Ghost
THENEXTDAY,the ghost watched the scene unfold from his perch,
right at the corner of where walls met ceiling, cloaked in shadows.
The coffee table was laid with what he recognized as Mama's
good lacy table runner, the one Suraya had "borrowed" once to wrap
around her waist like a fancy princess skirt; that had earned her an
earful when Mama found out. The carefully polished silver tray on
top of it held plates of treats, a large red-capped jar of murukku, and
the ornate cups with matching saucers that they only used for
guests.
He hadbeen listening the whole time, of course. He wasn't sure
who Mama's "expert help" would turn out to be, but he'd seen many
"spiritual practitioners" in his time, and they were almost always true
to type: men with beards that ran the spectrum from black to white,
from those who truly wanted to help and believed they could to those
who wanted nothing more than the feel of crisp new notes of money
in their palms.
This one was . . . different.
Pink crept carefully out of thedarkness to get a better look at the
plump, bespectacled man who sat in the living room now, nibbling on
leftover Eid cookies and drinking sweet, hot tea. "Delicious," he said, as he reachedfor yet another one of the biscuits stacked on the
delicate china platter, the layers of flaky dough making asatisfying
crunch as he bit down to get to its sticky center. "What do you call
these things?"
"Heong peng."
"Ah yes, a Perak specialty, am I right?"
Mama nodded stiffly. "I grew up eating them; I am very fond of
them."
She called him Encik Ali. He had a sprinkling of hair on his upper
lip and chin that could probably pass as a mustache and beard if you
were feeling kind enough that day, and he was wearing round
glasses with thin black frames and smudged lenses, and apale gray
jubah. Cookie crumbs and stray bits of murukku nestled in its folds.
Suraya sat in the chair opposite, hands folded in her lap, pale and
watchful. Pink searched her face for some sign of what she thought
about all of this and saw nothing but skepticism behind her mask of
politeness. He couldn't helphimself; he felt his nonexistent heart
swell with pride. That's my girl. Don't fall for their nonsense.
"Mmm, mmm." Encik Ali nodded after he'd heard Suraya's story,
mopping the dregs of tea from the corners of his mouth with the
flowery napkins Mama had made Suraya dig up from deep within a
kitchen drawer. "It does seem to be a classic case of pelesit, yes.
And from yourmother, you say?" He turned to Mama, his eyebrows
quirked questioningly. "She was a . . . practitioner of . . . those types
of things?"
"She was a witch," Mama said flatly. "And she could not stop
even if she tried. It's part of why I left, a long time ago."
"Indeed, indeed," the man muttered, nodding again. "And no one
can blame you for it. It cannot have been an easy childhood. . . ."
"Back tothe matter at hand," Mama said, raising her voice to just
shy of outright rudeness. "What can we do, Encik Ali? Can you help
my daughter? She is a good girl, a girl who does as she's told. She
doesn't deserve to be swept up in . . . all of this."
"Mmm," he said again, scratching the patchy hair on his chin. "I
believe I can, yes. You know I am a pawang, and we have certain
powers. Somepeople call a pawang hujan when the drought hurts
their crops and they want to call upon the rain. Some people call a pawang buayawhen a crocodile threatens the safety of their villages
and it needs handling. Me, I am a pawang hantu, and they call me
when they have problems of a . . . spiritual nature. So you did the
right thing."
Pawang hantu?Pink felt a sudden cold prickling tiptoe up his
back. He had not expected this man, this bumbling, genial, crumb
dusted man, to really be able to handle ghosts and monsters. Could
he really do this? Could he really be Pink's downfall?
Was this . . . fear?
The pawang turned to Suraya. "Can you withstand a few more
days of this, child? Are you strong enough, brave enough?"
"I think so," Suraya said. "I hope so."
"Mmm, very well then." The pawang dabbed at his shiny forehead
with his napkin. "The full moon is in five days."
"That's when I usually feed him," she said. "For . . . for the
binding."
The pawang nodded. "That is when whatever rituals and
incantations we use are most powerful, you see. And he needs you
then, no matter how angry he may be with you. Your blood is the
only thing keeping him tied to this world. Your blood is the bait." A
stray piece of murukku fell out of a fold onto his lap; he picked it up
and absentmindedly popped it into his mouth. "A full moon is a
marvelous and fearsome thing," he said, chewing thoughtfully.
"My mother used to say the same thing," Mama said, thenclosed
her mouth quickly, as though she'd said too much.
"I don'tdoubt it," the pawang said quietly, his voice all gentle
sympathy. "But it is also a tricky thing, moonlight. It's like adding
sugar to a cake. Add a littleand it makes a raw mixture palatable.
Add a little more, and an okay cake becomes great. A littlemore and
a great cake becomes a culinary masterpiece, enough to bring
grown men to tears. A little more . . . and all is ruined."
"What does that mean?" Suraya asked, and Pink wondered the
same.
"Only that we must be careful," the pawang said, turning his
warm smile on her.
"Will she be all right?" For the first time, there was hesitance in
Mama's voice. "Will it . . . will it hurt her?
"No, it shouldn't hurt. Not for her."
Suraya looked at him through narrowed eyes. "Will it hurt him?"
In that moment, Pink loved her so hard he thought thecavity
where his heart ought to be would burst.
"Him?" The pawang raised an eyebrow at this as he carefully set
his teacup back down on the coffee table. There was a clink as glass
hit glass. "Surely you mean it, child."
"I mean him," she said stubbornly. Pink noticed Mama's lips, now
pressed together so tightly a piece of paper couldn't have passed
between them. "What will happen to him?"
The question seemed to leave the pawang nonplussed. "Well. He
would go away."
It was at that moment that you might have heard a sharp hiss
from the darkest corner of the room, if you were listening.
"Forever?"
"If we do it right."
The room suddenly seemeddarker. Where it had been bright
afternoon sunshine just seconds ago, clouds now loomed on the
horizon, dark and angry and flickering with lightning. Mama got up
then, crossing the room to close the windows against the gathering
storm.
"Will it hurt him?" Suraya asked again.
The wind turned the rain into sharp, thin whips that lashed
unceasingly against the tin roof; it turned the branches of the trees
outside into fists that pounded hard against the windowpanes.
The pawang smiled. "If we do it right," he said again, and behind
those smudged lenses Pink thought he detected a peculiar gleam.
Suraya shivered, and Pink shivered with her.
"Do not worry, child," the pawang said kindly. "I will keep you
safe. Noharm will come your way. But this thing that haunts you . . .
it will keep hurting you unless we banish it, get rid of it forever. Do
you understand?"
She waited a long time to answer, and in the minutes that ticked
by, Pinkwanted to yell out, tell her that he would not hurt her again,
that hecould not help himself sometimes but that he would try so
hard, so much harder than he was trying now. He could not imagine a world in which he could never see her or be near her again, and he
did not want to.
"Encik Ali is asking you a question, Suraya." Mama's teacher
voice cut through the silence, the note of authority unmistakable. It
was a voice that demanded you sit up straight and pay attention and
keep your eyes on your own paper. It was a voice that demanded
answers.
"Yes," Suraya said softly. "I understand."
Outside, the wind howled as if it were a wild beast that someone
had stabbed in the heart.