Girl
IN THE CEMETERY,nothing moved, not even the insects and animals
that usually crept and crawled under cover of the shadows. Pink,
Suraya, and Jing sat in a row, savoring the quiet and thecool night
air. Suraya didn't know what was going through her friends' minds,
but her own was filled with the cold dread of words like goodbyeand
goneand forever, and she couldn't shake the fear that saying
anything at all would bring their inevitable parting even closer.
"Well." Jing spoke first, breaking the spell. "That was . . . quite a
night."
Suraya had to smile. "Better than going to the movies, huh?"
"Definitely better."
"Better than Star Wars even?"
"Let's not go that far." Jing smiled and nudged Suraya with her
shoulder. "I'll just sit here for a sec, take a breather. You guys go . . .
handle your business."
Pink looked at her. Thank you, Jing, he said quietly.
She stared at him open-mouthed for a second. "You mean you
could have just TALKED TO ME this WHOLE TIME?"
I could have.Pink shrugged.But this is thefirst time I have felt
that you are not just her friend . . . but also mine.
Jing's face broke out into that familiar wide grin. "The feeling's
mutual, buddy." She rubbedher nose with her thumb, narrowly
missing hitting her face with the shovel she still carried. "Oh. You'll
need this." She pressed it into Suraya's spare hand, clasping it tight
for a moment before she let go. "So I guess . . . I guess this is
goodbye."
Farewell. Pink thought for a second. May the force be with you.
Jing's delighted laugh rang through the cemetery as she walked
away.
Suraya and Pink made their way to the little grave at the very top of
the hill.
"This isit, Pink," Suraya said quietly. "We're about to find out who
you really are. Are you ready?"
For a moment, he didn't answer. "You don't have to, you know,"
she said, all in a rush. "The pawang is gone now. We have nothing to
fear. We could just . . . go back to the way things were! We could be
happy again. And besides . . . there's no guarantee this will even
work."
Beside her, she thought she felt his body tremble, just slightly.
You know we need to do this. Or we need to at least try.
"But why?" She was sobbingnow; she just couldn't help it. "Why
can't you just stay with me?"
He laid a scaled hand against her cheek, as he'd done so many
times before. It's hard to livea life weigheddown by the dead. And
you need to live, Suraya.
She didn't even try to stop the tears coursing down her cheeks,
and he was quiet. Pink always did know when to give her the space
to feel her feelings.
When he spoke again, his voice was firm and steady.
I am ready.
Slowly, they approached the neat little grave that sat in theshade
of a flowering frangipani tree, only with dark red petals darkening to
burgundy centers instead of the pure white ones with the deep
yellow hearts from Suraya's garden. The grave was impossibly, sadly
small, its head- and tail stone bearing small cracks and a thick layer of dust. Yet flowers crept along the edges, blooming defiantly in the
midst of neglect and decay.
Suraya bent down, hesitantly sounding out the name spelled out
in curling Arabic script.
IMRAN, SON OF RAHMAN AND NORAINI.
She sucked in a breath sharply. The world seemed to spin that
much faster, so fast she had to sit down before she fell over.
RAHMAN. AND NORAINI.
What is it?
She took a deep breath.
"That's your name, Pink. Imran." She pointed it out to him. "And
those . . ."
Those . . . ?
"Those are my parents' names."
"Suraya?"
She turned her head.
It was Mama. And standing next to her, barely visible and
flickering slightly in the dying moonlight, was a ghost. A small
woman, Suraya realized, Pink's words echoing in her head, round
and soft with a smile that made her whole face crinkle up and her
eyes disappear into two thin lines.
But there was another ghost.
And suddenly Suraya understood. She understood it all: her
mother's constant aches andpains; the bow and hunch of her thin
shoulders; the sorrow hiding in the depths of her eyes likecrocodiles
in still water, waiting to pounce; the way she held her own daughter
at arm's length. Because theother ghost was with her mama; a little
boy no more than two years old, with a shock of dark hair and huge
eyes that sparkled with starlight and fear, who clasped his hands
around her mother's neck as if he would never let go.
Her brother.
Imran.
"How did you know where to find us?"
They knelt beside Pink's grave—Imran's grave, her brother's
grave; Suraya's head swirled with all this new information until it
made her dizzy. The witch's ghost perched daintily on a nearby tree stump, her flowery batik sarong spreading over the roots. Her
brother's ghost stared at her with wary, watchful eyes.
"Your friend's mother . . . she called me." Mama's voicedidn't
sound like Mama's at all; it was cracked, and small, and sad. "She
said you two were nowhere to be found, that her daughter wasn't
answering her phone. She said the last place she knew for sure you
were was near Gua Musang. I was on my way there whenshe called
again and said you'd gotten money from a gas station near here.
Then I knew for sure where you were headed. I knew . . ." Mama
swallowed. "I knew what you must have been looking for."
"Tell me everything, Mama."
She let out a weary sigh. "Your father had just died," shebegan,
and hervoice creaked like a door that hadn't been opened in a long,
long time. "You were a tiny little baby, and I was exhausted. We
came here, to my mother, because I thought she couldhelp me.
Help us. I should have known better."
She paused as though to collect herself. "I knew about her
witching—I'd known about it for a long time—but I thought she could
put thataside for once and just be there for her family. And anyway,
she wasn't a very good witch."
"Excuse me!" The witch's voice was like old leaves and dry
riverbeds, and it was filled with outrage.
Mama ignoredher. "She tried, but all she could manage were
little spells and hexes. You remember that time you insisted you
were sick? You threw such a tantrum when we told you that you
were perfectly well, the doctor gave you placebo pills. You thought
that was what the medicine was called, when it actually wasn't
medicine at all. It was fake, a little lie to make you believeyou would
get better. Well, that's the kind of witch your grandmother was. It
made people feel good to think her little spells were actually doing
what they wanted, and so they paid her money for nothing more than
fake pills that made them believe they felt better."
"Hmmph." The witch sniffed. "Say what you want, but I helped
people. And I made a decent living for us doing it, too."
"So . . .what happened to my brother?" Suraya was almost afraid
to ask; she had to force the words out before she lost her nerve.
"He wandered into the pond and drowned one afternoonwhile I
was sleeping next to you." She said it fast and forcefully, as if she
couldn't bear the words to linger on her tongue for too long, and the
little boy-ghost on her back shivered, as if he remembered the
feeling of cool, cool water swirling into his lungs and pushing the air
and thelife out of him. "My breast was still in your mouth. The sheets
were wet with milk when I woke up, my head hammering, knowing
immediately that something was wrong."
Suraya's tongue felt thick and fuzzy, and her throat ached with
unshed tears as she reached out to grasp her mother's hand in her
own.
"I didn't hear him at all." Mama's breaths were short now, and
ragged, and choked with sadness. "But he must have made some
sound. Right? Surely he would have splashed, or cried, or yelled. I
should have heard him." She massaged her aching shoulders,
shifting the boy's weight fromone side to the other as shestared up
at the moon. "I blamed myself. And sometimes, because it was
easier, I blamed her."
"I was meant tobe watching him." The witch shook her head, the
lines onher face leavened with sadness. "I don't know how he got
away from me. He'd just found his feet. He was a quick one, slippery,
like a tadpole swimming downstream."
"But he couldn't swim like atadpole, could he?" There was no
anger in Mama's voice; it was flat and strangely matter-of-fact. "I
couldn't stand it. I couldn't stand being here, and I couldn't stand her.
I left, taking you with me. I wanted another life, one where nobody
knew who we were. I didn't know what she would do, didn't even
suspect until Jing's mother told me you were here, back in Kuala
Gajah. And then I knew. I knew what she'd done to him."
"Done to him?" The witch was indignant. "I loved that boy."
"Then why did you do what you did?" There was anger now, and
so much anguish it made Suraya's heart ache and her toes curl.
"Why did you make him this . . . this . . . thing? This monster?"
Beside her, she felt a small quiver, and Suraya knew it hurt Pink to
hear these words spill from Mama's lips so easily.
"I thought it would be a way of keeping part of him with me." The
witch's voice was small, andtired, and somehow older than it had ever been. "A way of keeping him alive. I just followed the
instructions. I didn't know it would make . . . this."
"You were never very good with recipes." Mama sniffed, running
her sleeve under her nose toclear the snot that trailed from it. "Why
didn't you just get rid of it?"
The witch looked at her, aghast. "You know how I feel about
waste. It was there, and it was a perfectly good resource." She
folded her hands primly in her lap. "I made full use of it . . . of him.
And I became a very good witch indeed. And . . ." She coughed, and
Suraya thought she caught a glimpse of something more behind that
prim expression, something soft and warm and altogether more
likable. "And I suppose I liked having him around. Even if he
wasn't . . . the him I remembered. I liked having that piece, at least."
"I'm sorry you ever did it."
"I'm not," Suraya said quietly, but with a firmness in her voice she
didn't know she possessed. "He's the best friend I ever had. In fact,
he's more than that. He's . . . he's family."
"I'm family," the witch replied testily. "And what's more, you never
even come to see my grave. Young people today, honestly."
"I didn't know where your grave even was!"
The witch sniffed. "Excuses."
Suraya thought of something then, and she drew the marble out
of her pocket. "Is this yours?"
There was a flash of recognition in the witch's eyes. "Gave it to
her, didn't I?" She jerked her head in Mama's direction. "Sent it in the
post. Told her it would help her see her boy, or her man if she
wanted. Never Even got a thank you note, I'll have you know." Her
tone was injured.
"I locked it away," Mama said, her eyes on the grave. She ran her
hand gently over his name: IMRAN, etched into the gray headstone.
When she spoke again, her words were for Suraya alone. "I didn't
want to see him. My grief was too much for me. To lose two people
almost at once. To lose your own child. It's like losing a part of your
heart. And the part that was left hurt too much, so much that I
covered it in darkness and did my best to feel nothing at all." She
turned to her daughter, and Suraya tried hard to see the pain in her eyes without flinching. "Can you see what that might do to a
person?"
The little ghost around her neck looked at Suraya, and his eyes
were wide and dark and scared.
"I can see," Suraya said, stroking the thin hand she held in her
own, and she could. She could see the slope of her mother's
shoulders, bent not just with the weight of the phantombaby that
clung to her, but the guilt thatwouldn't let her go, and she chose her
next words carefully. "But Mama, broken mothers raise broken
daughters. Didyou not see how we could have each filled the parts
the other was missing? Been stronger, together?"
"I see that now," Mama whispered. "But at the time, all I could
think was I had no strength left for love. I had to use it all for survival.
There was nothing left."
Beside her, so still that she had almost forgotten him, Pink stirred.
It is no wonderthat I love you as I do,he said. It is because apart of
me always recognized you as my little sister.
Slowly, he got up and stood before Suraya's mother, who
seemed not at all surprised to be addressed by this scaled, horned,
solemn-eyed beast. You have been carrying this burden for a long
time,he said gently, and she nodded, looking up at him witheyes
that still glistened with tears. It does not do to cling to the dead and
forget the living. Will you let me take it from you?
It took longer this time, but after a while she nodded.
Pink reached up.
The little ghost-boy hesitated.
It isall right,Pink said quietly. It isall right. They don't belong to
us, you see. They belong to each other, just as you and I do.
The ghost-boy thought aboutthis for a second. Then, slowly, he
unclasped his hands from around Mama's neck and let Pink lift him
gently into his great, scaled arms.
Mama sobbed as if her heart would break.
Pink knelt down beside her, bowing his great horned head toward
her own. You can come and visit, the way you should with your
dead,he told her, his voice soft and warm as a hug. And he—I—we
—will always be here for you, and glad to see you. But nobody is meant to live their whole liveshanging on to ghosts. Just as he and I
must let go, so must you.
And so must I,Suraya realized, and the breath she let out was a
long, shaky sigh.
Beneath the tears and the sadness, Suraya thought she saw
relief flicker on Mama's faceas she stared up at Pink's monstrous
face and placed a trembling hand on his cheek.
"Thank you," she whispered.
No, Mama. Thank you.
The pre-dawn sky was the color of a day-old bruise, and the air filled
with the steady clink, clink, clink of trowel against dirt.
There was little light to see by, but if you were looking carefully,
you might have seen a dark, hulking shape shrink rapidly into a small
one, one that looked very much like a grasshopper, on the palm of a
little girl's hand.
If you had verysharp eyes indeed, you might even have seen the
grasshopper place one tiny foot against the little girl's damp, tear
stained cheek.And if you strained your ears, you might have heard
the words he spoke for her alone, the ones that made her close her
eyes for a second and lean in close, just breathing the scent of him.
Then he slipped into the small jar she held in her other hand, and
there was silence as she placed the silver lid on, screwed it tight,
and placed it in the deep, dark hole she'd dug with her little trowel.
Nobody said a word as she covered the jar with the dampearth,
packing it tightly so you'd never know it had been disturbed at all—
not Mama; not Jing, cradling her arm in its cast; not Badrul or
Salmah or even the witch, who all slowly began to fade as light stole
into the cemetery.
She was sweaty and shaking by the time it was over, and her
face was streaked with dirt and tears.
"It isdone," Suraya whispered. "The bond is broken, andthis is
the end."
And as the sunrose over the cusp of the world, the ghost finally
closed his eyes and died.