The Girl with Ghost Eyes

  “Most likely.”

  That made me feel nervous as well as excited. The baldies at the monastery were practitioners of a different kind of kung fu. Father had trained me in the martial arts of Wudang Mountain, which emphasize the building of one’s internal energies, and round, smooth motions, but the baldies at the monastery trained in Shaolin, a warrior art focused on strict, rigid motions. I had always wanted a chance to test my skills against theirs. If any of them was involved in the attack on Father and me, I would soon get my chance.

  “How much longer will Father be asleep, Dr. Wei?”

  The doctor glanced over to the cot where my father lay sleeping. “It’s hard to say, really. He stirs every few hours. For all I know, he could wake up in the next few minutes, but he could also sleep another day.”

  I brushed back the sheet on my cot and started to stand. “Li-lin,” the doctor said, “you can’t just rush out of here. You suffered an attack and a coma. It will take time for you to recuperate.”

  I stuck out my arm. He gave me a skeptical look, then took my pulse. I waited while he counted the pulses, moving his grip to different points along my forearm. “All right,” he said, with some reluctance. “Your twelve pulses are healthy.” He took his stethoscope and checked my heartbeat. I waited once more, breathing as he instructed. Shaking his head, he said, “Your cuts were superficial and you’re strong as a horse. I’d still advise you to give yourself time to recuperate. Go home, drink plenty of liquids, make some herbal soup. Don’t go out and rush into something dangerous.”

  “Of course not,” I lied.

  I had bled on my Daoshi robes, so Dr. Wei had burned them. Now I wore the infirmary’s long linen nightshirt as I descended the stairs, trying not to scratch at the cuts on my stomach. I passed Dr. Wei’s wife on my way to the front door. She gave me a look that seemed to be both suspicious and hostile. I tried to ignore her glare. Maybe she thought I was making a play to be her husband’s concubine. I brushed past her and walked out the door.

  It was late afternoon by now, and Chinatown was bustling. A vendor had set up his stall nearby and was shouting, “Cabbage bean pear potato! Cabbage bean pear potato!” There was the smell and sound of laundry being washed by hand. Water splashed, clothing splunked, and steam poured through the air, warm and fresh.

  I had left the spirit of my father’s eye waiting in the street, promising I’d come back for him, but now he was nowhere in sight. “Mr. Yanqiu?” I called. “Where have you gone, Mr. Yanqiu?”

  A few moments later he came stumbling out of a cloud of steam on the ground. “Marvelous,” he said. “Simply marvelous. What do they call that?”

  “That’s steam,” I told him. “It comes out of hot water. There are people inside that basement, and they use the water to wash laundry. The water gives off steam, and the steam rises through that vent you found.”

  “Steam,” said the eyeball spirit. “I’ll have to remember that. But what is this ‘hot water’ you mentioned?”

  “Come on, Mr. Yanqiu,” I said with a smile. “Let’s go back to Father’s apartment, and I’ll heat you a cup of tea.”

  8

  The spirit of my father’s eye waited outside while I changed my clothes in the cellar room where Father and I lived. I took off the long infirmary gown and examined the cuts in my skin. They weren’t deep, but they were ugly, and they stung.

  I studied the cuts. They were extensive, elaborate. And, I realized, it was more than just one spell.

  At the center of my stomach, starting just below my ribcage and extending below my waist, there was a spell that would open me to spirit possession. As I deciphered the ghostscript, I realized how grotesque it was. It not only opened my body to Shi Jin but to any other unnatural thing that wanted to take me. It was an invitation. Spirits of disease could have taken up residence inside me. The spell wasn’t merely intended to use me as a weapon against my father; the spell was also intended to violate me, pollute my body and spirit. It was designed to cut me open and shit inside.

  The first spell was signed, Liu Qiang, Maoshan Daoshi, Fifth Ordination.

  “Fifth,” I said, and spat a string of curses. Even a Daoshi of the Third was out of my league. Liu Qiang’s spells could brush mine aside like cobwebs. I wanted to cry out in frustration.

  Next to that pattern of cuts, on my side, was a different spell. My father had also cut a spell into my skin. It countered Liu Qiang’s, closed my body to invasion, sealed me up and protected me. Nothing could enter my body except for something with my name.

  The air in the room felt suddenly tight. I stopped breathing. I hadn’t realized how close I’d come to failing. The power of my father’s spell was beyond my comprehension, the precision breathtaking,

  but none of that would have mattered. His spell left a door open for my name.

  My soul passport would have been enough. Father’s spell wouldn’t have protected my body from possession. The ghost could still have gotten into my skin and murdered my father.

  The second spell was signed, Xian Zhengying, Maoshan Daoshi, Seventh Ordination.

  I breathed deeply, taking it all in. “You idiot,” I sputtered.

  Father and Liu Qiang had carved me up like a piece of meat. They took their knives and used my body as their magic battleground. Liu Qiang was far more powerful than me, but Father was far more powerful than Liu Qiang—and yet Father would have lost this battle for my body.

  Liu Qiang was clever, I’d give him that. Apparently he’d been ordained into the Maoshan lineage. He must have known Father was stronger in the Dao. He made his spell so broad and monstrous so that Father wouldn’t know what he was really planning.

  Father’s spell, the second series of cuts, wouldn’t have kept him safe. If I had lost the fight in the spirit world, Shi Jin would have robbed me of the soul passport. He would have risen up in my body. Father was probably so confident in the power of his magic that he wouldn’t have seen it coming when the ghost drove a knife into his heart.

  My own father had cut a spell into my flesh, and it wasn’t even the right spell.

  Every part of this deepened my sense of violation, of humiliation, and that drove my rage. I felt my face start to turn purple. My teeth clenched. I found my hands clutched into fists, and my fists were turning hard as iron. They say a good woman is a quiet woman, but I found myself shouting. No words came from my mouth, just incoherent sounds. I punched the air, knowing my fists swung with enough force to break boards if I struck them.

  I forced myself to begin my breathing practices, to envision light radiating from the Golden Stove point behind my navel. I needed to harness this. Control my anger. Shape it, as a talisman gives shape to a Daoshi’s will. There was something here I could learn from.

  Liu Qiang, of the Fifth Ordination, had outwitted a Daoshi of the Seventh Ordination. A weaker sorcerer could trick a stronger

  sorcerer into casting the wrong spell.

  I smiled at that, and my grin was hard and sharp as a steel blade.

  A Daoshi of the Second might be able to find a way to overcome a Daoshi of the Fifth.

  I might be able to destroy Liu Qiang, even without Father’s help.

  I changed out of the infirmary clothes and put on an atonement robe. The robe was made from linen the color of sand, with black trigrams embroidered on its wide sleeves. The robe flowed around me, and I moved through a sequence of martial arts postures to make sure it would accommodate my motions.

  Upstairs, the temple was dark. I was unaccustomed to finding darkness in the large chamber, since Father lights candles and lanterns for the ancestors day and night. I lit a single candle to see. My peachwood sword lay on the floor, two spells written on it in grease pencil—my spell to bring it with me to the spirit world, Liu Qiang’s spell to cancel mine.

  Rage began to flow inside me once more. The peachwood sword had belonged to my husband, and to my mind it still did. I used his sword to fulfill his ambitions. And that one-armed weakling, that
filth Liu Qiang, had written a spell on Rocket’s sword.

  I wiped both spells off the wood and gathered some matches, a bagua mirror, and my rope dart. I like the rope dart. Half a pound of iron shaped like a dart, tied to a rope. The rope dart can slice an enemy like a knife or stab into him like a spear. When the weight gets spinning fast enough, it can shatter stone.

  Jiujiu the spirit gull had warned me when the ghost Shi Jin was approaching me in my sleep. For the gull I burned a talisman of protection. Whatever predators might hunt her in the world of spirits would find her slippery, evasive. For a day, the gull spirit would glide untouched out of the jaws of monsters. She had protected me, and I was protecting her in turn.

  I took a flask of lamp oil for Mao’er. We use fish oil in our lamps, and cats love to lick it up. Later I would make mice out of paper and burn them for him. Mao’er would be rewarded for helping me and sparing the spirit of my father’s eye.

  I needed to eat. In order for my spells to work at their strongest, there were purifications I needed to undertake. I could eat no grains or meats. On the wood stove I fried greens and herbs in peanut oil, seasoning them with bean paste and spice powder.

  I hadn’t forgotten my promise to Mr. Yanqiu. I heated a cup of water and brought it outside. He was shivering when I found him, and his tiny body was curled up for warmth.

  “It’s not that cold out,” I said, surprised.

  “It is if you’re a naked eyeball,” he replied, and I thought that if he had teeth, they would have been chattering.

  “Here, then, Mr. Yanqiu,” I said, pushing the cup of warm water toward him. “Climb on in.”

  He eyed me suspiciously, reaching out a tiny white hand to test the water temperature. “Oh,” he said, “oh, that’s nice.” Without any further hesitation, he lifted himself up over the teacup’s rim and splashed down into the warm cup of water.

  “How is that, Mr. Yanqiu?”

  The gurgling sounds he made could only be described as blissful, so I went inside and came back out with my meal and a pair of chopsticks. Sitting on the rickety wooden steps, I ate my food. It was pungent and salty and I loved every bite.

  I told my father’s eye about the last few days: Liu Qiang and the soul passport, Shi Jin and the ambush, Father sacrificing his eye. Father casting the wrong spell. The rise of the Xie Liang tong. Shuai Hu, the Buddhist monk who frightened my father.

  The cuts on my stomach were itchy, and I put down my plate. “I’m going to kill Liu Qiang,” I said to myself.

  Mr. Yanqiu heard me. He treaded water in the teacup. “You said he’s stronger than you, Li-lin. How does that work?”

  “A Daoshi of the First Ordination is a novice. Barely any power at all. I hold the Second Ordination, so I have twice as much power as a novice. A Daoshi of the Third would have twice as much power as me. A Daoshi of the Fourth has double that. Liu Qiang is a Daoshi of the Fifth Ordination.”

  “So he has eight times your power?”

  “That’s right. A Daoshi of the Fifth is considered a senior student, not a fully ordained priest.”

  “And your father has four times as much power as he does?”

  “No,” I said. “Daoshi of the Sixth and Seventh are considered fully Ordained priests. A Daoshi of the Sixth has twice as much power as a Daoshi of the Fifth, but Daoshi of the Sixth and Seventh can also call upon the power of their lineages.”

  “What does that mean, Li-lin?”

  “Eighty generations,” I said. “My father holds the Seventh Ordination. In himself, Father is four times as strong as Liu Qiang, but he also draws upon the power of the eighty generations who came before him.”

  “So that’s …”

  “The power of eighty generations of men of the Seventh,” I said. “Hundreds of Daoshi like Liu Qiang could work together and still fail to match my father’s power.”

  “You should wait for your father to recover,” said the eyeball. “You can’t hope to stand against a Daoshi of the Fifth Ordination.”

  I shook my head. “I will find a way. Whatever he’s up to, I will stop it, and I will end him. His magic may be a great deal stronger than mine, but he’s still human. I can break his bones. I can slit his throat. He carved me up like a fish, Mr. Yanqiu. He cost Father an eye. I’m going to make him pay for everything he’s done.”

  The eyeball grunted in the water. He knew there was no changing my mind. “So what are you going to do, Li-lin?”

  “Well, someone must have helped Liu Qiang through immigration. It had to be someone who has wealth and connections. That just leaves the Six Companies, Mr. Wong, and the Xie Liang tong.”

  My father’s eye stirred in the water. He leaned back, listening. “Which do you think it is?”

  “Well, the Six Companies run legitimate businesses. They don’t break American laws if they can help it. I can’t see them hiring a sorcerer to kill anybody, and I can’t think of any reason they’d want to go after my father.

  “We know Mr. Wong has the money and the connections. He bribed officials to get them to allow me in, after all. And his son Tom was with Liu Qiang. But there has to be more to it than that, Mr. Yanqiu,” I said. “Father is one of Mr. Wong’s sworn brothers. Mr. Wong would never take action against him, and Tom wouldn’t hurt me.

  “That just leaves the Xie Liang tong. I always thought they were ridiculous, like children wearing clothes made for adults. But Dr. Wei says they’ve grown powerful.”

  “And you think they helped Liu Qiang come into the country?”

  “I think it’s likely.”

  “So, first stop, the Xie Liang headquarters?”

  “It isn’t time for that yet,” I said, shaking my head. “The Xie Liangs wouldn’t have dreamed this up on their own. If they’re involved, it’s because someone recruited them.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know yet, Mr. Yanqiu. I don’t know why anyone would try to harm my father.”

  “Does he have enemies, Li-lin?”

  I responded slowly. “No. Not in America, anyway. And we left China a long time ago.”

  “So why was he afraid of that monk?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Yanqiu. That might be the most baffling piece of information. I’ve never known Father to be afraid of a living human.”

  “Do you think the monk could be behind the attack?”

  I thought for a moment. “It doesn’t seem likely,” I said. “I can’t see a Buddhist recruiting gangsters and sorcerers to do his bidding. But there’s something very odd about my father being afraid of this Buddhist monk. I think I need to find out more about this man Shuai Hu.”

  The eye leaned back in the teacup, watching me. “He might be dangerous, Li-lin,” he said.

  “I know. I won’t confront him. I just want to ask around, see what I can learn about him.”

  “That’s not the whole reason,” Mr. Yanqiu said.

  “Oh?”

  “No, Li-lin. You’ve lost face. Liu Qiang tricked you, and it cost your father his eye to get you out of Liu Qiang’s trap.”

  I hung my head. “What does this have to do with the monk?”

  “You want to investigate Shuai Hu because you’re trying to prove something, Li-lin. You know your father is afraid of him. You want to gain face. You want your father to see how brave you are.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “Investigating the monk could get me hurt, or worse. The martial arts of Shaolin are legendary. Shuai Hu is a mystery to me. Even my father finds him intimidating. It would be foolish for me to try to learn more about him.”

  “I’m glad we agree,” Mr. Yanqiu said.

  “But it would be more foolish to sit and wait,” I said. “When Father wakes up, he’s going to fix everything. The best I can do is give him all the information he needs.”

  “Li-lin, please don’t take foolish risks,” the eyeball said, splashing in the teacup.

  “I need to learn everything I can, no matter the risk,” I said. “This monk terrifies my fa
ther. I need to find out why.”

  9

  Chinatown’s Buddhist monastery was on the third floor of an apartment building on Washington, between Dupont and the Flower Lane. I could see white and yellow blossoms in the Flower Square. Hills rose to the north. The Sub-Treasury Building towered to my east. I walked toward the monastery with Mr. Yanqiu riding on my shoulder.

  On the street outside I caught sight of a boy, maybe ten years old. He was playing with a balloon made from a pig’s bladder, tossing it up and catching it.

  “Child,” I said, “I would speak with you. What do you know of the monks who live here?”

  “The baldies?” he asked. I laughed and nodded.

  He held his balloon in one hand and sized me up with his eyes. “What will you give me to tell you about them?”

  I had no money or sweets to bribe him. All I had were empty threats. “Child, I am called Xian Li-lin. Does that name mean anything to you?”

  “Xian,” he said, thinking. “Like the Daoshi? You’re the exorcist’s daughter?” The boy took a few steps back.

  I smiled grimly. For once there was an advantage in being feared.

  “Now,” I said. “You will tell me how many baldies live in that room.”

  “Twenty-six,” a voice said from behind me.

  I swung around and faced a tall man in orange Buddhist robes. His head was clean-shaven. He may have been the tallest man I’d ever known except for Rocket, but where Rocket’s face had been sincere and youthful, this man’s face seemed jovial and somehow ageless. His mouth was open in a lopsided grin. Sizing him up, I saw that his shoulders were broad, and his arms were thick with muscle. If he had even a moderate amount of training, he’d be a good fight.

  I glanced him over, looking for weapons. Belted at the waist of his orange robe, he carried a wooden drum shaped like a fish. Aside from the drum and its striker, he was unadorned. He wasn’t even wearing the peachwood beads monks usually strung into bracelets and necklaces.

  “Don’t you have better things to do than frighten innocent children?” he asked. The boy turned and ran away.