The Girl and the Ghost: Chapters 7–22

Often, she would get home and catalogue the fresh bruises blooming all over her thin body, the result of spiteful pinches, well-timed pushes, and once, a hard kick to the shin when nobody was looking.

They weren’t happening to her, which is why at first, Suraya didn’t really notice them, in the way that you don’t really notice a single ant meandering lazily along the contours of your foot.

They weren’t happening to her, which is why at first, Suraya didn’t really notice them, in the way that you don’t really notice a single ant meandering lazily along the contours of your foot.

It began with nothing, really: one day, there was a stone in one of Kamelia’s pristine white canvas shoes that made her limp and curse, and which wouldn’t dislodge itself no matter how many times she shook the offending shoe.

She tried her best to ignore it, tried to focus on the scales she was painstakingly and precisely inking on its great tail, but her trembling hands made the pen hard to control.

She had learned early on not to trust the older girl’s seemingly pleasant tone or inane conversation.

She put her head down in class and concentrated on her work; she spent every recess with Pink in the secret spot they’d found on the first day of school, in the dappled sunshine that filtered through the frangipani leaves.

Jing Wei walked serenely among the boisterous crowd, carefully staking out a spot for herself in a stairwell just off the hall, away from the noise and the damp.

“I wish we had more family,” she said wistfully.

Jing almost forgave Suraya for never quite being as excited about Star Wars as she was, though that didn’t mean she stopped trying to stoke her enthusiasm for it.

“No lah,” she demurred, trying to sound casual. “It’s too far, and my mom is always working. Better I come here.”

A scratch on her favorite Star Wars DVD (The Empire Strikes Back, a movie far superior, she insisted to Suraya, than all the others), rendering it unplayable.

It was a perfect Saturday afternoon, the kind with blue skies dotted with fluffy white clouds, the kind sunny enough to bathe everything in a warm glow, but breezy enough to make venturing outside for more than five minutes actually doable.

But there was no danger where Suraya and Pink sat, on a rocky overhang that jutted out a little over the water, perfectly shaded by the trees overhead.

Kamelia was usually the one whispering and giggling at others behind their backs—and to their faces, for that matter—so suddenly finding herself on the other side of things must be incredibly unpleasant, Pink surmised from the way she quickened her pace, the way her hands clenched and unclenched themselves as she walked.

Kamelia’s mother was dainty and fair, and wore high heels and a haughty expression; Divya’s mother was plump and worried-looking, her hair streaked with gray and making its way out of the loose bun she wore low on her head.

The only light in the room came from the crack under the door, and from the weak moonlight that straggled in through the window.

She felt giddy and effervescent, her thoughts fizzing like bubbles floating to the top of a glass of ice-cold cola.

She felt giddy and effervescent, her thoughts fizzing like bubbles floating to the top of a glass of ice-cold cola.

“Ladies’ fingers,” her mother replied, chewing placidly.

“It was quite challenging harvesting enough,” Mama said nonchalantly as Suraya choked and spluttered.

She often mused, during the daytime when the world was flooded with light, that the dreams would have been fine if they were merely peopled with strange creatures and horrific monsters.

Only this one kept stuttering and skipping, until Jing popped it out of the DVD player and buffed it vigorously with her sleeve.

There was a picture on the page in front of her: an intricate tangle of flowers and leaves and vines in stark black ink on the snowy paper.

Its movements were slow and sinuous, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was coming closer to the surface, ready to break free of its paper prison.

Then slowly, softly, ink began to bleed in thin little lines down the page, from the very center of her drawing down, down, down to the bottom of the page. From there, it moved in steady streams and rivulets across the desk, pooling in the dings and scratches on the surface on its way to the edge.

Not about how she’d had to pry her daughter’s stiff fingers from where they clutched the edge of the desk so hard that the nails had gouged dents into the wood; Suraya had had to pull out three splinters afterward, each long thin sliver piercing through her skin like a tiny spear.

Not about how she’d had to pry her daughter’s stiff fingers from where they clutched the edge of the desk so hard that the nails had gouged dents into the wood; Suraya had had to pull out three splinters afterward, each long thin sliver piercing through her skin like a tiny spear.

“Yes, Mama,” Suraya murmured sleepily, exhausted from wrestling with vomit and nightmares. Did doctors treat ghostly maladies?

One hissed at Suraya primly—What’re you looking at?—before tugging the hijab back into place with a fanged mouth.

The last hand was the best one so far, she thought, the play of light and shadow perfectly rendered, the position of the fingers poised, natural.

“Bullies are just INSECURE, and taking their INSECURITIES out on YOU,” the teacher had said, practically glowing with enthusiasm (only two months into her stint, the stars still shone bright in her eyes).

“Bullies are just INSECURE, and taking their INSECURITIES out on YOU,” the teacher had said, practically glowing with enthusiasm (only two months into her stint, the stars still shone bright in her eyes).

“You know,” she began in that overly casual way that meant she was thinking very hard about how to be casual, “girl friendships can be very complicated. There’s often an element of competition and insecurity about it. Girls can be very catty....”

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.

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.

He had not expected this man, this bumbling, genial, crumb-dusted man, to really be able to handle ghosts and monsters.

“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.”

The question seemed to leave the pawang nonplussed.

But my anger billowed and swelled and grew inside me, and, like the wild thing it is, it lashed out when it was wounded.