The Girl and the Ghost by Hanna Alkaf

Author:Hanna Alkaf
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-05-20T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Four

Ghost

SURAYA LAY CURLED up in her bed, and she couldn’t stop shaking.

Pink was worried about her, and it just about killed him that he had no idea how to help her. “What were they?” she asked, over and over again. “What were those . . . those creatures?”

Pink sat quiet and unmoving on the windowsill, watching as ribbons of sunlight slowly began to lick the corners of the neighboring houses, thinking about those muffled whispers, the pointed stare of hundreds of beady little eyes.

All manner of dark things, he said quietly. There was a bajang—that’s the civet you saw, that’s the shape it takes. It can cause a type of madness, a delirium, to whoever its master sends it to torment.

“Its master?” Suraya stared at him. “You mean the pawang?”

Yes. And it was not the only one. There were more. Pink sighed. The owl is another form taken by the langsuir. She is a type of banshee, preying on pregnant mothers, though I suppose if you have the right skill, she can prey on whoever you want her to. The baby, that was a toyol, a child spirit who can be used by its master to cause all sorts of mischief.

“And the little one?”

That was a polong. A spirit bound by blood, like me. It can render its victims deaf and blind to their surroundings, totally unconscious of their own actions, ranting and raving like a lunatic. And there was more than one of those, more than I could count.

Suraya buried her head in her hands. “I don’t understand. Why is he doing this? What does he want with those . . . those creatures?”

It seems to me that the man is a Collector, Pink said calmly. I have heard of his kind. They are not content with small, petty bad magics as your grandmother was. They desire greater things, and they use their spirits like slaves.

“What kind of things do they want?” Suraya asked. Her voice trembled.

Pink’s sigh was long and weary. Anything you could think of, really, he said. Theft. Assault. Murder. Imagine being in control of polongs and pelesits, toyols and bajangs and langsuirs. An army of ghosts and monsters. You would be almost unstoppable.

“But what does he want you for? Doesn’t he have enough?” she said, her voice rising and tinged with frustration. “And you’re bound by blood too. How can he do that? I thought that was the whole point, that you couldn’t belong to anyone else.”

Power is an addiction. A small taste is often enough for people to crave another, and then another, and then another, and those who have it will do anything to get more of it.

“And he called himself RELIGIOUS!” She drove her fist into the mattress, pounding it over and over again, punctuating her words with their soft, satisfying thumps. “How can he just USE religion like that? What kind of monster does that?”

He is not the first, nor will he be the last. Pink turned to look at her, his voice gentle.

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