The Ghost-Bride Matchmaker

She had been matchmaking for the dead for a full twenty years. The old folk in town called her the Joyful Lady; the younger ones whispered "the one who ties the cords" behind her back. She had once arranged matches among the living, too, but the year her husband died she put away the red string of the living world and took only the business of the dead. She was thirty-two then, with a single white streak at her temple, and from that day she never again set a living couple together—only the dead.

A match among the dead is harder to make than one among the living. The living need only consent, but the dead have no mouths; they speak through two things alone: a birth-and-death slip, and a pinch of grave-earth. When a young man dies unmarried and his parents cannot bear it, they come to her to find a girl who breathed her last on the very same day, to pair them. When a girl dies unwed and her brothers fear she will be lonely in the dark, they too come, seeking a boy who died young. She lays the two red slips side by side, presses them under the altar in the main hall, lights two sticks of incense, and waits for them to burn down. If the wine in the two empty cups has each sunk by half, the match is made.

She cuts the wedding paper by lamplight. The paper is begged special—cinnabar slips from Suzhou, a heavy red. The paper is strange; it cannot abide the dark. By day it lies flat and smooth, but set it beneath the altar beside that pinch of grave-earth and within half a night the corners turn damp, bleeding a dark red stain like blood, like tears, that no weight will flatten. She knows then the dead have accepted the slip. The damper the paper, the deeper the bond; if by morning the slip is still dry, the match will not take, and she burns it—yet always a half-scrap survives the fire, as though the other side will not let go.

On the night of the wedding she sets out a small sedan, its curtain cut from the bolt of red silk she herself was married in, red gone dark with age. The sedan need not be carried out the gate; it waits in the main hall, facing the altar. She does not ride in it—she only stands at the door, listening for the suona in the wind. When the horn sounds three times, she knows the other side has received the bride. Once it sounded a fourth time, and she looked up to see, through a gap in the sedan curtain, a single embroidered shoe, its toe turned outward, as if someone were about to step down, or about to step up; she could not tell which.

Her skill was good, and for miles around she was the only one who dared do this work. The first few years, two or three matches a year. Then the seasons turned hard—more who died young, more who died by violence—and those who came wore the threshold thin. By the tenth year she had done seventeen in a single year. The more cords she tied, the less soundly she slept. Not from fear, but from cold. Not the cold of weather, but the cold of more people in the house, an extra pair of eyes, an extra breath of air—yet when you turned to look, the hall stood empty, and on the altar the two empty cups stood side by side, a trace of wine at the rim, and nothing within.

Hers was a lone house at the town's end, with two old locust trees in the yard. In years past the locust bloom had filled the court with white; now she always felt someone standing beneath the trees. By day it was bearable, but once the sun dropped behind the hills and the shadows drew together, she dared not look into the yard. Without her knowing when, things began to gather at the gate: a pair of embroidered shoes, set beyond the threshold; a wooden comb with black hair caught between the teeth; a square of cloth, folded neat, as if someone had set it down in passing. She did not know whose they were, yet every time she joined a match, the next dawn brought one more at the door.

What frightened her most was the altar. The two empty cups, left and right, were never empty for long—always filled with wine while she slept, always drained before she woke. She tried keeping watch by lamplight through the night until the rooster crowed, and the cups stayed clean, nothing happened. But the moment she closed her eyes, the wine-smell rose, sweet and bitter, like someone breathing words against her ear in a dialect she could not understand.

She told the ghosts apart by the nose. The living carry the smell of hearth-smoke; the dead do not. The dead carry the scent of earth and a stale whiff of altar-ash, faint, only to be caught up close. In the years she matched the dead, the tip of her nose was always cold, as if hung with a thin frost. Once she stepped into the Lu house in the west village and met that smell at once, thick enough to choke; she knew the house was not clean, that more than one lonely ghost lingered there. Sure enough, that match took three attempts before it held, and three slips went under the altar, two of them burned.

In the autumn of the fifth year, Old Qin from the east end of town came to ask. His only son had drowned in the river, and when they pulled the body up his hand still clutched half a length of red cord. Old Qin wept himself faint, crying, my son never even had a name to his name, let your father find you a bride in the dark. She asked the birth hour, fetched grave-earth from the hillside mortuary chapel, and matched him with the early-dead Second Girl of the Lu family. The night the red slip went under the altar, the suona in the wind sounded strangely near, so near she thought the player stood just beyond her courtyard wall. At dawn a pair of men's cloth shoes had appeared at the door, the soles wet, caked with river mud.

In the winter of the seventh year, a family surnamed Mo beyond the hills lost a daughter-in-law to a hard labor; the child in her womb was lost too. Old Madam Mo came cradling an empty swaddling cloth, begging her to find an early-dead girl-child to pair with her unborn grandson, saying the little one must not cross over alone. She followed the rule. The slip laid down, the two empty cups on the altar filled themselves. That night the snow was heavy, and she heard someone in the yard patting the snow softly, again and again, like hushing a child. She pressed to the window-crack and looked: nothing in the snow, only two rows of tiny footprints leading from the gate to beneath the altar, so small they might have been a newborn's.

The cords she tied, one match after another, pressed down under the altar and pressed down on her own heart. She had counted: twenty years, a hundred and some odd matches. With each, one more thing at the door, one more thread of cold in the hall, one more note of suona in her dreams. She began to be afraid, yet dared not stop. Stop, and the unmatched souls would have nowhere to go, and souls with nowhere to go are the most vexed of all. She had seen what became of those who laid the work down: within half a year the yard grew moss, and every night a woman sat on the roof-beam combing her hair until dawn. She did not want that.

In the eleventh year, the young master of the town dye-works died of consumption, never having known his bride; he left a living widow. His mother trusted no living wife and insisted on taking a dead bride for her dead son, saying she would not have a living woman keeping a widow's vigil at home. She matched him with a girl from the next county who had hanged herself. That night the suona sounded wrongly, five times over, and through the sedan-curtain gap not one shoe but two appeared, set side by side just inside the threshold, one toe in, one toe out, as if two people were debating who should enter first. The next day a layer of red floated in the dye-vats, and every bolt came out the color of a wedding robe—a red the dyer swore he could never mix.

In the thirteenth year a sickness came upon her: nights of sweating, days of chill, her shadow fainter than before. The physician said her spirit was worn by worry and gave her a calming draught, which did no good at all. She knew it was not her spirit but the too many people lodging in her house. She tried gathering the things at the door into a chest and locking it, but by the next dawn the lid stood open and the objects lay in their neat row beyond the threshold, as if someone had minded her interference. The embroidered shoes were still those shoes, the surface faded, yet the toe turned inward a little more truly each day, as if someone were facing the door, meaning to come in.

That twelfth month, the butcher's daughter, sixteen, had burned sick in a fever and drowned in the family water-jar. The butcher begged a match; she went, the birth slip spread open, the grave-earth cupped in her hand, but her fingers shook so she could not hold the red paper down. Suddenly she thought of a person, thought of those shoes, thought that she had never tied a cord for that one. She gathered the slip, returned the butcher's gift, and said this match she could not do. The butcher cursed her for breaking the trade's rule; she let him curse. Only that night she dared not sleep, but sat listening to the wind the whole night through, and indeed no suona came in the wind, so quiet it left her hollow inside.

She thought of her sister the next afternoon. The sun lay lazy and slanted into the hall, onto the two empty cups on the altar. The cups were empty, yet plainly she saw a face reflected in the cup's mouth—not her own. It was her elder sister's face. The sister was five years her elder, handsome, with their mother's brows and eyes. The sister had been traded away in a bride-exchange. That year the family owed a debt to the Qin family in the hills, and their father promised the sister to the bed-ridden second son of the Qins, taking back a Qin girl for her own brother's wife. The sister would not have it; she wept, she raged, and the rope for her hanging was cut by their mother. The night before she was carried off, the sister called her to the stove-room and pressed a single embroidered shoe into her hand, saying, little sister, keep this shoe; sister is leaving, you watch this house for me. The next day the bridal sedan carried the sister away; the curtain fell, and she never saw her living sister again.

The sister died in the Qin house the first winter after. The stories disagreed—some said sickness, some said the well. On her deathbed their mother took her hand and said only one thing: your sister wants to come back. She was young then and thought her mother was wandering. Only now, standing among this house full of lonely ghosts, did she understand those words. The sister wanted to come back, but could not, because no one had tied that cord for her. The living bride-exchange had driven her to death; the dead marriage after death, no one had made for her. In a life of a hundred and some odd matches, this one match she had never dared to touch.

Not that she dared not—that she dared not admit it. She feared that to tie it would confirm that the sister was truly dead, truly not coming back, truly waiting for her. She would rather the sister stayed lonely than thrust her by her own hand into that union—even though the other end of that union was the very person she ought long ago to have sought for her sister. She dared not even think how many years the sister had stood alone in the dark.

From the fifteenth year, her courtyard gate sounded at night. Not a knocking, but the whisper of a sedan-curtain brushing the door-panel, a soft rustle, as if someone were steadying a sedan and lingering at the door. She pressed to the door-crack and looked: moonlight fell on the embroidered shoes beyond the threshold, and this time the toes pointed straight inward. Her whole body went cold, yet still she would not tie a cord for the sister. She told herself, wait until this busy spell passes. But the spell never passed; those who came pressed one batch on another, and the red slips in her hand piled layer upon layer.

One night she heard talking in the yard. Not one voice but many, all mixed, indistinct, yet each plainly asking for something. She took up a lamp and went out; under the light the yard was empty, yet the shadow of the old locust was heavier than by day, heavy as if someone stood there. She lowered her eyes and saw a layer of things on the ground: embroidered shoes, a wooden comb, a square of cloth, and many small objects she could not name, set in a neat ring around the altar. The two empty cups on the altar had filled themselves again, the wine surface calm, reflecting her own bloodless face.

At last she was afraid. Not of the ghosts, but that she could no longer tell which pair of shoes was the sister's. Each pair looked like hers, and none did. She began to count the things at the door, and lost count, for each dawn brought more. She thought, at this rate her house would not hold them. Yet she could not lay down her hand, for once she did, the unmatched souls would rage. She had seen how that looked: the shade-matchmaker in the next village who quit halfway, after whom his hens stopped laying, the water drawn from his well turned earthy, and every night a woman hummed on his roof-beam, humming the tune of a wedding-funeral.

She thought of fleeing. Lock the chest, shut the door, go live some days in a strange town. But she walked to the town's mouth and her feet took root; behind her the wind carried the suona, faint, again and again, calling her back. She went back. The night she returned, another pair of shoes had appeared at the door, set farthest in, the surface brand new, red and shining as if just made. She knew the stitching—it was the sister's hand. The sister had loved to embroider shoes in life, always setting two grains of rice-pearl at the toe. On this pair, the pearls were still there.

She lifted the shoes with a shaking hand; the soles were perfectly clean, no mud, no earth, as if someone wiped them every day. She pressed the shoes to her heart and heard her own heart hammer, and heard another heartbeat, very light, very slow, as if coming from far away, or as if rising from inside her own chest. She understood suddenly: the sister had been waiting, waiting for her cord, waiting for her word. All her life she had tied so many cords for others, yet the dearest one she had clutched in her own hand, clutched until it sweated, and never dared pass it on.

That night she tossed and turned and only dozed near dawn. There was no dream in the dream, only wind, and in the wind the suona near then far, far then near, like a wedding procession walking around her courtyard, never able to enter. She woke to a high sun; on the altar the empty cups stood side by side, not a drop of wine in them, yet the rims were wet, as if someone had just sipped. She reached to touch, and her fingertips went painfully cold; the cold shot all the way into her heart, and she shuddered, slow to recover.

In the end she still did not tie the cord for the sister. Not that she would not, but that she dared not. She feared that to tie it, the sister would truly come, truly enter, truly stand with her to bow at the wedding. She did not know what to make of her sister then—a younger sister? a kinswoman? or the one among her hundred and some odd matches that most ought to be made, yet could least be made? She feared that when the time came she would not even be able to say the word sister.

In the autumn of the nineteenth year her sickness grew heavy and she could not leave the bed. Fewer came to ask, but the things at the door did not lessen; they had spread out along the flagstone path beyond the gate. She lay and heard, in the night, a sedan settling, its curtain brushing the door-panel, a soft rustle. She knew who had come, yet had no strength to open. She thought, let it wait at the door, wait a night, wait a lifetime, so long as it does not enter, she could still pretend the sister was in the hills, in the Qin house, in that place she kept in her heart—not dead, not gone, not returned.

But the sister would not wait at the door.

That night the wind was high and rattled the locust leaves. In her fevered doze she heard the door-ring strike three times, neither light nor heavy, just as the sister had knocked at the stove-room door the night before she was carried off. She propped herself up and sat, and through the window saw the courtyard washed in a bleak white moon, falling on the two empty cups on the altar, filled again with wine she knew not when, the surface flat, reflecting two figures—one sitting, herself; one standing at her side, head bowed, the face unseen, only the corner of a wedding-robe hanging down, red gone black.

She heard a voice. Not the wind, not the suona, but the sister's voice, still in that stove-room tone, soft, a little hoarse, calling her: little sister.

She said, sister.

The sister said, you tied cords for so many people—why never one for me?

She opened her mouth and could not utter a word. She wanted to say it was not that she would not, but that she dared not; wanted to say sister, come back, come back and I will tie it for you; wanted to say I have kept that shoe, not a day lost. But the words caught in her throat and became only a choke, and she saw the sister raise her head, the face still the same, with their mother's brows and eyes, only the color faded, faded as if to dissolve in the moonlight.

The sister said no more, only set that embroidered shoe upon the altar, beside the empty cup, the toe turned inward, straight and true, facing her. Then the figure faded slowly, faded until only the corner of the wedding-robe remained, faded until there was nothing, only the two empty cups standing side by side, the wine in them still, flat and still, as if no one had ever touched them.

In the wind the suona sounded once, very far, very faint, as if played for someone to hear, or played to send someone off. Then it drew away, away until it could not be heard, leaving only the locust leaves still rattling, like someone in the yard patting the snow, again and again, hushing a child who would never wake.

She sat until dawn, not daring to touch the shoe, not daring to look at the flagstone path beyond the door. She knew that from this day the embroidered shoes at the door would stay, stay until she herself became one of the empty cups on the altar, stay until someone tied a cord for her and sent her out too. But that cord she would entrust to no one but the sister. She thought, when the time came and the sister came to fetch her, that would be well; sisters, at last, could say a word to each other.

Only this word, she did not yet dare to say.

Midnight Record, in note: The shade-matchmaker ties cords for other families' lonely ghosts, yet what she owes is her own living warmth. The longer the cord, the thicker the souls that gather; and in the end, the first to come knocking is always the one you least should forget, and most dare not recognize. The red slip can press down a birth-hour, but not a conscience; the empty cup can be filled to the brim, but never to the brim of a debt. Walk the night road and do not look back—look back, and you will see, beyond the threshold, that pair of shoes that has always pointed inward.