Page 9 of The Mare Rider of Cornwall Cove
“Okay, moving on. Do you think there’s something wrong with the twins? The other day when I was jogging, one of the spirits in the cemetery mentioned them to me.” He seemed to deflatea bit at that. “So youdothink something is up?” He nodded silently. Well shit. “Okay, I’ll come up with something to visit the neighbors and poke around in their attic.”
“That would be most kind, Archie. I know you are not a fan of the Tewberry girls, and yes, they can be precocious, but I get to speak with so few that I feel the loss of any of my otherworldly friends deeply.”
I nodded softly. Reg was a social person, or had been, and it had to be hard to be stuck in this dusty old bookstore with only me, a mute girl from the ’70s, and a milkman from Sunny Moo Dairy to converse with. Did I like the twins dabbling in dark arts? No, totally not, but theywerekids after all. I’d not been to too many parties as a preteen, but I’d been to a few. Witnessing your classmates calling forth Bloody Mary while standing in front of a mirror and then actually having to converse with the mutilated phantom never sat well with me. That’s why after I screamed at the kids to stop calling forth the dead, they never invited me back to their parties.
“I’ll check it out.”
He smiled at me. “Thank you. You’re a good lad.” With that, he turned into nothingness but could still be heard humming “Camptown Races” for a few long seconds. Today was looking to be a real humdinger, as Monique was known to say.
***
There are humdingers and then there arehumdingers.
I should have known things would go off into the stratosphere the moment I sat down with Grandpa and Monique over their breakfast to explain about the upcoming stream. Both lit up like firecrackers.
“Sunzi, this is asking for more pain,” Grandpa exclaimed as Monique nodded vigorously. “We all saw how depleted your chi was after that last show.”
“That was because I opened myself up to a possession. There will be none of that this time. We all learned our lesson. This time it’s just a few hours traipsing around the old asylum with blacklights, popping a cork at midnight, then crawling into sleeping bags to pretend we’re sleeping there. Once the stream is over, we leave, go to a hotel, and return the next morning to film a little epilogue.”
Both the seniors at our little kitchen table looked unconvinced. Rightly so, but I had things in hand. I’d spent the better part of two hours sipping tea while reading the leather-bound journal of the followers of Zhong Kui. Zhong Kui was a god known as the biggest and baddest vanquisher of ghosts and evil spirits in ancient China. This tome was older than dirt—far older than Cantonese, which is two thousand years old—and consisted of rubbings in oracle bone script, an incredibly old script made up of marks and forms carved into animal bones or tortoise shells. The book wasn’t strictly about Chinese ghosts, spirits, and demons. It held knowledge from around the world all precisely inked onto brittle pages. Some of the languages I had yet to figure out even with the internet to help.
The tome was special. It felt important when I held it. The scent of the old pages—a touch of dust and history—filled my sinuses when I opened it. I strongly suspected that it came into our family through my ancestor Kee Houng, a famed seer rumored to have the spiritual eye that allowed him to see and speak with ghosts or gui as they’re known in China. My grandfather and I both believed that my ancestor was a follower of Zhong Kui. How else would this book be in my family’s possession for several centuries? It held powerful magic in the faded ink. I could feel it when I touched finger pad to page.
“I’d done some research into the asylum itself,” I added when the two oldsters sat there, lips pressed into paper cuts, wrinkled brows deepened into furrows you could plant potatoes in. “It’s not a great place, but those old mental hospitals were all pretty horrendous. This one in Cornwall Cove is no exception.” My gaze moved from my grandfather to his girlfriend. “Lots of people were shoved into these places, the dredges of society for the most part, although lots of rich snots with family who suffered from mental illness stuffed their sick relatives into the home for the chronically insane, as they were sometimes known. This one took in all kinds of patients, and then they subjected them to cruel and inhumane treatments. Patients at The Cove, as it was called, were routinely chained to walls, given shock therapy, forced to endure ice baths, pumped full of poisons to cleanse the mind, placed in straightjackets, and given lobotomies. They had tours where the patients were put on display for the wealthy and curious members of the community.”
“Oh, sugar, that place isnota good place for someone with your gifts,” Monique whispered as she reached for my hand, her thin fingers weaving into mine.
“I know, and I’m not looking forward to it. The records that they found when the asylum closed in the 1950s note that over two hundred deaths took place at The Cove between its opening in the late 1830s and its closure a hundred twenty-some years later.” I took a deep breath, then slowly let it out, forcing a smile for Grandpa and his lady love. “Lots of ghosts there, but I’m going to be prepared for that.”
“Archimedes, can we not talk you out of this?” Grandpa gently asked.
“I need to do a new stream. Classes will be starting at the end of the month, and we need kids to visit the store. Also, if we don’t provide content, the subs will drop and the sponsors will abandon us. We need to keep making shows for the viewers.” Icould see a shadow of deep concern in his dark brown eyes. I took his hand with my free one. The three of us now joined in a triangle of interlocked hands between plates with egg yolk and empty teacups. “I know what to expect. I’m going to try to set up some mental shields to keep the stronger ghosts at bay, to quiet their voices, and Phil and I will be wearing some of the ghost bead bracelets that our family sent over for us.”
“You will wear them all!” Grandpa announced in his firm “my say is final” voice, which we seldom heard in this house of peace and meditation. Monique bobbed her head.
“I have some tricks as well to give to you. We’ll not let you and Phil tread on such sorrowful grounds without suitable protection from the undead,” Monique added.
I opened my mouth to protest, but the looks they both hit me with snapped my mouth closed. I had no clue what Monique had in mind, but I could envision Phil and me with plain beaded bracelets blessed by a Buddhist monk from wrist to shoulder trying to do a livestream. Yep, that would be super cool. Not.
“I’ll find the bracelets in the closet before lunch for you to wear. Now I must go let the dogs out.” I bit my tongue not to follow that up with who, who, who, who, who. “Listen well, Archimedes. When I said you should use your seeing eye for good, making money from silly computer shows is not what I had in mind. Our ancestors would not be proud,” Grandpa said with a sad shake of his bald head before levering himself up with his cane to toddle off. I gaped at his bowed back, the sting of his words burning deep.
“He didn’t mean that, honey, he’s just worried. We both are. You were so sick after that last stream.” Monique gave my fingers a squeeze. “He’ll be fine. He’ll go meditate and work out his emotions.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” I stared at our joined hands. “What dogs is he talking about?”
“The little ones next door. The Connors have gone south for a week to celebrate New Year’s at Disneyland and needed someone to feed and take care of their dogs. Jaw-Long and I have been tending to them.”
“Oh, let me do that.” I shot to my feet. “Tell Grandpa I’m doing the dogs, and I’m sorry he feels like I’m an embarrassment, but I’m doing what I can to keep the shop afloat. What I did last time was good. I helped reunite a mother and child. Maybe it wasn’t heroic in his eyes, but I think it was important.”
I left her sitting at the table with a stricken look, which I would apologize for later, but for now, I was hurt. I gathered a coat, my boots, some white sage and cedar, and headed out. After a short stop to grab the keys marked CONNOR KEYS from the side table by the front door, I eased down the stairs to the quiet shop. We were opening late today and closing early, same as for tomorrow, and taking the first day of the new year off. Wishing Phil were with me instead of off running and then heading to campus for practice, I pushed out into the cold, feeling raw.
A few cars and people moved about, but overall, Main Street was as dead as the two young girls I was about to pay a visit to. Something that I knew Grandpa saw as well as I did. Commerce in this tiny town was dying. Everyone shops online nowadays. We had to do something,anything, to keep food in our mouths and the heat on, even if that something made my honorable ancestors ashamed of me.
As soon as I turned the key in the Connors’ front door, their dogs, two peke-a-poos named Millie and Mollie, started barking. They snipped at my pant legs as I led them through the narrow townhouse to the back door. The house was nice and clean, with light oak paneling and shiny hardwood floors. A total flip from the dark duo who called the attic home. Everything was tidy in the kitchen, with a bag of kibble and a box of tiny biscuits on the counter beside the fancy bread machine.
“Go be inconsiderate outside,” I told them as I threw the back door open. They snarled at me before darting out to pee on their tiny little patch of grass. Our backyard was cracked cobblestone with two battered trash cans and a drain to carry rain and melting snow to the sewers. After dumping kibble into the two dishes on the kitchen floor and giving the dogs fresh water, I glanced at the ceiling. The vibes here were off. Usually when I entered, I could sense the twins’ energy. Not malevolent, not really, but not as cheery as Reggie’s essence either. Oddly, the house seemed settled, which is unusual for a home with two bratty poltergeists.
“Sorry for thinking you’re brats,” I whispered as I dug into my coat pocket to remove the small bundle of herbs.
