Wen Wen Yang

With sundown fast approaching, the enthusiasm had drained from my voice. The last-minute customers clambered for my candles, coins slipping from hand to hand, emptying each carefully packed basket.

The temple had hired musicians. The mournful erhu in the eastern pavilion and the playful pipa in the northern gardens coalesced into an odd musical conversation above the crowd. I struggled to be heard above the din. “Thank you, tell your nǎinai I still use her pork recipe.” The more prepared customers were scattered throughout the temple grounds, by the lake’s shore and the grassy hills, matches in hand. Elder children were trying to keep their younger siblings entertained and out of the way of other mourners. Interrupting another’s seance would cut the connection to the afterlife until next year.

Finally, I sold the last candle, besting last year’s sales by fifty. Not quite the last. I patted my pocket as I tucked away the money. I wanted to tell my late husband that the harvest had been good, and that he had been right about our daughter’s suitors. She had picked the one who was kind, even if he seasoned his dishes like he wanted to set fire to the house. His marriage bangle even had peppers.

Next year, I planned to introduce my dearest to his first grandchild. That’s why my daughter wasn’t helping me sell candles for this Veil Night. We could not risk a wandering ghost trying to reincarnate as her child, despite the jade and gold I and her mother-in-law had gifted her.

Finally, the last light disappeared from the sky. With the new moon’s shyness, darkness covered us. The musicians finally set down their instruments. One by one, the visitors struck their matches and lit their candles. Each candle pushed back the darkness an arm span. Everyone was silent until the candles melted enough wax for them to collect on a finger, to press into their ears. The earthly realm’s voices would grow muffled for the deceased relatives to be heard. If I looked at other people’s lights from the corner of my eye, I could make out figures in shadow. An outstretched hand pointing, a wrinkled face grinning, a body rocking in sobs as the dead learned of the living’s news.

It was impolite to eavesdrop and I had my own limited time to consider.

I turned from the stall when a woman came running up, sandals clacking. Her child struggled to keep up, cheeks rippling with each step. They were our neighbors, a chicken farm that was devastated when a wild migrating bird brought sickness that killed all her birds.

“One candle, please.” Her red-rimmed eyes darted around the packed courtyard, searching for a spot. She pulled coins from her pocket, a cascade on the temple grounds.

“For Baba,” the child picked up the coins and somberly set them on my counter. The coins were the price from five years back.

I reached into my pocket and considered my husband. Next year, my love. You would have done the same. Their loss is fresher than ours.

“Tell your Baba I said hello.” I gave the child my candle.

Tiny hands snatched it, pressed against a birdlike chest, “Thank you.”

I collected the coins. My love will forgive me next year when I show him the grandchild. Besides, we could use a few more coins for when the baby arrives.

The neighbor didn’t go far, three paces from my stall, before setting down the candle and lighting it. At least she would not waste time looking for a spot. In the light, her husband, tall and lean like a bamboo stalk, crouched down to admire his child’s growth. She scratched up the melted wax and plugged her child’s ears first.

“Baba!” The child squealed in delight. I had no wax so I heard only the voices of the living.

On the edges of the halo of our neighbor’s candlelight, I saw a familiar outline of a head. I would have recognized his cantaloupe head anywhere. He flashed a smile then an upward nod of recognition.

Our neighbor’s family didn’t even notice my interloping husband on the edges of their candlelight.

My neighbor rasped, “How are the farms to the north? Perhaps I can make the journey back to my sister’s instead.”

My husband lifted his left arm to show his marriage bangle and pressed a kiss to it. I blinked back the tears. Some nights, I still groped his side of the bed, searching for him. We had been married for decades before the fever took him from me.

I flipped my grey hair over my shoulder then tucked it behind my ear in the fashion our daughter did when she was focused.

He wrapped one hand around his bangle. I nodded, then mimed unrolling a scroll and squinting at it. She had picked the scholar instead of the military officer.

My husband pinched the space in front of his eye as if adjusting thick glasses in confirmation. My son-in-law’s owl-like eyes had watched me craft the candles, asking a hundred questions and offering to help. “Next year, I’ll teach you everything,” I had promised him – until I had heard their news and realized they would have their own hands plenty busy.

I watched my husband’s face as my hand made the outline of a pregnant belly in front of me.

He covered his bearded mouth. I wish I could have crept closer to see if he was weeping, to hear his laughter again.

We stared at each other for as long as the candle lasted. He wrapped his arms around himself. Would he protect us from spiritual threats? Was he comforting himself for missing holding his grandchild? Perhaps it was both and everything.

Eventually, I recognized the sounds of people bidding their late relatives goodbye. My love pressed two fingers over his heart and I mirrored the gesture. My marriage bangle slid down my forearm, catching the last remnants of flickering candlelight.

The Night of the Thinnest Veil

Night in the White Desert

Heartgone