That year I was so wrapped up in the party that I didn't even consider the red spirit. It didn't come back to me until almost too late, on the fifteenth day of the Lantern Festival. Zhao Jie and I took our sorghum lanterns into the street to show them off. Most of the kids in the village were already outside doing the same. There were shabby lanterns, broken ones, and tattered remnants everywhere, but most of the kids still had at least one intact. I don't remember what exactly was so riveting about the celebration, but I remember the stupid grin on Zhao Jie's face and I remember feeling absolutely carefree.
We chased each other up and down the street until the candles in our lanterns ran out. Zhao Yuan joined us with spare ones, but mine blew out time and time again until there was hardly any wick left. When we were out of matches and Zhao Yuan's lantern was the only one left burning we agreed to go back home.
We tromped down the road, laughing and joking until a cold wind twisted around our feet. Zhao Jie stopped, his eyes wide. I did the same. Zhao Yuan walked a few more steps and turned back to us.
"What?" She said. I looked around at a loss for words.
"Where are we?" I asked, only now noticing that the village houses were very far from us.
"It's that cliff…" Zhao Jie said, "You know…with the tractor..."
Zhao Yuan raised her lonely lantern and illuminated the sharp corner turn. The barren road that curved up into the mountains disappeared behind it. She seemed to squint her eyes into the darkness like she saw something. I did the same and almost jumped out of my skin when she spoke next.
"Do you hear that?" She asked.
"What?" I said, my voice high and froggy. I hoped she didn't notice.
"It sounds like a kid…" She said, "Like, like a baby." She cocked her head to listen and took a step towards it.
Zhao Jie cupped a hand around his ear, I looked at him with a "What are you doing?" look, but the only sound I heard was a quickening thump of my own heart.
"There." Zhao Yuan said in a flat voice and started walking into the darkness. The hand holding the lantern dropped to her side like a broken action figure. Her feet skittered gravel away where her shoes barely left the ground. "Baby." She called in a monotone that was not remotely her voice.
"You're freakin' me out sis'," Zhao Jie said. His sister didn't turn around.
He yelled a word that I didn't understand, but the empty glossy look in Zhao Yuan's eyes kicked me into motion. I groped automatically in my pocket for the copper coin that'd saved her brothers life before and went after her.
Zhao Jie must have read my mind because he was at my side in an instant. He grabbed her arm as she stepped off the road towards the rising cliff face. I planted the copper coin in the middle of her back with a slightly over powered smack. My blow pushed her off her feet, but Zhao Jie held tightly to her arm beside me. She went limp and swung down towards her brother, who was now the only thing keeping her on the road. The lantern tumbled to the ground beside us and flickered lamely in the darkness.
I moved to help Zhao Jie and pulled his sister upwards. Her head hung limply back and her mouth gaped open. My friend didn't say anything as he shook his sister, hoping she'd wake.
Her teeth clacked together with his shakes and she opened her eyes. "What the heck was that? What's happening?" She croaked, this time in her normal voice.
I felt the air around Zhao Jie relax. He lifted his sister and hugged her. I sighed and spoke for him. "Something's over there. It, well it kinda' took you over. What did you hear?"
Her face paled, but her voice was gaining strength, "I heard a baby! It sounded like it was hurt or in trouble."
Zhao Jie and I exchanged a glace. "We've heard it before." He said, for once in his life managing a whisper.
"Let's go home." I told them. I grabbed the lantern and we turned back towards the village.
We got to the Zhao house in record speed, all three of us flushed red and doubling over by the time we reached the door. Zhao Laohei was sitting on the porch weaving another lantern. He smiled at us, but the expression melted when he saw ours. "What was it?" He asked, now very serious.
We told him. Zhao Laohei frowned throughout the story. He never looked angry through, that was a breath of fresh air after how my parents reacted to the supernatural. "It might have a problem with you." He said while twisting dried leaves in his hands. "Do you think he's mad because you stopped guiding him in the mountains?"
I gaped at my friends' father. "How- what do you mean? We're not spirit guides!"
He smiled.
"What do you mean?" I asked again.
Zhao Laohei put down the leaves and crossed his hands in his lap. "In the Locust Tree Mountains," He looked at his son. "You said there was a baby corpse that followed you. Maybe it didn't think of it as following, maybe it thought you were leading the way."
I was stunned. Zhao Laohei went on, , "In fact, I think I remember my son telling me something about treasures, or sacred protection, is that right?" He looked at Zhao Jie with a patient look that said, "You knew this was coming." Zhao Jie nodded, his eyes locked on the ground.
"If I was a gambling man, I'd wager that one of you might've held out that sacred treasure like a shield, maybe it was moving a little. Did you know that's the first step when performing a religious rite?" He looked at me, the kindness in his eyes sparkling beside something else, disappointment maybe. I shook my head to say no, then paused.
"Shang Haoming…" I whispered, remembering him on the hill above me, holding the copper in an unsteady hand that moved in the loose shape of an eight. "No…" I said, this time in disbelief.
Zhao Laohei ignored me and went on, "So Shang Haoming started this religious rite, but broke it off unsuccessfully. Then you ran away, correct? The spirit was awakened by your interruption, placed momentarily under your protection, and then you ran away from it." He sounded more sad, though the familiar adult anger was making itself known.
"And loosed a spirit into our world." He finished. Zhao Jie was crying softly next to me. I felt the hot flush of shame filling my own eyes with heat.
"We didn't mean to-" I started. Zhao Laohei cut me off.
"Most ghosts want to linger in our world. Did you know that? It's quite common for families to bury their loved ones and leave the grave to settle so their Yang air doesn't draw the dead back to us." He leaned close and whispered the next part, "That's why we usually only visit once a month."
The tears were stinging my eyes by then. "But, but we're not related to that one! We didn't mean to!"
Zhao Laohei leaned back again, letting out a groan and stretching his legs. "The problem is, that baby probably doesn't know that. Did you know who your mother and father were when you were six months old?" I shook my head. "You showed him the briefest of kindness, a light in the dark, and then took it away." Zhao Laohei lit a candle in the lantern he'd been fidgeting with. The fire reflected in his eyes and they shone like lava. "I think he wants revenge."
Zhao Jie was crying louder now. I bit my lip and tried to hold in my own frightened sobs. "Wh-wh-what can we do?" I asked. "H-h-how do we fix it?"
Zhao Yuan had been watching this with wide confused eyes. She walked away from Zhao Jie and I with a look that mirrored her father's. "Yeah dad, what should they do?"
Zhao Laohei sighed. He closed his eyes and said, "We'll perform the rest of the religious rite and send it away."
"Tonight?" I asked, hope blossoming.
He shook his head. "No, we'll need to prepare. I think Shang Haoming will have to complete the ritual. And we'll need the body."
"The body?" Zhao Jie and I said together. He looked as disgusted as I felt.
Zhao Laohei stood up and put a hand on our shoulders. "The body." He said simply. "Come on Xiao Yong, I'll walk you home."
When we got there he told my parents the whole thing, ending very unhelpfully with, "The kids really messed up this time."
My dad shot me a look that told me we weren't done with it and asked, "Should I call Master Liu? I don't want anything to go wrong with this, they're only kids, Lao."
Zhao Laohei nodded. "I'll call him tomorrow. We need to get this going though, this thing might be getting stronger."
I didn't sleep that night. Every time I closed my eyes I saw that stupid baby crawling after us. I saw the smoke whirl out of its eyes and smelt it in the air of my bedroom. I got up and practiced Da Hong fist in the dark of my room to tire out my muscles. Afterwards I lay in bed hoping that nothing else would go wrong. Then it was morning. I heard my father leave. He walked past my window speaking with someone that must've been Zhao Laohei.
I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth. When I looked into the mirror I saw it again. The baby's rotten face gleamed at me, its one eye missing and gory. The bones of its neck shone white through the hole in the skin. I shouted and stumbled backwards out the door.
"Are you okay?" My mother asked, standing in the hallway. "You look terrible, are you hot?" She placed a hand to my head and ordered me back to bed. Zhao Jie was allowed to come over, but the two of us were locked in the house. We played games in my room and studied our homework when Shang Haoming brought it by that afternoon.
While we were locked away and miserable, a mad girl across town had a very sudden shift in behavior.
Wang Chunmei was walking in her usual drunken stumble down the road when her head cocked to the side as if she'd heard something. She grinned with teeth that hadn't been cleaned in weeks and adopted a lolling sprint towards her home.
She ran into the house and barreled past her aunt. Rummaging through the kitchen, Wang Chunmei began eating anything and everything she could get her hands on. Her aunt, screaming like a madwoman, managed to yank and pull the girl away from the raw meat and drag her into the only lockable room in the house. The once almost vacant girl began to pound on the door separating them and screeching to be let out.
"Stop! Stop it! Stop!" Her aunt screamed at the top of her lungs. Her husband was the one to enter the room with their rabid niece and tie her to the bed. She thrashed and clawed like an animal, almost gouging out one of his eyes. He was also the one to call the master that had treated her, back into the village.
The old master walked into the house with only a slight grimace on his face. His mouth pulled up in the corners each time the girl screeched and a tiny horizontal crease formed between his caterpillar eyebrows. He moved his hands over the girl in a prayer and placed a paper amulet on her forehead. It was very quickly flung onto the floor. "Whatever is inside of your niece wants something." He told her family. "I suggest we find out what it is and try to give it to her."
The phone rang three times at Zhao Laohei's house before falling silent.
The phone rang once in my kitchen before my father picked it up.
"Yes?" He said, speaking low into the receiver. "Absolutely, you can come at once." He hung up the phone and said something to Zhao Laohei, who was sitting at the kitchen table. Zhao Jie and I crept from the opposite room, trying not to be seen.
"Is the master coming?" I heard Zhao Laohei ask.
I felt hope, joy, and impossible relief fill my heart. If Master Liu were coming, then everything would be fine! He'd keep us safe, he'd teach us new things, and he wouldn't be angry about the ghost mix up. I looked at Zhao Jie and smiled, absolutely positive that everything was going to be all right.