Linghun is the first long piece of fiction by Jiang to be
published (April 4, 2023 by Dark Matter INK ).
What follows is a tantalising taste of her debut novella.
carsick into the kitchen to find Mother unpacking. Her eyes dart everywhere rather than focused on the task at hand. Bowls and plates litter the island, the dining table, and the edges of the sink. Cupboards sit open, empty. Father stands next to her, rubbing a hand across his stubbled chin, running a finger along a growing shadow of a mustache. His other hands rests against the sink, twitching, not knowing where else to place it or what he should be doing with it.
“The agent said it might take a while before he appears,” Mother says in a feverish whisper, fixing her hair the way she used to right before leaving for a job interview.
Before we got the house, she worked in a travel agency down- town. But that didn’t last long. Mother said there was a new co-worker who too closely resembled what my brother would have looked like as an adult. Their names were also similar.
“In the pamphlet she gave us, it says placing their items or photos around the house might help,” Father says.
Mother flings herself over to a box by the fridge and rips it open. She takes out several framed family photos—none are recent. All the pictures, like my brother, are frozen in time. Mother hurries around the house while Father and I stare. She places one frame on the dining table and one on the coffee table in the living room. Her footsteps thunder up the stairs. Doors open, close, open, close. Footsteps pitter, patter, pitter, patter. She returns, and I imagine she has placed a similar family por- trait on the desk in my room: Mother, with her hand on my shoulder, the other hand on my brother’s, Father behind her with a hand at her waist and the other on my brother’s head.
When Mother returns, she grabs a stack of unframed photos, this time of only my brother: ultrasounds, preschool and kindergarten pictures, him in a graduation cap, holding a certificate of excellence at the end of first grade. His photos end there. A younger me, half my brother’s age, stands in the picture, clutching his arm with a wobbly smile and missing teeth.
My brother was always the golden child, the one who carried the family’s honor, the one who would carry the family name as per tradition—unlike me, who will only carry the name of my husband if I were to marry. Mother and Father often try to convince me that they are not as traditional as their parents, yet they doted on my brother, the first-born son, and often forgot about me. They still do, even though he’s gone. I’m convinced that, had they been offered the choice, my parents would have traded my life for my brother’s, with little hesita- tion. At least, Mother would have, and probably still would, if given the chance. I grew up hearing her complain often how Father’s Mother was always insisting that my parents try for another son, but Mother was—and still is—too heartbroken to think about children.
Mother disappears again. Father and I wait, listening to the ticking of a small clock—the same one Mother would use for my brother’s reading hours, back when we still lived in Fuzhou. I still remember the way my brother drew me closer while he read so that I could see the words, but they were always too advanced for my age. I can recall the images, but I don’t recog- nize the Chinese characters in my memories.
After Mother sets everything up, the three of us sit in the living room waiting for something to happen—for my broth- er’s promised appearance—but nothing does.
The new arrivals to the neighborhood moved into the house across the street.
There is only one reason anyone would trek through the guarding trees to get to HOME: not to seek new life, but to satisfy a longing for the dead.
Houses in HOME sate the unending hunger of those most vulnerable, unsuspecting. They feed on our desires, our pain. So much pain. And to wallow in such pain…It is a hideous thing.
Isn’t it strange? How everyone here desires their homes to be haunted?
You wonder if the newcomers will be the same as the others. You wonder if they, too, will be unrelenting, or perhaps they will be like you… unhaunted.
After we eat dinner in silence, I move to the living room window and look out upon our new street. Our lawn is overgrown and full of weeds, but it is also full of
people. I had been too sick on the drive in to care much about these odd vagabonds, but curiosity gnawed at my mind.
“Why are there people on the lawns?” I ask.
“Don’t worry about them,” says Mother, sounding more than a bit absentminded. “The agent assured us that these people are a normal occurrence here, since everyone wants to move into this neighborhood and is more than willing to wait. What did she call them again? Oh yes, lingerers—that’s the word. But it matters not. We’re just grateful we got a house here. Aren’t we?”
I look out again at the trees that have grown too tall, too unruly for the narrow street. Their overgrown branches cast ominous shadows over our house and the rest, preventing any sunlight from reaching the roofs or shining through our win- dows. This house resembles little of our home in Scarborough, and it’s nothing like our home back in Fuzhou.
Father looks to Mother. His grip tightens against his chop- sticks, and his knuckles turn white. “Yes, yes, yes,” he agrees.
Most of the neighborhood is unkempt, but directly across the street, a plain little home rests upon a neatly trimmed plot of grass. Cared-for flower beds line the house’s front facade. Above the tangles of rose and lavender, I see an old woman sitting by her own front window, clutching an urn upon her lap. Instead of drawing the curtains closed like I expect her to, she continues to stare at me and my family.
I turn back to my parents, speaking again of the people on
our lawn. “Can we ask them to leave?”
“No,” Father says, eying Mother through a mask of worry.
Back outside, a man leans against the large SOLD sign stuck into the grass. Below it is the neighborhood’s name in a small- er bold font: HOME—Homecoming Of Missing Entities. It sounds like a joke, but nothing about this place feels worthy of laughter. Mother has a smile on her face, but Father seems more wary about this endeavor.
The lingerers continue to stare at the house, into the house, with their bodies almost leaning towards the front door, as if being manipulated by an unseen pupeteer and their invisible strings. The lingerers on the other lawns hold the same posi- tion. My parents pretend to not be bothered by it, but I can see the sweat glisten on Father’s forehead, and I can see Mother discreetly wringing her hands, playing with her wedding ban. A boy sitting on the lawn two houses down, across the street, has his back turned to the brown and yellow house he sits in front of. His eyes catch mine, and I can see a spark of curiosity.
I wonder how long the boy has been here. And I wonder when I will be able to leave.
End of Sample
AUTHOR NOTE
I’ll leave everything to be said about Linghun to the novella itself. I’ve included a personal essay with the book, and I hope that everyone will put their trust in me as a storyteller and grab a copy if it piques their interest.
Order your copy directly from Dark Matter here: darkmattermagazine.shop/products/linghun