The Tale of the Ghost Eyes Chapter 77 The Mood of Speaking to the Ghosts

"The pain." I said. The words sounded a thousand miles away.

"Remember this feeling, but don't let it consume you." He said. I couldn't take my eyes from the boy. Master Ge's voice came from the darkness to my right. "What you're feeling is how the spirit feels. If you let it overtake you, then you will be lost." I wanted to blink, to pull my eyes off of the creature, but I couldn't move. "Keep your mind separate and calm."

A sob rose in my throat and made itself known. My thoughts moved in slow motions, rebounding in my head like madness. "What do I do?" I asked. The words rolling past numb lips.

"Speak to it." Came his voice. "Say anything you'd like."

"Anything?" I thought. My eyes roamed over the remnants of a face and my words surprised me. "What's your name?"

The red boy's mouth opened in a gasping sob. A low voice that didn't match the thing before me spoke. "Mummy calls me Xiao Hai. Xiao Hai..."

"Xiao Hai, that's a good name. Why are you here?"

Another rolling sob preceded the words. "I don't know." Came the voice, the mouth still gaping open. "My home is warm. Daddy, grandpa, and grandma love me. I remember…" The voice faded into nothing like someone had dialed down the volume. I concentrated with all of my might and focused on the screaming ache that fell over me again and again. The voice returned, "My belly hurt. It hurt so bad!" The boy screamed. "I was sick and Mommy was sad. Mommy!" The boy's words pitched into a screech and then subsided. "They said sorry. Sorry." He echoed. The word reverberated in my mind, growing louder and louder until I knew I was going to burst. My head would split open and their remorse would come spilling out of me.

I must have winced because Master Ge's voice was beside me again, crashing through the darkness like a winter breeze. "Xiao Yong, be careful!"

I nodded, a movement that seemed to take years, and concentrated once more on Xiao Hai. His words swooned up and down in my head, "Mommy took me outside. Grandma's quit was warm. I saw the trees and the sky. My belly hurt." The word became a hideous purr in my head and I tried to shut my eyes, but they wouldn't. "Mommy didn't mean to. She said I can stay here and she'll come back." Another voice filled my head, not the whining pitch of a scared child, but the soothing whisper of a woman.

"Stay here lovely boy, stay here and I'll come back. Mommy will come back. I love you baby." The sadness in her voice bit into me like knives. I felt a warmth seep out of my nose and run over my lips. "Trust mommy, sweet baby. Stay with the trees and they'll keep you forever. I'll come see you. Mommy didn't mean to, mommy loves you-" Her voice cut out with an impossible shriek. The red boy before me pulsed a deeper red, his mouth gaping open.

A hand was on my shoulder. "Master Liu?" I thought, but Master Ge's voice came to me.

"She thought you were dying." He whispered to me, no, not to me. He whispered through me to the boy. "What a terrible fate…"

"Xiao Hai," I interrupted, "And then?"

"I tried to stop crying." The boy's voice returned, "My belly hurt so bad. She set me here and she left. My mommy left. She left." Where the trees had been, behind the red boy, was now only blackness. He stood in a circle of fire, surrounded by nothing. The only light pulsed red from the boy before me. I realized his mouth was closed now. The jagged skin around his forehead wrinkled into a scowl. He pulsed that impossible red again and I tasted blood.

"Your mom…" I started, the words still coming in slow motion.

"I was cold." He replied. "It was dark. I cried for mommy and she didn't come." The blackness around him deepened impossibly still. Master Ge's hand was gone now. The copper taste thickened with each word.

"The birds came." He said, with a voice no longer that of a child. "Big black birds. Birds with beaks." I felt a sharp stab on the back of my neck. "Birds with claws." Something scratched against my stomach. "And mommy didn't come back." My head was pounding. Each word grew into a calamity in my mind, crashing through me like waves on a rock.

"I can't see." The boy's voice said. "They hurt my face and I can't see." The darkness deepened further.

"You were dead." A familiar voice whispered.

"Make the birds go away." The boy said. "I'll get up and make them go away."

"You are dead." The familiar voice whispered.

"No I'm not." I said. "No I'm not." The boy said.

"Xiao Yong?" The familiar voice called from far away.

"I'm not dead." The boy and I said together. It was impossibly dark. The circle of fire had faded at the red boy's feet.

"Xiao Yong!" The familiar voice called again. "You're here! You are here with me! Don't let him in!"

An ache appeared on my shoulder and then became a pressure. The darkness wavered around the boy. His lone red eye dug into mine.

"Xiao Yong!" It was Master Ge. I bit into my lip, feeling the pain jag through my clouded head. The red boy lightened in front of me. "Don't let him in!" Master Ge repeated. This time I heard him. The ring of fire surrounding the boy brightened. The flames pitched and shook as if there was a heavy wind and the trees returned into my vision.

"I'm here." I said, the words coming easier now. The boy didn't speak with me this time.

"Thank god." Master Ge returned. His hand rested on my shoulder. It still held the copper sword pointed at the boy. The weight was unimaginable, but real. "I almost lost you there." He said.

"Tell him he's dead." Master Ge said, "Help him understand."

I nodded and turned back to Xiao Hai now surrounded by flames almost as tall as he, "Xiao Hai, the birds hurt you really bad and you were very sick." The flames between us kept his eye from locking onto mine. I raised my voice as a shield. "You died, Xiao Hai. You don't belong to this world any more."

A river of red tears flowed down Xiao Hai's mangled face. " I want mommy! I want her back! Make her come back!"

"You don't hate your mom." I thought, "You miss her."

The woman's voice flitted through my mind again and I was all at once furious. The boy watched me closely. As anger collected in my head, his crimson color deepened once more.

"Calm, Xiao Yong." Master Ge said, "You must remain calm or I might lose you again. We want to help him, not join him."

"Why did you go after Wang Chunmei? Does she look like your mom?" I asked, careful not to look too long into his lone eye.

"She wouldn't take care of me. She tried to leave like mommy did." The boy replied.

"So you were mad at her."

The red boy nodded. "She wouldn't hold me."

"What about us? Why did you follow us out of the mountains?"

"To play." He said, his mouth curling into a joyless smile. "But you wouldn't play with me."

"How do we help him?" I asked Master Ge in a whisper. "He just misses his mom. We don't know where she is!"

Master Ge stood silently for a moment. "The girl." He finally said. "Perhaps if she embraces him, gives him what he wants, he'll be at peace." He lifted the copper sword hilt off my shoulder, being sure to keep the blade pointed at the child. "Find her. Bring her here."

I looked at Master Ge with disbelief. "She'll be terrified!" I said. He tilted the blade in a shooing motion.

"Bring her here." He repeated.

Careful not to look at the boy again, I stepped back gingerly, waiting for the darkness to loom down over me again. As I stepped away from the grave and moved up the hill, the world around me came back to life. The trees pulsed with color and the sky blued brighter and brighter overhead.

Reaching the road, I could almost think clearly again. I wiped my face and gasped at the shock of blood that had poured from my nose. Wiping it on my trousers, I made my way down the mountain where everyone was waiting. My parents waved and dashed towards me as I approached.

"What-?" My mother started. I cut her off with a wave.

"There's no time. I need to find Wang Chunmei! We need her to send the spirit away!"

"Send it away?" Boomed a voice. Wang Chunmei was standing between a man and a woman. She took after the woman in almost every way. The man boomed again. "Why would you send it away? That thing almost killed my daughter! Kill it! Kill it again!"

I looked at Wang Chunmei pleadingly. "He's a baby…I spoke with him, well- kinda. He's just a boy!" I gave them the briefest of summaries, careful to leave out the aching pain that still pulsed in my head. "Do you want to send it away Wang Chunmei, or kill it?"

She hesitated for the briefest second and then stepped away from her father. "Take me to him. He may have hurt me a little," her eyes fell to the ground. "But he was hurting too."

Her mother's hand shot out and wrapped itself around Wang Chunmei's upper arm. "Are you crazy? Do you want to go through all of that again?"

I wracked my mind for anything, ignoring the pulsing ache and raised up one finger in a winning gesture. "There'll be a reward!" My eyes darted between Wang Chunmei's mother and father. "Master Ge told me all about it. If you help out a spirit then you'll be blessed!" I did my best impression of a grin and hoped that there wasn't any more blood on my face.

"A reward, huh?" Her father said.

"Oh just you wait!" I told him, my grin widening.

Chapter end