Mother Tiger Spirit half-opened an eye and looked at me. “What?” I repeated my statement.

She licked a lazy paw and rubbed at her ears. “Why?”

“South Mountain Spirit has suggested it.”

“The director of the Trent Museum, in New York City, America, has already refused this request. How could Leonard Wu persuade him any better if they were standing face to face?”

“South Mountain Spirit says”—I forced myself to continue—“I am to go with him.”

As with any feline, Mother Tiger Spirit’s countenance does not reveal her emotions. However, there was no mistaking her derision as she sat up and roared, “You? The quaking monk, to travel to the ends of the earth? With a man? What good will you be?”

“I may quake, but over the years I have managed to protect this cave from demons—”

“With the help of a good many of us, may I remind you! And from demons, not men! I saw you attempting to whisper to Leonard Wu. A very amusing sight. If you go to New York City, America, with him, he will not even know you are there.”

Leonard Wu stopped his hand in mid-dab. He looked left, then right, then shrugged and continued removing millimeter by millimeter the dry remains of some long-ago desert plant that had been sent by a demon to take root on the painting. I had prevented it, but what a struggle that had been.

“Nevertheless,” I said, “Leonard Wu must go to America, and I must go with him. You and the other spirits must guard the cave assiduously while I am gone. And,” I added, “you must persuade him to go.”

“Because you dare not,” she mocked.

“Yes,” I admitted. “Mother Tiger Spirit, I am, if anything, even less convinced than yourself of the efficacy of this journey. Certainly I am not eager to undertake it. But the head will not be returning if we do nothing. Surely, the possibility of having your former guardian back must be an attractive one.”

“Indubitably,” she answered dryly.

“Then,” I said, echoing my old friend, “what have we to lose?”

After fixing a long, unblinking stare on me, Mother Tiger Spirit, as cats will do, gave herself a thorough bath while taking time to think. I waited. After she was finished, she did not speak to me, but with a swish of her tail padded over to stand beside Leonard Wu.

“You must go to America,” she told him. “To the Trent Museum, in New York City.”

Leonard Wu put down his brush and, with a cloth, wiped his brow.

“You must speak to the director personally,” Mother Tiger Spirit continued. “He does not understand the importance of the return of the head”—especially, I thought, to me—“but once you have explained it, he will.”

Leonard Wu had picked up his brush, but now he paused in his work, again looking left and right.

“The statue,” Mother Tiger Spirit said, “must be complete. You will tell the people at the Trent Museum, and they will understand, and you will return with the head and reinstall it on the statue. Think how grand it will look! Complete and majestic, towering in this cave as it did for six hundred years, before it was taken away! Before we were left with this fool of a monk for a guardian,” she added.

Leonard Wu arose, putting down his brush and cloth. He walked around the headless statue in the center of the cave, to stand and look up at it from the front.

Mother Tiger Spirit bounded with him. “Majestic!” she roared. “Towering! Able once again to guard the myriad cave spirits from demons and fiends!” At that Leonard Wu frowned, looking, as South Mountain Spirit so often does, uncomprehending. “Towering.” Mother Tiger Spirit hastened once again to tell him, now whispering in his ear. “Complete. Majestic beyond measure!”

Leonard Wu stood for a few moments longer, staring up at the headless Buddha statue. Then he spun around and left the cave, blinking in the sharp sunlight. I followed close beside him as he searched the camp for his chief assistant. “Qian!” he shouted, spotting the man. “I’m going to New York. This is ridiculous. I’m going to talk the Trent into giving us back that head.”

I hastened to South Mountain to tell my friend of Leonard Wu’s plans. He was delighted. “Now,” he said to me, “you must go with him, and by that I mean you must accompany him on every step.”

“Why?” I asked. “Even if I am to go, why can I not instantaneously appear at our destination, as I do when I come to visit you?”

“You must stay at his side as he travels among men.” He was adamant, as mountain spirits often are. “It is my thought that perhaps you will become less alarmed in men’s presence if you spend more time among them, so that when you arrive at your destination you will find yourself capable of speaking to Leonard Wu, and able therefore to assist him in his mission.”

As always, I did what my friend instructed. Alas, what he hoped for did not occur. The journey, I will admit, was interesting. We traveled by vehicle, as I have said, and also by two airplanes. Having never, either as man or as spirit, been among any clouds beyond those on South Mountain, I was awed. I did not think South Mountain Spirit would look askance at my briefly leaving the side of Leonard Wu to converse with a Cloud Spirit or two. I greatly enjoyed these talks and learned many things, though the conversations were fleeting, as Cloud Spirits are constantly on the move. But hovering in the airplane’s aisle as Leonard Wu ate, drank, read, and slept, I remained uncomfortable with the crush of people around, and the rest of our journey had not helped me in this regard.

Nevertheless, we were here. Now, with Leonard Wu navigating among numberless humans, and I among an equally countless host of wraiths, we arrived at the Trent Museum.

The building’s exterior consisted of grand white stone blocks interrupted by large windows. Its interior was dark wood and white plaster, similar in some ways to the temple in the town where I was born, though undeniably more grand. I gazed about, fascinated at the odd-shaped furniture, elaborate carpets, and unfamiliar paintings. Leonard Wu did not spare them a glance. He spoke to a young man at a desk and was immediately escorted up the stairs to a bright antechamber. I hurried to catch up. In the antechamber a young woman took over, knocking at a door and admitting Leonard Wu, with me beside him, into a large, dim, carpeted room.

The room contained many things: furniture, books, paintings. My ghostly eyes ignored them all, fixing, the moment we entered, on that which sat serenely on a plinth against the far wall: the Buddha head. I raced toward it, Leonard Wu following almost as quickly. “Old friend!” I exclaimed. Leonard Wu gazed at the head, leaning in to examine it, stepping back to admire it. I said, “I am delighted to find you looking so well!”

Calmly, the Buddha head replied, “I have been well treated, Ghost of Tuo Mo.”

“You remember me?” I asked excitedly. “I am honored!”

“Of course I do. We sat together for endless hours in prayer and meditation. Tell me, Ghost of Tuo Mo, how goes it with the cave spirits? I have been concerned for them since I was removed.”

“They are well.” I proceeded to tell him all that had occurred since he had come to America. He interrupted once— “You?”—and laughed merrily, sounding not unlike South Mountain Spirit.

“Yes,” I concluded. “I. I have done my best, and the cave has remained a small island of peace in the chaos of the world. But the task has been tiring and I am longing to move on to my next life. This gentleman is Leonard Wu. He is responsible for the restoration of the caves. We have come to take you back.”

“Have you? That would be quite satisfying.”

Now my attention was drawn from the head to the opening of the door. The large round eyes and unruly brown hair of the pale man who entered looked familiar to me and for a moment I thought I knew him. Then I realized that was because he so resembled Explorer Trent, whom I had seen at my monastery caves one hundred and three years ago.