattern on the mug, lit by the fairy lights on my headboard, until Logan came over and lay down next to me.
“I’m not a fox. Although I’d like to be Michael J. Fox,” said Logan.
“Are you planning to hurt me?” I asked him in the dark.
Somewhere in a secret alcove of my mind, under the stairs of my imagination, there was a box filled with death wishes that I wanted to open.
“I want you to know that it’s also hurting me. In case you’re interested.” He was facing the wall as I faced the other direction.
“Logan, you’re not real. According to Wikipedia, mental illness can lead to hallucination with the emergence of a fantasy figure. Culminating in a pantheistic experience. I don’t know what that that last part means, but it probably refers to what I’m going through right now.”
I turned around. Logan turned towards me and propped himself up on his elbow. He touched a finger to my forehead and I could feel a pinpoint of cold right there.
“If I am really just in your head, then it’s not about helping me at all. It’s about you helping yourself
, Miss Matey.”
“But I’m not ready! I have too many hang-ups,” I found myself blurting out. “I don’t want to lose you, Mr Matey! Nobody likes me. Please stay with me.”
I stared into Logan’s eyes, his face so close to mine on the pillow. Wasn’t reality just a state of mind? In that case, I wanted to stay inside this little pocket of a dream within my nightmare. He was real to me. I wanted him. I needed him. I loved him.
I could feel my thoughts roll out like marbles, straight into the gentle grasp of Logan’s mind.
He laughed. I wrinkled up my nose.
“I wish you were real. Please tell me you are real.”
“The other kids call you Amy Lone-Lee,” he said gently. “You know why.”
Logan smiled at me, in that Eighties teen heart-throb way of his. I knew that if I had the choice to imagine any boy into life, he would look just like that.
“I’m not going to wake up and find you gone, am I?” I said. There was a lump in my throat. “If that’s the case, I’m not going to fall asleep.”
Not falling asleep … not fall asleep … sleep.
I could feel my eyelids drooping. In that space that exists between wake and sleep, I thought about how this should be the moment when we stare up at a ceiling decorated with glow-in-the-dark stars and have one of those “spend the night, but no sex” scenes out of a YA romance.
Instead, I knew I was alone, haunted by myself.
Not fall asleep, I repeated.
Mum’s ghost stories flittered around in my mind.
“Amy, don’t bring an open umbrella into the house, because a ghost might be hiding under it.”
“Amy, don’t touch the sleep on a cat’s eyes and then touch your own eyes, because you will see ghosts.”
“Amy, never tweeze the hairs off the tops of your toes, or you will see ghosts.”
But it was getting awfully dark inside of me. Something went click, like a light being switched off and I was left in the black. A tiny soul floating in my empty body.
“Amy, Rebecca is here!”
The words carried themselves up the stairs and crammed themselves down my ears.
I lifted my head off my pillow. Oh, gross. I had fallen asleep in my bathrobe. I rolled over. Logan was gone. His side of the bed was undisturbed, as if he’d never been there at all.
“Good morning, Amy.”
“Argh!” I jumped in fright and banged my head against the steel frame of my bed. Rebecca was standing right above me.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Amy! I forgot that you’ve been very jumpy of late. Um, but it’s Monday. We need to get to school.”
Rebecca looked at the bits of my uniform scattered all over the ground.
“Do you want me to help you get dressed or something?”
“That’s okay,” I replied. “I can dress myself. Arms working, see?” I waved my arms about.
“Um, why don’t you go wait downstairs for me?” I found myself smiling to encourage her.
“If you say so,” replied Rebecca, looking uncertain, but she left me alone.
I sat inside my sad little room for a while. It wasn’t until I was pulling the hideous SpongeBob-yellow polo on that I realised I was all alone. It was quiet inside my head. There was no throbbing pain against my skull. My heart didn’t feel all squashed down towards the pit of my stomach. I wasn’t seeing teen ghosts from the Eighties.
I dressed quickly, tied my hair back with a rainbow scrunchie and went down the stairs to where Rebecca would be waiting for me.
I walked through to the shop and found …
Nancy.
“Why are you here?” I said in surprise. “You’ve never been here before.”
“I just can’t get you off my mind, Amy Lee,” said Nancy, gently closing the front door.
“I’m flattered, but I don’t really feel the same way,” I replied. I was filled with a strange sense of control. Like I was a fake person trying to be a real person and it was easier just to plaster a smile onto my face and pretend everything was okay.
Nancy looked over and waved awkwardly to Mum, calling her “Aunty” like a respectful Chinese young person. Mum, momentarily taken aback, waved enthusiastically and asked Nancy to call her Ivy.
“Hey, can you talk to your mum about that gold dress in the window? I’m going to the ball after all, and I’d like to see Victor Zhang say no to that when I rock up in it.”
“Sure,” I said. “I owe you one anyway. Maybe we don’t have to owe each other anything in the next lifetime then.”
Nancy smiled back at me with kindness in her eyes.
“Oh, hi, Nancy,” said Rebecca, diplomatically.
“Hi, Rebecca,” Nancy replied diplomatically back.
While I removed the gold dress from the mannequin, Mum and Nancy talked about some Hong Kong soapie on TVB. Mum looked so happy, so delighted to be talking to someone from our Chinese community.
“You know, I wish I was Chinese too,” said Rebecca. She sighed dramatically. “I can identify more closely with your Eastern philosophies, and I totally dig the Dalai Lama. I’m thinking about going to teach English in Tibet for my gap year. Do you think I’ll have to shave my head?”
I tried not to look at the white dress, the only dress remaining from the mystery box, as I folded Nancy’s dress between crisp sheets of tissue paper.
It felt oddly calm. It felt normal. My mum and my friend – make that friends – chatting away on a Monday morning. My mind so quietly behaved. Nothing had ever seemed so clear. I felt like I wanted to stick my head outside and scream.
A fat tear rolled down my face and plopped onto the tissue paper.
“Amy!” Mum was instantly by my side, looking like she didn’t know what to do with her hands.
“I’m fine,” I replied, and I made her go back to talk to my friends. “I’m not sure what’s wrong with me. It’s just passing. I’m good now.”
I finished folding the dress and I tucked it into a cardboard carrier bag. I had helped Mum design it, black and white stripes with Buy Gones written in gold cursive writing. I thought it looked really stylish. Mum said evil ah ma would have hated it being the alternating colours of death and darkness. Precisely why Mum loved it.
“We’re taking Amy to make an appointment with the school counsellor,” said Nancy. “We’re going to take care of her, Ivy.”
Mum’s eyes met mine.
I handed the carrier bag to Nancy, who momentarily betrayed her iron-maiden exterior to make googly eyes.
“Nancy,” I said. “When is the ball?”
“Tonight.”
Really? Wow, lucky I wasn’t going then.
“You should come along. You can be my date. It might be just the thing to help you relax a bit. Have some fun,” said Nancy and she touched my shoulder.
“I’d love to!” replied Rebecca, turning to face Nancy. “Showing up with a girl would be way edgier than showing up with a boy. Even though it physically hurts me every time I think of Benji. His jet hair. Storm-coloured eyes. Alabaster skin. Adonis body.”
Rebecca clutched at her chest.
“Let’s get going,” said Nancy, frowning. “Bye, Ivy.”
“Thanks, girls,” called Mum, smiling widely. “Drop by anytime for anything. I have a pen and I’m not afraid to discount.”
As I passed the door, Mum reached out and grabbed my hand.
I jumped.
“Remember,” said Mum, squeezing my fingers. I listened intently for the ghost warning of the day. “No matter what anyone decides to do or tell you, I believe you, okay? When you are ready, you come to me.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, caught by surprise.
“So Nance,” said Rebecca, sidling up. “Does this mean we are now friends?”
“Maybe.”
“Cool. That means we can talk right? ’Cos I’ve felt so bottled up since Benji left me. I want to discuss the deeply philosophical things in life. Like when love takes us hostage, who pulls the trigger? Can a
beating heart– ”
“Rebecca?” Nancy tapped her on the shoulder. “Shut up!”
At the end of the day, I stood in the hallway outside the counsellor’s office. There were no chairs so I really didn’t know what to do with my body.
I thought about Uncle Phillip. He jumped because he was suffering from depression. Not because he was possessed. If only he’d had friends who could’ve convinced him to get treatment. That was the real tragedy.
“Amy?”
“Oh. Hi. Michael.” I crossed my arms and looked like I was going somewhere.
“Are you waiting to see–”
“No actually, I was just …”
“It’s okay, Amy,” said Michael. “I’ve seen him myself on a few occasions.”
“What! I mean … really?”
“Look,” said Michael, “I like to play Zelda, I don’t like sport and when the jocks want someone’s head to flush down a toilet, I’m a little too chubby to get away fast enough. So, yeah. I have a few problems.”
“You don’t think I’m a freak?”
“Welcome to the club, kiddo.”
Michael held out his fist, and to make him happy I took out my fist as well and gently bumped it. I didn’t expect to smile, but I did.
“Amy?”
“Yes?”
“I was wondering … if you happen to be going to the ball anyway … you reckon you’d want to go with me?”
Michael’s face looked like he expected me to slap him.
“Oh, Mike, that’s nice of you, but …” But what? But no, because I want to go with my imaginary friend instead? “I’m not going. I’m sorry.”
“Hey, don’t apologise,” said Michael, and his face lit up, despite the circumstances. “I’m sorry I made you fall into a stinky wishing fountain, and that I heckled you during detention and that I ran away when you asked me for help.”
“It’s okay.” I laughed. “I’ll tell my grandkids one day and they’ll think it’s funny.”
“I’m going home to get changed for tonight, otherwise I’d hang around longer.”
“Sure. It’s not a group therapy session anyway.” I tried to look convincing and perky.
“As you wish, Princess Buttercup.”
“Ha-ha. Goodluck rescuing your own Princess, Link.”