The Witch's Market (2 page)

“Busy teaching and writing, as you know.”

“Have you considered my suggestion?”

“Yes, but I'm not strong on Western witchcraft. . . .”

“Then you should do some serious fieldwork.”

“I thought of that, but—”

“Eileen is not going anywhere. I need her here,” Ivan said.

I gave him a disapproving look.

Timothy ignored Ivan's remark and went on. “Fieldwork is the way to make your work credible.”

Now my boyfriend, maybe soon to be ex, put his arm protectively around my shoulder. “No. What about if Eileen gets sick or even captured by natives?”

Timothy smiled. “If Eileen is a witch, I'm sure she'll find a way out. Or if she's a shamaness, she'll be in another time and space before anything happens, ha!” With that, he winked at me, stood up, and began to talk with one of the professors.

Soon there was the sound of metal hitting glass. The room went quiet and Timothy spoke to the crowd. “Let's ask our birthday girl, Eileen Chen, to entertain us all with some witchcraft!”

Laughter and applause burst out.

Red-faced and probably half-drunk on Ivan's free-flowing, expensive wine, Timothy went on excitedly. “We all know that Eileen is a . . . let's put it this way, Eileen is a professor of Chinese and Western witchcraft.” He turned to me. “So could you show us some tricks?”

People cheered as Ivan cast me an encouraging look. Now that I was on the spot, I wished I really did possess supernatural powers, such as to break a glass—specifically the one in Timothy Lee's hand. Or simply disappearing for a quick mystic journey to the other world. Unfortunately I didn't have such abilities. But I had to admit to myself that if my colleagues thought I did, it was my fault because I had so often dropped hints of having special powers.

The guests were not going to take no for an answer.

“Yes, let's see some witchcraft on your birthday!”

“Open our eyes!”

“Eileen, bring some excitement to our tedious lives, please!”

I decided that all right, I'd try. If I failed—and of course I would—my excuse was that I was too tired from work.

My reluctant feet dragged me to the middle of the living room. I meditated, then circulated my internal energy the way my mother and grandmother had taught me. My eyes searched the room for an easy object upon which to exercise my supposed power. Seconds later, they landed on the guitar strings.

I asked the guitar player, who was my colleague, “John, can you play the ‘Spider's Dance'? You played it at last year's Christmas party.”

I gathered up my courage, and announced, “I'm going to break the third string.”

A round of applause exploded in the room.

John looked a bit puzzled, but nevertheless obliged. In no time the room was filled with a frantic tune and every one nodded or jumped to the rhythm. I was just hoping that John would play so fast and exert so much strength that the string would break.

Now I was on the path of “no return.” My mother had always insisted that I possessed supernatural power, if I would just let myself believe. Her proof was an incident that occurred when I was a child. She had just taken away my glass of Coke, which she deemed toxic. So I focused my anger on the glass in her hand, which fragmented, spilling the soda and staining her dress.

Either my mother had made up this event, which I had no memory of, or she desperately hoped that her elder daughter was born unusual. My mother said a lot of strange things, most of which I did not take seriously. Like all children, I had known better than to believe what adults told us. In any case, I did not remember the incident, and so it did not tempt me to explore my supposed unusual talents. As a scholar, I needed to maintain objectivity about my subject.

I could tell that a few of Ivan's stuffy colleagues were expecting me to fail and become a laughingstock. I knew many of them, mostly self-satisfied jerks who enjoyed seeing others fail.

I didn't expect to succeed, but I was going to try my best. So I concentrated and stared fiercely at the third string. Three minutes into playing, when John was furiously strumming, there was a loud snap and he stopped, looking totally shocked.

Ivan's cat, who had been sitting lazily on the altar, watching the drama with arrogant, wicked eyes, now jumped, emitting a loud screech as if it had seen a ghost.

Ivan was the first to speak. “What happened?”

“Yes, what's happening?” someone asked.

John looked at his guitar, then the guests. “A string broke, the third one.” He frowned as he looked at his instrument.

Now everyone turned to look at me, some curious, some a little scared. It was as if I'd suddenly transformed into a witch, complete with black cape, broom, pointed hat, long bloodred nails, and was perhaps about to burst into delirious laughter.

Adding to the collective shock, the doorbell suddenly rang loudly. Since all the invited guests were already here, who could be at the door? An angry neighbor? Brenda dashed to the door and came back with a big beribboned package, which she handed to me. Tucked under the red ribbon was a card with the words
Happy Birthday to a Witch
.

My heart skipped a beat.

A jealous expression flitted across Ivan's face. “That's a big birthday gift, Eileen. Let's see who it's from.”

What he really wanted to know was if someone had sent me something more expensive than he had. I doubted that, since Ivan had earlier given me a very nice pearl necklace.

Ignoring my birthday guests' curious stares, I excused myself and walked toward the bathroom. Somehow opening gifts in front of an audience has always been embarrassing to me. Brenda and Ivan followed me, however.

I gave Ivan a disapproving look. “Ivan, a gentleman does not follow a lady, let alone two, to the bathroom.”

Reluctantly, he turned back toward the living room.

Inside the washroom, with Brenda beside me, I quickly tore off the shiny silver gift paper, which seemed to make a despondent sound as it ripped. Next I peeled through layers and layers of tissue paper before my eyes landed on something strange. It was an animal skull, probably that of a monkey. It was stark white and I couldn't tell if it was real or not.

Both Brenda and I fell silent.
Why would someone send me a gift like this on my birthday?

“Who delivered this?” I asked.

“I don't know—when I opened the door, it was lying on the floor.”

“Very strange.” In fact, it was more than strange, it was scary. But I didn't want to alarm my little sister.

She looked worried anyway. “You think it's bad luck?”

“I'm sure whoever sent this wants to make me feel uncomfortable.”

“I'm so sorry, Eileen. Who would want to do that?”

“I don't know. Someone must be trying to send me a message.”

“What's the message?”

“I don't know, but it can't be anything pleasant.”

Maybe,
I thought to myself,
I really have to become a witch to fight the unknown, evil force that might be coming my way.

2

Signs from Heaven

W
hen Brenda and I reentered the living room, people were still chattering about my “supernatural” power.

Then Ivan brought up the question I had to avoid. “What's that gift you and Brenda are so mysterious about?”

“It's a cookbook for my birthday,” I lied.

He didn't inquire further. He was pretty tipsy by this point.

Ivan planted a kiss on my forehead, then looked around proudly at the other guests. “See? Eileen is a witch! She's awesome. Impossible to find another girl like her, right?”

I could smell alcohol from Ivan's breath, mingled with his expensive cologne. Would he still want me if I really was a witch with supernatural powers? But he didn't look scared.

“Eileen, how did you do that?” Timothy asked suspiciously.

I smiled. “Nothing special. It was just a coincidence.”

No one seemed to believe me, so I added, “If we
really
pay attention, we notice coincidences happen all the time. But some are more than coincidences . . . synchronicities.”

John made a face. “Then how do you explain my third string breaking?”

“I asked you to play the ‘Spider's Dance' because it's fast and the third string would be plucked aggressively. So it broke, as I'd hoped.”

He didn't look convinced.

“You think I really possess this kind of power?” I asked, wondering myself.

“Maybe. I did pull very hard on the third string, though,” said John. But he still didn't look convinced.

I was so preoccupied with this strange event that the rest of the evening was a blur. I talked with people without knowing what I said and ate without savoring the food. What occupied my mind was my suddenly acquired “supernatural” power and the bizarre birthday gift, the small skull. Long ago, my mother had told me that after my previous life I was supposed to descend into hell, but instead I had fallen into this life.

Mother always joked that I must have been a hungry ghost before I reincarnated into this world because the day I was born, according to the Chinese calendar, is when the Gate of Hell is opened. This is done out of compassion for all of the ghosts, who are allowed to enter the
yang
world for a brief stroll. But all the ghosts must return to hell before midnight. Mother said that because I liked to eat so much I was still looking for the next meal, well past midnight, and missed the chance to go back to the
yin
sphere. So I'd been stuck as a human. Anyway, here I was. Maybe because I'd been born at the edge between
yin
and
yang,
I was half witch and half human.
Yin
and
yang
mean “female” and “male,” but also the world of the living, full of strong
yang
energy, and the world of the dead, teeming with
yin
spirits.

Mother also told me that when I was little, some ghosts followed me around. One pinched me when I was not paying attention, another knocked down my rice bowl when I was about to eat, yet another tripped me when I was trying to learn to walk. Apparently, they didn't want me to grow up but instead come back to the other world—hell. But I grew up anyway because my parents always kept lots of cash and change with them to donate whenever we ran into monks or nuns. This was to generate merit for me so the Buddha would protect me from the ghosts. Therefore, miraculously, I actually did grow up. Once you go through puberty the ghosts lose interest, so I was safe after that.

No sooner had the party ended and everyone was gone, than Ivan and I were naked, entwined in his spacious bed. Though I wasn't in the mood for sex, Ivan wouldn't take no for an answer and I felt too tired to resist. It was my birthday treat from him, he insisted—even though we were supposedly in our trial separation. Didn't he fear that I'd break part of him like I'd broken the guitar string? But it seemed that instead the idea of making love with a witch had turned him on.

After we were done, Ivan put his arms behind his head and looked at me admiringly. “You have to tell me, Eileen, how did you snap that string? Just coincidence, some sort of magic trick, or are you really a witch?”

“You're the one to decide.”

He didn't respond but kept staring at me.

Finally, I said, “Do I or don't I look like a witch?”

Instead of answering, he reached out to hold me.

“If you want to turn into a real witch, you know you'll have my full support.” He smiled.

Was this a joke? Or maybe he really did care about me.

Why was I attracted to Ivan? The question made me think of what the famous novelist Cheung Ailing said in her novel
Lust, Caution
:

 

 

In Ailing's story, a woman spy seduces a Chinese man who is a traitor to the invading Japanese. But it is she who becomes sexually besotted with him, leading to his escape and her death.

So sex could bind a woman, maybe even a witch as well, against her will.

 

Although I had enjoyed playing the role of witch at my party, in truth I was more shocked by what had happened than my guests. For weeks, I tried to put the snapped guitar string and the peculiar gift of the skull out of my mind. Yet like cancer cells, these memories just wouldn't leave me alone. So I took a break from preparing lessons to research the symbolism of skulls. What I discovered was not what I'd expected. Traditionally a skull evokes terror, but it can also celebrate the memory of the dead. After all, the skull is the part of the body that remains after death.

But my research could not shed light on my biggest question: Who had sent the skull as a birthday present, and why? Was it good luck, bad luck, or merely an unpleasant prank? Maybe the strange object was somehow meant to lure me away from my humdrum life into unknown realms that, perilous or not, held my destiny.

But I was baffled about what to do with my suddenly discovered possible power. It was even scarier than the skull. My pretense about being a witch was simply to lure students to enroll in my course. Did my will really break the string, or was it just a coincidence? I was clueless.

So I tried a little experiment in my office by focusing my concentration on a teacup on my desk. In a moment it seemed to slide back a fraction of an inch, but it did not crack. Was I just fooling myself?

That night I had a dream. Dressed in a witch's outfit complete with black cap, pointed hat, and a broom, I wandered around an island covered by ancient ruins. Instead of flying, I was sweeping the ground. Disturbingly, the more I swept, the more I discovered that the ground was made up of human skulls. As I was wondering why this was happening, a towering, thousand-year-old tree, no doubt the only living witness to whatever massacre had produced the skulls, suddenly spoke.

“Miss Chinese Witch, you seek to know the deep mystery of the universe.”

I put down my broom and looked up at him—if a tree can be a “him.”

“Listen carefully,” said the tree. “You're now on an island off North Africa. This is the city of virgin witches. . . .”

I cast a curious glance at the faceless faces below me. “How can you tell from the skulls that they were virgin girls?”

“Because I witnessed the ritual carried out here nearly a thousand years ago.”

“What ritual?”

“Be patient, young Miss Chinese Witch. The virgins were to accompany the King in death. Deeper down are the rest of their skeletons.”

When I was about to sweep away the soil under the skulls, there was a loud crack of thunder, followed by drenching rains.

Lord Tree's sonorous voice was almost indistinguishable from the hissing rain. “You will awake now. Find this island and come to it. There you will find answers.”

As I saw the rain trickle down the tree bark and onto the skulls I jolted awake, the sheets soaked with my sweat.

I knew that dreams held knowledge because my grandmother Laolao had been an expert dream interpreter. But was this a real premonition, or just the result of reading too many strange books in the university library? I turned the bedroom light on and took several deep breaths, but the dream seemed no less real. Surprising myself, I decided I would follow the talking tree's advice. But how was I to find the island—and did I really want to? An island of sacrificed virgins . . . did it make sense to follow a nightmare?

 

The next day I went to the library to find information about North Africa. If the dream island was real, I figured that it must be part of the Spanish
Carnarias Archipelago,
or the Canaries in English. These islands are just off the north coast of Africa, close to Morocco.

I mouthed the exotic names of the seven islands: La Gomera, La Palma, Hierro, Tenerife, Fuerteventura, Lanzarote, and Canaria. I could not imagine any reason why I would have dreamed about such strange and distant places. How foolish to trust a dream. And yet, the dream had been very specific, about a place I'd never imagined even existed, let alone thought of traveling to. Yet Laolao had believed in dreams and quite often she was right about what they meant. According to her they held the mysteries of fate.

As I read more, it all seemed even stranger. These islands had been conquered in turn by the Dutch, British, French, Portuguese, and Spanish, and through all these changes had been the hiding place of vicious pirates. And, it seemed, there were also witches, though exactly what they did my sources did not reveal.

The indigenous inhabitants, a white-skinned and blue-eyed tribe, were either killed by invaders or sold into slavery. But I imagined that some of their secret knowledge had been passed on and somehow survived despite the bustle of trade and tourism.