Malu shook her head.
‘This is such a bad idea,’ she said. ‘Have you talked to your mom?’
‘You know I haven’t.’
‘Nana is on a respirator. They’re going to give her last rites.’
She was crying. I put my arms around her.
‘Nana is always in my heart,’ I said at last, but the truth was I couldn’t let myself think about her. I’d go to pieces. ‘Let me do what I need to do.’
‘Promise you’ll keep your head down, Jade.’
I hugged her tight, but I didn’t actually promise.
After Malu dropped me outside Mr. B’s house I had to turn around and get all the way home again. I had to keep living the lie.
It was one o’clock in the morning when I got in. In Thailand everybody would be having a nap in the middle of the day. Even if my internal clock was confused, I ought to be able to sleep now. But I was too wired. I turned on Gretchen’s fight mix DVD and watched it until my eyes bled.
T
HE NEXT THING
I knew, my phone was ringing from my bag, sunlight was pouring in, and I had a splitting headache. I turned over and buried my face in the sofa. I thought I heard something in the kitchen. Rustling.
I groaned. I was so tired. I just wanted to sleep.
I opened one eye and checked the phone. It was morning, and Mr. B was on my case.
‘Where are you? Mario is here. Let’s go, Jade.’
‘OK, OK, I’m coming. I overslept.’
‘Champions don’t oversleep. Haul ass
now
.’
There was a muffled crash from the kitchen. I closed the phone, peeled myself off the sofa and went into the kitchen with my eyes half-open. A box of cereal had fallen off the counter and was spilt on the floor. The fridge was half-open. But no one was there.
‘Malu?’
I stuck my head out into the hallway. The chain was on the door. The window was open a few inches in the living room, but I’d been sleeping on the sofa right under that window, so it wasn’t like somebody could climb in without waking me up.
I was getting wider awake now. Ideas were running through my head fast and thick. If someone had been in the kitchen and hid when I got up, the only place they’d have time to go was the bathroom, which was set in the short hallway immediately inside the front door. It shared a wall with the kitchen.
I stepped into the hall. The bathroom door was ajar. I listened.
A small, thin voice was singing softly. The sound was mesmerising. It was a girl’s voice, very quiet. I could probably only hear it because of the echo off the bathroom tile.
I pushed the door open. Kneeling on the orange bath mat between the toilet and the shower-curtained tub was the girl in the red dress. From the bus. I’d know her anywhere. The dress was in a traditional Chinese style, heavily embroidered with gold thread—but now it was filthy. How many days had she been wearing it?
Her eyes were wide open and staring at the ivy plant that Malu had left hanging on the shower rod because supposedly the plant liked steam. Her palms were pressed together at her chest in prayer, and her lips were moving. She was maybe... eleven? She was a solid-looking kid—she’d grow up to be strong like Pink. Her face was gentle, softly swollen with health and perfectly symmetrical. I could have looked at her all day.
As I stared, I noticed that in her lap she had a heap of protein bars and a jar of peanut butter.
I didn’t know what to do. The girl didn’t seem to notice me. Her face was totally composed, and there was something so calm and serene about her that it seemed wrong to disturb her. Even though she was on
my
bath mat with
my
protein bars and
that deeply problematic
phone... but I’d given the phone to the bad guys. How did she get it? I had a million questions, but I couldn’t bring myself to make a sound.
And then she just evaporated. Shimmered a little, like a mirage, and disappeared.
My bathroom smelled like a greenhouse full of flowers. The mirror was fogged up.
I could feel my heart racing. I rushed in. The mat where she’d been kneeling was still warm. I checked behind the curtain. Nothing. The bathroom window is only a thin strip of frosted glass, and it was shut.
I put my fingers to my lips. I thought of my Nana with her plastic saints and her friendly banter with our dead ancestors, going away on her long journey.
My phone rang again. Shea’s number came up. I turned it off.
‘
Madre de Dios,
’ I said.
Baby Lek
W
ITH SO MANY
ghosts to feed, where to begin?
‘You have to be strategic,’ Luck told Mya. ‘Mr. Richard will be back here soon enough. If you could get Baby Lek back to the human world, that would slow the old man down. He needs naga venom, after all.’
‘Why does Lek help Mr. Richard? Can’t he say no?’ Mya asked.
‘Mr. Richard sold Lek’s mother to someone in Holland and she was sent back here pregnant. The Holland people didn’t want her anymore. She gave birth to Lek in the forest, but she had lost her power to move between worlds. She went into the water to beg the nagas for help. She drowned, but Lek was taken under the protection of the nagas. Just like your friend Shea was taken by Kala Sriha.’
‘Lek was
born
in the forest?’
The ghost nodded. ‘His human part hasn’t aged much. You can see from his face that he wouldn’t be more than two or three years old. It will be hard to remove him. But he never actually died, and part of him is still human. Maybe the nagas will let him go. The only way you can find out is to introduce him to the human world.’
Born outside the world
. Yet Lek had crossed over into Jade’s kitchen once.
‘I will do what I can. I will try.’
In the middle of the day, when Jade was at the gym, Mya cooked rice for Lek in Jade’s kitchen. It took some time to figure out how to work the stove, and at first she startled at every little noise, expecting Jade to come back.
But it was the black cat who came back. The cat who looked like Kala Sriha. He sailed through the window and stood on the counter, blinking and licking his lips.
She offered him rice. Then she took the pot and backed out of the small kitchen.
When the cat began to eat, the air shifted and the smell of the forest came into the apartment.
Shea was crouched on the kitchen floor.
‘Not again,’ he groaned. Mya kept clear of him while he stood up, then offered him the rest of the pot. He took it and ate hungrily, sitting on the counter.
‘The police talked to me.’ Anguish tightened his face. ‘A man is dead. They don’t think I could have done it. But I’m starting to feel like maybe I did.’
‘You are not evil,’ Mya said. ‘I think you are just confused.’
‘How did I get here?’ His gaze flicked to Mya and then away, as if he were afraid what her answer might be. She tried not to laugh.
‘Do you remember being the cat? You came through the window? Big jump?’
He stopped chewing.
‘No,’ he said. She could tell he was lying.
‘You need human experiences,’ Mya told him. ‘You have to feel what it is to be human, and then it will be easier for you to stay.’
‘What it is to be human, huh?’ Shea gave a muffled laugh as he chewed, shaking his head. ‘I don’t have time to feel things. I’m going back to Bangkok. But what if I have one of these breakdowns on the plane?’
‘Plane? When?’
‘Tomorrow, I hope, if I can get a new passport at the British consulate. I have a contact in the Bangkok police. I have to do something before Richard Fuller can make his next move. So far all I can get off the phone is the video, and it shows two people disappearing into thin air.’
‘Do you believe this is what happened?’
‘It’s what I saw. It’s what you say is true. But I can’t justify it or prove it.’
‘And if it is true, then it could be true you are also a part of Kala Sriha.’
He closed down when she said that. How could a person be inhabited by an immortal and yet deny it?
‘It’s not what I believe that matters. It’s making a legal case. I’m relying on my police contact for that, but I need evidence.’
Mya said nothing, but she was thinking.
‘Mya?’ Shea said. He slid off the counter, brushing grains of rice off his clothes. ‘You have an idea, don’t you?’
‘Addresses,’ Mya said. ‘The places where Mr. Richard sent each child. I saw the paper. You know, the children I brought through the forest? He wrote the addresses in English. Some of them had e-mails and phone numbers. Do you need these?’
‘Do I need them? Mya—’ He brandished his spoon excitedly. ‘Is that all you remember? Do you know where he kept them? In his computer?’
She shook her head. ‘Written down.’
‘Mya.’ Shea dropped to his knees so that they looked at each other eye to eye. Kala Sriha’s intensity blazed in his expression like a clear fire. ‘Can you remember them? Do you know where they were kept? If we can get that information, we have a chance of rescuing them. Without it... well, there’s no proof they’re even missing, let alone where to look for them.’
‘I don’t remember the details,’ she said.
‘Try to remember something.’
‘I have to think about it.’
He saw her fear, but he didn’t understand it, and his disappointment was visible.
‘It’s too much to ask of you,’ he sighed. ‘Forgive me.’
Mya frowned. He had no idea what he was asking because he didn’t believe in the immortal world or her ability to move through it.
‘Maybe I
can
rescue them...’
Now it was his turn to frown. He really didn’t remember anything.
‘Can you recall where the paper was? Do you know where he keeps his private documents? Does he have a safe?’
She nodded, and to get him to stop pestering her she drew on the back of an envelope a little picture of Mr. Richard’s work room, showing where the safe was hidden under the lab sink. She wrote down the combination of the safe, too. She could feel the surge of electricity around Shea when he looked at it.
‘Brilliant. This is brilliant. Thank you.’
‘Shea, please remember. Mr. Richard is dangerous
.
He has ways of knowing things. He isn’t going to be easy to catch.’
Shea smiled, and she could see him dismissing her completely. ‘Leave that part to me. This is very helpful. Thank you. And what you said? About going to look for them yourself?’
‘You don’t believe I can.’
‘I’m not sure what you can do. But Mya, please. Don’t try to save anyone. What happened to them isn’t your fault. None of this is your responsibility. The first thing I’m going to do when Richard Fuller is brought in is look for information on your family. You can’t carry on in limbo like this forever.’
She bit her lip, stopping tears because she knew he wouldn’t catch Mr. Richard. Shea was foolish to think he could.
‘Where can I find you if I need you?’ she asked.
He glanced away, at the floor, and she saw the pulse in his neck quicken.
‘You said I need human experiences,’ he whispered. ‘So I guess I’ll be here.’
It was embarrassing to think of Shea and Jade together. But he was trying to do the correct thing. Whenever Mya thought of the children she had led through the forest, she felt her heart crumble, like she was turning to dust inside. She didn’t know what was happening to them, exactly. But it was bad, and she was responsible.There was no way Mr. Richard was going to give up the children’s whereabouts to Shea, or the police. Mya considered the idea of rescuing the other children herself, one at a time. But Shea was right about documentation and the authorities. Even if she succeeded in bringing the others through the forest, what then? Mya herself was a fugitive, without family or papers. What would she do with several others like her, all displaced from nation and loved ones? What if they were thrown in jail? After all, her own family had been imprisoned for no reason at all.
So she should help Shea. This would mean going back to Mr. Richard’s house. That was one of the very worst things Mya could imagine doing right now. It made her fingers turn cold and her teeth chatter.
No one who didn’t know Mr. Richard could understand why going back there was like running into a burning building you’d just escaped. The house was soaked in his sorcery. That was why Daeng and Ploy feared and revered and hated but mostly feared him—and they loved him, too, in their way. So did Johnny. So did everyone who knew Mr. Richard. He could see the soft insides of your bones. He could move your thoughts as easily as stirring a drink.
That was why, even as Mya considered sneaking into the house, suspicions crawled among her plans. It was the nature of Mr. Richard to make you think you wanted to do things, when in truth it was Mr. Richard who wanted you to do them. You could never know what you really thought when he was around. And he wasn’t around now... but Mya had lived with him for a long time, and he had trained her mind. He proposed to crawl into her very skin, and she wouldn’t put it past him to lure her back. She knew he was afraid of the evidence on the phone. He would be bending all his energies toward getting it back. If one way failed, he would try another.
Was Mya’s idea to steal the addresses all part of Mr. Richard’s grand scheme? It might be. When Mr. Richard had taught Mya to play chess, he had told her stories of powerful people he had controlled and manuevered, just like the knights and rooks he tricked on the black-and-white plastic board.
Maybe it was Mya’s own will that propelled her through the forest to the prayer room in the north of Thailand. Maybe it was Mr. Richard’s manipulation. Maybe she was a hero; maybe she was a moth to a flame. She couldn’t even tell the difference. All she knew was that, once the idea had taken hold of her, she couldn’t make it go away. She had to see it through.
Mr. Richard had taught her about destiny. How events can pick you up like a tide and carry you. How it is all laid out before you, even though you don’t see.
She thought:
if I don’t do this, no one else can.
Punishment and Crime