The Ghost’s Daughters ~ Huina Zheng

Before I turned ten, in the small mountain village where I lived, baby girls often disappeared. My mother said they were taken by a female ghost in the river; their mothers didn’t want them, but the ghost did.

How did she take them? Which girls would she choose? Would she want older ones too? When I pestered my mother with these questions, what I really wanted to know was: would I vanish one day, like my younger sister?

Later I learned there were no ghosts, that it was superstition. But as a child, I didn’t dare sleep alone, go out at night, or play by the river. Perhaps my mother hadn’t lied, because in our village only men and boys bathed there.

Looking back, maybe her story was based on truth. Today our village of forty thousand has over five thousand unmarried men. I’ve realized those children “adopted by the ghost” may have met a fate too grim to name.

I never asked my mother. I didn’t want to remind her that my father left because she had two daughters, choosing a younger woman to bear him a son. That was a thorn in her heart. When she spoke of him, it was through clenched teeth: “That fool, pickled in patriarchy.” I didn’t want to make her think of him, or face what really happened to my sister.

Sometimes I think she reshaped the story to protect me. Yet part of me doubts it. She didn’t seem the kind of person to shield me from fear. She knew how much I feared the river, so much that even after leaving the village I avoided water, even swimming pools. Maybe she wanted to keep me from drowning. Maybe my sister slipped into the river. Or maybe this was the only version she could bear to tell.

When she urged me to marry and told me her friends already had grandchildren, I asked, “Does the female ghost still take baby girls?”

Her wrinkles softened. “Not anymore. China ended the one-child policy. Villagers are richer. They can raise more children.”

“What about poor families?”

“They can give them away to relatives, friends, strangers. Many now know daughters are the warmest little cotton jackets. Just like you.”

I didn’t expect her to affirm me. She never praised me, believing it would make me arrogant. This was the first time in my twenty-eight years she called me a good daughter. I had always believed I was her burden, that I’d brought her misfortune.

Even now, I think I will forgive her, even if she gave my sister to the ghost. In my mind I tell her over and over that I forgive her, that she can tell me the truth. But when I see her, the ghost’s hand clamps over my mouth, tightening around my throat.

One night, I woke to a shadowy figure by my bed. Long black hair hid her face, but instinct told me it was a woman. I couldn’t move. I heard my mother leave her room, cross the living room, the bathroom light flicking on, the flush, the click of the switch, her footsteps returning. I tried to scream but no sound came.

The figure bent toward me. I fought to move, but my body was frozen. Her head came closer until, with the last of my will, I snapped my eyes wide open. The figure vanished. My mother stood before me.

“You were screaming,” she said.

“Was I?” I avoided her gaze. “Probably a nightmare.”

As soon as she left, I locked the door, pressed my back to the wall, and wrapped myself in my blanket. Whoever, or whatever, that figure had been, I wasn’t going to sleep again that night.