The Dark and What It Said Read online

  "I think she's talking to Lee Ho Chin the laundryman. Can't hear what he's saying, though."

  Rhoda peered back along the line. "None of them are speaking.”

  "It's their souls speaking. I'll see if I can get in on the conversation.” I thought my niece's name several times over. It had no effect. Oblivious to me Christine said, Mr Chin, do you think I'm dreaming you because I saw you in the vacant lot today?

  I looked along the avenue. Far down among the tree shadows came Ragface, dodging the pools of street lighting in darting hops too quick to catch more than a blur and flutter of white. Zig-zagging, never definite but getting nearer, it seemed to have a stuttering movement, like a film with every third frame cut out; as if it moved through an intermittent existence.

  I U-turned my quartet.

  Are you really a ghost, Mr Chin?... Then you must be a nice one. My Uncle Ernie chases ghosts.

  "What's the matter?" said Rhoda.

  I motioned with my head behind us. Rhoda turned. Thank Christ she didn't scream.

  Did you really talk to Uncle Ernie when he was little? And mum?... How could they forget you?... Do people always forget ghosts when they grow up?

  "How close is it, Rhoda?"

  She jogged up beside me. "It's almost here."

  "What's that word for 'stop' again?"

  "Ting."

  "Shrshou, ting!"

  They stopped.

  I can't wait to wake up and tell mum about this dream, even though sometimes she doesn't... Christine faded out as I stepped away from the dead men.

  I handed Rhoda the bowl. "If anything happens to me, smash it. It might --"

  “Smash it? That'll kill Christine for real!"

  "If you love her you do it. Believe me, she'd be better off truly dead than an eternal slave to that." I jerked my thumb back at the flickering on-coming thing, then turned and headed towards it. I had my doubts about Rhoda destroying the bowl if it came to it. But I had to leave it with her. It wouldn't be safe to bring it too close to Ragface. It looked a tricky customer.

  By now Ragface had twitched into one of the nearby shadows. It made no sound. And it wouldn't keep central in my vision. It kept sliding to either corner of the eye, making it impossible to determine what it was outside of an impression of flapping draperies and that it glowed. It was a thing of contradiction, made of light and hating the light.

  First I tried thinking at it, things like, "Go away!" and "Shoo!" and "Piss off!" I'd have been surprised to see it work. I wasn't surprised. So I shouted, "What are you? What do yon want?" having read somewhere that some spirits hated being asked their purpose.

  Nothing changed. It remained lurking in the shadows of my peripheral vision, its outlines occasionally jerking and changing. I wondered if it was as frightened of me as I was terrified of it, whether it might be a thing of impulse rather than calculation. I felt sure it knew the rules, though, and knew it'd have to kill me to gain control of the bowl. I took a chance.

  "You coward! I'm not a sleeping child!" I raised my arms and took two steps forward.

  It hit me a vicious blow to the mind. I staggered back, falling with the pain. Ragface juddered past, heading for Rhoda.

  "Stop or she'll smash the bowl!" I tried to shout. It came out a half moan.

  The thing stopped, and I could've sworn it was tying slow knots in itself. Rhoda was looking back and forth, trying to keep the thing in sight. The bowl was raised above her head, ready to be dashed down. I started to get up, despite the feeling my brain was falling away in slices.

  "Smash it, Rhoda!" I yelled hoarsely. "Smash it for Christine's sake!"

  "Don't do it, mummy. I love you. Don't kill me, mummy."

  Rhoda went face up with shock. I just went cold. It'd been Christine’s voice all right, but it hadn't been Christine. The thing was far more cunning than I'd credited.

  "It's not Christine!" I shouted. Ragface seemed to glow more intensely, and massive pain speared me through the eyes. All I could think of was Smash it! Smash it!

  Ragface crept closer to Rhoda, speaking in that little girl voice. And Rhoda was listening, mesmerized, her arms frozen above her with fright and indecision, facing a monstrous choice: destroy the bowl and destroy her daughter, or give Christine undead to that thing.

  The pain in my head expanded. My mind stood back from itself, contemplating its end. Cerebral haemorrhage? Stroke?

  Reality tilted, righted, tilted again.

  My jacket pocket exploded.

  For a second I thought my head had blown up and that what was fluttering in front of me was part of my brain. Then I realized the pain had stopped, that Ragface was flickering back into deeper shadows. What had erupted from my pocket was the piece of Hell money that'd hit me in the cemetery.

  It was unfolding and unfolding... and unfolding far beyond its size, uncrumpling, expanding, pushing out paper shapes. It was like watching crystals form as limbs thrust out and swelled. The paper tore itself into reptile scales and jagged edges.

  The unfolding ceased. The last creases were pushed out smooth and the dragon stood large on the road.

  Ragface twitched down the avenue. The dragon moved like the wind, snatching it up in talons long like mandarin's fingernails, pushing the thing into the glare of a street light. Ragface screeched and wailed horribly The dragon’s claws opened, letting Ragface squirm flickering into the tree shadows. It cringed there, whimpering.

  The dragon craned down its long neck, human features on its saurian face, Asian and ancient. I thought I saw pity and regret in the eyes.

  Ragface tittered and gave a blinding pulse of whiteness. The dragon reeled back across the avenue. Ragface continued the attack, gathering into a blur that was impossible to look at. My headache returned, though it was probably a thousand times worse for the dragon. It was down on its belly, saw-tooth tail lashing in agony. Creases reappeared in its body as it began to collapse into itself again. I yelled at Ragface, loudly, carefully, so there'd be no mistake, "No, Rhoda! Don't throw down the bowl now!

  Ragface lost its brilliance and began to swirl towards Rhoda, its draperies spiralling as it slid again to the corner of my eye. A tremor of panic, of confusion swept from it. Then panic again, a wave stronger than before.

  Out on the road the dragon’s body swelled, its head raising in anger.

  Realizing the deception, Ragface arrowed across a spill of light separating it from the shadows and its escape down the avenue.

  Hind claws gouging the roadway bitumen. The dragon reared back and struck like a snake, scooping Ragface in a blur of movement. This time the talons didn't slacken when the thing cried and wailed. The old Chinese face had hardened.

  The dragon reached into the air with one razor bright claw and tore a rent in the darkness, showing pure white light beyond. Ragface wriggled frantically, winding tight against the claws, making noises that set my nerves and hair on end.

  With great deliberation the dragon bundled Ragface up like so much dirty laundry and prodded it screaming into that tear of light.

  The tear disappeared. The dragon began to dissolve and dwindle, the claws changing to fingers, the body thinning, the neck shortening.

  Rhoda was beside me now, and I gently unclenched her fingers and took the rice bowl. We were both shaking and some of the water sloshed over the edge.

  The wizard Feng Meng Lung stood before us, no longer a dragon or a piece of Hell money. He was a clean-shaven man dressed in trilby hat and high collar, waistcoat and watch-chain, braces on his trousers and spats on his shoes. He stepped towards me, fading as he did. I found myself moving back to the line of dead men where I took up position again.

  "Jinsying!" said my voice in what I suspected was beautifully modulated Mandarin Chinese, and we were off.

  Do you have to go now, Mr Chin? said Christine. Will I wake up now?

  Her voice cut across a sing-song babble of Chinese. Only one other, like parchment crumpling, came to me loud and clear in stilted English:
>
  It is time, Chlistine, to go home. It has been too long. Now we must all go home.

  Goodbye... Goodbye, Mr Chin... Goodbye...

  I had a sudden sensation of coming unstuck from something, of pulling apart... an uplifting, passing through shadows, shadows passing through me as I fell out of line, dropping behind. I glimpsed five figures, swaying, all in step. Then they were gone. Perhaps Railway Avenue led them home. I hoped so.

  "Uncle Ernie?" said Christine behind me. "Where are we? Where's mum?"

  I spun about. But Rhoda reached her and hugged her first.

  ***

  A few days later Rhoda received a letter from the local historical society, the one that had been unable to give her any information about the vacant lot on the first day of our search. They apologized for taking so long, but said they'd finally uncovered something that might be of interest.

  "The site has only had one building on it since European settlement," said the letter. "It was a Chinese laundry from 1893 until the disappearance of its owner, Lee Ho Chin, in late 1909. The site was acquired by the local authorities for back rates and taxes, and in 1912 the building was demolished. Urban legend has it that the site is haunted, sometimes by the ghost of a thin, ragged figure, sometimes by the lingering smell of laundry, and sometimes by a woman's anguished cries of 'Christine! Christine!'"

  The Seas of Castle Hill Road

  The sound of the sea came through the open window. I sat up in bed, listening, knowing it was a good forty kilometres to the coast.

  I was up from Melbourne, staying a couple of weeks in Queensland with my friend Sonja Vanhoven, recuperating from pneumonia. Sonja had suggested the visit in one of her letters by saying a warmer climate would do me good.

  Sonja’s was a hot weather house, a white-wash timber place built on stilts, with a wide front verandah, sash windows and high-ceilinged rooms, big and open to catch the breeze. Three or four times a day the coal trains rumbled loud through the valley, trailing their long echoes through the rooms. And on some nights, so it seemed, a not-there sea could be heard surging in the tropical dark.

  I leaned out the window and listened to the slap of waves far away, knowing there were only hills and valleys pushing to the horizon. Castle Hill Road lay dark under its two widely spaced street lights and nothing moved. On impulse I sniffed for the salt air and smelt nothing, and within a couple of minutes the sea sounds had faded into silence.

  ***

  I decided not to say anything about it to Sonja. I’d had quite enough experience with the occult, thank you very much, and if her house had anything cock-eyed about it I just didn’t want to know. Besides, it’s bad manners to find fault with the hostess’s home, be it plumbing, bed bugs or a non-existent ocean washing around outside your window.

  Sonja came yawning into the kitchen early next morning. “Good morning, Ernie. Sleep all right?” It was a question I suspected of being loaded. Originally a child immigrant from Holland, she’d grown dark under thirty-odd years of the Queensland sun. But right now she looked a little pale.

  “Slept like the proverbial,” I said, making a point of looking busy with the kettle. “And you?”

  “Woke up around two this morning with this funny hissing noise outside the house, sort of like the sea.”

  “Must’ve been the wind.”

  She paused at the kitchen window and looked out at the still trees and unhurried clouds. “You know, I think I’ve heard it before, on two or three other nights.”

  My scalp began to creep. “Toast or cereal?” I asked desperately.

  “Yes, I have heard it before. The sea. Weird, eh?”

  Yes, weird – which is what I was afraid of.

  Half an hour later as Sonja climbed onto her bike to rumble off to work she said, “You know, I feel guilty leaving you here like this, particularly with your illness.”

  “That’s just your Dutch hospitality coming out,” I said. “Anyway, you wouldn’t accept any rent so the guilt’s all mine. Now go away so I can indulge myself with your books and records and videos, not to mention your fridge.”

  Which was about the limit of my activities. Thanks to the lingering effects of my pneumonia I was prone to tiredness and shortness of breath. At any rate there was nowhere to go in this semi-rural area. Streets ran off over hills and under rail bridges, going nowhere as far as I was concerned.

  After washing up the breakfast things I wandered outside with Axel, Sonja’s good-natured, slobbering Doberman. I took a close look at the area beneath my window where the ground was dry and the grass was patchy. If I was looking for shells or seaweed I was disappointed. In fact I was relieved. The sea had probably been washing around Sonja’s house on intermittent nights long before she’d even bought the place six years ago. It seemed a harmless enough phenomenon, so I thought I’d best not start snooping and maybe unravelling threads which might lead to god knew what. Wet god-knew-what, if the sea had anything to do with it.

  This is what I told myself as I started snooping between the stilts under the house...

  ***

  Later that morning I sat myself down in an old cane chair on the front verandah with a book I’d picked at random from the shelves. I was still dusty from scratching around under the house, having found only empty boxes, corroded pipes and rotted planks, evidence of past renovations. Nothing nautical, no ships’ compasses or giant clams or stuffed starfish. Not even a punctured beach ball. Axel had followed me in, getting dust in his coat as he sniffed at things he’d probably sniffed at a thousand times before, but finding nothing to get excited about. There were no sailormen’s ghosts under there.

  I made myself comfortable in the cane chair on the sunny verandah and opened the book. It proved to be a gardening manual in Dutch.

  “Godverdomme!“ I said, using my only Dutch expletive -- quickly changing to Anglo-Saxon as Axel began barking in the back yard.

  I hurried through the house to the back stairs and leaned out over the banister. There was nothing unusual to be seen: the back yard, the bushes, the grass.

  “Axel!”

  He came bounding up the stairs, all legs and size, his claws clattering, skidding across the landing as he tore past me into the house. From the top of the stairs I took another long look around the yard, saw nothing, then followed Axel inside. He lay under the living room table, a big, black dog shivering, half mad, very scared, his dusty coat smelling wet, smelling of the sea.

  “Axel, good boy,” I said with an edge to my voice.

  He came out slowly, crawling on his belly. I patted him. He was dry. Yet a second later he stood and shook himself, and cold wetness stung my face and hands. I wiped at them although there was nothing really there, then wrapped an arm around the dog, feeling him tremble his animal fear of the unknown—and through him felt my own.

  From the open back door came the sound of the sea rising around the house, a brief swell of waves—and silence.

  All at once I felt horribly cold and shaky. There’d been no malevolence in the moment, only unreasoning fear, the sort that comes with the inexplicable and the supernatural. Axel, on the other hand, had forgotten his fear and was now placidly scratching himself while looking up at me as if to say, “So what else is new?” He no longer smelt wet, merely doggy.

  Not really knowing what I was doing I closed and locked the back door, closed and locked the front door, shut tight every window. It was while I was doing this that I noticed the holes in the window frames. They were evidently very old holes, and a lot of them were almost completely filled with many years of paint, making them little more than dents in the woodwork. In this tropical climate of hot days and humid nights some one, at some time in the house’s past, had nailed shut all its windows.

  ***

  I was glad we didn’t have fish for tea that night.

  Sonja made something she called ‘Rice Thing’, part fried rice, part leftovers, part anything-to-hand, stirred around in the electric pan. It was the nicest ‘Rice Thing
’ I’d ever had. Later, over the washing up, I said, “So how old is this place? 1920s?”

  “Don’t reckon. 20s style was more ornate: all-round verandahs, carved features and such. These houses are called Queenslanders --”

  “That’s original.”

  She flicked soap suds at me. “—and most of them are of the same basic design, built between the turn of the century and the 30s. This is one of the later ones, not too exotic, not too fashionable, only a front verandah, but... hell, it keeps the rain off.”

  “Didn’t think you lot knew what rain was up here.”

  “Monsoons. We get the tail end of them when they sweep through up north.”

  “I suppose that’s the only time you close your windows.”

  “That and a few weeks during winter. We do have winters up here, Ernie, even though we don’t have glaciers grinding through the main streets like you do down your way.”

  “Not to mention our marauding hordes of killer penguins. But tell me, who nailed all your windows shut?”

  Sonja stopped suddenly with her hands deep in the suds and gave me a funny look. “How did you know about that?”

  “Saw the nail holes in the woodwork..”

  She looked through the kitchen door into the living room. “I thought so. You’ve closed all the windows.”

  “Yes.”

  She looked again. “You locked the back door.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Perhaps for the same reason the windows were nailed down in the first place?”

  She stared at me and gave a puzzled laugh. “Ernie, this house was owned by a little old lady who checked under her bed each night and nailed the windows shut to keep the bogyman out. Is that why you closed and locked everything?”

  “Maybe. Did you ever meet the previous owner?”

  “Hardly. It was an estate sale. She’d been dead a year when I bought the place.”

  “Then who told you why the windows had been nailed shut?”