chapter 1

Ghost

FOR A WHILE after the witch drew her final breath the ghost sat very

still, wondering what to do next. Theoretically, he knew what was

supposed to happen: he was a pelesit after all, and a pelesit must

have a master. And since he was bound by blood, his new master

had to be of the same blood as the old.

It was finding this new blood that was going to be tricky. The

witch had not been much for family. Or friends. Or, if he was being

completely honest, people in general. There was a daughter, he

knew, a little girl with lopsided pigtails and an equally lopsided grin.

He had seen pictures of her, pictures the witch kept hidden in a

drawer among bits of broken candles, coupons for supermarket

deals long expired, a small mountain of coins: things she no longer

had use for, or that weighed her down; things she had forgotten or

wanted to forget. There were letters too, slanted words written in

deep blue ink, the paper old enough that yellow age stains had

started to blossom at the edges:

I know you don't approve, but he loves me and I love him,

and we want to be together.

We have our own home now, wouldn't you like to come

and visit us?Please write to me, Mama. I miss you. Don't you want to

see your grandchild?

The last one was newer, a rectangle of plain white tucked into a

crinkly brown envelope bearing the witch's name. It said: Do not

contact us again.

No, the old witch wasn't much for family; instead she roamed

from village to village, sending the ghost out to cause all sorts of

chaos in each one. And in the beginning, he'd loved it. There was a

sort of dark pleasure in going about a village in his other form—that

of a tiny, unassuming grasshopper—bringing bad luck wherever he

went; in souring the milk while it was still in the cows; in emptying the

fish traps without leaving a single hole in the weave of the net, so

that the fishermen scratched their heads in confusion; in rotting

whole fields of crops only on the inside, so that the harvester's

hopes lifted at the sight of perfect-looking fruit only for it all to

explode in maggots and gloriously bad smells at the lightest touch.

The ghost would look on his work with pride, like an artist admiring

his own masterpiece, and chuckle to himself when the villagers

came looking for the wise and learned witch, who nodded sagely,

took the money they offered her to rid them of their curses, never

letting them suspect she was the cause of all their troubles in the first

place. Magically, everything would go back to normal, and before

long the witch would disappear again, on the road to somewhere

new—always before anyone figured out that the true curse had been

her presence all along.

But if he was honest with himself, as the years passed, he found

it all very tiresome. There was a steady stream of customers at the

witch's door, and if they weren't asking for a way to undo her

handiwork, they were asking for the same petty meanness, the same

tiny bad magics as all the others: a curse on this business, a pox on

that house, an impossible-to-remove wart on that one's nose.

Humans, the ghost thought, were just so . . . unimaginative. He

was hoping this new master, wherever they might be, would mean a

change of pace. New management, as it were.

He pictured the little girl with the pigtails and the wide grin and he

stretched out his thoughts, spreading them as wide as he could,

listening for the familiar song of the blood calling to him, feeling forits comforting warmth coursing through fresh new veins, pumping

through a strong new heart. . . .

He found her in a wooden house on the edge of green, green paddy

fields, a house that rattled and shook when the monsoon winds blew.

She was a woman now, tall and tired and pale. Her pigtails had

been replaced by a severe bun and her grin had long since

vanished, but there was no mistaking that she had the blood. And

yet—the ghost sniffed, puzzled—that familiar, calling song was faint

and weak, sometimes fading out altogether. And even when her

eyes were open, there were shutters behind them that remained very

definitely closed. It was as if the light inside her had burned out, and

nobody had bothered to replace the bulb.

For a long moment, the ghost paused, wavering uncertainly

between staying and going. On the one hand, the witch had been

adamant: a pelesit must have a master to control his appetite for

destruction, his craving for chaos. Already, he could feel the tug of

the darkness, hear the little voice inside him whispering thoughts of

ruin and rampage. At the same time, he wasn't even sure this

woman's blood would be strong enough to bind him and keep the

darkness at bay.

The ghost was still trying to make up his mind when he heard it.

The laughter.

This is how he learned that there was also a child.

And the way her blood sang—it was as if she lit up from the

inside and made the whole world brighter as she toddled through it,

babbling and giggling on chubby bare feet caked with dirt. The

witch's song had been rough and raucous, and it swept you up the

way a pirate shanty does, or the musical howls of drunkards

stumbling home. But the child's song wrapped the ghost in a tender

weave of comfort and belonging and glorious wonder, sweet and

innocent and intoxicating. And as he watched her, he felt strange

new sensations welling up from deep within the cavernous recesses

of his chest, a mix of pride and an overwhelming sense that this was

a child bound for greatness. What a heady honor to be bound up in

it. He hadn't supposed he was capable of such thoughts; the witchhad certainly never inspired anything more than prickling annoyance.

Was this the change he sought? He needed?

"Suraya," he heard the woman call as he watched. "Suraya.

Come inside now. The sun is setting; it will be Maghrib soon." And

the little girl scampered unsteadily back to the unsmiling woman and

disappeared into the house.

Suraya, the ghost whispered to himself carefully, letting the

sound of it play on his tongue like the notes of a favorite song. Su-ra-

ya. He savored each syllable, marveling at the delicate sounds, at

their rhythm and their weight. So this, then, was to be his new

master. Not old enough to bind him on her own, nor command him

with the words she couldn't quite speak. But he could wait.

When quiet finally descended on the old wooden house, and the

night was deep and dark as ink, the ghost wafted into the child's

room and stared at her as she slept, hands pillowed under her

cheek, her breathing steady and peaceful. There it was again—the

sense that he was in the presence of greatness, that he was

teetering on the precipice of something bigger than both of them.

Carefully, almost reverently, he picked up the girl's plump hand and

nipped at her tiny little finger—just a little nip—and drank exactly

three drops of the bright red blood that dripped from the cut, sealing

it quickly when he was done. Her song was strong and wild, and it

almost deafened him as her blood wound through his body, weaving

their destinies together line by line, chain by chain. This was more

than enough to get by, more than enough to bind them together, until

the next full moon hung in the sky.

It is done, he whispered. And I am bound to you, until the end.

She shivered slightly under his gaze—she had no blanket—so he

curled himself around her for warmth and smiled when she sighed

happily in her sleep.

And at that moment, the ghost felt a twinge just where his heart

ought to have been, if he had one.

Which he didn't, of course.