I sit at the table listening to the rain coming down in sheets. Water drips off the roof tiles. It’s like a symphony with lots of different instruments.

To take my mind off things, I sing a song I made up on the plane when I first came to China. When I sing, nothing else exists.I don’t hear the rain, or feel the icy breath of Shen Da Pai any longer. I even stop thinking about Mama.

But after a while, my mind snaps back like an old rubber band and I’m scared again for Por Por. I feel as if there is a long silken thread joining her to me now. Not only because she’s my grandma, but because she has passed down her ghost-hunting genes to me. And what Por Por goes through I go through, too. That’s why I must go to Bao Mansion and watch over her.

I quickly go to the bedroom, grab my jacket and head out the door. Por Por only left half an hour ago, which means I won’t be too far behind her.

It’s not quite dark as I step into the alleyway. The rain has eased to a drizzle. In the distance I see a pavilion, its red lanterns like globules of blood floating in the canal.

I catch a water taxi to Bao Mansion. Everything seems so unusually quiet. Even the canal, which has always been busy with boats coming and going, is strangely free of traffic.

Once again the gate is slightly ajar. I pull the collar of my jacket up around my neck and walk through. The house is in complete darkness. All I can see is its hulking outline against a stormy night sky. A gloomy silence engulfs everything. Where is Por Por? What is she doing? Why is it so dreadfully quiet inside?

I huddle behind a stack of timber, waiting, watching, listening.

I’ve almost drifted off to sleep when I hear the sound of wings, as if a giant bird is flying right over my head. I duck down as a black shadow falls across Bao Mansion. Shen Da Pai’s voice booms through the house, shaking the glass in the windows. I’m wide awake now as I peer out from my hiding place. I imagine his hideous form looming over Por Por’s tiny figure.

There are explosions and flashes of orange light as the battle moves around the house. Sometimes it’s upstairs, then in the next instant I hear Por Por chanting from a room downstairs. I feel so helpless. The fight seems to go on forever. I lose all track of time. The walls of the house look like they are stretching, as if Shen Da Pai’s power fills every space and it’s about to burst. Then … silence.

I hold my breath. The pounding of my heart and the creaking of the house are the only sounds I hear. I pray for Por Por to come through the front door, triumphant. I wait and wait. I feel a rising panic. Then I know, something terrible has happened to Por Por.

I run out of the gate. My only thought is to save her, but I can’t just rush into the house. I can’t do it alone. I need help … Ting Ting’s help.

I race down the main street of town, past the lock shop and the paintbrush shop, until I come to the clinic and hospital where Por Por had acupuncture the other day.

I ask for Ting Ting at the front desk, panting so hard I can barely speak. The nurse points to a room down the corridor.

Ting Ting’s bed is by the window and she’s reading, one arm propped under her head. She puts her book down and turns. ‘Where’s Por?’ she says.

‘She went to fight Shen Da Pai,’ I say. ‘There was a terrible battle. I think she might be hurt or …’ I stop to catch my breath. ‘I … I didn’t have any weapons, so there was nothing I could do.’

‘And you call yourself a ghost-hunter?’ Ting Ting snorts through her nose and frowns. ‘You’re just a coward.’ She kicks off the bed sheets and looks for her clothes.

Once she’s dressed I follow her to the front desk, feeling small and useless as only Ting Ting can make me feel. It takes only a couple of minutes of sweet talking and Ting Ting is discharged from the hospital.

When we get home, she fetches a key to the weapons cupboard from a hiding place in her room. I take out what I think I might need – a coin sword, some bells, my mingshen mirror, torches – and put it all into a long cloth bag. Ting Ting takes out a weapon that looks like a discus, and a stick with a rope attached to it that’s knotted all the way down. We still haven’t said a word to each other since we left the hospital.

As we are about to go out the door, I say, ‘We should paint our bodies with protective talismans.’

Ting Ting looks at me, raising one eyebrow.

‘All right,’ she says.

I get the bottle of ink from the cupboard and paint symbols on my arms and legs like the ones Por Por painted on her body. Even though I only watched her briefly, I seem to know exactly what to paint.

‘What are those for?’ Ting Ting says, pointing to two large talisman symbols I have painted on the backs of my hands.

‘I’m not sure,’ I say. ‘But I think they are very powerful.’

She looks at me, puzzled for a moment, then says, ‘You’d better paint them on mine, too.’

I repeat the symbols on the backs of her hands.

‘Before we go,’ she says to me, ‘we need to energise our bodies.’

‘Right,’ I say.

I follow her down the steps at the side of the house to where the fish pond and the large rock sits.

Ting Ting tells me to lie on the ground.

‘Why don’t we use the rock like Por Por does?’ I ask.

‘Only ghost-hunters who are highly trained have the ability to absorb the power of rocks,’ she replies.

We lie down side by side and close our eyes. I relax, letting my body sink into the cool ground. I can feel the earth breathing underneath me like a pair of giant lungs. Then it’s breathing through me, clearing my head, my nose, my blood. Cell by cell my body is renewed, until I feel as if I could run a marathon. I lie there for a moment longer then get to my feet, alert, wound up like a spring.

‘Wait,’ I say. ‘Before we go I want to give you this!’ Reaching inside my pocket, I take out the talisman necklace.

Ting Ting stares at it.

‘I found it in the strongbox at Bao Mansion,’ I say.

Her mouth drops open. ‘You went there … especially?’ she says in disbelief.

I nod. I drop the necklace into her hand and her fingers close over it.

‘Xie xie, thanks,’ she says softly.

I’m so surprised I don’t know what to say. ‘It’s all right,’ I shrug and smile.

The long silken thread that connects me with Por Por seems to be winding itself around Ting Ting as well.

Ting Ting nods at me and we sling our bags over our shoulders. We are two young ghost-hunters about to fight the most fearsome battle of our lives.