AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Water flows on uninterruptedly and reaches its goal: The image of the Abysmal repeated.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
The television in the upstairs temple room was no longer showing footage of Jonathan Wace or Chapman Farm. Instead, the presenter and two guests were discussing the likelihood of Britain formally leaving the EU in early 2017. Mazu paused in her manipulation of the yarrow stalks to mute the television, then continued counting.
She soon finished. Robin watched Mazu’s reflection stoop to make a last note on a piece of paper on the floor, then turn the pages of the I Ching to find the hexagram she’d made.
‘Which one did you get?’ said Robin loudly, stepping into the room.
Mazu jumped to her feet, her face ghastly white in the dim light cast by the television screen.
‘How did you get in here?’
‘I’ve gone pure spirit,’ said Robin, her heart beating so fast, she might just have run a mile. ‘The doors flew open for me, when I pointed at them.’
She was determined to seem unafraid, but it wasn’t easy. Her rational self insisted that Mazu was ruined, her power gone, that she cut a pathetic figure in her baggy sweatshirt and her dirty jeans, yet some of the terror this woman had inculcated over months remained. Mazu stood before her as the demon of fairy tales, the witch in the gingerbread cottage, mistress of agony and death, and she stirred in Robin the shameful, primitive fears of childhood.
‘So what’s the I Ching telling you?’ Robin said boldly.
To her disquiet, the familiar tight, false smile appeared on the woman’s face. Mazu ought not to be able to smile at this moment; she should be cowed and terrified
‘“Tun/Retreat,”’ she said quietly. ‘“The power of the dark is ascending.” It was warning me you were walking up the stairs.’
‘Funny,’ said Robin, her heart still hammering. ‘From where I’m standing, the power of the dark seems to be in freefall.’
As she said it, the light from the television momentarily brightened, and she saw the reason for Mazu’s confidence. A rifle, hitherto in shadow, was leaning up against the wall just behind her, within easy reach.
Oh, shit.
Robin took a step forwards. She needed to get closer to Mazu than a rifle barrel’s length, if she was to have any chance of not getting shot.
‘If you make an act of penitence now, Robin –’ This was the first time Mazu had ever used her real name, and Robin resented it, as though Mazu had somehow made it dirty, by having it in her mouth ‘– and as long as it’s given in a true spirit of humility, I’ll accept it.’ The dark, crooked eyes glinted like onyx in the gloom of the room. ‘I’d advise you to do so. Much worse will happen if you don’t.’
‘You want me to kiss your feet again?’ said Robin, forcing herself to sound contemptuous rather than scared. ‘Then what? You’ll drop the child abuse charges?’
Mazu laughed. Robin had never heard her do so before, even during the joyful meditation; a harsh caw erupted from her mouth, all pretence at refinement gone.
‘You think that’s the worst that can happen to you? Daiyu will come for you.’
‘You’re insane. Literally insane. There is no Drowned Prophet.’
‘You’ll find out your mistake,’ said Mazu, smiling. ‘She’s never liked you, Robin. She knew all along what you were. Her vengeance will be—’
‘Her vengeance will be non-existent, because she isn’t real,’ said Robin quietly. ‘Your husband lied to you. Daiyu never drowned.’
The smile vanished from Mazu’s face as though it had been slapped off. Robin was close enough now to smell the incense perfume that didn’t mask her unwashed smell.
‘Daiyu never went to the sea,’ said Robin, advancing inch by inch. ‘Never went to the beach. It was all bullshit. The reason her body never washed up is because it was never there.’
‘You are filth,’ breathed Mazu.
‘Should’ve kept a closer eye on her, shouldn’t you?’ said Robin quietly. ‘And I think you know that, deep down. You know you were a lousy mother to her.’
Mazu’s face was so pale, it was impossible to know whether she’d lost colour, but the crooked eyes had narrowed as her thin chest rose and fell.
‘I suppose that’s why you wanted a real Chinese baby girl of your own, isn’t it? To see whether you can do any better on a second att—?’
Mazu wheeled round and snatched up the gun, but Robin was ready: she seized Mazu around the neck from behind while trying to force her to drop the rifle, but it was like wrestling with an animal: Mazu had a brute strength that belied her age and size, and Robin felt as much revulsion as rage as they struggled, now terrified for the baby, in case the gun fired accidentally.
