Chapter 8 My dead grandaunt!

With each step closer, a rickety figure came into my view; she was like an very old lady, dressed in a black long-sleeved shirt, hair pulled up.

Her figure looked familiar to me though in the odd long-sleeved dress; wasn’t it a bit to hot in such weather?

I fished around in the memory trying to remember where I had met her when suddenly she said, "Rae, you're back, I've been waiting for you for a long time..."Her voice seemed to have been forced out of her throat, hoarse and unmusical, and made my ears ache.
No one else was around. Was she talking to me?
How did she know about me without even looking back at me?
Did she knew me?

I was about to open my mouth and asked while a blue hairpin she had stuck in her head caught my attention.
My word stuck in the throat as I recognized that hairpin, which belonged to my long-dead eldest grandaunt--her favorite.

I had never thought of her before because I barely knew her as she died early; she was two years older than my granduncle who was almost ten years old than my grandpa. Her impression on me faded away but that hairpin on her head curved vividly in my memory. I had been fiddling with it all the time even after she passed away; and now it was on the head of this old lady, either my eyes deceived me or...

That hairpin went missing. No one knew where it went; It just disappeared. Thought of this gave me the creeps.

So did the clothes she was wearing. Who would wear long sleeves in this weather?
She was dressed in the costume of the past, with cloth buttons on the top and long skirts on the bottom.
Some old graveclothes were in such style too, with a red character 'life' written on the front.
The collocation of black and red color had always been deemed as the color of death, at least that was what I always thought.

I retreated consciously as she slowly turned around, her hand holding a lamp illuminating her face.

No eyeball could be seen in her concave eye socket; only a layer of skin wrapped around the bones of the hands and face, exposing her teeth out of the mouth; the ‘life’ in the front of her large dress; she was nothing human at all. I ran in terror, but she was yelling behind me all the time: "Rae...granny's been waiting for you for a long time, Rae...Don't you like granny's hairpin? You can have it, just come here and talk to granny, granny is so lonely..."

I dared not look back, and her voice was not gone away either; it just lingered behind me. I was going crazy; I was pretty sure she was not a living person and it was obviously a mummified body; my question was why? Why did she come after me? I had nothing to do with her.

Grandma used to tell me that if a person died unjustly, there would be a breath left in the throat of the deceased that he/she would not be able to inhale, and that’s when paranormal things like corpse bounce and evil spirits haunting happened.

If you happened to have unraveled ‘knots’ with them, very likely they would go after you.

I don't know why grandaunt would come after me, said she was very lonely and asked for my company. I did not have the guts, nor had I seen one with such guts.

"Jennifer Lee, what do you come after my grand daughter for?"

My grandpa’s voice sounded from nowhere.

I slowed down my pace and looked back; my grandpa was facing the grandaunt with his back to me.
Jennifer Lee was the name of my grandaunt; my long dead grandaunt and my grandpa who had just passed away yesterday had a conversation! It was a bit too much for me.

How could this even happen? Although I had heard a lot of odd mysterious stories from my grandma, but two deceased family, one unimpressed grandaunt and the other my dear grandpa, met up and had a conversation! That was something new.

I stopped running and calmed my nerves; I shouldn't be afraid of them, right? I did not know why grandaunt came after me but I was pretty sure about one thing; that is, grandpa would never hurt me, alive or dead.

Grandaunt waggled the lamp in her hand; her face looked even more terrifying in the light; she snapped at my grandpa fiercely: "Get out of my way, or you will die thoroughly!"

I shivered with fright; grandpa was already dead, how to die thoroughly?

Grandpa did not move but replied gently: "Jennifer Lee, when did my Rae even provoke you?
Tell me what you want with her."

She pointed her finger, which had been withered like a paw, at my grandpa and said: "My daughter and my granddaughter were both dead, why is she still alive? It's not fair. No one lives if she married a ‘underworld being’. Her living would cost the lives of all villagers! Look at her soul, dark and evil; she would lead ghosts everywhere she goes. What does she come back here for?"

Grandaunt was speaking with my grandpa with the local dialect; I understood it as well; she talked about unfairness which referred to her daughter who was dead the night she wedded and her granddaughter who was two years younger than me and who must have die too while I was not in the village. Grandaunt felt unfair that I survived that night and outlived her girls...

Grandaunt died when her granddaughter was only two years old. At that time, I was almost four. Grandma must have missed her granddaughter so much before she died, so she couldn't inhale her last breath. The unfairness of my survival added to her resentment; here she was. At the thought of this, I realized that grandaunt was now one of those the evil spirits.

Grandpa turned around and looked at me in the graveclothes; in the poor light I can hardly see his expression but his voice was loud and clear, "My dear Rae, leave and don't ever come back. Something is happening, you'll die here!"

I couldn't help crying: "Grandpa, how did you die? You were fine when I left, and how you died?
I'm not leaving. My parents are here too. I am not leaving without them."

Grandpa got anxious: "Leave them be, that’s their fate, that’s their life! You should leave now and forget about them! I could only save you. I would hold this crazy woman back."

Grandaunt tugged my grandpa’s sleeve and roared: "Crazy woman? Who are you calling!
I am going to kill you thoroughly, you are going to die thoroughly today!”

Tossing away the lamp, grandaunt got into the wrestle with my grandpa; my grandpa had always been reticent and cultured but now he called names of grandaunt, that meant he was really angered. I , but I had no intention of leaving here. If something really happened in the village, I could not ignore it. I took my leave at grandpa’s order but I decided to go on, if something was to happen in the village, I could not leave it like that.

Something tripped me when I was running and I fell onto the ground with my belly knocking against a stone in the darkness. It hurt; I struggled to sat up in the pain and groped my hands in the darkness; I felt under my body a large rock! What the...Today was really my day!