The Haunting Tale of Mei and Rebecca

Rebecca waved her arms and it wasn’t working. Rebecca wasn’t even her real name. It was something she had found in a book.

Mei knew that she was born in the Capitol, but Mei never knew anything about her family or why she left.

Two young hoodlums tried to remove Little Mei Lubaba from the backseat of an early model Ford. She was bound but not gagged, and still she went quietly.

The boys were Gru and The Freak, and they were basically interchangeable—except that one was apparently more intelligent than the other, like a brick is smarter than a rock.

One of them spoke as the other one agreed. I think it was the smarter one.

“Your Lady MacDeath stole the money from the boss’s cash box.”

“And you’re gonna die for it.”

Mei never cried as a child, but anger could make her eyes water.

Mei spoke from her chest. “Her name is Rebecca,” she said.

He pulled the potato sack from her head. “Was!” Gru shouted at her.

Rebecca tried to scream but had no lungs. She had no breath. She had no face and no voice. She had lots of energy but nowhere to focus it. She’d spent her entire life feeling unheard.

Little Mei weighed more than both the boys combined, and they were having trouble moving her, so they unbound her feet and let her get out on her own.

Mei had allowed the callousness of life in the big city to disrupt her sensitivity. She was sixteen when she first arrived in the city, and that was ten years ago.

Rebecca was anonymous and that was by choice.

She was comfortable being nothing to no one. Except for Mei. Little Mei was little more than a street thug herself, but now more than ever, Rebecca needed Mei to hear her.

“Charlie sent me and The Freak to find your girl, and it didn’t take long, neither.” Gru was so proud of himself. “And she’s dead now.”

Low-level gangsters in the walled city were all skinny young boys—junkies, freaks, and chain-smokers.

“I don’t believe you,” Mei told them, clearing her head and squeezing the last tears of anger from her eyes.

They were surrounded by trees on a dirt road deep in the forest east of the walled city. It was a beautiful place to die, Mei thought.

“Are you just going to stand there and watch?” Rebecca spoke casually to the Lord of Death, and he was not surprised.

I am always in attendance when a young person dies, I said.

The young were not judged like other souls. They were blameless, and Death himself escorted every single one to bardo.

A second car pulled up behind the first. The boss, the priest, and two more goons appeared.

“Your priest is here,” Gru said, but The Freak was still busy taunting her.

“We found your Lady MacDeath on a boat,” he said.

Mei snarled with anger. “I just told you not to call her that.”

“Your girlfriend’s dead, so it doesn’t matter what we call her,” said Gru, kneeling down to get close.

“That’s life in the big city,” said The Freak.

Mei spoke calmly. “I’m going to kill both of you. You’re broken and you need to be put down. It’s nothing personal.”

“I’d worry about yourself,” Gru replied, then stumbled back as he rose to his feet, because his knees were visibly shaking.

“Why can’t she see me?” Rebecca asked Death. “Doesn’t she see ghosts? Isn’t that her thing?”

Mei hadn’t seen a spirit since leaving the farm. She had chosen a path but not a destination, and she was unhappy with what the universe had chosen for her.

Her thing is living, I said. Yours is hellfire and torment.

“Do you mean the hellfire and torment down there?” She pointed toward the ground.

There is no better way to burn through the negative imprints you have accumulated on your soul than to burn in hell.

You have a choice of walking into hell voluntarily or wandering the cosmos, unheard, unseen, unsatisfied, and unloved.

“So no change, then?”

Do you have unfinished business?

“I do.”

Are you petitioning the Lord of Death?

“I am.”

Request denied.

“She said you made her do it,” Capo Charlie proclaimed as he swung his arms wide and towered above Little Mei.

Capo Cha Li, or Charlie as some called him, was more dramatic than scary, but he was still terrifying. He was a man surrounded by boys who would follow his every command, and that in itself was frightening.

All the capos used teen boys as couriers and hitmen because they knew how to follow orders and didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger.

Among the many occasions Mei had a gun pointed at her, the only times she felt truly afraid was when a child was holding it. She could reason with a grown man, but a boy would pull the trigger even when it was illogical, immoral, or way too soon.

“I don’t believe you,” Mei cried.

The skinny man in the white suit screamed again through a devilish, yellow, toothy grimace. “She said that you forced her to rob me!”

“Bullshit!” Mei yelled back.

Rebecca stood between them unseen. “Good girl, Mei. You tell him.” “Why am I still here?” she asked me. “When does my torment begin?”

It already has.

“You suck,” Rebecca told me. “Do you know that? I bet you hear that a lot.”

I do.

Mei didn’t like the way that she was dying either. She didn’t want to die angry.

Charlie smoked two packs a day. He was twitchy like a rodent and just as predictable. He’d only been there a few minutes, and there were already sixteen cigarette butts at his feet. Mei had seen him shoot a man mid-sentence.

He listed off her reasons for dying:

“You were the one who gave her the key. You were the only reason she had access. You took it as much as she did.”

“You’re just as pathetic as these two.”

“What the fuck did you just say to me?”

“I have money,” Rebecca began to bargain. “I have three handfuls of silver coins. I know where they are.”

I do not have use for silver, I told her. It is a poison. I respect only the power of gold. It is an amplifier.

“It’s not for you, ya pill. It’s for her. I stole the silver for her,” Rebecca explained.

She told the Lord of Death how Mei always wanted to go to the university at the top of the mountain.

“She could be a good person,” Rebecca said. “She could be a teacher or a nun. You like nuns, don’t you?”

Death gave no answer.

“My unfinished business is her, your lordliness.”

It would not save your soul, I said.

Rebecca would still burn in hell for what she didn’t do.

“I don’t care,” she said to me. “I need to save her before I become nothing.”

“Nothing,” Mei replied. “I didn’t say nothing.” She sighed. “You’re never going to believe me anyway,” she said. “Bring me the priest.”

The Capo was livid, and knew he was too busy to stay for her full confession. It was Wednesday, and he had bosses too.

“I didn’t take your silver,” she said again. “And I don’t think Rebecca took it either.”

There are rules, I said.

“No, there isn’t,” Rebecca disagreed. “You God types are all about control and job security, but we know that you’re making it all up as you go.”

“Who the fuck is Rebecca?” Charlie turned and asked his crew.

“Lady MacDeath,” The Freak explained.

“Bitch had a name?”

“Yes,” Mei told him. “The bitch had a name.”

Rebecca—stop, I said. You’ve got it wrong. I’m not the one with the power here.

“And Rebecca’s not even my real name, Lord.”

Your real name is what you are called by the people who love you, I said.

“That’s deep,” she said.

Rebecca, your book never interested me. And you know why? Because you moved from crisis to crisis, from crime to crime, from drug fix to drug fix, like it was something exciting. It wasn’t. You were boring.

“That’s harsh, my lord. What about all the chase scenes and the fights and the sex? The sex had to be a little—”

I will tell you something that has only been true about a handful of others, a handful of authors, a handful of souls. Your book only got interesting after you died. Your adventure is there… in hell.

“Then why the hell would—” Charlie paused. “Rebecca,” he swallowed the name hard. “Lie to me?”

“I don’t know,” Mei insisted. “You’ll have to ask her.”

“Well, that’s not possible anymore.” He turned to his crew. “The balls on this chick. I love it,” the Capo told them. “Pay attention, boys.” He pointed to her. “This is what a real man looks like.”

“I don’t know why she would take your silver,” Mei said. “I swear to God.”

“God?” Charlie said. “God can’t help you.”

Mei’s body stiffened.

“Your girl had a busted lip when I broke her neck,” the Capo said, judging her response. “You’re not sore that I killed her, are you?”

“No,” Mei said. “She stole from you, and that was your right. I just want to know who roughed her up.”

“I don’t know. It was one of these guys.” He motioned behind him. “Freaky and the Groot or whatever their names are. These boys don’t respect the process. Not like us, right, sister? We’re old school.”

“School? No, thank you,” Gru said smartly.

“Fuck you,” Rebecca exclaimed. Her thoughts had never been clearer. “If my death is so interesting, then let me do what I came here to do. Let me change Mei’s fate.”

“Rebecca. Is that you?” Mei heard her voice.

“Oh, thank god,” Rebecca said.

It was never up to me.

There were four cars next to a dirt road, in a clearing, in a forest, near a river that fed the city’s reservoir from the top and drained the city’s sewer system from the bottom. Just look for the cigarette butts. This was where all the bodies were buried—somewhere between clean water and sewage.

“I can hear you, but I can’t see you…” Mei said, remembering. “Oh right. There’s no moon. Mother always came with the moon.”

“Little Mei. Baby. Please. Shut the fuck up and listen,” Rebecca said. “I gotta go, but I got something to say first.”

“Is it that you love me?”

“Love you?” Charlie thought it was absurd. “I don’t love you. What the fuck did you idiots do to her? She’s lost her damn mind.”

Mei cringed at the thought of her lover’s body floating in a watery grave, but if she were here as a ghost then it was true.

Charlie got really close again. “Where’s my silver, bitch?” he whispered to her. “You fucking dykes took fourteen pieces from me.”

“What? No,” Rebecca said. “I never loved anything in my life, and I’m dead now.”

“You’re dead,” Mei repeated somberly.

“No, that’s you, babe,” Charlie shot back at her. “This is pointless. I’m going back to the office.” He yelled at Gru and The Freak. “Idiots! Dig a grave. Throw her in it. And come back. We’re going.”

“But, boss, we were going to make her dig it.”

“Don’t make a grown woman dig her own grave. This isn’t a whore. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Charlie was done. He walked back to his car. He would have to make up for the loss somehow.

“Okay, boss.”

“Don’t fuck around. Don’t rough her up. And don’t be stupid.” He looked them in the eyes when he said stupid because it meant a lot of things, and none of them were okay. “Goodbye, Little Mei,” he said to her finally. “You sad, crazy bitch.”

The Capo switched cars and was driven off in the same vehicle that had brought Mei. He was followed closely by the two other cars.

He was going to miss that girl. She was a hard worker, more physically intimidating than any of the skinny boys and a damn sight smarter than most of his crew, even though she had no formal education.

Rebecca was well-educated and courted death like a schoolgirl crush. It was astonishing she had lived as long as she did. She died a senseless and violent death and just as she predicted, there was no moon.

“When people ask you what the sky was like on the day I died,” Rebecca once said. “You tell them there was no moon. That not even the moon could bear to watch.”

Rebecca spoke quickly. “The priest keeps a knife in his boot,” she said. “The silver I took is hidden in the windowsill in our apartment. The Lord of Death is here, but he’s not here for you. He’s here for the kids. So you’re going to be okay. I gotta go. I have a date with the devil.”

“Give him hell,” Mei said.

“You know it,” Rebecca replied, and she was gone.

The gangster priest stepped out of the last car and walked over to Little Mei, who was kneeling but not praying. His eyes were full of erroneous compassion. It was certainly not the real kind.

A gangster priest would hear a confession before witnessing that person’s violent death.

Religion and patriotism were good at making a condemned person feel seen in their last moments, but a bit of detachment came with the job.

The priest approached her, and Mei spoke first.

“Did you know I wanted to be a monk when I was a kid, Father?” she told him. “Before I found out how much it cost.”

There was rent, tuition, food, and books, and the monks had to buy their own robes. It wasn’t cheap living a life of poverty.

“I guess what I’m saying, Father, is shouldn’t faith be free?”

“The truth is free, my child, but the books are not,” the priest answered.

“You work for gangsters,” she reminded him. “You’re not the hero you think you are.”

“Is that why you turned to a life of crime, my child?” he asked. “Because the system let you down?”

“Yes,” she answered. “And the church did as well.”

“I’m not here for them,” he said as he looked into her eyes with sincerity. “I’m here for you. What can I do for you?”

As Gru and The Freak argued over how deep to dig a shallow grave, Mei spoke quietly. “Let’s start there,” Mei said.

“I don’t work for the mob, sister. I definitely don’t work for these idiots. At this moment, I work for you,” the priest said. “You don’t have to accept your fate, my child. You are but one of over a billion main characters, and the story will go on with or without you.”

“That’s a shame,” she said.

“Well, that remains to be seen,” the priest added. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “It’s bad luck to kill a man of the robe. But these kids—” He trailed off, then restated after a pause. “I can hear your confession, but I cannot save your life.”

“Did you hear Rebecca’s confession?” Mei asked him.

“I did.”

“Was she scared? Was she crying?”

“She was.”

“And her mouth was bleeding?”

“It was.”

“And there was no moon.” Mei lifted her eyes to the sky. “I’m sorry, B,” she said. “You deserved better.” She locked eyes with the old priest. “She was Our Lady Macbeth to the end.”

“This is true,” he said. “But her name was Rebecca.” He adjusted his robes nervously. “You ladies should save for the future.”

“I’m not a whore, Father,” Mei corrected him. “Not that there’s anything wrong with it. Some of my best friends were whores.”

The Lord of Death re-shelved the book of Rebecca, from Tragedy to Divine Comedy, and picked up the books of Gru and The Freak. Their pages were bloody and dirt-filled.

This was my favorite part. Nearly everyone dreamed of cheating death, but no matter the outcome, how someone chose to die was an endless source of interest. Death was inevitable, but how they died, for the most part, was a choice.

“We are what we love to do,” the priest said, “and not what we’re forced to do.”

“Oh, Father. You have no idea,” Mei told him. “I know you have a switchblade in your boot, Father. But these boys don’t. All you have to do is hand it to me and I’ll cut myself free.”

“And you’d kill these boys or forgive them?” the young priest asked as he placed the blade in her hands.

“Both,” she answered. “I’m going to do both, Father.”

Mei sliced through her bonds with a blade that was surprisingly sharp, though she would have preferred it been an axe. A flimsy blade like this was no use on a farm.

“I am a good person, Father,” she said as she worked her way through the rope. “I know where the money is.”

“Then you should tell them,” he said. “Violence is never the answer.”

“Violence is never the answer, Father,” she said. “Until it is.”

Turning his back to the violence, the gangster priest smiled to himself at Mei’s response.

She walked up behind one of the boys and pulled the gun from the boy’s belt before he even knew she was there and shot him before he could bring the shovel around. Mei moved quietly for a big girl. She always did. She made sure that Gru saw it coming.

“That was for Rebecca,” she said as she slowly walked over to the car and tapped the barrel against the window.

The kid inside was panicking and couldn’t remember how to start it up as he fumbled with the ignition button before he’d cranked the battery, but he was in no danger.

The boy still had to drive the priest back to the city—but before he did that, he would need to make a couple stops for Mei.

There were fourteen pieces of silver waiting at the apartment they shared above a laundry, in a secret hole behind a brick beneath a window. It was money for the church. It meant a new life in the mountains for Little Mei. A brand new fate. She would no longer be trapped in a life of crime. Fourteen pieces of silver meant the start of an education, courtesy of a troubled young woman who was named Rebecca. ||