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Barbara runs.
It's a clumsy run - the yellow sand slips under her dainty shoes, her wedding dress keeps tangling and making her trip - but it's all she's got.
Barbara runs and the sandworm follows, and there's really only one way this story can end.
Barbara runs, glancing back over her shoulder, slipping, sliding, slamming into a brick wall.
Well, it feels like a brick wall, anyway, and landing on her butt in the sand, staring up at him, Barbara finds herself thinking that the man - the ghost, he must be a ghost, in this place he must be a ghost - is certainly as bright red as any brick wall could want to be.
A very unimpressed brick wall judging by the way he's looking down at her.
Behind her Barbara hears the sandworm, close, far too close, and she stumbles to her feet, grabbing at one of the ghost's sleeves and shouting "Run! We must…", but he moves his arm and she stumbles again, rolling and getting sand everywhere and ending up on her back, staring up at the worm as it towers above them, opening its jaws as it rushes forward - and stops.
Not an abrupt stop. Not the stop of something that's slammed against an unexpected brick wall and ended up in an undignified heap, oh no. The sandworm stops the way of something that's spotted the brick wall and in the very last second decided that it is a very bad idea to slam into it , its head rearing back and its long body catching up with itself and slamming into it from behind, leaving the thing shaking and shuddering and pulling back.
Barbara stares at the thing. Then she stares at her brick wall, slowly climbing to her feet.
"It's afraid of you."
"Of course."
Behind her the sandworm is - not fleeing. Out of the corner of her eye she sees it, cocking its head, slowly starting to move again, circling the pair of them as they stand in that endless desert.
But she doesn't have time to worry about that. Not right now. Reality is slamming back into her, as spectacularly brutally as that thing just slammed into itself, and she's no idea how long she's been running through this place, how much time she's lost, and she's none left.
"You need to help me!"
"I need do no such thing, little ghost," the ghost in red replies, brushing yellow sand off his sleave.
"No, you don't understand! There's a girl, and a…"
"A sorry little Wrath, yes, I know, you lot have been making an awful lot of noise. That doesn't mean that I need to do anything about it."
She takes a step back, sizing him up. They need help, she knows that, it's painfully clear that she and Adam can't deal with Beetlejuice on their own. Can't match his power, his easy familiarity with all the things the dead can do. But even Beetlejuice admitted to being afraid of the sandworms, and here's this ghost, and the sandworm is giving him a wide berth.
"A sorry Wrath? Then why won't you help, if he's that sorry? Are you just as useless as that lot at the office? Or maybe he's not that sorry and you're just afraid! That's it, isn't it?!"
Nobody ever said Barbara had a talent for provocation - she never wanted to, she wanted to be friends with people. She wasn't even very good at chasing off Jane and her eternal attempts to sell their house out from under them.
The ghost smiles at her.
It's not a very nice smile.
Barbara's suddenly noticing a lot of things - like his teeth, far too sharp, like the sword by his side, and the sword is staring at her, squinting and rolling its blood red eye.
She wraps her arms around herself, feeling suddenly cold and small and defeated.
"We need help."
The ghost in red cocks his head.
"And what would you give me, Mrs. Maitland, if I was to render my aid? What does someone like you have to offer someone like me?"
She turns away. What help is there to get here? Clearly none. Despair and determination war within her, and determination wins. She's wasted enough time, hasn't she? She must get back to the house, back the way she came - and the sandworm is circling them, still. If she judges her moment just right, if she waits right until its head is furthest away and its tail nearly past, surely she'll be able to run past it, get a head start…
The ghost steps close behind her with a sound like jingling bells, close enough that she can feel the cold almost radiating from him.
"Would you give me everything I asked for, the next time our paths cross?"
So tempting, too tempting, except - too open, wasn't this the mistake they'd already made?
"No people!" and she squeaks at the hand grabbing hold of her collar, lifting her effortlessly, a sparkling, glittering cloud of butterflies appearing from nowhere to grab at every tiny fold of her dress and veil.
"Of course not. My husband wouldn't approve!"
Barbara's flying, hurled through the sandy air, steered by the butterflies dragging at her clothes, and then she's not, she's slammed into yet another brick wall, except this time it’s howling, vibrating as she clings for dear life to the massive body of the sandworm as it starts to move, accelerating impossibly as butterflies swarm, darting back and forth, goading it to greater, ever greater speeds.
Then it rears up high and dives down, headfirst, through an apparently not empty stretch of air, and her scream is lost on the wind as she startles awake, rising out of the dream and slamming down on the attic floor.
"Lydia Deetz! You better be down here and ready for company right now, young lady!"
Lydia sends the Maitlands one last beseeching look.
"It's just a dinner party," she weedles. "It's not like they really need me there."
"You know the rules," is Adam's reply, while Barbara gently shooes her out the attic door.
And yeah, she knows the rules. No sneaking out of family obligations for extra ghost time, that was a rule. There'd been a whole series of negotiations, after the incident best left not discussed, to work out how the two families could co-exist in the house.
So Lydia goes downstairs where Delia is busily putting the finishing touches on the dinner table, adjusting the settings and making sure the crab rangoon starters look their absolute worst in the shadow of the floral centerpiece nightmare that might or might not be supposed to be some sort of bird.
Lydia doesn't comment on any of that, just like she doesn't comment on Delia's bright green silk dress straight out of Chinatown's best tailor. She knows quite well that commenting on Delia's aesthetic choices just makes it worse.
The doorbell rings to admit the evening's guests - a couple of old colleagues of her Dad's from New York and their wives, greeted with warm handshakes and easy familiarity, and of course the guests of honour, all the way from Shanghai, Mr. Hua and Mr. Xie, all polite smiles and perfect English in their matching suits, one in red and one in white.
Dinner doesn't start too terribly. Wine (and soda) is poured and a small basket of fortune cookies are passed around as a fun way to determine who sits where, each piece of paper sporting some Chinese character that Delia's painstakingly attempted to recreate in crispy dumplings.
Somehow that lands Lydia right in the middle of the two guests of honour.
Which turns out to be a perfectly fine place to sit, with Mr. Xie politely asking about her school and her hobbies, and not only does he not scoff when she answers, he offers to send her a book of Chinese ghost lore, while Mr. Hua somehow manages to sneakily pour her half a glass of wine to try.
The main course is brought in - piles of pancakes and lots of platters full of not just moo shu pork, but sesame chicken and peking duck and vegetables and more, all in bright, almost flourescent colours because Delia doesn't believe in doing anything by half. At least it doesn't taste like it looks, and Mr. Xie's poking curiously at the chop suey that Mr. Hua reached past Lydia to put on his plate.
"Oh, this is very interesting! I always do love trying the local food wherever I go," he brightly comments, smiling politely at Delia before taking a mouthful. It crunches. Lydia's fairly sure it's not supposed to crunch, but Mr. Xie chews happily enough.
"Perhaps," Mr. Hua suggests, lazily sipping his wine, "Mrs. Deetz has some ingredients left over? Just so you could try making an authentic American dish yourself? M y husband," and he leans closer to the businessman's wife on his other side, lowering his voice just enough to pretend at confidentiality while the whole table can hear them just fine, "is a bit of a cook himself, you see."
The woman half-chokes on the piece of bright red chicken she's chewing, then practically stumbles over the words in her rush to show how inclusive and politically correct she, a modern American woman, can be.
And just like that the dinner party starts falling to pieces, all of Delia's careful coordination and timing giving way to the guests trooping out into the far too tiny for so many people kitchen, Mr. Xie rummaging in the fridge and among the leftover vegetables and on the spice shelf. He doesn't actually seem to paying much attention to Delia's attempts to be a good host and offer her chop suey recipe, though Lydia'll grant that the angrily purple stirfry he produces looks like it'd fit right in among the spread Delia put out.
"San Lang, would you like to try some?"
Mr. Hua fishes a piece out of the wok with a pair of chopsticks and proclaims it "Delicious, Gege," earning a bright smile from his husband.
"Have you thought of a name for it yet?"
"This is Sunset Ambrosia Squid. Would you like some?" he asks her Dad. "I think there's enough for everybody to try a bit."
Suddenly Mr. Hua's handing out small plates, daintily floral-patterned porcelain things that Delia must have just bought especially and intended for the dessert, because Lydia sure hasn't seen them before in her life. She holds out a hand to grab one, but somehow all the plates are just out of her reach, and Mr. Hua catches her eye and shakes his head before handing the last one to her Dad.
Mr. Hua's happily eating his portion, slurping down a bit of squid, while the rest of the grown-ups are looking just a little bit hesitant about digging in. Eventually her Dad, brave host of the evening that he is and after fumbling a bit with his chopsticks and dropping the first piece he picks up on the floor, manages get a bit of the Sunset Ambrosia down.
"Delicious," he agrees, as straight-faced as she's ever seen him bravely eating Delia's more creative fusion cooking. Then he starts pulling at his tie.
"I'm sorry, I think I'm too close to the stove. Excuse me," and he stumbles towards the sink.
Lydia's about to start trying to help Delia shepherd the guests back into the dining room and away from her Dad being an embarrassment, when she notices a tiny pillar of smoke rising towards the ceiling. She follows it down, down to the floor and blinks, because it's not some dropped cigarette, it's the piece of angry purple squid her Dad just dropped, bubbling and smoking and dissolving the wooden floor where it landed. There's already a tiny bowl-shape half-filled with gunk.
"Ah. San Lang, I think I might have added too much ginger," and Mr. Xie raises his arm to hide his face in a too long sleeve.
Something abruptly clicks.
"You know," she says, slowly, starting to back away from Mr. Hua as he steps across the kitchen to stand next to his husband, each step jingling from all the silver jewelry that practically dripping from him, "I don't think there was supposed to be any squid on the menu tonight."
"No," says Mr. Hua, looking back at her with just one good eye, the other suddenly hidden behind a downright piratical patch. "There probably wasn't."
She turns and flees out of the kitchen, filling her lungs to call for help as her Dad stumbles out after her, a half-empty glass of water crashing to the floor as he doubles over and opens his mouth, and a tongue of fire bursts forth, licking all the way across the floor to the dinner table to set fire to the centerpiece.
"BARBARA! ADAM! Help! They're ghosts! BARBARA!"
The attic door flies open and the Maitlands come rushing down as the Chinese ghosts step out of the kitchen, dressed in flowing robes like something out of a kung fu movie. Mr. Xie's rubbing the back of his neck, laughing nervously and going "Actually, it's just…", but Barbara's looking straight at Mr. Hua, eyes wide and expression somewhere between scared and furious.
"You!"
"Me," he agrees, lifting his right hand and making a twirling gesture. "And that's just about enough of this, don't you think?"
The house abruptly fills with bright, red smoke.
It's like being back at that other dinner party, in that awful red dress Beetlejuice had stuck her in, and she's raising her arms to try to shove it back off - except for some reason she can't raise her arms.
Then the smoke clears, as suddenly as it came, and the entire world looks - wrong.
The floor is far too close and the ceiling is far too far away, and everything's just wrong . The wrong angle, the wrong everything.
She tries to scream and can't. She can't open her mouth, and it's far too like…
"Easy now."
Mr. Xie is a mountain in front of her, his hands carefully cradling her the size of sofas, and the dinner table where he puts her down next to the scorched, but thankfully no longer burning centerpiece could host a football game.
Then he bends back down and puts some sort of figurine next to her. She tries to turn her head to get a better look at it, but her entire body moves and she comes face to face with - oh, that's her Dad! Tiny and squished into some sort of caricature doll, and then Delia's next to him, spinning like a bright green top. The other dinner guests are soon collected and join them, with Adam crawling halfway under a sofa to dig out a bright red doll with exaggerated blonde curls.
"You said they'll be all right like this?"
"Perfectly fine, I promise. They'll be back to their normal selves and right as rain once we leave." Mr. Xie smiles, and it looks like a friendly, innocent smile, but Lydia doesn't trust it.
Probably because his husband just turned her into a stupid doll. At least nobody's taking pictures of her like this.
Across the room Barbara's arguing with Mr. Hua - well, arguing at Mr. Hua. The Chinese ghost doesn't seem particularly worked up about the situation.
"You can't just come into our house like this and…"
"Well, you never bothered to answer our letter."
"What letter? We never got any letter! Don't you…"
The world shimmers as Mr. Hua explodes into butterflies - or no, he doesn't, it's just that suddenly butterflies seem to be fluttering out of every fold in his clothes and rising from every sparkly bít of jewelry, and they swarm through the house, getting into every corner and crevice. She turns to follow them and spots one, crawling determinedly into the pile of unopened mail and random advertisements that nobody's looked at in ages, perfect crystal wings folded entirely flat as it works it's way in and in and in - and out, carrying a bright red envelope back to its master and dropping it on Barbara's head.
"Oh."
Mr. Hua crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow, and Barbara hurriedly grabs a knife off the table to open the envelope, leaving suspiciously greasy stains on the red paper as they unfold the letter inside, and dropping a pair of dice on the floor. From across the room Lydia can see the golden symbols dance on the paper, turning from unfamiliar Chinese characters into English.
"To Mr. and Mrs. Maitland," Adam starts reading over her shoulder . "Lord Hua Cheng, Crimson Rain Sought Flower, and His Highness Xie Lian, The Prince Who Pleased the Gods , requests the pleasure of your company at Paradise Manor in Ghost City to celebrate the Hungry Ghost Festival and to discuss a matter of an unpaid debt. Please find enclosed your conveyance."
Barbara bends down and picks up the dice.
"The Hungry Ghost Festival is usually celebrated in - I believe this year was what you'd call early september?" Xie Lian supplies, looking apologetic.
He doesn't look much like a prince. His robes are plain and he's wearing a straw hat dangling down his back.
"And it's almost Thanksgiving."
"Indeed. You can't say I haven't been patient, Mrs. Maitland, but neverless - we had a bargain, you and I, did we not? And I can't say that making me have to come all the way here to collect has left me in a particularly forgiving mood."
"Now, San Lang," and Xie Lian tugs on his sleeve, "it does seem to have been an innocent mix-up. We've had a lovely little wander about the New World, and I'm certain that Mr. and Mrs. Maitland will be quite happy to offer a reasonable down payment on their debt."
"What did Gege have in mind?"
Adam looks up from where he's painting the model of Jane's new car at Lydia's "mail call", and just barely manages to save the half-finished tanning salon on his work table from being squished by junkmail.
Barbara gets up from the sofa and comes over to tut and start sorting through the pile of week old advertisements trying to sell them festive chocolates and candy eggs, while the girl claims the sofa for herself.
"Do you think your - Delia's ever going to let that go?" he asks, as he accepts half the pile from Barbara. "It's been months and honestly, how many artists can claim that their sculptures got snapped right up by royalty?"
"It probably didn't help that Mr. Xie called her sculptures first class junk," Lydia comments philos o phically, contorting slightly to reach out for the tiny box on the table next to the sofa.
"He did seem terribly pleased about them," Barbara offers.
"Anyway, it could have been worse." Far worse, he thinks, remembering Juno's expression when he'd finally gotten to see her after spending most of January in the waiting room. She hadn't really had time to explain exactly who or what this Hua Cheng fellow was, but somewhere in between telling him off for nearly causing a diplomatic incident she had left him with the understanding that he was something very, very far out of their league.
"Hopefully that business is done and we won't see anymore of them."
"Hopefully," Barbara agrees. "Lydia, put that down."
Lydia shakes the box. The dice inside rattle - and keep on rattling after she stops.
"Did you ever figure out if there was anything special about them?"
"Not as far as I could tell, and Juno sent me back before I could ask. But they came from a ghost and I don't trust them. Put them down," he orders in his firmest voice, the voice he might have used if he'd ever had a daughter of his own to chastise gently - and she obeys, putting the rattling box back where she got it.
The lid springs open the moment she lets go and the dice jump out like a jack-in-the-box, hitting the floor and rolling me rri ly along, the bright gold dots dancing a lively jig before they come to rest by the chalk door outline.
Twelve tiny golden skulls grin up at them, bright against the carved bone, and they give one last little rattle.
Then the door opens.
Adam freezes and Barbara startles and drops the advertisements she'd just finished sorting, spilling them all over the floor.
Nothing happens.
Nothing comes through the door.
And then, just as they start breathing again - something does.
Sounds. Music. Voices. Laughter, unfamiliar song s , shouts. The smell of spices, of incense, of somewhere far, far away, of somewhere outside carried on a gentle breeze .
Adam finds himself moving towards the door, towards the blatant invitation of whatever this is, before he's even consciously made up his mind to do so - then catches himself and comes to a halt, Barbara jolting to a halt half a heartbeat and two steps later, glaring suspiciously at the door and deliberately stepping back to his side.
Lydia bolts through before either of them can think to make a grab for her.
He bends to pocket the dice, before sharing a long-suffering look with his wife, then shrugs and nods at the door.
Out they go.
It's the same dizzying, disorienting feeling they get whenever they've dared to step a foot outside the house, out in the sandworms' desert. As if the world dissolves around them and reforms again - or perhaps they are the ones dissolving.
They do not find themselves in a desert. Quite the opposite.
The door lets them out in an alley, narrow and empty, but festively lit by a dangling line of colourful rice paper lanterns. Lydia's already at the alley's mouth and he manages to dart forth and grab her arm before she leaves it, scolding her.
"Damnit, Lydia. You can't just run through that door, you don't know where it might take you! Now come, before it closes."
But Barbara steps past him, all the way to edge of the alley, and looks around with wide eyes.
"Oh, Adam! Look!"
And he does.
It's - some sort of market or perhaps a festival. There are stalls, so many stalls, and decorations, and colourful lanterns float around spilling their light down on the people - the many, many people.
The ghosts.
They must be ghosts. And such ghosts they are, mingling and chatting and enjoying the market, a confusion of costumes straight out of a hundred historical movies, of masks like a Venetian carneval, of things that look more animal than man and things he has no word for.
A gaggle of children - ghost children, laughing and waving sticks with folded butterflies and dragonflies dangling from strings - run past them, and it is such a harmless, happy sight, even if at least one of those children is only a floating upper body and the last little huffing tyke in the pack looks more puppy than boy.
"Please? Can't we go look?" Lydia pleads.
"Oh Adam, don't you think it'll be all right? It doesn't seem dangerous," Barbara adds her voice to the chorus.
He glances back at the door. It looks - solid. Like a promise that it will still be there, that there's a way home for them.
"I suppose it won't hurt to stay an hour or two," and Lydia's already sliding out of his grasp. "As long as we stick together!"
They walk slowly out among the stalls, just another group barely worth more than a passing glance. Lydia's keeps darting ahead, impatient, but Adam finds himself moving slowly. It's been - it's been months since he's been around this many people at once, and judging by Barbara's firm grasp on his arm she's as overwhelmed as he is.
But gradually, as they walk, as the market unfolds around them, her grip loosens.
There are stalls everywhere they look. Stalls with piles of colourful spices, stalls selling carved fruit or frail-looking sugar confections or fantastic chocolate figures. There are stalls selling glittering jewelry and cobweb thin scarfs, the merchants calling out to Barbara to come admire their wares. There are stalls with toys, with balls and action figures and every annoying beeping gadget under the sun, there are stalls with clothes and stalls with televisions and stalls selling lanterns and scrolls painted with Chinese characters and the exact sort of tiny dolls that the Deetzes had been transformed into last year.
And everywhere there are ghosts, a walking pig examining a wicked looking set of knives, a girl that's mostly hair sliding her fingers into a VCR, the right half of a man holding a jade necklace up to the left half of a woman while his left half is letting the right half of her try to put a jaunty pirate-looking hat on his head - try and fail and laugh as she catches it as it slides off for the second and third time.
"Oh, look," and Lydia's dragging Barbara towards a stall filled with cameras, the proprietress neatly arranging her batwing sleeves and offering a wide, sharp-toothed smile to her prospective customers.
"Why don't you go look a bit by yourself?" Barbara suggests. "And then we'll meet back up in a couple of hours by - by that place over there," and she gestures towards a building towering above one end of the market, a Las Vegas nightmare in neon signs, but she's right that it'll be easy to navigate by.
"Two hours," he agrees and the girls vanish into the stall, leaving him to his own wanderings.
He picks a random path, passing stalls with blocks of tea and stalls with bolts of silk, a stall with just a massive pile of blankets and a cat lying on top, attentively watching as he goes by. And then, finally, next to a stall filled with anatomical drawings and a two-faced man proclaimed on signs in three languages that Adam knows enough to get by in and presumably in at least twelve others that he does not to be a miracle doctor capable of raising the dead (which seems a somewhat odd thing to be in this of all places) he finds what he didn't even realize he was looking for.
A hobby shop.
Winter River's far too small a town to support a hobby shop.
A hardware store, now, that's what that place wanted. A shop full of sloshing buckets of paint and massive rolls of wall paper, of power tools and wires and fuses and everything you needed to fix or replace a running toilet. And if, perhaps, in the years since the name Maitland had replaced Harrison on the shop sign, the dusty corner with a couple of last year's model planes had expanded a bit, had started to draw customers from other towns to peruse a selection of airplanes and trains, ships and, of course, tiny houses, as well as all the tools and all the specialty paints required, in recent years even joined by a selection of brightly coloured dice and ferocious monsters, strategically placed where a rotating shelf filled with pinewood derby kits will shield them from the sight of any overtly zealous churchgoers - if so, well, that's nobody's business but his.
(He forces himself not to think about the polaroid of the storefront Lydia brought him, the paint on Smith and Smith still gleaming fresh. He forces himself not to think about the last time he sent her on a run-of-the-mill re-supply run and she came back with only half the list and the news that the new owner claimed that the rest had to be ordered special.)
Of course, this stall doesn't look exactly like the hobby shop he never actually had a chance to run - the paints are presented in blocks and in bowls of powders and tiny boxes of leaf gold, and boxes of airplane and train kits share space with gorgeously handcarved figurines of warriors and beasts, unpainted masks dangling above everything else - but he knows a hobby shop when he sees one, and the merchant knows a fellow enthusiast on sight, smiling and gesturing and answering his questions about everything unfamiliar.
Of course, there's just one tiny problem.
"For you, gongzi? For a fellow connoisseur, just 200 yuan - or," he adds, smile widening slightly, noticing Adam's slightly embarrassed look, "just 100 of your US dollars."
"Ah," he says, putting down the tiny box of powdered dragon scale he'd been admiring, imagining what he could do with the river in his model town with something that caught the light just so. "I'm sorry, sir, I - I don't actually have any money on me."
"No money?" the merchant exclaims. "But - but it's Qingming! How can you have no money? Have you no kin to sweep your grave and burn paper money for you? So unfilial!"
"We don't really - that's not really done back home. I'm sorry I've wasted your time," and he sighs, starting to turn away.
"Now, now, gongzi. Not so hasty," the merchant calls out. "It's rare that I have a chance to talk to a proper craftsman, it's a pleasure. I am sure, gongzi, that between us we can make a little deal."
"What sort of deal?" Adam asks, suspicious as he's already grown to be of ghostly deals.
"Oh, a small one, gongzi, the smallest one. See, Qingming is always a busy, busy time, I never have time for the smallest break, never have time to enjoy the free feast the lord of the city hosts for us all or to get some shopping done of my own. But gongzi, if you'd manage the shop for but an hour or two, I'd give, say, the box of powdered dragon scales and that demon tiger fur paint brush you were admiring earlier as payment."
"Well - I'm supposed to meet up with my wife in an hour and a half…"
"Ah, still, plenty of time, plenty of time. Come, come, gongzi, I have the prices on a list right here."
And just like that Adam finds himself running a shop for the first time in months.
It is the not the busiest stall in the market, but still - perhaps it is the novelty of a Westerner, but customers are a steady stream, each carrying off one or two small items. There's no truly major sales, but a stready stream of income that no shopowner would sneeze at .
In no time at all the hour has passed, and then the hour and a half, and still no sign of the hobby shop’ s owner. The second hour rolls by and he's this close to just leaving, Barbara must be worried sick, but…
"So this is where you've been. I should have known you'd find yourself a place like this."
Barbara's radiant, bulging bags swinging from her hands, and at his glance she makes a quick comment about how Lydia had had a little money on her "and you wouldn't believe the exchange rate for living money!"
"Well, shall we?"
"I promised I'd mind this shop for the owner - but he was supposed to be back an hour ago. Why don't you go fetch Lydia and then…"
"Fetch Lydia? But she's right…" and she turns and goes "ah."
They have a moment to panic at the realization that the living girl has disappeared on them in the seemingly benign Ghost City - but before they have time to react to the panic, there she is at the end of the street, some sort of brightly green bun in her hand and scowling up at a person dressed in black, a mask with a sad smile hiding his face.
"They said the food was free for the festival."
"And they spoke true, young miss. Only - I fear most of what's on offer there are not what one might call suitable fare for the living. Ah, here are your minders, if I'm not mistaken."
Lydia looks sheep ish as she walks up to Barbara, and Adam would feel relief, except he's noticed how the rest of the market goers are glancing nervously at the masked stranger.
"Mr. and Mrs. Maitland?"
"Yes."
The man brings his hands together in front of him and bows slightly.
"Chengzu sensed your arrival and charged me with finding you. He hopes that you and your ward have been enjoying our Qingming Market and that you will now join him and His Highness for some refreshments at Paradise Manor."
The invitation is prettily frased, but Adam has no doubt that it's not a request. Still he hesitates.
"I can assure you that His Highness has been nowhere near the kitchens today, if that's why you hesitate."
"No, no - it's just, I promised the stall owner to mind the stall in exchange for a couple of things, but he was due back an hour ago, and I can't just…"
"Ah. Old Lo’s probably fallen into the baijiu again. You, Miracle Doctor," and the face not currently facing forward and advising some sort of tiger person about its performance problems looks in their direction, "what did Lo promise this man?"
"A box of powdered fanlong scales and a brush made from qiongqi fur, Lord Waning Moon Officer."
"And for that he's been away for what? Two hours? Mr. Maitland, you take what was promised, and I'm sure that Old Lo will make sure to have something extra for your troubles delivered to Paradise Manor. Now please."
And so they follow the masked person through the bustling market and into the quieter parts of the city, until they reach the gates of a grand estate, a sign with golden characters above. Their escort leads them through and along a path to the gates of a house, which opens at their approach.
Inside is bright and comfortable, colourful draperies and floating lanterns lighting up the hall, and young women in identical outfits flitting back and forth carrying plates and bottles.
Hua Cheng and Xie Lian are sitting - sprawling - on a large divan by a low table, Hua Cheng's head in Xie Lian's lap. On the table itself is a glittering gold model of some sort of palace, as fragile and on the verge of collapse as any card house.
"Chengzu," and the Waning Moon Officer bows deeply to the pair, then less deeply to the three of them before leaving them alone with his masters, the flock of women flittering out in his wake.
Seconds pass, and neither of their hosts seems to notice their presence.
Seconds become a minute, and Barbara's shuffling awkwardly by his side, moving a shopping bag from one hand to another.
Two minutes, at least, and he tries coughing slightly awkwardly, not sure if they are supposed to actually disturb the men in their cozy little world of two, but surely they aren't supposed to just stand here.
"San Lang," and Xie Lian bends down over his spouse, "I think our guests have arrived."
The other still does not move, but something else does. A sword of some sort, leaning against the table, opens a blood red eye on its hilt and swivels it towards them for a brief glance, before closing it again.
"So it would seem."
And then Hua Cheng drags his husband the rest of the way down to kiss him, making the man squeak and blush, but not even try to move away despite their audience.
Barbara's looking anywhere else in the room, Lydia's not looking anywhere else in the room, and Adam decides that enough is enough.
"Gentlemen, I'm terribly sorry. Obviously there's been a misunderstanding, we didn't mean to interrupt y our private moment. We'll just be going now," and he turns to start shepherding the girls out.
"No, no," Xie Lian exclaims, straightening and gesturing at them. Hua Cheng reluctantly rises from his position to look at them as well. "You just got here, of course you shouldn't leave."
Behind them the gates fall closed with an ominous sound.
Adam turns back to find Xie Lian walking towards them.
He stops right in front of them, brings his hands together and tilts in a slight bow.
"Welcome to Paradise Manor. We are very happy that you've accepted our invitation to spend the Tomb-Sweeping Festival with us. Please," and he gestures towards the side of the room, where a table is practically overflowing with dishes.
It smells delicious.
"I'm afraid - I think there's been some misunderstanding. We didn't get any invitation for..."
"You did."
Hua Cheng looms behind Xie Lian as he joins the conversation, but Adam's distracted by something suddenly moving in his trouser pocket. He digs out the dice, and they are spinning and tumbling in his open hand. The skulls all look like they're laughing at him.
"We figured there'd be less risk of misunderstandings if we took a more - direct approach this time," Xie Lian smiles at them, then starts walking towards the table to make them all follow like ducklings in his wake.
Adam remembers his last meal. It had been a stack of pancakes sticky with syrup, a feast to celebrate their vacation.
Now there's a feast spread out before him, his wife seated across from him and taking in the dishes looking like he feels. Hungry, abruptly so hungry, it's been so long…
"Please," and Xie Lian picks up a pot and pours tea into all their cups, then raising his in a gesture that feels formal, formal enough that he does his best to mimic it.
The tea is sweet. Sweet and hot.
Hua Cheng turns, picking up a piece of chicken with his chopsticks and placing it in Lydia's bowl.
"Do dig in. Aren't you hungry?"
They are.
He is.
The fish crumbles between his lips, an explosion of spices. A slice of some white vegetable crunches as he bites into it, leaving a nutty flavour, then a chopstick full of something green and stringy and soft leaves a garlicky taste. A piece of beef nearly burns his tongue to cinders, to be soothed by some rice, and then by some scrambled eggs brimming with tomatoes. Somebody puts a cup of something in his hand, and it burns all the way down, while someone else it putting bits of chicken and prawns and vegetables he knows the names of and vegetables he's never seen before on his plate. A fried snail makes him pause, but only for a moment.
He eats and he eats and he eats.
And then, finally, he's full.
He comes back to himself as he nibbles on some sort of rolled up pancake, while across from him Barbara's picking up a bit of brightly coloured purple rice. Next to her Lydia's watching in something akin to fascination, another green bun lying half-eaten in her bowl, as Barbara eats, no sign of slowing down as Xie Lian and occasionally Hua Cheng fills her bowl with this and that.
Barbara eats and eats, and then she, too, stops.
"It's not uncommon," and he turns his head to look at Hua Cheng, "for young ghosts to go a bit overboard the first time they have a chance to eat after death. Especially ghosts from places that don't make a point of offering their ancestors food."
"I'm sorry, I -" but the ghost dismissively waves a hand.
"Have you been enjoying our city, Mr. Maitland?" Xie Lian asks, as if they're all just having a normal conversation and he and Barbara didn't just completely disgrace themselves. Yes, they're dead, but they used to have manners, damn it.
"Yes. It's lovely, it's - I'm sorry, we've been homebodies since - it's nice to see other people, to get to just - walk around for a bit."
Xie Lian smiles.
"And you, Mrs. Maitland? How are you enjoying our Ghost City?"
"It's lovely, it's - people are so nice here. Much nicer than…" and she stops herself.
"I'm pleased to hear that. You see - well, we have a business proposition for you."
"You have a business proposition," Hua Cheng interjects. "I have a way for the Maitlands to pay off the rest of their debt."
"Oh?" and Barbara turns to face Hua Cheng.
"When we visited you last fall, my husband greatly admired the model town your husband had made. Our anniversary's coming up and it occurred to me that a model of the capital of Xianle, carefully crafted by a master craftsman, would make a suitable present for His Highness."
"I'm afraid that I've never heard of Xianle, though? I'm not sure I'd be very good at building a model of a place I've never been," Adam says.
"I'm afraid Xianle's been gone for - quite some time," and Xie Lian looks down in his bowl for a moment.
"I can show you the city," Hua Cheng states. "And there's others. You'd have what you'd need."
"As for my proposition," and they turn to Xie Lian, "you see, our anniversary's coming up and when I looked at that lovely model in your home, well, I thought, this would be just the thing. If I could find a master craftsman to make a model for me, a model of my husband's Ghost City in all its glory, that I could gift him - would that not be a splendid thing?"
Adam blanches a little.
"It's - your Ghost City is a bit bigger than Winter Rivers, and I assume your Xianle is as well, I'm not sure…"
"When is your anniversary?" Lydia pipes up.
"Oh, in about 33 years," Xie Lian answers, then turns back to Adam. "Of course, a craftsman would need an appropriate workspace, a budget for materials and tools. If you agree, there's a house on the edge of the town - lovely gardens, right next to the river - that would be yours for the duration - and afterwards, if you'd want it."
"We could stay here?"
"Of course. I don't think there'd be quite enough space in that attic of yours for two extra models - and oh, I must show you my scrap collection. Of course you'll get money for materials, but I'd appreciate it if you could find some bits to use for the model in some way or shape?"
"I'm sure we can find something," he agrees, nodding, his head already starting to spin - he'll need to spend days walking the city, of course, need to ask for maps and surveys and if there's an archive somewhere - but already the first idea is taking shape. He'll need lights, tiny lights and lots of them, perhaps that stall owner, Mr. Lo , will have an idea about where to source them…
"Are you sure we can just move here, though?" Barbara asks, frowning. " Juno, o ur caseworker, she - they said we had to stay in our house for 125 years."
"Would you like to move here?" Xie Lian asks.
Adam looks at Barbara, looks at her firm nod and reaches out across the table to grab her hand.
"Yes. I think - yes, we'd like that. I mean, it'd be nice to still visit back home, we don't want to just abandon you, Lydia, but…"
"Then I'm sure something can be arranged. Don't you think, San Lang?"
"Oh yes," and Hua Cheng smirks. "You just leave it to me, Gege."
Xie Lian beams.