The Girl with No Face by M. H. Boroson

Author:M. H. Boroson
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781945863127
Publisher: Talos
Published: 2019-10-01T16:00:00+00:00

I decided to gather some supplies before I sought out spirits who might be able to tell me about this phantom train. I started by going to Papercrafter Yi’s place to commission a few items. His shop had no storefront. Entering through a boot factory that smelled of hot leather and human sweat, I walked past a long table where a few dozen men worked at different stations, each man cutting, folding, shaping, and gluing leather, or hasping laces and lacing boots. The rhythm of pounding mallets did not coalesce with the rhythm of snipping scissors; their labor made a din, not a song.

At one side of the room, Mr. Yi stood, sorting through the drawers of a large cabinet. He seemed to be trying to organize sheets of paper in a huge variety of colors and sizes, but every adjustment he made only made it all look more chaotic. He saw me coming and he smiled, showing the big gap between his two front teeth.

“Miss Xian,” he said, and the warmth and welcome in his voice made something soften in me. Mr. Yi had come to America like most other people, eager to earn money by mining or working to construct the railways, but he discovered he could earn a better living from the family trade he’d learned as a child.

“I was just thinking about you, Miss Xian,” he said. “To be precise, I was thinking about your husband.”

“Go on, Mr. Yi?”

“You and your father are always burning paper clothes for him,” he said, stroking his hair with an excited gesture. “But there were two things that boy loved more than anything else, and those were martial arts and you.”

I found myself embarrassed, blushing; it was such a sweet thing to say. I dipped my head in respect.

“So, why all the clothing?” he asked. “Rocket was never some kind of peacock. Here, let me show you what I’ve been designing.”

He pushed some pages in my direction, showing plans and drawings. I didn’t know how to read the marking, the chicken-scratch notations, but it was clear that certain lines were for cutting, others for folding, and it all added together to—

“A weapons rack,” I said.

“The Eighteen Weapons!” Mr. Yi clapped his hands together in enthusiasm. “When they are built and burned, Rocket’s spirit will be able to practice every possible combination of weapons forms in the afterlife! Long weapons and short, hard weapons and soft . . . . He’d simply love that, wouldn’t he?”

“Yes, Mr. Yi,” I said truthfully. “He would. And how much would it cost me?”

“Cost is irrelevant,” he said. “Perhaps a hundred dollars. I’m sure you’ll come up with it.”

I stared at him. He was asking for me to lay aside months’ worth of savings. Yet there would be a portion of my husband’s soul in the afterlife, not the most conscious portion, but a dim version of himself, which continued to perform each day’s actions. It continued to eat, to dress, and to sleep. The

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