Joyce Chng
The maglev train pulls away from the station with a sharp hiss and a metallic sigh. She exhales and leans back against the hard seat. Finally. I am leaving. She hasn’t brought a lot of clothing, only a small bag with the essentials: amber prayer beads, her ID card, and clothes.
It isn’t easy to leave the family household. Sure, there was a lot of verbal fireworks, coming from Lao Lao, her grandmother and family matriarch, and from her older sister. But she is a young woman, a young spider-jinn, and she has to leave the family nest eventually.
Just that her decision is too sudden, shocking everyone in the family. The thought of their reactions makes her chuckle ruefully to herself.
She stares at her ID card, freshly laminated, her black-and-white face staring back. Her default face: always not-smiling. And what a severe face, double eye lids, phoenix eyes, full lips. But unsmiling.
The spider-jinn have been granted legal status as all mythic races are, after the Awakening. Suddenly the dreams and nightmares of humankind are walking on the streets and beyond: Earth is part of an Inter-Galactic Alliance, isn’t she? What is alien isn’t anymore.
The government has been generous. One person per month, for spider-jinn clans. And only from unclaimed bodies in the government hospital morgue. Spider-jinn only feed on human flesh. The other legal alternative is pork, which the traditionalists disdain and reject immediately as a poor substitute.
Of course, Lao Lao has to complain. In my time, she declares in her reedy voice, waving her human-bone cane-stick, we fed on more human flesh. Ren rou, she says, is delicious, healthy. Your modern food is disgusting. Too many chemicals. Too many preservatives! This, of course, was directed at her and her older sister. Lao Lao never got over their mother’s abrupt departure when she was only five. She and her sister represent what Lao Lao has lost.
Mother had apparently argued a lot with Lao Lao. She remembers the nights where the women shouted at each other, the voices reverberating and shaking the wooden rafters, much like the yellow-clad monks chanting sutras and offering puja at the nearby temple. Only these words didn’t build merit. They were hurtful and meant to wound and cut deep. Older sister would hold her while the verbal storm raged above them. They would cry themselves to sleep.
It was never easy living under the same roof with a two-thousand year old spider-jinn matriarch whose beliefs and traditions are exacting and demanding. Girls clean. Girls cook. Girls sew. Girls run the shop. Beyond that, girls compete with the other clans for ren rou from the government. They bargain for the best, the newly dead from the morgue. For the girls in her household, they operate a prosperous and popular restaurant, catering to non-jinn human people who like Chinese food, the taste of “home”. The restaurant keeps the clan busy and wealthy. She had her fair share of cuts, burns, and scalds. Her life had always centred on competition for ren rou and the restaurant. Day in and day out.
Yet, she knew why Lao Lao acts like she acts every day. Girls leave the nest at a certain age: sixteen. She had gone past that, already eighteen. She had to leave. She had to leave. Yet, Lao Lao didn’t want to let her go.
So it was the cutting of vegetables, cleaning the house, and sewing the uniforms of the serving maids in the restaurant for years. She often messed up her stitches because she was bored and resentful of the stifling chamber she was stuck in. Messing up perfect stitches was her form of rebellion. Sometimes, the vegetables were cut in large chunks, not bite-size portions. Sometimes, she omitted cleaning parts of the large family compound. Day in and day out.
Life had a certain way of telling Lao Lao that her youngest granddaughter has grown up.
There was a boy who lingered beside the kitchen while she cooked. Shy, slight, handsome, and well-made, he made eyes at her. What a sweet smile too. A week ago, he brought her a beautifully-wrapped gift: a giant water beetle wrapped in spider-silk and glossy banana leaf. She accepted it graciously and gracefully. Oh, the boy was one who chose to be male. All spider-jinn are born female. Girls become boys voluntarily, another time-honoured path taken when they want to leave the clan.
This boy was very tender. They coupled behind the kitchen. It was quickly over and she never saw the boy again. His husk was probably found somewhere else.
Her older sister flew into a rage when she found out the short affair. Ni mei you kan guo nan re shi ma? You haven’t seen a man before, haven’t you? Full of angry spite. Are you that desperate? That lustful? Groomed to be Lao Lao’s successor, the stresses and unhappiness are getting to her. Jie looks haggard, her hair often untied and loosened, especially when the restaurant is extremely busy. Even the route of turning male has been blocked. Easy for you, older sister’s eyes blame her for her freedom, easy for you to bat your eyelids and pout at people, at men.
Then nature kicked in. Oh vicious, unpredictable, beautiful nature.
She didn’t notice the signs at first, thinking it was just hunger due to the long hours cutting jie lan hua and Chinese cabbages in the kitchen. Not just plain hunger. Starving. Voracious. A hollow screaming in her stomach. She found herself gorging on leftovers one night and knew something was terribly wrong. Running straight to the ablutions room later to regurgitate everything she had eaten confirmed her fears and her hopes. Her heart sank too, even though it soared at the first tantalizing glimmer of hope. Freedom!
Oh, how Lao Lao shouted and shouted when she was told the news. So much so that her true form emerged from human skin and bone, a huge giant tarantula with brown and gold fur moving her hairy black front legs agitatedly. She hadn’t witnessed that much grief from her grandmother since—since mother left for New Earth. She just got up and left us! Now you are doing the same! The same! Like mother, like daughter! I am cursed with ungrateful daughters and granddaughters! She almost felt sorry for Lao Lao. Grandmother eventually fainted from her wailing. Just collapsed into a heap. Her older sister glared at her balefully when she tried to revive the old woman.
Help me carry her, you stupid fool, older sister snapped. She snaps most of the time now, spiteful and bitter. Always bitter. They did, lifting their grandmother up the stairs and then carefully tucking her in. Lao Lao slept like a water-soaked log, spent and exhausted. Shape-shifting sapped too much energy from her.
In the silence of the musty bed chamber, her older sister wept.
“Jie,” she could only whisper, shocked by the show of honest emotion, and deeply touched by it.
“Go,” her older sister’s face softened. “Go. But remember me, remember us. Wait, just remember me. When you visit the temple, remember me.”
She went up to her room and packed.
Now she is leaving her home for the first time. The maglev train hisses past blurred houses and green, so much green. Temple, stupas, houses, houses, houses, then green, green, green.
Freedom.
She would start from the bottom and work her way to the top. Probably as a serving maid. No more second-in-line in the clan. No more suppressed desires and expectations. She has a future! Oh yes, the hope and dream of starting her own spider-jinn clan sends a shiver down her spine. She places her hand on her tummy where her babies push and slosh inside, knowing that they will have better lives ahead. With a luxurious sigh, she stares out again, dreaming of spider silk and tiny furry feet.