Preloved (9 page)

“Spewin’,” said Logan as he stood in Master Wu’s hall entrance.

Yup. It was all very Chinese. Huge, menacing ancestral-worshipping altar facing the front door, huge pile of thongs in the corner, strategically placed Taoist symbol on the wall.

Master Wu, dressed in his elaborate yellow cloak with his black Taoist hat on his head, walked around me with a serious expression on his face. I winced and hoped he believed me. I also hoped he didn’t pick up on all my lies ’cos I was scared it would all cancel itself out.

He seemed to come to a pleased conclusion after a while, and talked in hushed tones with Mum.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered to Logan. “I want you to go where you need to. It’s all for the best.”

“I don’t want to go towards the light or wherever you think my home is,” replied Logan. “I want to go home. As in my house. My parents. My bedroom. The one that I used to wake up in every morning until I woke up to this.”

“I don’t claim to know what happened to you.” I tried to sound calm and logical, but I just felt like another lame school counsellor. “But you have to move on. You have to go and find God, or get reincarnated, or become part of the astral energy and move onto a higher pane of consciousness. Whatever belief structure rocks your boat.”

“Amy, I want you to help me – but not like this.”

Master Wu motioned for us to follow him down the hall. He was a man of few words. A typical traditional Chinese man, in other words. Like my father.

“Try not to stare at all the other people who’ve come to consult him,” whispered Mum as we shuffled down the hall. “They’re here to ask about sick relatives, or unhappy spirits on the other side, or how they can win Lotto.”

We sat down on the plastic chairs next to nervous-looking people who were clutching fortune-telling sticks or reading old gossip magazines. The TV made lots of explosive noises as a generic cop show played. I felt slightly sick, like I was waiting for bad news at a doctor’s surgery.

I watched Logan leaning up against the wall, looking unhappy. I guessed he had feelings too. Which was really strange, as he didn’t have a physical body. Or, presumably, a physical brain or heart.

Mum started counting money from her purse and shoving notes into a red packet.

“I want to pay for this private consultation, the paper house and the figurine thingy, plus a donation to Master Wu’s temple.” Mum showed me the contents of the red packet. “Do you think this is enough?”

“Paper house and figurine thingy?”

“Master Wu thinks the spirit attached to you–”

Yes! Master Wu believed me.

“–has somehow become trapped in this world, so he’s trying to break it out and set it free.”

“Uh-huh. Trying to bust a move,” I said thoughtfully.

I started playing with the locket again.

“Amy! Hello, Amy! Have you been listening to me? I said it’s our turn.”

I followed Mum, with sickness growing in my stomach.

In the dining room, Master Wu had set up a paper house on the table.

“Are you ready?” asked Mum, concern on her face.

“Yup.” I stood confidently, with my arms by my side.

I looked at Logan, who had just slouched in and raised his eyebrows at the set-up.

Master Wu started chanting some incantations really loudly and waving his arms around.

“He’s asking for the release of the spirit,” whispered Mum.

I was actually feeling quite terrified. “It’s like magic, like Harry Potter,” I started blabbing nervously to Logan, who had come to stand beside me. “Oh, you don’t know what Harry Potter is.”

I watched as Master Wu folded back the little door on the paper house and reached his hand in.

“He’s freeing the spirit by bringing it out of the place it’s currently trapped,” said Mum, the running commentary.

I don’t know what I was hoping for. A happy ending of some sort. An easy solution where everything reverted to how it used to be. But of course that’s not real life. Real life involves pain and goodbyes.

I turned towards Logan to ask if he was feeling more “free”.

“Shit,” I said instead.

Logan was fading. Literally. The edges of him – his fingers and the tips of his campus shoes – were already gone. He lifted his hands up to his face and stared at his disappearing hands.

I had expected finally to feel relieved. I didn’t expect to feel like utter crap.

“What did you think was going to happen, Amy?” Logan asked me. Even his voice was fading away.

I turned back to look at Master Wu. He must be reaching inside to pull out the figurine thingy. And once he did …

“Please Amy,” said Logan. “Don’t let it end this way. You think life is like a movie, don’t you? Do you think your movie ends like this?”

I looked desperately at him and then back at Master Wu. Even if that was true, I wasn’t the leading lady in it. The camera wasn’t on me. It would be on Rebecca and whichever boy who happened to be smiling at her right now. I should just let this end.

“Amy.” Logan was pleading now. His legs were almost gone and he had collapsed onto the floor. “I swear there must be a reason why only you can see me. You asked me yourself if we had a connection. That could be true. Do the right thing and find out what it is.”

If I could only hold out for a few more seconds. Then this would all be finished with. It’d be fine. I was forcing him to move on for his own good. Then I could return to my normal dreary life.

I looked at Logan for the last time. His eyes, normally pale, were now almost white.

A thin, drawn-out noise pervaded the room. It took me a while to realise where the noise was coming from. It was coming from my throat. I was whining. Like a puppy.

I threw myself at Master Wu and grabbed him by one of his sleeves.

“Please,” I said, “please stop! Mum, help me here.”

Mum was staring at me with her mouth open. I held onto Master Wu, who still had his hand inside the paper house.

I needed a diversion. That’s when I thought about Mum’s favourite TV show.
Ghost Whisperer
.

“Listen, Mum! The spirit is saying that he can see a light – a white light – in front of him.”

“He?” repeated Mum. “You said it was an ‘it’. A hideous hungry ghost you picked up at a grave.”

“Well, I lied,” I said, telling the truth by getting ready to tell another lie. “It’s a ‘he’ and he’s a Western ghost and he’s telling me he can see the light.”

Mum motioned for Master Wu to stop. Master Wu pulled his hand out. Without the figurine thingy. Phew. I looked at Logan. He swore under his breath as his colour came flooding back and he picked himself off the floor.

“The white light is over there.” I stabbed my finger towards the door of the dining room, trying to convey to Logan as violently as possible to get the heck out of here. “I’m now guiding the spirit towards the light.”

Mum watched me with her mouth still open, fascination on her face.

“I don’t need to be told,” mumbled Logan. He stumbled towards the wall and through it. “Taking a short cut.”

“Do you feel that?” I asked and then I closed my eyes dramatically, channelling my Jennifer Love Hewitt. “The spirit has now passed through to the other side.”

I opened my eyes to find Master Wu staring at me in an unimpressed way. It was the same look he gave when he busted little Nancy Pants and little me with his hell money.

“Okay then,” said Mum, and she laughed nervously. She took the red packet out of her purse. “I’ve had a good think, Master Wu, and decided that the amount isn’t nearly enough so I’m doubling it.”

“Amy,” Mum said to me in her stern voice when we were safely back in the car. “I don’t like it when you lie to me. You know I’m not one of those ‘Tiger Mums’.”

She knew. I had to brace myself to tell the truth about Logan, who was sitting next to me in the back seat.

“Who was it that you helped to pass to the other side? What did the white light look like? And when they stepped into the light did it make that special
haaahhhhh
noise like it does on TV?”

“He was an old war veteran,” I said and Mum seemed to accept this.

I could have hit myself on the head. I looked at Logan, who shook his head at me. I swore I would tell the truth once I’d figured out this whole mysterious mess for myself.

“Your mum is a good person,” said Logan, turning his head towards me. “Too good for you to be mucking around with. But I believe you’re a good person too. Somewhere on the inside.”

I was happy with that. It was more than I deserved.

“Mum …”

“Yes, Lee Ai Mi?”

I hated it when Mum called me by my Chinese name, ’cos it translates to “pretty plum seed”.

“Have you ever heard of a case of … a ghost getting trapped inside, um, something?”

“Well, there is this old Chinese story about two lovers who died in tragic circumstances – the soul of the girl became trapped inside an oil-paper umbrella. When the umbrella was opened twenty years later, she was released in the form of a ghost.” Mum flicked the indicator on and pulled the car out. “Although of course, that was the plot of a fictional TVB series called
Time Before Time
. It’s not real, of course. Why do you ask?”

“No reason. I’m just interested, that’s all,” I said lamely and glanced over at Logan.

“As you might have noticed, I actually have money!” said Mum. “I sold four pieces of that estate jewellery I was telling you about yesterday to one lovely old lady, so now we are rich.” Mum tapped the steering wheel cheerfully. “For the time being, anyway. What do you say we treat ourselves to takeaway before I splurge the rest on, oh, rent and electricity and essential food items?”

I sat in silence for the rest of the trip home. I watched Logan as he glowed prettily in the dark, like some sort of night-light.

And I thought: horror shows teach you nothing about being afraid of ghosts. The experience is much more terrifying in real life.

Chapter 6

I was still in shock that Mum and I had managed to make it back home in one piece. Logan too. If you could count him as a piece. Was it callous that I didn’t consider him whole? Or completely real or human? To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to consider Logan.

“Okay. Wow,” said Mum. “That was an intense experience.”

She stuck the key in the door, pushed it open and we stumbled in, carefully stepping over the door ledge. I was so relieved when the lights flickered on and the beautiful vintage shop appeared in front of my eyes that I wanted to fall down on my knees and kiss the floor.

“What a day!” exclaimed Mum as she started plonking plates and cutlery down on our little dining table.

I couldn’t agree more. Public lunacy, theft, detention and an aborted exorcism all in one day.

What was next in store for me?

“If you don’t mind, I’m going to eat in my room,” I said to Mum.

“Of course,” replied Mum, but I could see the disappointment in her eyes as she looked at the table she had set out for two.

Logan followed me as I headed upstairs with my plate of dinner.

“After that, I think I need a smoke,” he said.

“You smoke?” I asked him, surprised.

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“You’re not having a smoke. Anyway you can’t,” I replied. “And later I’m going to have to educate you on the dangers of smoking.”

I walked into my room and let out a heavy yawn at exactly the same moment as Logan did. We stopped and stared at each other. I think we each held our breath for a little while, afraid to make another mirrored movement. It was weird to know that he was tired. I guess he was an energy field of some sort and he could become depleted too. I closed the door behind us.

“Okay, so you’ve seen my room. Twice. Out with your opinions then,” I said, as I sat down on my dresser chair.

“Do you know the show
Beyond 2000
?”

“No. I could ask Mum. She’d know. She’s been alive for yonks before 2000.”

I popped a chip in my mouth. I was so exhausted I could hardly chew.

“It was a science program and it showed you what technology there would be in the future.” Logan looked at my three papered walls (the remnants of an ancient 1950s civilisation) and my one bare concrete one. “It predicted a lot more than this.”

I pulled off my school shirt. I was so tired that I was beyond caring. Plus I had a singlet on underneath, an essential shield against the slightly transparent fabric of the polo shirt and the perverted boys at school. I dropped it onto the floor.

“See that?” I said to Logan. “If I don’t pick it up myself, no robot maid is going to come and do it me.”

I shook out my hair and wound my fingers around the necklace possessively as if it was the most precious object I owned. I could feel a presence at the back of my neck and when I turned my head, Logan was there. I didn’t jump this time, but I felt myself break out in a billion goosebumps.

“Amy, I think this is the best part of us being together. It’s an unconventional relationship. I’m the ghost and you’re the freaky little girl who can see ghosts. None of that awkward boy and girl stuff.”

I stuffed some more chips and a bit of fish into my mouth and then wiped my hands on my skirt.