Each time someone died in the village I would worry for several days. I was too scared to help their families. I wouldn’t even walk past their houses.

 

Xiao Chun’s mother was the worst because I saw things that I wasn’t supposed to. I saw things that no one else could.

 

Uncle Sun had fallen into the tomb, or at least that was the common consensus. Everyone believed that he died from a heart attack. However, that is not what I saw. I saw Xiao Chun’s mother dressed in black clothes jump from the tomb. I saw her wrap her too long arms and crooked fingers around Uncle Sun and I saw her pull him in.

 

After they had gotten Uncle Sun out of the grave, Zhao Jie’s father encoffined the corpse and everyone returned to the village. Once they had returned home, Zhao Jie and I went to him and told him everything I saw. His father simply smiled and said, "Xiao Yong, you must be frightened of death, and that is okay. I’m sure that if there were ghosts, they would not go out in the daytime, let alone at noon.

 

He sounded so confident. “Maybe you’re right.” I told him, “Maybe I’m just spooked.”

 

“You’re likely to forget the whole thing, eventually” He told us, “Why don’t you run on home. You two can play more tomorrow.”

 

I went home, but did not forget anything. I passed the piles of wood ash by my house and made a note in my head to spread them after dinner. “If I scatter them again tonight, then she won’t be able to get me.”

 

When I moved to get the dustpan my mom clapped me violently on the butt. "You’ll never change!” She told me, “Did you forget what happened to your eyes?"

 

Although I was scared of Xiao Chun’s dead mother, I think at the time I was more scared my mother’s wrath. I dropped the idea of spreading the wood ashes, at least as long as my mom was awake.  

 

At the time, I slept in my parents’ bedroom, but not because I was frightened. My dad slept late to revise his student’s homework. I fell asleep the night of the funeral after I watched our worn out black-and-white television.

 

The night was peaceful. I didn't hear a noise, or even dream of Xiao Chun’s mother. When I awoke I was convinced that it’d all been an illusion. “I must be wrong.” I thought.

 

Zhao Jie and I continued to play during the daytime. He asked me whether I had dreamed of Xiao Chun’s mother.

 

“No, I didn’t dream at all.”

 

“I did,” He said with a laugh. “I saw her smiling at me, just like she did in her house. She wasn’t scary though... but when I woke up I had peed all over myself!” He shrugged his shoulders, “I guess I was scared after all.”

 

A bucket of laughter fell out of me and I grabbed my knees to keep from falling over. When I could finally breathe again I asked, “Aren’t you supposed to make excuses about peeing the bed?”

 

We played for the rest of the evening, but I still felt a shadow on my mind.

 

The next night, my mom and I went to bed late, and my dad corrected his papers.

 

I fall asleep in a hurry and I dreamed of Xiao Chun's mother visiting us with Xiao Chun. Although I knew she was dead, I wasn't scared of her in my dream. I even took the initiative to talk with her.

 

She praised me and touched my head.

 

Her fingers looked like gnarled twigs as her hand came towards me. Her arm stretched too far, as if she were reaching to me from across the room. When her hand brushed my hair I was yanked from the dream by a heavy thud.

 

“Gotcha,” My dad said, “Mouse.” He said simply and brushed a flattened mouse off the table with the heavy book he’d used to kill it.

 

My head reeled with sleep. Did she die? Why would she touch me? I could still see her too long arms and I began to cry.

 

My father came to my side, "Xiao Yong, don't worry. It was only a mouse."

 

My mom shifted awake and put her arm around me, "Good boy, don't worry.” She mimicked my father’s words in a half sleeping mumble, “It’s a mouse, It’s a mouse!"

 

"It’s not the mouse. “I told them, “It’s Xiao Chun’s mother!”

 

My parents were frightened by my words. Dad shushed me, and mom asked about my dream.

 

I sobbed and began to tell them everything. The story poured out of me. After I finished with the wood ash, the funeral, the shadow, Uncle Sun, my dream, my parents exchanged glances and laughed. They thought I was being naïve.

 

They lulled me for a long time, and made promises that I would forget the scary dream. Gradually, I became sleepy. As my eyes closed and I began to drift again there was a shout from outside the window.

 

It was the voice of Xiao Chun and he was laughing.

 

Suddenly, I was frightened to tears.

 

I crossed the room and sat with my father, pulling him from the homework strewn across his desk. He disliked Xiao Chun’s noise too, "What's wrong with him?" I asked.

 

Dad got up abruptly. He grabbed a flashlight and moved towards the door. “I’ll send him home,” He muttered.

 

After a minute, I heard my dad shouting, "Xiao Chun, what are you doing out this late at night? Are you crazy? What- what have you done?" His last words sounded shocked.

 

When I think of his voice that night I am still filled with anger, anger and fear.

 

My mom followed my father out the door. I watched the half open door for a thousand years before I dared to follow. I wrapped mom’s quilt around my shoulders and went out behind her.

 

Standing just outside the doorway, she screamed at what she saw. Moving with a maternal instinct and the speed of a snake that I never made sense of, she turned around to cover my eyes. But it was too late, as it often is with misery. A scene lay before me that would become a constant nightmare and would haunt me the rest of my life. Xiao Chun stood beyond the doorway with a silly smile and a human head in his hands. The head belonged to an old woman that had been buried just days before. The head of his mother sat grinning in his hands. The skin had dried and been pulled back to show a horrible gleaming smile. Her eyes were open too wide and staring accusingly at us. Her hair was matted, tangled, and draped over a severed neck that gaped like the maw of a dying creature.  

 

I cried out, shivering and holding my mom's leg. There was something in her mouth, I thought, and I couldn’t take my eyes from it.

 

Nearby lights turned on and neighbors began pooling into the street. Seeing the monstrosity in Xiao Chun’s hands, several people screamed. One old man began to gag and choke when he realized what it was. As the crowd gathered a sense of resolve settled over them. Several people began to shout blame at Xiao Chun.

 

“You opened your mother's tomb, you sick freak?”

 

“He dug out that huge tomb alone and opened the coffin...?”

 

“Look what he did to her!”

 

“Take it away from him! Someone please make him stop!”

 

Xiao Chun continued to smile and turned in circles, locking eyes with each accuser. A team of men moved forward with a basket. The bravest stepped in quickly and slapped the head from Xiao Chun’s hand. There was a sickly wet smack as he knocked the severed head into the basket. Xiao Chun moaned quietly when he was robbed of his mother again, but made no move to stop them. He began to rock back and forth in the street and rub his bloodied hands together.

 

The brave men who had reclaimed the dead woman’s head took it back to the tomb for burial. My mother told me later that the tomb slab had been moved down and a shovel was at the site. The shovel had been used to dig out a spot of earth that the tomb did not cover. The body was still there, barely visible in the dark hole.

 

The town speculated in the following months that Xia Chun was so lonely and he missed his mother so much that he must have thought to dig her out. Perhaps he did not mean to behead her corpse, but he could not move the tomb any further and simply pulled until she came apart.

 

We would never know why he brought a dead woman’s head to my home. He was a simpleton and could not explain it himself. The one person who knew him best was dead.

 

The next morning I fell into a deep illness. I had a fever, headache, and suffered delirium. My parents were worried. Our village wasn’t medically prepared for such a sickness at the time. The doctor was afraid of delaying my care and asked my parents to send me to town.

 

My dad asked for leave from the school and took me to the hospital in town by car. We were heading to the hospital, just like another man from my village. Going to the hospital just like Uncle Sun who had a heart attack at a funeral.

 

Just like Uncle Sun who had been touched by Xiao Chun’s mother.

 

In my delirium I remembered my dream and how long her arms seemed. I remembered her fingers as they touched my hair.