Free Preloved by Shirley Marr

still friendly enough to ring me and tell me Florence Kwong’s mum is gossiping about you – and therefore about my parenting skills – behind my back.”
    Huh, like mother like daughter, I guess.
    “Mum,” I said, stopping her before she dashed down the stairs. “Do you often wish, like … you had a different daughter? More like, y’know – Florence Kwong.”
    Logan rematerialised out of the wall and swanned over to look at us.
    “No,” said Mum, looking genuinely surprised. “I honestly think you’re a really great daughter. Plus there’s genetics. And I was the one who raised you. So I’ve only got myself to blame and I’m not in the habit of that.”
    Mum smiled at me. The corners of her eyes creased behind her glasses, revealing that she wasn’t young any more, even though she still looked so slim and well dressed and full of energy. I wanted to throw my arms around her then, if only we were into that sort of thing.
    “Oh c’mon! Just be normal and hug, why don’t you. You don’t need a hideous-looking-eternally-unsatisfied-ghost to tell you that,” said Logan, loudly.
    I ignored him.
    “Let’s go,” said Mum, heading down the stairs. “Master Wu is semiretired, but if I explain it’s a crisis, he will help.”

    “Spewin’,” said Logan as he stood in Master Wu’s hall entrance.
    Yup. It was all very Chinese. Huge, menacing ancestral-worshipping altar facing the front door, huge pile of thongs in the corner, strategically placed Taoist symbol on the wall.
    Master Wu, dressed in his elaborate yellow cloak with his black Taoist hat on his head, walked around me with a serious expression on his face. I winced and hoped he believed me. I also hoped he didn’t pick up on all my lies ’cos I was scared it would all cancel itself out.
    He seemed to come to a pleased conclusion after a while, and talked in hushed tones with Mum.
    “I’m so sorry,” I whispered to Logan. “I want you to go where you need to. It’s all for the best.”
    “I don’t want to go towards the light or wherever you think my home is,” replied Logan. “I want to go home. As in my house. My parents. My bedroom. The one that I used to wake up in every morning until I woke up to this.”
    “I don’t claim to know what happened to you.” I tried to sound calm and logical, but I just felt like another lame school counsellor. “But you have to move on. You have to go and find God, or get reincarnated, or become part of the astral energy and move onto a higher pane of consciousness. Whatever belief structure rocks your boat.”
    “Amy, I want you to help me – but not like this.”
    Master Wu motioned for us to follow him down the hall. He was a man of few words. A typical traditional Chinese man, in other words. Like my father.
    “Try not to stare at all the other people who’ve come to consult him,” whispered Mum as we shuffled down the hall. “They’re here to ask about sick relatives, or unhappy spirits on the other side, or how they can win Lotto.”
    We sat down on the plastic chairs next to nervous-looking people who were clutching fortune-telling sticks or reading old gossip magazines. The TV made lots of explosive noises as a generic cop show played. I felt slightly sick, like I was waiting for bad news at a doctor’s surgery.
    I watched Logan leaning up against the wall, looking unhappy. I guessed he had feelings too. Which was really strange, as he didn’t have a physical body. Or, presumably, a physical brain or heart.
    Mum started counting money from her purse and shoving notes into a red packet.
    “I want to pay for this private consultation, the paper house and the figurine thingy, plus a donation to Master Wu’s temple.” Mum showed me the contents of the red packet. “Do you think this is enough?”
    “Paper house and figurine thingy?”
    “Master Wu thinks the spirit attached to you–”
    Yes! Master Wu believed me.
    “–has somehow become trapped in this world, so he’s trying