Part 1
So this is my nano! As of yet the characters show little personality and the writing is mostly incoherent; I'm hoping that will change as I go. It has no title. I am hoping that, too, will change. Not edited! Not proofread! Pure, 100% waffle.
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“Can you make a toyol?” The voice on the other side of the line was tinny, slightly raspy, and the reception wasn’t that good. Clea had to strain to hear it over the sounds of her mother and sister yelling to each other in the kitchen, despite the kitchen being reasonably quiet.
“I’m sorry, that’s one of the things I won’t do,” she said. The house was starting to smell like fried noodles, which smelt mostly like oil, sizzled meat and spices. Over the hissing of the wok she could hear Cordelia shouting, “But I tell you, he wants me to wear white! White at a wedding! Such bad luck!”
“Why you have to marry foreigner?” their mother was shouting back. “Next you tell me he doesn’t want Chinese food at reception!” Clea managed to tear herself away from the sounds of her family yelling just in time to hear the last word from the caller.
“-sure?”
“Yes,” she said. “Very sure. I’m sorry.”
“Ten thousand ringgit,” said the caller. “Enough?”
“I won’t do it for any amount of money,” Clea said, with the sinking feeling that this was going to be one of the persistent ones. She wondered how many times she’d have to repeat herself before they got the message.
Three, it turned out. She added increasing degrees of apology each time, until they finally seemed to hear her and said, “Sorry to be of trouble, then. Will you do an exorcism? Regular price?” She leaped for a pen and paper. Up to a certain point, money was money.
“Yes, definitely!” she said, just as her mother banged emphatically on the wok, shouting about how her new son-in-law would want to spend so much money on everything - “These Westerners, they don’t know how to save! I tell you, after the wedding you have no money then how?”
“The going rate is six hundred ringgit for an exorcism,” she said. Three times the price. If they refused, it would save her from having to go to a house where they wanted a toyol made. Either way she won. “The ghost will never come back, don’t worry, if it does you get your money back. What sort of things have been going on?”
“That price sounds okay. Doors keep slamming, windows open in the middle of the night, electronics don’t work,” said the caller. Client, now. “Sometimes when calling people noises like crying come through the telephone.”
“Okay,” she said, scribbling frantically. “What’s your address, and what time is convenient for you?”
Appointment made, she slid back into the kitchen to see Cordelia and her mother laying out dishes, all the while shouting about what sort of food their horrible in-laws would undoubtedly demand at the reception.
“They won’t demand so much!” said Cordelia, turning her back on Clea long enough for Clea to steal the last rice cake from her plate. Rice cakes were like rare delicacies in a house ruled by Mrs. Ling’s beady-eyed dictatorship. “Has to be Malaysian food!”
“Why Malay? Why not Chinese?” Her mother scraped noodles into a ceramic dish with hawker efficiency; not one strand wasted. “Su Er! You get the rice for everyone!” Clea obeyed.
Soon enough the mad rush was over and the three of them were seated without much fuss, apart from Cordelia’s indignant exclamations at finding the last rice cake gone.
“What was the call about?” Cordelia demanded.
“Someone wants an exorcism,” Clea said, scraping noodles into her bowl.
“Why so long?” her mother said. “Why they cannot just say?”
“Sometimes it’s weird, okay, ma,” said Cordelia. “Sometimes people can’t just say ‘there’s a ghost in my house’. Clea, do you need a manager?”
“Why not?” said their mother. “Everyone understands! That’s why they call us!”
“It’s hard for these expats, you know, they go overseas and everything is so different, then they come back here and they have to deal with ghosts?” Cordelia shook her head.
“I don’t need a manager,” said Clea. “It’s direct-to-customer service.”
“What about an accountant?”
“It’s in cash! I don’t need an accountant. And anyway I could just put it down as red packet money.”
“Our relatives are so generous,” Cordelia said. “Okay, fine. Remember, if you need an accountant, I’m here, okay?”
“Yes, sis,” Clea said to her noodles.
She crawled up to her bedroom at midnight after watching too many episodes of Korean drama with her sister. It had been a while since Cordelia had been here, and her room had been taken over by the ever-increasing piles of possessions her family tended to accumulate, and so Cordelia was taking the top bunk in her room.
“You know, it took so long because they wanted me to make them a toyol,” she said to Cordelia, who was brushing her teeth. Toothpaste flew.
“What!” Cordelia shouted, and Clea frantically made shushing motions, whispering, “You’ll wake everyone up!”
“This is why you need a manager!” Cordelia said, even more loudly, waving her toothbrush. “What if they have bad spirits? What if you get cursed?”
“Thousand will be with me,” Clea said, getting up to wipe the mirror free of toothpaste. That done, she returned to her perch atop the closed toilet bowl.
“That dog?” Cordelia shook her head. “No good when you’re in a corner.”
“He’s helped me get out of situations before.” Clea rested her chin on her knee. “He’ll keep me safe.”
“You take him too seriously.” Cordelia rinsed her mouth and spat. “He’s unreliable.”
“He’s fine,” Clea said, a little more forcefully, and Cordelia sighed and dropped the subject.
“If I wake up in the middle of the night, I’m sorry, okay?” Clea added. Her sister yawned.
“Do you still have those dreams?” she said, heaving herself into the upper bunk with a creak. “Turn the air-con on.”
“Most of the time.” Clea obeyed and shut the bathroom door. “Is Boris going to call you early in the morning again?” The first time it happened she’d thought it had been romantic. The next few times it had happened, she’d realized that her sister’s fiancé was just very bad at calculating timezones.
“You’ll sleep through it anyway.” Cordelia aimed a pillow at her. “Tell ma about the toyol, or I’ll tell her.”
“No, I don’t want her to worry,” Clea said, tumbling into bed. Cordelia made a loud indignant noise.
“We’ll worry more if something else happens!” she shouted. It was going to take some time for Clea to get re-used to her sister’s habit of communicating at maximum volume.
“Okay,” she said, and rolled under her blankets. “Good night, jie. Good night, Pak Air.” There was an answering mumble from the bunk above, and from the attic.
The moment she closed her eyes, she smelled sugar and smoke. Not the thick, tarry smoke she smelled around coffeeshops, but a strong, pungent smoke that was a little full-bodied, less like burning rubber. When she opened her eyes again she couldn’t see a thing.
“Don’t worry, it’ll take your eyes a while to adjust,” said a familiar voice. She closed them again and breathed in. Old wood and wax; a slight herbal sting in the air, and the smell she expected upon hearing the voice, faintly of blood, and a thick tingling feeling that she only usually got in her nostrils before thunderstorms. Or in her dreams. Or when trouble was about to happen.
When she next opened her eyes she saw faint light; an octopus-shaped thing hanging from the ceiling supported six lamps, one on each curlicue.
“Is that better?” Thousand said.
“A little, thank you,” she said. She saw his hand flick up and down. The brightness increased a little. Now she could dimly see the outline of his face. He sighed, a sigh a little too long to belong to human-sized lungs, and started waving his hand up and down like it had the tremors. She couldn’t quite stifle the laugh.
“Coffee?” he said, still flapping his hand madly.
“Yes, please,” she said. “Thank you very much.”
“The Polish way?” Finally, he stopped. Now she could see what was on the table in front of her, and she could see him. His suit was still expensive-looking and neatly-pressed, and his hair still looked like it ate brushes. His shirt looked like good cotton, but the pale green stripes on it made it look too casual for the suit. The tie was just right, though; not too thick, like it had been last time. “Or would you like yours brewed the Viennese way? I find the Viennese way is less like a punch to the mouth, to be honest.”
“The Viennese way will be fine.” She watched Thousand flag down a waiter. Beyond their pool of light she could see hunched shapes - one of them, vaguely birdlike, raised itself up and trod away on large, arched, armoured legs. Knowing Thousand’s choice in cafes, none of the other occupants were human either.
The waiter hissed when he looked at her, with big glistening fishlike eyes set in a praying mantis’s head. She smiled at him. His mandibles chattered. Maybe it was a waitress; either way she wasn’t really in any harm. Thousand spoke to it in a language she didn’t know, but she understood exactly what he said: one Viennese latte, one Polish coffee, he’d have the cakes now, please.
“Someone might be joining us a little later,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t give you notice.”
“That’s fine,” she said. “A friend of yours?”
“Acquaintance,” he said. “I thought you two should meet each other. In the case that you get to know one another relatively soon.”
“That’s not ominous at all,” she said dryly. “Is something going to happen?”
“I might have to go away for a little while.” He made a face. “Things always happen around the end of the century, and it’s a new millennium, so all the trouble that didn’t happen the past nine times has been saving up for this time. I won’t be too long, though.”
“Oh, that’s good then,” she said sincerely. Their order arrived. Despite all the long familiarity she had with these cafes, and a lot of nasty experiences with ichor and howling incorporeal creatures, she still shrank back when their mantis-waitperson leaned over to place a cake on the table and one wet, glassy eye swiveled to face her. Her mouth was a little dry. Under the table, her fingers tightened in the hem of her skirt.
“Excuse me,” Thousand said, very politely. The eyes both rotated, three hundred and sixty oozing, slurping degrees, before fixing on him. “My coffee, please?”
The mantis chittered, and gave him his coffee. He picked it up and gave it a long, careful sniff. She could smell it from where she sat, right over the mantis’s head, and then he made a little pleased sigh and set the coffee down.
“Yes,” Thousand said, “that’s right. The apple cake is for the human.” He put a little emphasis on the last word. “Would you please give her the coffee she asked for?” The mantis tilted its head, and gestured with its free arm; jointed and insectlike, but covered in sparse fur. Then it placed her coffee in front of her. She forced herself to release her grip on her skirt.
“Thank you,” she said to it, carefully pulling the coffee back towards her.
“Thank you,” Thousand echoed, sounding pleased. “That cake looks very good.” The rest of the cakes were placed on the table without much more fuss. As the mantis loped away, she slowly forced her fingers to uncurl. It’d leave creases in the skirt, but that was alright, this skirt needed washing anyway.
“I’ve been asked to do an exorcism,” she said. “Will you be around?”
“Just a routine exorcism, isn’t it?” said Thousand, raising an eyebrow as he picked up his fork and cut a delicate slice from the cake in front of him. “I don’t think you’d need me there.”
“They asked me to make a toyol,” she said. He tapped the fork against his lower lip and eyed her thoughtfully.
“How much did they offer you for the exorcism?” Behind the tines, his lips curved into a little smile.
“Three times the going price,” she said, without shame.
“That would explain it,” he said dryly. “When is this exorcism?” She told him.
“No promises.” He carefully picked up the piece of cake. “I should be able to postpone, but something might happen. I’ll keep you informed. This cake is just as good as it looks, by the way. Would you like some?”
“Yes, thanks,” she said, and carefully cut herself a piece. She could never refuse free cake.
Beyond their puddle of light, she heard the creak and swing of old door hinges, and the little bell above the doorframe jangled. She picked up her coffee cup and snuck a discreet glance above the rim of it; Thousand’s eyes flicked to the door. The newcomer looked human-shaped, but so did the waitperson. They - male, from the build, but she could hardly tell with its long white hair - seemed to be wearing white face paint. He was also dressed in a thick double-breasted trenchcoat that looked ridiculously hot and ugly, and a plain black fedora.
“I think that’s our companion,” Thousand said brightly, and turned. The stranger drew closer and she realized that it hadn’t been face paint. His - she could see the face better now - skin was paper-white, just like his hair, and his lips were the same colourless white, and his eyes were blood-red. She’d never seen an albino before. She had also never seen such a ridiculously ugly trenchcoat before. It looked like it had been through a war without being washed.
And he had no smell. It made a little patch of skin on her neck, just below her hairline, tingle fiercely. Everything had a smell in her dreams. Thousand smelled like blood and crackling air. The mantis had smelled like wet leaves. The newcomer smelt like nothing.
He looked at her briefly. His lips twisted a little, and he turned to Thousand and said, “Nigel.”
“Thousand,” Thousand said airily. “It’s what I’m called now.”
“Thousand,” said the newcomer, raising one eyebrow. Or he would have, if she’d been able to see them. Against his skin, his white eyebrows were practically invisible.
“It’s how many teeth I have,” said Thousand, raising his index fingers to sketch a jaw-shape in the air.
“How do you know?” The newcomer reached for her coffee. His gaze snapped to her, and stayed on her for a very long moment. She looked back at him with wide eyes, and then down, to realize she’d pulled her coffee back towards her without realizing.
“Sometimes the times in between choosing channelers can be so long,” sighed Thousand. “As long as someone doesn’t order me to count grains of sand. I was made to do that once. Do I look like a Sesame Street vampire? I didn’t think so when I manifested.” She clapped a hand to her mouth to muffle the laugh, which came out as a squeak. Thousand laughed with her, but the stranger whipped around to stare at her flatly. She stopped laughing and lowered her head a little, but didn’t break the staring contest.
“Cake?” Thousand said, and the albino glanced at him. Freed from the contest, she let out a little sigh of relief; her stomach, twisting into one large knot, began to straighten out again. She cut off a piece of apple cake with a shaking hand.
“Clea, this is - what do you call yourself now?” Thousand gestured with a fork.
“Fox,” said the albino. It was how she was going to think of him now. The albino. It didn’t want to go away.
“Fox,” said Thousand. “Fox, this is Clea. She’s been my channeler for thirteen years now.”
“Good,” said Fox, with the tone of his voice indicating that he thought it was the exact opposite.
“Nice to meet you,” she said, because it was polite, and put her hand out. He looked at her hand like it was a rat that had just crawled onto the table. Slowly, she withdrew it.
“Fox,” said Thousand, a little warningly.
“Same to you,” said Fox curtly.
“Thank you,” she said sweetly, and cut a piece of her cake. “Do you want some?” He shook his head tightly and turned back to Thousand, like it gave him a sour taste in his mouth just to look at her. Thousand was smiling behind his fork. The second she met his eyes, he very deliberately straightened up in his chair and cut another piece off his cake.
“Anyway!” he said brightly, pressing his fingertips together. “I’m sure you two have something in common that you could talk about. Cake, maybe. What do you think of the cake?” He speared the piece he’d just cut and shoved it at Fox’s face; Fox grabbed the fork between his teeth, then twisted it out of Thousand’s grip with a sharp jerk of his head. Then he spat out the fork. It bounced on the table and Thousand caught it before it slid off the other edge.
“Too sweet,” Fox said, wiping his mouth with a sleeve. Clea couldn’t stop the horror from creeping onto her face. That jacket looked like it had been chewed. There were dubious dark stains on it.
“Really? I find it’s wonderful with coffee. Would you like some coffee, by the way?”
Duly reminded, Clea took a drink of hers. The rich, strong flavour practically melted on her tongue, and she shivered happily.
“No,” Fox said. “If I drink it I’ll get stomachaches.”
“Stomachaches,” said Thousand flatly. “You can’t get stomachaches.”
“I can if I’m human,” retorted Fox. “I’ve been human lately. I’ll get a stomachache.”
“I’m not going to argue with you.” Thousand wiped the fork on a napkin. “Clea, did you want more cake?”
“Oh - “ She glanced down at her plate. There was much less cake. She didn’t remember eating it, but this sort of thing tended to happen around Thousand. Either time was fluid, or he was an even better thief of others’ food than she was. “No, thank you. I’m alright. How long has it been?”
“Not that long, but the sun will be up in an hour.” Thousand checked his watch - expensive, large but not too show-offy and just a few jewels for class.
“Okay,” she said. “I’d better go soon, I’m afraid.” As much as she didn’t want to leave Thousand’s company or the cramped little café with the delicious coffee and cake, she felt a tiny sense of relief; Fox made her feel painfully unwelcome.
“Are you sure?” Thousand looked disappointed. “I was hoping you two could get to know each other better. Do you want to try another type of cake? Is the cake bad?”
“It’s not that the cake is bad!” she said quickly. “The cake’s very good. I just need to be up early tomorrow. My mother’s going to market.”
“Family! I see,” Thousand said thoughtfully, nodding.
Abruptly, the world jerked. It felt like the floor had suddenly lifted up below her chair; her coffee tipped over and spilled across the table. She nearly fell. Thousand grabbed on to her hand and said urgently, “Clea-”
And she opened her eyes and found herself in bed. That had never happened before. She could still taste coffee on her tongue. Gingerly, she raised her hand to wipe her forehead - she was sweating despite the air-con - and stared. There was a fork still clutched in her hand. The moment she carefully set it down on the bedside table, it started to go transparent, and then slowly faded away.
Above her, Cordelia snored. After that coffee, she wouldn’t be able to sleep. Instead she got up and switched her computer on, and it whirred to life with a muted buzz. The first thing she did was search up ‘albino spirits’ in Google, and to her total lack of surprise, nothing specific came up. As much as she wanted to get to know Fox, he wasn’t making it very easy.
She spent the time until daybreak reading a book; Cordelia rolled out of bed at 8:30am and stared blearily at her.
“Have you slept?” she said. Clea nodded. Cordelia stumbled into the bathroom, and her phone promptly began ringing. The moment her sister stopped discussing her wedding plans and started talking about work, Clea crept downstairs to raid the cake before her mother came back from market. The hunt yielded one piece of fluffy chiffon, which she had to stuff into her mouth all in one bite because of Cordelia coming downstairs. Luckily for her any conversation featuring Cordelia could be heard two miles off.
“-and I think if I get the promotion,” Cordelia said, entering the kitchen with her phone jammed between her shoulder and her ear, “I’ll probably get a new car.” The kitchen was suddenly ten times louder, but even over Cordelia’s semi-yelling tone of conversation Clea could hear her mother’s car pulling into the driveway.
She opened the door to see her mother pulling bags of fresh fish, newspaper-wrapped, off the plastic-coated back seat.
“Su Er! Come and carry this in!” Her mother waved a couple of bags at her, and she hurriedly obeyed.
“Ma,” she said, the minute her mother had stopped shouting at her to help, “about the exorcism they called about yesterday.”
“They cancelled?” Her mother looked indignant. She shook her head quickly.
“No, ma, they didn’t cancel.”
“They want you to make cheaper price?” Now her mother looked outraged.
“Ma, that’s not it,” she said, and told her mother about the toyol request and the strangeness of the previous night’s dream but not the ill-groomed, hostile Fox.
When she had finished, her mother was shaking her head with pursed lips.
“I think you should not do this,” she said, shaking a finger. “Bad luck.”
“But Thousand will be there with me,” she said. “I’ll be fine, ma.”
“Still bad luck,” her mother repeated. “Should not go. If they want to make a toyol how can you trust them?”
“It doesn’t kill people, it just steals,” she said, and her mother gave her a narrow-eyed look.
“Just steals? You say ‘just’ when it steal your new car?” With that, her mother stalked into the house, Clea trailing behind.
“Ma,” she said, “I’m not going to do it for them. They might be bad people but the spirits need to be sent on - Ma, Thousand will help!”
“Be very careful,” her mother said. “Some people tell you, they are not bad people, but they are just trying to cheat you. What if you get hurt?”
“I’ll be fine.” ‘Be very careful’ meant she was getting through. “I’ll protect myself and I’ll leave if it looks suspicious. I’ll give you a call afterwards.” Her mother huffed, which was as good as a yes. While her mother’s back was turned Clea smiled.
“You call,” said her mother gravely, rounding on her, and she quickly wiped the smile off her face. “You make sure you call. And you make sure Thousand takes care of you.” Her mother said ‘Thousand’ like it was the name of a Chinese philosopher, spitting out the ‘th’ like the ‘h’ wasn’t there.
“Yes, Ma,” she said.
The rest of the day went quietly. She spent it reading and helping her mother make pungent, eye-wateringly spicy sambal, the way she and her father liked it. Cordelia flounced in midway to complain about the smell and steal a taste, for which she was chased out of the kitchen by her pestle-wielding mother.
“Now the taste change!” her mother shouted. “Now we have to make again!” She brandished the contaminated bowl at Cordelia’s retreating back, then stuck her finger in and put her finger in her mouth.
“More vinegar,” declared her mother, and tossed a splash in.
“I could have told you!” Cordelia’s voice floated down the stairs.
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Word count so far: 4427!
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“Can you make a toyol?” The voice on the other side of the line was tinny, slightly raspy, and the reception wasn’t that good. Clea had to strain to hear it over the sounds of her mother and sister yelling to each other in the kitchen, despite the kitchen being reasonably quiet.
“I’m sorry, that’s one of the things I won’t do,” she said. The house was starting to smell like fried noodles, which smelt mostly like oil, sizzled meat and spices. Over the hissing of the wok she could hear Cordelia shouting, “But I tell you, he wants me to wear white! White at a wedding! Such bad luck!”
“Why you have to marry foreigner?” their mother was shouting back. “Next you tell me he doesn’t want Chinese food at reception!” Clea managed to tear herself away from the sounds of her family yelling just in time to hear the last word from the caller.
“-sure?”
“Yes,” she said. “Very sure. I’m sorry.”
“Ten thousand ringgit,” said the caller. “Enough?”
“I won’t do it for any amount of money,” Clea said, with the sinking feeling that this was going to be one of the persistent ones. She wondered how many times she’d have to repeat herself before they got the message.
Three, it turned out. She added increasing degrees of apology each time, until they finally seemed to hear her and said, “Sorry to be of trouble, then. Will you do an exorcism? Regular price?” She leaped for a pen and paper. Up to a certain point, money was money.
“Yes, definitely!” she said, just as her mother banged emphatically on the wok, shouting about how her new son-in-law would want to spend so much money on everything - “These Westerners, they don’t know how to save! I tell you, after the wedding you have no money then how?”
“The going rate is six hundred ringgit for an exorcism,” she said. Three times the price. If they refused, it would save her from having to go to a house where they wanted a toyol made. Either way she won. “The ghost will never come back, don’t worry, if it does you get your money back. What sort of things have been going on?”
“That price sounds okay. Doors keep slamming, windows open in the middle of the night, electronics don’t work,” said the caller. Client, now. “Sometimes when calling people noises like crying come through the telephone.”
“Okay,” she said, scribbling frantically. “What’s your address, and what time is convenient for you?”
Appointment made, she slid back into the kitchen to see Cordelia and her mother laying out dishes, all the while shouting about what sort of food their horrible in-laws would undoubtedly demand at the reception.
“They won’t demand so much!” said Cordelia, turning her back on Clea long enough for Clea to steal the last rice cake from her plate. Rice cakes were like rare delicacies in a house ruled by Mrs. Ling’s beady-eyed dictatorship. “Has to be Malaysian food!”
“Why Malay? Why not Chinese?” Her mother scraped noodles into a ceramic dish with hawker efficiency; not one strand wasted. “Su Er! You get the rice for everyone!” Clea obeyed.
Soon enough the mad rush was over and the three of them were seated without much fuss, apart from Cordelia’s indignant exclamations at finding the last rice cake gone.
“What was the call about?” Cordelia demanded.
“Someone wants an exorcism,” Clea said, scraping noodles into her bowl.
“Why so long?” her mother said. “Why they cannot just say?”
“Sometimes it’s weird, okay, ma,” said Cordelia. “Sometimes people can’t just say ‘there’s a ghost in my house’. Clea, do you need a manager?”
“Why not?” said their mother. “Everyone understands! That’s why they call us!”
“It’s hard for these expats, you know, they go overseas and everything is so different, then they come back here and they have to deal with ghosts?” Cordelia shook her head.
“I don’t need a manager,” said Clea. “It’s direct-to-customer service.”
“What about an accountant?”
“It’s in cash! I don’t need an accountant. And anyway I could just put it down as red packet money.”
“Our relatives are so generous,” Cordelia said. “Okay, fine. Remember, if you need an accountant, I’m here, okay?”
“Yes, sis,” Clea said to her noodles.
She crawled up to her bedroom at midnight after watching too many episodes of Korean drama with her sister. It had been a while since Cordelia had been here, and her room had been taken over by the ever-increasing piles of possessions her family tended to accumulate, and so Cordelia was taking the top bunk in her room.
“You know, it took so long because they wanted me to make them a toyol,” she said to Cordelia, who was brushing her teeth. Toothpaste flew.
“What!” Cordelia shouted, and Clea frantically made shushing motions, whispering, “You’ll wake everyone up!”
“This is why you need a manager!” Cordelia said, even more loudly, waving her toothbrush. “What if they have bad spirits? What if you get cursed?”
“Thousand will be with me,” Clea said, getting up to wipe the mirror free of toothpaste. That done, she returned to her perch atop the closed toilet bowl.
“That dog?” Cordelia shook her head. “No good when you’re in a corner.”
“He’s helped me get out of situations before.” Clea rested her chin on her knee. “He’ll keep me safe.”
“You take him too seriously.” Cordelia rinsed her mouth and spat. “He’s unreliable.”
“He’s fine,” Clea said, a little more forcefully, and Cordelia sighed and dropped the subject.
“If I wake up in the middle of the night, I’m sorry, okay?” Clea added. Her sister yawned.
“Do you still have those dreams?” she said, heaving herself into the upper bunk with a creak. “Turn the air-con on.”
“Most of the time.” Clea obeyed and shut the bathroom door. “Is Boris going to call you early in the morning again?” The first time it happened she’d thought it had been romantic. The next few times it had happened, she’d realized that her sister’s fiancé was just very bad at calculating timezones.
“You’ll sleep through it anyway.” Cordelia aimed a pillow at her. “Tell ma about the toyol, or I’ll tell her.”
“No, I don’t want her to worry,” Clea said, tumbling into bed. Cordelia made a loud indignant noise.
“We’ll worry more if something else happens!” she shouted. It was going to take some time for Clea to get re-used to her sister’s habit of communicating at maximum volume.
“Okay,” she said, and rolled under her blankets. “Good night, jie. Good night, Pak Air.” There was an answering mumble from the bunk above, and from the attic.
The moment she closed her eyes, she smelled sugar and smoke. Not the thick, tarry smoke she smelled around coffeeshops, but a strong, pungent smoke that was a little full-bodied, less like burning rubber. When she opened her eyes again she couldn’t see a thing.
“Don’t worry, it’ll take your eyes a while to adjust,” said a familiar voice. She closed them again and breathed in. Old wood and wax; a slight herbal sting in the air, and the smell she expected upon hearing the voice, faintly of blood, and a thick tingling feeling that she only usually got in her nostrils before thunderstorms. Or in her dreams. Or when trouble was about to happen.
When she next opened her eyes she saw faint light; an octopus-shaped thing hanging from the ceiling supported six lamps, one on each curlicue.
“Is that better?” Thousand said.
“A little, thank you,” she said. She saw his hand flick up and down. The brightness increased a little. Now she could dimly see the outline of his face. He sighed, a sigh a little too long to belong to human-sized lungs, and started waving his hand up and down like it had the tremors. She couldn’t quite stifle the laugh.
“Coffee?” he said, still flapping his hand madly.
“Yes, please,” she said. “Thank you very much.”
“The Polish way?” Finally, he stopped. Now she could see what was on the table in front of her, and she could see him. His suit was still expensive-looking and neatly-pressed, and his hair still looked like it ate brushes. His shirt looked like good cotton, but the pale green stripes on it made it look too casual for the suit. The tie was just right, though; not too thick, like it had been last time. “Or would you like yours brewed the Viennese way? I find the Viennese way is less like a punch to the mouth, to be honest.”
“The Viennese way will be fine.” She watched Thousand flag down a waiter. Beyond their pool of light she could see hunched shapes - one of them, vaguely birdlike, raised itself up and trod away on large, arched, armoured legs. Knowing Thousand’s choice in cafes, none of the other occupants were human either.
The waiter hissed when he looked at her, with big glistening fishlike eyes set in a praying mantis’s head. She smiled at him. His mandibles chattered. Maybe it was a waitress; either way she wasn’t really in any harm. Thousand spoke to it in a language she didn’t know, but she understood exactly what he said: one Viennese latte, one Polish coffee, he’d have the cakes now, please.
“Someone might be joining us a little later,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t give you notice.”
“That’s fine,” she said. “A friend of yours?”
“Acquaintance,” he said. “I thought you two should meet each other. In the case that you get to know one another relatively soon.”
“That’s not ominous at all,” she said dryly. “Is something going to happen?”
“I might have to go away for a little while.” He made a face. “Things always happen around the end of the century, and it’s a new millennium, so all the trouble that didn’t happen the past nine times has been saving up for this time. I won’t be too long, though.”
“Oh, that’s good then,” she said sincerely. Their order arrived. Despite all the long familiarity she had with these cafes, and a lot of nasty experiences with ichor and howling incorporeal creatures, she still shrank back when their mantis-waitperson leaned over to place a cake on the table and one wet, glassy eye swiveled to face her. Her mouth was a little dry. Under the table, her fingers tightened in the hem of her skirt.
“Excuse me,” Thousand said, very politely. The eyes both rotated, three hundred and sixty oozing, slurping degrees, before fixing on him. “My coffee, please?”
The mantis chittered, and gave him his coffee. He picked it up and gave it a long, careful sniff. She could smell it from where she sat, right over the mantis’s head, and then he made a little pleased sigh and set the coffee down.
“Yes,” Thousand said, “that’s right. The apple cake is for the human.” He put a little emphasis on the last word. “Would you please give her the coffee she asked for?” The mantis tilted its head, and gestured with its free arm; jointed and insectlike, but covered in sparse fur. Then it placed her coffee in front of her. She forced herself to release her grip on her skirt.
“Thank you,” she said to it, carefully pulling the coffee back towards her.
“Thank you,” Thousand echoed, sounding pleased. “That cake looks very good.” The rest of the cakes were placed on the table without much more fuss. As the mantis loped away, she slowly forced her fingers to uncurl. It’d leave creases in the skirt, but that was alright, this skirt needed washing anyway.
“I’ve been asked to do an exorcism,” she said. “Will you be around?”
“Just a routine exorcism, isn’t it?” said Thousand, raising an eyebrow as he picked up his fork and cut a delicate slice from the cake in front of him. “I don’t think you’d need me there.”
“They asked me to make a toyol,” she said. He tapped the fork against his lower lip and eyed her thoughtfully.
“How much did they offer you for the exorcism?” Behind the tines, his lips curved into a little smile.
“Three times the going price,” she said, without shame.
“That would explain it,” he said dryly. “When is this exorcism?” She told him.
“No promises.” He carefully picked up the piece of cake. “I should be able to postpone, but something might happen. I’ll keep you informed. This cake is just as good as it looks, by the way. Would you like some?”
“Yes, thanks,” she said, and carefully cut herself a piece. She could never refuse free cake.
Beyond their puddle of light, she heard the creak and swing of old door hinges, and the little bell above the doorframe jangled. She picked up her coffee cup and snuck a discreet glance above the rim of it; Thousand’s eyes flicked to the door. The newcomer looked human-shaped, but so did the waitperson. They - male, from the build, but she could hardly tell with its long white hair - seemed to be wearing white face paint. He was also dressed in a thick double-breasted trenchcoat that looked ridiculously hot and ugly, and a plain black fedora.
“I think that’s our companion,” Thousand said brightly, and turned. The stranger drew closer and she realized that it hadn’t been face paint. His - she could see the face better now - skin was paper-white, just like his hair, and his lips were the same colourless white, and his eyes were blood-red. She’d never seen an albino before. She had also never seen such a ridiculously ugly trenchcoat before. It looked like it had been through a war without being washed.
And he had no smell. It made a little patch of skin on her neck, just below her hairline, tingle fiercely. Everything had a smell in her dreams. Thousand smelled like blood and crackling air. The mantis had smelled like wet leaves. The newcomer smelt like nothing.
He looked at her briefly. His lips twisted a little, and he turned to Thousand and said, “Nigel.”
“Thousand,” Thousand said airily. “It’s what I’m called now.”
“Thousand,” said the newcomer, raising one eyebrow. Or he would have, if she’d been able to see them. Against his skin, his white eyebrows were practically invisible.
“It’s how many teeth I have,” said Thousand, raising his index fingers to sketch a jaw-shape in the air.
“How do you know?” The newcomer reached for her coffee. His gaze snapped to her, and stayed on her for a very long moment. She looked back at him with wide eyes, and then down, to realize she’d pulled her coffee back towards her without realizing.
“Sometimes the times in between choosing channelers can be so long,” sighed Thousand. “As long as someone doesn’t order me to count grains of sand. I was made to do that once. Do I look like a Sesame Street vampire? I didn’t think so when I manifested.” She clapped a hand to her mouth to muffle the laugh, which came out as a squeak. Thousand laughed with her, but the stranger whipped around to stare at her flatly. She stopped laughing and lowered her head a little, but didn’t break the staring contest.
“Cake?” Thousand said, and the albino glanced at him. Freed from the contest, she let out a little sigh of relief; her stomach, twisting into one large knot, began to straighten out again. She cut off a piece of apple cake with a shaking hand.
“Clea, this is - what do you call yourself now?” Thousand gestured with a fork.
“Fox,” said the albino. It was how she was going to think of him now. The albino. It didn’t want to go away.
“Fox,” said Thousand. “Fox, this is Clea. She’s been my channeler for thirteen years now.”
“Good,” said Fox, with the tone of his voice indicating that he thought it was the exact opposite.
“Nice to meet you,” she said, because it was polite, and put her hand out. He looked at her hand like it was a rat that had just crawled onto the table. Slowly, she withdrew it.
“Fox,” said Thousand, a little warningly.
“Same to you,” said Fox curtly.
“Thank you,” she said sweetly, and cut a piece of her cake. “Do you want some?” He shook his head tightly and turned back to Thousand, like it gave him a sour taste in his mouth just to look at her. Thousand was smiling behind his fork. The second she met his eyes, he very deliberately straightened up in his chair and cut another piece off his cake.
“Anyway!” he said brightly, pressing his fingertips together. “I’m sure you two have something in common that you could talk about. Cake, maybe. What do you think of the cake?” He speared the piece he’d just cut and shoved it at Fox’s face; Fox grabbed the fork between his teeth, then twisted it out of Thousand’s grip with a sharp jerk of his head. Then he spat out the fork. It bounced on the table and Thousand caught it before it slid off the other edge.
“Too sweet,” Fox said, wiping his mouth with a sleeve. Clea couldn’t stop the horror from creeping onto her face. That jacket looked like it had been chewed. There were dubious dark stains on it.
“Really? I find it’s wonderful with coffee. Would you like some coffee, by the way?”
Duly reminded, Clea took a drink of hers. The rich, strong flavour practically melted on her tongue, and she shivered happily.
“No,” Fox said. “If I drink it I’ll get stomachaches.”
“Stomachaches,” said Thousand flatly. “You can’t get stomachaches.”
“I can if I’m human,” retorted Fox. “I’ve been human lately. I’ll get a stomachache.”
“I’m not going to argue with you.” Thousand wiped the fork on a napkin. “Clea, did you want more cake?”
“Oh - “ She glanced down at her plate. There was much less cake. She didn’t remember eating it, but this sort of thing tended to happen around Thousand. Either time was fluid, or he was an even better thief of others’ food than she was. “No, thank you. I’m alright. How long has it been?”
“Not that long, but the sun will be up in an hour.” Thousand checked his watch - expensive, large but not too show-offy and just a few jewels for class.
“Okay,” she said. “I’d better go soon, I’m afraid.” As much as she didn’t want to leave Thousand’s company or the cramped little café with the delicious coffee and cake, she felt a tiny sense of relief; Fox made her feel painfully unwelcome.
“Are you sure?” Thousand looked disappointed. “I was hoping you two could get to know each other better. Do you want to try another type of cake? Is the cake bad?”
“It’s not that the cake is bad!” she said quickly. “The cake’s very good. I just need to be up early tomorrow. My mother’s going to market.”
“Family! I see,” Thousand said thoughtfully, nodding.
Abruptly, the world jerked. It felt like the floor had suddenly lifted up below her chair; her coffee tipped over and spilled across the table. She nearly fell. Thousand grabbed on to her hand and said urgently, “Clea-”
And she opened her eyes and found herself in bed. That had never happened before. She could still taste coffee on her tongue. Gingerly, she raised her hand to wipe her forehead - she was sweating despite the air-con - and stared. There was a fork still clutched in her hand. The moment she carefully set it down on the bedside table, it started to go transparent, and then slowly faded away.
Above her, Cordelia snored. After that coffee, she wouldn’t be able to sleep. Instead she got up and switched her computer on, and it whirred to life with a muted buzz. The first thing she did was search up ‘albino spirits’ in Google, and to her total lack of surprise, nothing specific came up. As much as she wanted to get to know Fox, he wasn’t making it very easy.
She spent the time until daybreak reading a book; Cordelia rolled out of bed at 8:30am and stared blearily at her.
“Have you slept?” she said. Clea nodded. Cordelia stumbled into the bathroom, and her phone promptly began ringing. The moment her sister stopped discussing her wedding plans and started talking about work, Clea crept downstairs to raid the cake before her mother came back from market. The hunt yielded one piece of fluffy chiffon, which she had to stuff into her mouth all in one bite because of Cordelia coming downstairs. Luckily for her any conversation featuring Cordelia could be heard two miles off.
“-and I think if I get the promotion,” Cordelia said, entering the kitchen with her phone jammed between her shoulder and her ear, “I’ll probably get a new car.” The kitchen was suddenly ten times louder, but even over Cordelia’s semi-yelling tone of conversation Clea could hear her mother’s car pulling into the driveway.
She opened the door to see her mother pulling bags of fresh fish, newspaper-wrapped, off the plastic-coated back seat.
“Su Er! Come and carry this in!” Her mother waved a couple of bags at her, and she hurriedly obeyed.
“Ma,” she said, the minute her mother had stopped shouting at her to help, “about the exorcism they called about yesterday.”
“They cancelled?” Her mother looked indignant. She shook her head quickly.
“No, ma, they didn’t cancel.”
“They want you to make cheaper price?” Now her mother looked outraged.
“Ma, that’s not it,” she said, and told her mother about the toyol request and the strangeness of the previous night’s dream but not the ill-groomed, hostile Fox.
When she had finished, her mother was shaking her head with pursed lips.
“I think you should not do this,” she said, shaking a finger. “Bad luck.”
“But Thousand will be there with me,” she said. “I’ll be fine, ma.”
“Still bad luck,” her mother repeated. “Should not go. If they want to make a toyol how can you trust them?”
“It doesn’t kill people, it just steals,” she said, and her mother gave her a narrow-eyed look.
“Just steals? You say ‘just’ when it steal your new car?” With that, her mother stalked into the house, Clea trailing behind.
“Ma,” she said, “I’m not going to do it for them. They might be bad people but the spirits need to be sent on - Ma, Thousand will help!”
“Be very careful,” her mother said. “Some people tell you, they are not bad people, but they are just trying to cheat you. What if you get hurt?”
“I’ll be fine.” ‘Be very careful’ meant she was getting through. “I’ll protect myself and I’ll leave if it looks suspicious. I’ll give you a call afterwards.” Her mother huffed, which was as good as a yes. While her mother’s back was turned Clea smiled.
“You call,” said her mother gravely, rounding on her, and she quickly wiped the smile off her face. “You make sure you call. And you make sure Thousand takes care of you.” Her mother said ‘Thousand’ like it was the name of a Chinese philosopher, spitting out the ‘th’ like the ‘h’ wasn’t there.
“Yes, Ma,” she said.
The rest of the day went quietly. She spent it reading and helping her mother make pungent, eye-wateringly spicy sambal, the way she and her father liked it. Cordelia flounced in midway to complain about the smell and steal a taste, for which she was chased out of the kitchen by her pestle-wielding mother.
“Now the taste change!” her mother shouted. “Now we have to make again!” She brandished the contaminated bowl at Cordelia’s retreating back, then stuck her finger in and put her finger in her mouth.
“More vinegar,” declared her mother, and tossed a splash in.
“I could have told you!” Cordelia’s voice floated down the stairs.
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Word count so far: 4427!