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“What a warrior,” I say, and there’s more honesty than I should mean behind the sentence.
She doesn’t deign me of a glance.
“I won’t give you the satisfaction,” she says as she put the jewelry box on the nightstand and jumps on the windowsill, pressing the windowpanes open. The air is warm and humid, the smells from the food stalls inviting.
Below her, many feet below, the massive paper dragon sways with the music in the street.
“Happy new year, asshole.” This time, she does turn my way.
Whatever she finds makes her hesitate. It’s not the beauty of my glamour, nor the undercurrent of inhumanity of the monster hidden beneath it. Neither of those things ever shook Meilin. Maybe she finds the defeat, the tiredness, the torment, that I’ve been trying to hide for centuries.
It gets harder each time. Somehow, it’s particularly hard with her.
“For what it’s worth, I thought you could’ve made it. You were different.” I don’t know what it was about Meilin that had made me so hopeful, in the beginning. I didn’t have to chase her, I didn’t have to woo her — those were welcomed changes, after all the challengers before her.
She never feared me, either. Not at first, with that something sinister lingering under the surface, nor now that she knows exactly how monstrous I truly am.
A sad smile spreads on her lips. “We were both wrong, it would seem.”
“It doesn’t hurt as much as people say.”
Meilin bursts out laughing. “I’m not afraid of pain.”
“It’s better, after. Sooner or later everyone joins you,” I continue, as if trying to console her.
“What if there isn’t anything after?”
At that, I can’t help a rueful smile. If she only knew what I would give to be in her place, to be headed where she’s headed. “There is everything, after.”
Meilin turns, looks down, and sighs. She closes her eyes and jumps. One, two, three, four. Ten floors. Then, the end.
And the dragon continues to dance.
part one
the chase
chapter 1
The Girl with the Twisted Gift
esmeralda
When I left this forsaken town eight years ago, I promised myself I’d never let its haunted people suck me in again. Today, as I climb the stone wall of the municipal cemetery while the suffocating rain pitter patters against my jacket, I break that promise.
Yes, I could’ve taken the entrance, but that would mean facing the townspeople congregating around the fresh grave like a swarm of bees, and I’m not prepared for that. I’d rather keep my distance, hug the shadows, and remain unseen.
As someone who was born with a foot beyond the grave, like Àvia used to say, I know there is no such thing as haunted places, but Hazel Creek tests my resolve.
My hometown’s haunting shows in the endless stretches of abandoned buildings on the outskirts of town, left behind by businesses that can’t seem to survive longer than a few years as if plagued by a curse; it shows in the tall redwood trees, eerie, selfish captors of sunlight, that keep the region in permanent and puny shade; it shows in the colorless lives of nine-hundred inhabitants, who are all stuck in generational loops of trauma and bigotry. The haunting of Hazel Creek is human rather than supernatural, and in my eyes, that makes it all the more terrifying.
I beeline for a mausoleum, seeking shelter under its stone awning. My path crosses with a flustered spirit who’s racing back and forth and shaking like a leaf. I make the mistake of staring too long, because our eyes make contact, and I can pinpoint the moment the spirit realizes I can see them. Their entire face distorts in a caricature of Munch’s Scream, and they flip on their heels, reaching for me instead. I side step them and move away, pretending not to know they’re here. Quickly, they lose whatever thought drew them to me, resuming their aimless wandering. Short attention spans are common with spirits. One of the things I’ve had to learn to exploit, living in their world.
The cemetery is a breeding ground for ghosts, which isn’t all that surprising. Most of them are young, recently departed souls, and they’ll soon find their way to their final destination. But some residents do stick around for longer.
I duck under the awning, finding shelter from the rain, and scan the cemetery. Among the many unfamiliar undead faces, I spot a well-known one. He’s standing beneath the tall, blooming oleander, brown bowler hat dipped low over his face, covering the unmistakable white patina of his irises. Between that and the smell of flowers masking the stench of death, I mistook him for a living man the first time I saw him.
To be fair, I was four and burying my mother. I’ve gotten much better at identifying ghosts since then. In a very twisted way, it’s fitting he’d still be here twenty-two years later to watch as the only other family I have joins Mama six feet under.
