"Maureen McHugh - Ancestor Money" - читать интересную книгу автора (McHugh Maureen F)

altogether beautiful object.
She opened it with reluctance.

Inside it read:



Honorable Ancestress of Amelia Shaugnessy: an offering of death money and goods has been made to
you at Tin Hau Temple in Yau Ma Tei, in Hong Kong. If you would like to claim it, please contact us
either by letter or phone. HK8-555-4444.

There were more Chinese letters, probably saying the same thing.

"What is it?" Speed asked.

She showed it to him.

"Ah," he said.

"You know about this?" she asked.

"No," he said, "except that the Chinese do that ancestor worship. Are you going to call?"

She went back inside and he followed her. His boots clumped on the floor. She was barefoot and so
made no noise. "You want some coffee?" she asked.

"No," he said. "Are you going to write back?"

"I'm going to call," she said. Alexander Graham Bell had thought that the phone would eventually allow
communication with the spirits of the dead, and so the link between the dead and phones had been
established. Rachel had a cell phone she had never used. She dialed it now, standing in the middle of her
clean kitchen, the hem of her skirt damp from the yard and clinging cool around her calves.

The phone rang four times, and then a voice said, "Wei."

"Hello?" she said.

"Wei," said the voice again. "Wei?"

"Hello, do you speak English?" she said.

There was the empty sound of ether in the airwaves. Rachel frowned at Speed.

Then a voice said, "Hello? Yes?"

Rachel thought it was the same voice, accented but clear. It did not sound human, but had a reedy,
hollow quality.

"This is Rachel Ball. I got an envelope that said I should call this number about, um," she checked the
letter, "death money." Rachel had not been able to read very well in life, but it was one of those things