The Girl with Ghost Eyes

A three-legged toad came hopping. It was the size of a cat, and I heard a clinking behind it, as of coins. It moved in an irregular gait, leaping and lurching down the road, bulbous eyes glancing in all directions.

  A head was walking down the street. A human head, except it was waist height, and turned upside down. Hair moved beneath it like the legs of a caterpillar, brushing the road with innumerable tiny follicles. The inverted head continued down the way.

  Up in the air, floating like a bat above the rest of the monsters, there was a white woman. Or segments of a white woman. Her head was flying there, and she wore a wide-brimmed hat over dark blond hair. She had a beautiful face, a young face. Men would fall in love, go mad, or write poems, if they saw her face, but her innards dangled under her throat. Her heart throbbed, her lungs pulsed, and coils of intestine bobbed as she flew through the night. She was a horror and an affliction. She radiated malevolence. I saw her silhouette pass in front of the moon, and I shuddered.

  There was a blue-skinned man in Buddhist robes, with one huge eye in the middle of his forehead. He carried a goosewood staff, like Father’s. I’d heard of the blue monk, Lan Heshang. Travelers had encountered him in the mountains and in the woods. When the travelers spoke to him, he said nothing. But still, he had my attention. His goosewood staff suggested he knew how to work spells, and he might follow a Buddhist moral code. The blue monk might be able to help me.

  My attention turned again to the woman’s flying head with its trail of organs. During the day she must steal men’s breath with her beauty, and at night she tore free of her body and flew to prey on their spirits. She was as deadly and soulless a predator as any in the spirit world. I thought I needed to tell Father about her. But if he killed her, it would look to the rest of the world as though a Chinese immigrant had murdered a young white woman and cut out her guts. The backlash from such an event would be horrific beyond belief.

  The crowd of monstrosities continued, surging like a waterfall. I felt exhausted simply from watching the freaks. My eyes glazed over, my mind barely able to catalogue the glut of horrors before me. Things that were unnatural or supernatural, things that had no place among men, found their own place among the Night Parade. The Bai Gui Yexing was a dance of nightmares, a community of the fearsome, freakish, and unwelcome.

  Perhaps, I thought, that is how the white folk see Chinatown. We live together in a community of outsiders, united only by being different from those around us.

  And with that I made up my mind. I was going to talk to the least foreign of these ghosts and goblins. I chose the blue-skinned monk, who carried a goosewood staff, whose Buddhist robes and shaved head marked him as a soul-searcher.

  I stood from my perch and began walking toward him. “Pungent tofu?” the boy ghost asked again.

  “Maybe later,” I said, to be polite. I knew better than to trust the food and drink of spirits. He looked despondent, holding out his tofu, and I walked toward the blue monk.

  Something whinnied, and I was nearly trampled by a kind of creature that had the shape of a couch. A hairy couch. It clopped past on its wooden legs, snorting at me in derision.

  ”Blue monk!” I called out as I approached him. “I need your help.”

  He turned to face me, and I saw that mud had dried upon his orange robes. His hands were blue as corpses and twice the size of a man’s hands. There was old dirt lodged beneath his fingernails. He held his staff in one hand, and with the other he idly rubbed his chest, regarding me with the eye in the center of his forehead. The eye was as big as a man’s fist, and it looked bored.

  I bowed to him. I started to speak, and then I stopped, unfamiliar with Buddhist forms of address. “Shifu,” I guessed, addressing him as a teacher, “I am trapped in the spirit world. I need help to return to the world of the living.”

  He blinked his big slow eye and said nothing.

  “Will you help me?” I asked.

  Saying nothing, he looked up at the sky, and around at the revelry of monsters. He blinked his enormous eye. Then he lifted his staff and turned away, rejoining the procession.

  I stamped my foot in anger. If the blue monk wouldn’t help me, which among the monsters might? There were so many of them, and so strange. They might not comprehend any language I knew. They might kill me as soon as I drew their attention. None seemed half so human as the Buddhist, nor so approachable. I saw none who might help. I cursed—and then I heard a soft snigger.

  A big orange cat was trotting toward me. It looked like it had been in many scraps, but still it carried itself with the pride of a tomcat. One of its eyes was larger than the other, and it had two tails. I blinked. “Mao’er?”

  The cat spirit stopped trotting and bowed its neck. “Miao, Dao girl,” he said.

  “Mao’er, can you help me?” I blurted.

  A lazy look swam from his smaller eye to the bigger one. “Help you, Dao girl? Why should Mao’er help?”

  “I helped you once, long ago.”

  The cat spirit gazed at me, shrewd and aware. “Mao’er be a cat, remember,” he said. “And never was a cat born that honored its debts.”

  I sighed. I’d been a little girl, maybe nine years old, when my father caught Mao’er stealing fish oil from the lamps. Unable to capture the cat itself, Father bound Mao’er’s power in a bottleneck gourd.

  When I first saw Mao’er, a group of boys had him cornered. To them he looked like a mangy orange cat, with a forked tail. They poked him with sticks, yanked on his tails, scorched his fur with matches.

  I looked at him and saw what he was. A spirit cat, a strange and changing thing, a creature of mischief and reckless appetite.

  On that day long ago, the boys tormented him for what felt like hours, and I could not interfere. It would cost Father too much face if his daughter was seen fighting with boys. So I turned and went into the temple. Father paid me no attention. I walked into the back room. I found the gourd where Mao’er’s power was held, and I broke the seal.

  Three boys had gone to the infirmary that day, suffering from animal scratches. And that night, late, a cat yowled outside our basement door, and I went to speak with it.

  Years had gone by and now I was trapped in the spirit world, in need of an ally. Mao’er sat back on his haunches, watching me through uneven eyes. “It’s true a cat spirit honors no debts,” I said.

  “And has no friends!” he added.

  “A cat spirit honors no debts and has no friends,” I said. “But you like me.”

  His eyes narrowed, and he looked away. “No like anyone,” he said.

  “Except for me.”

  He looked back, scowling, then licked his paw and said, “Need help nownow?”

  “Yes, Mao’er,” I breathed. “I need your help now.”

  The shift was too fast for me to see. One moment I was looking at an orange cat, and a moment later I was looking at a girl of maybe fifteen years, wearing a faded orange qipao dress, its sleeves long and embroidered. She squatted on the ground and licked the back of her hand. “Need catch mouses?” she asked.

  I stared. I had never seen Mao’er change shape before. The transformation was unnerving. The girl had Mao’er’s eyes; the whites of her eyes were forest green flecked with earthy brown, and her eyes held the same mischief and brightness.

  “No,” I said to her, “I’m not looking to catch mouses. Mice, I mean.”

  Something hot swooped over me. I turned and saw a man’s bald head flying past, mounted on a kind of wagon wheel. The wheel was on fire, and yet the flames did not seem to be consuming it. I blinked and the burning wheel had flown off.

  The Night Parade had passed. I saw the tofu boy hurrying to catch up, heard the strumming pipa recede into the distance.

  The girl yawned, and the inside of her mouth was a cat’s mouth, lined with a cat’s teeth around a cat’s sandpapery tongue. “Need fighty?” she asked.

  “No,” I said, “no fighting.”

  The cat-girl pouted. “No fighty?” she asked
, disappointed.

  “Can you help me back to the world of the living, Mao’er?” I asked her.

  She looked away and stretched. Slowly, carefully, she stretched her spine one way and then the other. She was a slender, tattered thing, and oddly beautiful. “No,” she said, “nono. But can catch mouses. Miao.”

  5

  That night we traveled Chinatown together in the spirit world. Mao’er had returned to his feline form. Skulking along on padded paws, he showed me his favorite places to hide, under shadowy staircases in dim alleys. We roamed my town, taking unfamiliar paths along familiar roads.

  “Mao’er sneak in there, steal dry fish,” he said, indicating a warehouse on California with a flick of his whiskers.

  “But that’s an Ansheng warehouse,” I sputtered.

  “Yesyes?” he said.

  “Father has warded it.”

  The cat sniffed in disdain. “Mao’er know back door.”

  I stared at him. “Mao’er,” I said, “is there a … back door … to my father’s temple? Or to our quarters?”

  He shifted again, but this time he took on the shape of a hefty little boy, with buckteeth and one protruding eye. “Mao’er try,” he said. “Lamp oil yum, miao. No way in. Mean, miao, mean.”

  I sighed. Of course Father had warded our home and his temple. Every floorboard, every corner was protected by talismans, shielded by bagua mirrors, with painted images of door gods mounted at the entryways and wood blocks beneath the thresholds. Of course it was.

  Mao’er showed me a narrow passage between two brick buildings off Fat Boy Alley. The passageway opened to a slightly larger niche. It was almost morning, and I curled up and slept.

  My dreams were troubled by monsters. No one could witness the Bai Gui Yexing and come away from the experience undisturbed. All night I saw them, the distorted faces, the freakish apparitions. The sadness of the tofu boy, the malice of the flying head, the indifference of the blue monk, all of it drifted through my dreams in a chop suey of horrors.

  I woke, disturbed, hungry, and worried. “Great Boqi,” I prayed, “eat these evil dreams.” I could not afford to allow my vital energy to be sapped by nightmare, not here, not now, when so much was at stake. If Mr. Liu wanted to kill my father, it probably meant the one-armed man had something planned, something big and ugly, and he saw Father as a threat to his plans.

  Once I was back in my body, I could warn my father, and he would know what to do. So my path was clear. Stay intact in the spirit world, and find a way to return to my own skin. I stood and stretched under the tarnished brassy light of the moon.

  If I stayed trapped here long enough, it would eventually start to seem normal, the days lit by moonlight. But I had not been here long enough for that. I found the spirit moon disturbing.

  Near me was a pile of dried fish. It was a gift from Mao’er, no doubt. But the cat was nowhere to be seen.

  I took the dried fish and chewed on it. It was better than I expected; there was dried salmon, dried tuna, dried squid, dried cuttlefish sliced into salty strips, and some fish I could not give a name to. All of it was salty, oily, and chewy. In my mouth, the flavors tasted lovely but felt somehow hollow, as though I were eating shadows. Which, I supposed, I was.

  I stood, stretched, and went to find Mao’er. He wasn’t in the alley, so I started walking toward Jackson, chewing the fish.

  It had been two days. For two days I’d been away from my body, cut off from the workings of the human world. For two days, Mr. Liu had been gloating over what he’d done to me. How he’d played me for a fool. How he’d outwitted me, cut me, and trapped me.

  Or maybe he hadn’t been gloating. He might see it as no greater a victory than drinking a cup of tea. That he had defeated me might be inconsequential in his eyes, no greater an achievement than killing a moth.

  I walked along, and the thought of Mr. Liu made my spirit body stiffen with outrage.

  I swallowed the last of the dried fish. Mao’er was crouched and quiet on Dupont south of Jackson when I found him, intent on hunting. He had a cat’s shape once more. His two tails were flat to the cobblestones behind him. I approached him and he half-cocked his head in my direction.

  “Mao’er hunt. Hushy hushy now, Dao girl?”

  I looked toward the street, where the cat had been hunting moments earlier. A tiny spirit was walking slowly across the cobblestones. It was milky white and small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. It had tiny white human arms and tiny white human legs, but where a man has a torso and a head, the spirit had an eyeball.

  A full-sized, human eyeball.

  An eye was walking across the street. And it was looking straight at me.

  “Yaoguai,” I said. The eyeball spirit was clearly one of the ghosts and goblins, freakish creatures that have no relation to the human world. It was the kind of thing my father would destroy without hesitation.

  Even after all my years of seeing monsters, even after witnessing the Bai Gui Yexing, I continued to be both fascinated and repelled by the outlandishness of spirits.

  I watched the creature proceed. Its legs took short, determined strides. It was a human eye with tiny arms and legs attached, and it was watching me. It made its way across the street and never took its eye off of me. It was creepy, but there was something familiar in its gaze, something that evoked a feeling of having known it all my life. I couldn’t identify what was familiar about the eye.

  “Don’t hurt it,” I told the cat spirit.

  He hissed. “Dao girl starve Mao’er?” He shifted into the shape of a hefty little boy with a mouth full of sharp teeth, swishing two tails behind him.

  I turned toward him, still keeping an eye on the eyeball spirit. “I will bring you spirit mice, Mao’er, and saucers of fish oil. Leave this spirit alone.”

  He gave a soft hiss. “Mouses good. Oil yumyum. Dao girl better deliver. Or Mao’er piss on your shoes, Dao girl. Miao.”

  We both turned our attention back to the eye. Mao’er shifted back into the shape of an orange cat and scampered into the shadows. I knew I’d see him soon enough. He wouldn’t forget the food I owed him.

  I crouched down and faced the little spirit. Some of the yaoguai can change shape and size, and many have unexpected strengths. Yes, the eyeball spirit looked harmless, but in the land of monsters, it is always best to be prepared—and feared.

  I tried to make my voice sound impressive, like my father’s. “My name is Xian Li-lin. I am a Maoshan Daoshi and a killer of monsters. What kind of monster are you?”

  Tilting its eyeball up to look at me, the spirit huffed. “Hardly polite to call someone a monster when you’ve only just met.”

  I blinked and stared. “A yaoguai is lecturing me in manners?”

  “Harrumph,” he said, crossing his arms. His gaze somehow seemed harsh, disapproving. Familiar. “I will lecture you in manners, young lady,” he said, “and you will listen.”

  I smiled, leaning back. “What will you do to me if I don’t listen?” I asked. And then I said, under my breath, “Little monster.”

  The spirit had no face other than its eye, but in that moment I could have sworn he was scowling. “If you continue to be rude to me,” he said, “why would I guide you back to your body?”

  6

  “You know how to lead me back to my body?”

  “You heard me,” the eyeball said, uncrossing his arms and crossing them again behind his back. He looked … smug.

  It’s strange to crouch on a street corner talking to an eye. It’s hard to look into an eye and talk to it. But this yaoguai had just offered me hope. He claimed he could lead me back to my body, back to my life.

  “What will it cost me?”

  “Not a thing,” he said. “But I expect you to be polite.”

  “All right,” I said, though I did not relish the thought of having to be polite to one of the yaoguai. “What shall I call you?”

  He looked surprised. “I …” he said. “I don’t think I have a
name.”

  I raised an eyebrow at that. “I can’t address you respectfully if you don’t have a name,” I said. I thought for a moment. “How about Mr. Yanqiu?”

  He hesitated. “Mr. Yanqiu,” he said, thinking. “Mr. Eyeball. Yes, I think I like that.”

  “Mr. Yanqiu, please will you lead me back to my body?”

  He gave me a scornful look. “Maybe later.”

  “Later? I need to get back as soon as I can.”

  “You called me a monster, young lady. And I will not lead you anywhere until you apologize for it.”

  My mouth dropped open. I had agreed to be polite to him, but the little monster wasn’t going to make it easy for me.

  “Mr. Yanqiu, Shifu,” I said, addressing him as a teacher, “I lose much face for insulting you. Shall I knock my head to the earth nine times?”

  “That will do nicely,” he said.

  “What did you say?”

  “You offered to knock your head to the earth nine times, and I accepted.”

  I looked at him, startled. “But …” I said. One only knocks one’s head to the earth before the truly great, like Empress Dowager Cixi or the Emperor, yet manners dictate making the offer.

  “You made an offer,” he said, “and I’m accepting it. Do you want to find your way back to your body or not?”

  Frustration made me clench my fists. I was angry, resenting it. I felt shame, both for my behavior and for my powerlessness. Could the spirit really guide me back to my body? He claimed he could, and he made that claim without me telling him anything. Somehow he’d known that was what I wanted.

  I had little choice. I could humble myself before this monster and maybe make it back to my body, or I could save face and stay trapped in the spirit world. Holding back anger, I positioned myself on my hands and knees. I closed my eyes and prepared to smack my forehead to the ground.

  And then the eyeball laughed.

  His laugh wasn’t grumpy and cruel as I expected. It was a light laugh, playful, warm, and welcoming.

  “I’m only teasing you, young lady,” the eye said. “Come on. Get up and follow me.”