He was undoubtedly an ancestor on our great-grandmother’s side of the family, for the story takes place in a huge estate, and it was her family that owned such a home in the countryside outside the city of Hengyang, in Hunan province. It was a residence of numerous courtyards, gardens and houses, with enough rooms to accommodate the families of all the sons of the family, as well as their household servants and the servant’s families. The residence had been the family seat for hundreds of years, and the older houses surrounding the grander of the gardens had beautiful names like “Scholars Retreat of Knowledge”, “Pavilion of Nine Pines”, “Where Small Streams Flow”, and “House of Eight Maples”.

At the center of one courtyard stood a garden filled with marvelously shaped tall rocks that had been dug out of Lake Taihu, a garden that had been designed more than a hundred years ago. The stones stood grouped around a pond where red and gold carp swam slowly between water lilies. This was the grandfather’s favorite garden, and he kept a set of rooms for himself there, his study and library.

Despite the complaints of the boy’s mother and grandmother, the grandfather would keep the boy with him until all hours, for the boy and his grandfather were favorite companions. There, the old man would relieve his long hours of insomnia by teaching the boy to write out beautiful verses of Tang poetry. Late into the night one could hear them singing the famous poems together, the boy’s high piping tones in energetic counterpoint to the old man’s raspy voice.

It was on one of these nights that the grandfather bade the boy to run to the kitchens to find something to eat, a dish of salted peanuts or perhaps some leftover radish cake. This was an errand the boy was used to carrying out for his grandfather. There was no need for him to bring a lamp since there were large lanterns lit in front of every house.

In any case, the path to the kitchen was clearly visible, for a full moon bathed the entire residence in its pale light. In fact, it was only because he stopped for a moment to admire the moon that the boy saw the ghost.

There on the tiled roof of the house across the courtyard, a lady dressed in white, the Chinese color of mourning, danced slowly along the ridgeline of the roof. Her long sleeves flowed in slow motion about her as she moved gracefully to unheard music, her arms moving in complicated patterns, her tiny slippers barely touching the curved grey tiles. Her costume and hairstyle resembled those of women from old paintings in his grandfather’s study. Apparently unaware of his presence, she floated through the motions of her dance. When she reached the end of the peaked roof, the beautiful woman vanished.

Too young to be frightened, more curious than concerned, the boy returned to his grandfather with a dish of salted peanuts and told him about the lady.

“On Fourth Uncle’s house was it?” the old man queried. “Was she dressed in white? Ah. Well, there is no way to avoid it then.”

His grandfather became very quiet and shortly thereafter put the boy to bed.

Early next morning, there was great commotion and wailing at Fourth Uncle’s house, because a concubine’s newborn child, a boy not yet two months old, had died unexpectedly during the night.