and very lavish banquet was served. No expense was spared. My aunts and uncles, their daughters and their husbands and children, arrived and filled table upon table. Bao—still fat, his eyes still beady—sat with his wife and their sons, who were also pudgy, with eyes set too close. Even the Chen family concubines had come, although they were relegated to a table at the back of the hall. They gossiped and twittered among themselves, happy to be out for an excursion. I had been given the position of prominence. My husband sat on one side of me and my father on the other.
“Once there were those in my family who thought I was marrying my daughter to someone of lower standing,” my father told Ren as the last of thirteen dishes was set on the table. “And it’s true that money and status were not equal, but I loved and respected your father. He was a good man.
As I watched you and Peony grow up, I knew the two of you were perfectly matched. She would have been happy with you.”
“I would have been happy with her too,” Ren responded. He lifted his cup and took a sip before adding, “Now she will be with me forever.”
“Take good care of her.”
“I will, I will.”
After the banquet, Ren and I were led to the bridal chamber. My dummy bride was placed on the bed, and then everyone left. Nervous, I lay down next to the dummy and watched as Ren undressed. For a long while, he stared down at the dummy’s painted face, and then he joined us on the bed.
“I never stopped thinking about you,” he whispered. “I never stopped loving you. You are the wife of my heart.”
Then he draped his arm over the dummy and pulled it close.
i n th e morn i ng, Willow knocked softly on the door. Ren, who was up and seated by the window, called for her to enter. She came in, followed by my mother and grandmother. Willow set down a tray with tea, cups, and a knife. She poured the tea for Ren, and then she went to the bed. She leaned over the dummy bride and began to unbutton the tunic.
Ren jumped up. “What are you doing?”
“I’ve come to cut out Little Miss’s tablet,” Willow said meekly, her head bowed down. “It needs to go on your family altar table.”
Ren crossed the room, took the knife, and pocketed it.
“I don’t want her cut.” He gazed at the dummy bride. “I waited a long ( 2 4 4 )
time to have Peony with me. I want to keep her as she is now. Prepare a room. We will honor her there.”
I was touched by his idea, but this couldn’t happen. I turned to my mother and grandmother.
“What about my tablet?” I asked.
They held up their hands helplessly and then faded away. And with that, my wedding and my moment of supreme happiness were over.
As Yi predicted, the ghost marriage soothed the household’s fears.
Everyone went back to their usual routines, leaving Yi to grow her baby in peace. Ren set up a nice room overlooking the garden for my dummy bride, and Willow cared for it there. He visited daily, sometimes staying for an hour or so to read or write. Yi followed all the customs and traditions by treating me as the official first wife by making offerings and reciting prayers, but inside I quietly mourned. I loved this family and they had fulfilled my desire to have a ghost wedding, but without my tablet—the ugly thing—dotted, I was still just a hungry ghost with some lovely new spirit clothes, shoes, and bindings given to me by my mother and grandmother. And I certainly didn’t think about my mother and grandmother’s request that I finish my project, not when Yi still had to give birth.
th e last month of pregnancy arrived. Yi abstained from washing her hair for all twenty-eight days as recommended. I made sure she stayed relaxed, didn’t climb stairs, and ate lightly. When her time approached, Madame Wu held a special ceremony to propitiate the goodwill of the demons who like to destroy a woman’s life at childbirth. She placed plates of food, incense, candles, flowers, spirit money, and two live crabs on a table. She chanted protective spells. Once the ceremony was over, Madame Wu had Willow take the crabs and throw them out in the street, knowing that as they crawled away they would take the demons with them. The ash from the incense was wrapped in paper and hung above Yi’s bed, where it would remain for thirty days after the baby was born to protect her from going to the Blood-Gathering Lake. Despite all this, Yi’s labor was not easy.
“A no-good spirit is preventing the child from coming into the world,”
the midwife said. “This is a special class of demon—perhaps someone from a previous life, who has come back to seek payment for an unpaid debt.”
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I left the room for fear it might be me, but when Yi’s screams worsened, I returned. She calmed as soon as I reentered the room. As the midwife wiped Yi’s forehead, I looked everywhere. I found nothing and no one, but I felt something—evil and just outside my range.
Yi weakened. When she began calling for her mother, Ren went to find the diviner, who surveyed the scene—rumpled bedclothes, blood on Yi’s thighs, and the midwife out of ideas—and ordered another altar to be set up. He brought out three charms on yellow paper, seven centimeters wide and nearly a meter long. One he hung on the door of the bedchamber to keep out bad spirits; one he hung around Yi’s neck; the third he burned, mixed the ashes with water, and made Yi drink the concoction. Then he burned spirit money, chanted, and thumped the table for half an hour.
But still the baby suffered. He was being held back by something none of us could see or stop. I’d tried so hard to give this gift to my husband. I’d done everything possible, hadn’t I?
When the diviner said, “The baby has grabbed hold of his mother’s intestines. It is an evil spirit trying to take your wife’s life”—the exact same words he’d spoken at Ze’s bedside—I knew I had to try something drastic and dangerous. I ordered the diviner to renew his chants and incantations, Madame Wu to rub Yi’s belly with hot water, Willow to sit behind Yi to prop her up, and the midwife to massage open the birth canal. Then I traveled up inside until I came face-to-face with Ren’s son. The cord was wrapped around his neck. With each contraction, it pulled a little tighter. I took an end of the cord and pulled to loosen it from the hidden higher depths. Something pulled back and the baby’s body jerked in response. It was cold in here, not warm or hospitable in any way. I slipped under the cord, relieving the pressure on the baby’s neck, and then I grabbed the far end of the cord and pulled as hard as I could to free it from whatever was holding it. We began to move slowly toward the opening. I absorbed each new contraction, protecting Ren’s son, until we slipped into the midwife’s hands. But our joy was tempered.
Even after the baby took his first breath and was placed on his mother’s chest, he was blue and lethargic. There was no question in my mind that the baby had been exposed to unpropitious elements and I was afraid he wouldn’t survive. I was not the only one to worry about this. Madame Wu, Willow, and the matchmaker helped the diviner with four more protective rites. Madame Wu fetched a pair of her son’s trousers and hung them over the end of the bed. Then she sat down at the table and wrote out four ( 2 4 6 )
characters that meant all unfavorable influences are to go into the trousers on a piece of red paper and tucked it in the pants.
After this, Madame Wu and the midwife tied the baby’s feet and hands with loose red string onto which a piece of cash had been looped. The cash served as a talisman against evil, while the tying prevented the baby from ever becoming naughty or disobedient in this and all future lives. Willow took the yellow sheet of paper from around Yi’s neck and used it to fold into a hat, which she placed on the baby’s head to continue the protection from mother to child. Meanwhile, the diviner took the paper from the door, burned it, and mixed the ashes in water. Three days later, that water was used to wash the baby for the first time. As he was purified, the deathly blue finally disappeared, but his breathing remained reedy. Ren’s son needed even more charms, and I made sure they were gathered together, tied into a satchel, and hung outside the door: hair swept from dark corners to keep the sounds of dogs and cats from frightening him, coal to make him hardy, onions to make him quick-witted, orange pith to bring success and good fortune.