Suraya.
“Hmm?” She barely noticed, still caught up in her daydreams, watching the little group chasing each other through the trees.
Suraya.
“What, Pink?” She glanced at him. “Are you hungry?”
No. You know I do not feel hunger. I am a ghost. I only need your blood for the binding.
“Right,” she said. The last binding had been just a couple of weeks ago. It was funny; when they first began, Suraya had imagined a binding would be a magical occurrence that involved colorful sparks and electricity coursing through her veins and a sense that Something Big was happening. In reality, a binding was more like digging out ear boogers: a necessary irritation and a minor discomfort you had to get out of the way every so often so that things worked the way they were supposed to. “Then what is it?” She bent her head back over her sketchbook, trying to shake away the stubborn, lingering aftertaste of heartache.
Listen. Suraya. LISTEN. Why do you never play with the other children?
“What?” She looked up, frowning at him slightly. “What do you mean?”
Well. He scratched behind his antenna with one long leg. For as long as I’ve been with you, I’ve never really seen you play with the other children. It’s always just you and me.
She smiled at him. “You’re all I need, Pink,” she said. It wasn’t quite true, but it was worth it to see the way he held his head higher, pleased and proud. “Besides,” she said, turning back to her notebook, “the other kids don’t really like me. They think I get away with murder ’cause my mother’s the discipline teacher and she’d never punish me, or whatever. And they think I’ll tell on them and get them into trouble. And I think they just think I’m weird, and that my drawings are weird.” She felt her stomach twist at the thought of her drawings being laid bare for all to see and clutched her notebook close.
Your drawings are not weird. They are beautiful.
She sniffed. “I don’t mind. Who needs those kids, anyway?” And in that moment, she meant it.
Pink said nothing, but she knew he was still thinking about it. Pink had a way of playing with his antennae when he was deep in thought, just as she had a way of working her feelings out on the paper. Now, for example, she could tell from the thicker lines, the way she was pressing the pen onto the page, that this was bothering her more than even she would admit to herself. Her art was always truthful, even when she wasn’t.
Sighing, she went back to work, her tongue sticking out ever so slightly as she concentrated on the swoops and curves of the mermaid’s flowing hair.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Pink hop back onto the windowsill and stare out of the window at the little gang outside.
If you were watching him closely, you might have seen his antennae flick forward. Just once. But Suraya didn’t.
And then suddenly the laughter turned into screams of terror, and that’s when Suraya dropped her pen with a start and quickly leaped out of bed and ran to the window to see what was happening.
The air was so thick with mosquitoes that they blocked out the sun, their shadows throwing the fields into darkness, their collective buzzing so loud it sounded like the combine harvesters that mowed through the paddy fields. They moved in a swarm, quickly and with purpose, bearing down on the shocked children until they were surrounded.
For a moment, the world stopped, as if everyone and everything held their breath, waiting to see what would happen next.
And then the mosquitoes pounced. How they feasted on the children, latching on and supping blood freely from any exposed flesh they could find: arms, legs, faces, necks, ears, all were fair game.
And as the children screamed and screamed and screamed, Pink laughed.
Suraya felt her face freeze into a mask of horror. “Pink.” He turned, and in his eyes she saw a dark, wicked glee that made the blood turn ice cold in her veins. “Pink, make it stop.”
Fear made her voice quiver, and it was the quiver that dissolved the wickedness in his eyes. He flicked his antennae, and just as suddenly as they appeared, the mosquitoes were gone again, leaving the children bewildered, sobbing, and covered in bright red hives and welts. They scattered, running for their homes, yelling for their mothers, rubbing at the bites that were already starting to itch unbearably.
“Did you . . . did you do that?” Suraya whispered. Her heart was pounding so hard that she could feel her whole body shake.
Slowly, Pink nodded, his eyes never meeting hers.
“What are you?”
Your friend, Pink said softly. I am your friend.
Was that true? Was Pink her friend? If he was, why had she never seen this side to him, this darkness, this cruelty? Had he kept it hidden from her? Or—and she felt a whisper of guilt whip around her belly—had it been there all along and she just chose not to see it? She pressed a hand to her temple, as if she could somehow knock all her racing thoughts back into place.
“And why did you hurt those kids?” she said finally.
You are my master, Pink said firmly. And I am sworn to protect you. And they were hurting you. I would hurt anyone who hurt you. You only have to say the word.
For just one fleeting moment, Suraya let herself imagine the satisfaction of revenge, of being able to get back at every kid who had ever ignored her, taunted her, pushed her aside. To make them feel exactly how she felt.
Then she thought about the way Kiran’s eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled, and the way Faris’s hand had felt when it tentatively brushed against hers, and her mouth went dry. She drew herself up straight and tall and took a deep, steadying breath. “Don’t you ever. EVER. Do something like that again.” Her hands were clenched into tight fists by her sides, and her eyes were full of tears, but the anger in her voice was great and terrible, and for the first time ever, she saw him shrink back as if to hide from it. “Do you hear me, Pink? Never again. I never want you to hurt anyone, not even for me.”
But what if, Pink argued back. What if you were in danger? What if the only way to save you would be to hurt someone?
“What kind of danger could I possi—”
What if?
“Fine!” Suraya threw her hands up in the air. “Fine. If I’m in mortal danger, if it’s the apocalypse, if you need to save me from the jaws of death, then you can hurt someone.” She couldn’t keep the exasperated sneer out of her voice. “But that’s it. Do you hear me?”
Pink nodded his grasshopper head, his eyes still trained to the floor, as though he were afraid her anger might burn him.
“Say it. I want to hear you say it.”
I will never hurt anyone again, Pink said. Unless you’re in danger. And, he added quickly, unless you want me to.
She set her chin and looked straight at him. “I will never want you to. Not ever.”
And that night, for the first time, Pink and Suraya slept side by side instead of entwined with each other, the space between them only inches wide, but big enough to feel like an entire world.
Five
Ghost
I DON’T UNDERSTAND. What’s the problem?
They were stretched out side by side on the smooth kitchen tile. It seemed an odd place to lie down, until you realized that it was the coolest part of a house that shimmered and scorched in the afternoon heat.