New Territories

Callie landed just after eleven o’clock in the morning. Immigration was easy—the guy glanced at her picture and grinned. Her bag came out third. She had nothing to declare.

            Sam was waiting in Arrivals, beyond the railing that brought Callie up short as she came out. He was taller and paler than he’d looked on her brother’s socials, and he was wearing beat-up sneakers and old Adidas sweatpants. Callie hesitated—was this really the guy from Leander’s graduation photos?—especially as he didn’t seem to recognise her either. Then he waved and she waved back. Yes, thought Callie. This was Sam.

            Hey, he said as they shook hands. Welcome to Hong Kong.

            The sky above the highway was clear, cloudless. Callie rolled down the taxi window and took a gulp of hot air. New Territories is the best part of this city, said Sam, beside her. He was British, but he’d grown up in Hong Kong and had moved back after college in the States — Leander had briefed her after he put them in touch. Sam had godparents and real estate all over the world, but he acted like he didn’t. He was from that kind of family.

            The driver veered right, through an archway, rattling into a sort of village with buildings painted edible colours: lemon yellow, sherbet pink. Sam said something in Cantonese, too fast for Callie to follow, and the taxi stopped in front of a peach-coloured building. A dog jumped up behind its metal gate. That’s Flick, said Sam. I hope you’re not allergic to dogs.

            I’m not, said Callie.

            Sam lifted her suitcase out of the trunk and insisted on paying for the taxi. No worries, he said. His tone was brotherly, except that Leander never spoke to her that way. He certainly never carried her suitcase. He and Sam had been college roommates, played basketball together, rushed for the same fraternity, learned to roll the perfect joint. Callie had heard all the stories.

            Inside, Sam’s apartment was as she’d expected. No surface was bare: the tables and chairs were covered in playing cards, coffee cans, beer cans, iced tea cans, ashtrays, newspapers, pizza boxes and weed. The sofa folds out, Sam explained, and asked her what her plans were for her first day.

            Callie felt herself blush. My thing at the language school isn’t until tomorrow morning, she said. She’d wanted to come to Hong Kong forever, and improving her Cantonese was part of the dream: not just to travel through Asia like every other college grad with family money, but to join a theatre company, put on Shakespeare and shine.

            Callie had first read about Hong Kong’s Shakespeare renaissance back in high school. Researching her AP English project, she’d stumbled on an article about it as a form of protest against mainland China. She’d written her drama school admissions essays on Tang Shu-wing’s 2009 Titus 2.0, and on the 2010 Cantonese adaptation of Hamletmachine. She’d even started learning the language. Her parents had been surprised, but pleased.

            Well, I’ve got to meet someone in an hour, said Sam, but I’ll be back by five. Why don’t you wait for me here and nap and then we can go up to the reservoir?

            Sounds good, said Callie. She guessed that Sam must be an eldest child, like Leander. She’d never plan a whole afternoon for a stranger and expect them to go along with it.

            She watched him get out his rolling papers. Leander had quit smoking after he got his job in DC, but things were clearly chiller in New Territories. Outside, the dog barked. It’s the heat, Sam explained. He got up to open the door—Hey there, Flick girl!—and she scampered over to Callie and then back to Sam. You might as well use my bed, he said. For your nap.

            Thanks, said Callie. She followed him into his room. It was a sea of dirty laundry, the mess of clothes and lost lighters extending from wall to wall. Sam threw himself onto his bed and she crawled after him, towards the pillows. He sparked the joint, inhaled, and passed it to her. The room took on a glow and her eyes began to close.

Callie awoke to Biggie Smalls. A phone was ringing in her ear—not her phone, Sam’s phone, which he’d left on the other pillow. I smoke skunk with my peeps all day, spread love, it’s the Brooklyn way. Of course that’s his ringtone, thought Callie, and picked up.

            Sleep well? Sam’s voice was surprisingly deep. He didn’t seem so brotherly anymore.

            Fine, thanks. Callie felt something crackle between them.

            Put on your swim stuff, said Sam. I’ll be home in ten.

            Callie sat up and peeled the sheets off her bare legs. Even indoors, the air felt wet, and stiller than the air back home in Rhode Island. The sounds were new, too: the leaves and birds and insects. She sat there for a while, head tilted, listening.

            She’d just graduated from the Theatre degree course at Providence Academy, and suddenly she had the sensation of being onstage, lit from above, in costume, in character. She felt an invisible audience’s eyes on her, suspended, expectant, hoping to be transported out of themselves—even though she was the one who’d flown to the other side of the world, suspended, expectant, hoping to become who she really was, to finally be cast in leading roles.

            She’d changed into her bikini by the time Sam got back from wherever he’d been. Ready? he asked, clipping on his dog’s leash. They left the apartment unlocked, and he led the way through a parking lot to a convenience store. A fridge glowed in its far corner. Sam reached into it and picked out two cans of iced tea without asking Callie what she wanted.

            The cashier was a woman with greasy hair and skin. She’s about my age, Callie thought, college age, and she felt a surge of perfunctory pity, of this-is-how-I-should-be-feeling, as she realised that she probably wasn’t at college, and wouldn’t go to college, because she lived in a village in the jungle in the hills above Kowloon—and then Callie felt ashamed, and that feeling was more real than her previous feeling, though still not quite from within, and she told herself that just because the trees around them were palm trees and the air smelled like flowers didn’t mean that people didn’t pay their ways through college with jobs at convenience stores.

            Sam gave the woman three coins. Callie looked up at him, and back at the woman, and decided that she didn’t feel anything for her at all.

            The tea was cold and sweet. Sam led the way out of the village, which soon evened itself out to fields. Shrines sprung up on both sides of the path. Callie peered into one and saw a table in the gloom. She dropped her empty can of iced tea into her tote bag to throw away later. It was her favourite tote, a Shakespeare’s Globe one from her graduation trip to London. She dreamt of playing Viola, Rosalind, all those women who dressed as men who’d originally been played by men dressed as women. Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness! she said to herself. Lines had always come to her easily and stayed cradled in her mind, rising to meet all kinds of occasions.

            What did you say? said Sam.

            Nothing.

            He was well ahead of Callie now. She kept her eyes on the back of his head, where freckles fell down the neck of his T-shirt. He led the way up a flight of stairs cut into the hillside and let his dog off her lead. Beyond the village and the fields and the bay beneath them, skyscrapers hovered. That’s Shenzhen, said Sam, and Callie imagined people walking through it, buying iced tea at convenience stores, going swimming in forest pools.

            They followed the path around the rim of the hill. Sam’s dog nosed at his ankles and then away and then back again. Flick’s a good name for a dog, thought Callie. The sound of a waterfall pushed through the trees, and they stepped onto a bridge—and there it was! Water plunged between rocks to their left. To their right, a reservoir gleamed. Sam shucked off his sandals and pulled off his shirt. His chest beneath it reminded Callie of an art show she’d seen in Providence once: photos of skinny white boys running naked in fields, taken at sunrise and sunset. The sun was setting now.

            She shook off her sundress and let it crumple on the ground. In her bikini, she felt naked, but also like she was wearing a costume. What country, friends, is this, she thought—and who am I? There was power in her body, in her flat chest and strong legs, in her bitten nails and in the soles of her feet. She wrinkled her toes against the path, imagining them marks in the concrete, like those framed footprints people make of their babies, or like the shoe prints on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

            When she looked up, Sam had climbed over the railing. He bent his knees and sprung, splashed and surfaced. Your turn, he called. He counted her down, but Callie mistimed her dive and hit the water face first. I’m alright, she said, coughing, as she broke for air.

            Sam laughed, but not unkindly. Let’s swim, he said.

            Callie matched the rhythm of her breaststroke to his. Butterflies skimmed the water, and the sound of Flick’s barking faded away behind them. Then something moved in the corner of Callie’s eye, and she turned back towards the bridge. There was a man there now, adjusting his jogging shorts, sweating profusely.

            Callie wanted to duck underwater and wait for him to run on, but he’d already seen them.

            Is it nice? he sang out in accented English. Then, without waiting for an answer, he swung himself down a ladder Callie hadn’t noticed from the bridge.

            Sam turned to Callie and sighed. We should go say hi, he said. He made for the bridge, and Callie paddled behind him. By the time they reached the ladder, the jogger was hanging from it, one arm hooked around the bottom rung. Hello, he said.

            Hello, said Sam.

            You are English, said the jogger. He smiled, owning his space.

            Callie’s more English than I am, said Sam. Well, she’s American. I’ve lived here forever.

            The jogger flicked his eyes towards her, and then back to Sam. But your family is English.

            Yes, said Sam.

            And you—the jogger addressed Callie now—I think you are an in-between person.

            Callie froze. What do you mean?

            The jogger shrugged and grinned. Callie waited for him to explain, but he just hung from the ladder in silence, and the evening hung around them, loud with pipits and cicadas. Callie looked up. The sky was darkening. Night and day and here and there were blurring into each other.

            Sam nudged her with his elbow. Time to go, he said. Flick whined above them on the bridge. Excuse me, he said to the jogger as he hoisted himself past him, up the ladder.

            Callie followed and shimmied back into her sundress. Then she turned around again. What’s your name? she asked the jogger. Her shyness had faded with the day, and she wanted him to keep talking to her, to keep telling her who he thought she was.

            My Western name is Edgar.

            Time to go, said Sam. He took Callie’s hand and tugged her towards the bank.

            But—said Callie as Sam pulled her along, into the trees. Flick growled, up ahead of them. Sam had put her back on her leash. Slow down, Callie hissed, but Sam didn’t.

            That guy could have been dangerous, he said when they were back in the forest.

            Oh please, said Callie. It felt unfair for Sam to boss her around like this when he’d been the one to start talking to the jogger in the first place.

            Callie, you’ve got to listen when I tell you it’s time to leave. There’s a PRC army base over the other side of that hill. Normal people don’t jog here.

            Something rose in Callie’s throat, a sour feeling between embarrassment and anger. She swallowed it down. Well, I didn’t know, she said.

            I get it, said Sam, his tone softening. But I can keep you out of trouble if you’ll let me. And we’re not actually meant to swim in the reservoir.

            What?

            Don’t worry, said Sam. The soldier got in too.

            A long silence. This tension Callie could sense between herself and Sam: what was it?

            Then she heard something. Wait, she said. What’s that sound? Somewhere off the uphill side of the path, a creature was crying. Its wails were high, clear, almost human. Callie followed Sam towards them until they found a cleft in the earth, a ditch too deep to see down. Sam climbed in. The crying got louder and then stopped, and his face emerged, under-lit by his phone. His right arm followed, holding a small, furred thing. Callie bent down and took it. A puppy, she said.

            We should take him back to the village, said Sam. I think he’s sick, or hurt.

            I think he’s a she, said Callie, hurrying after him. Flick padded at her heels. The steps back down to the village felt different in the dark: shallow and hard to gauge. The puppy trembled in her arms. What are you going to do with her? she asked Sam.

            Well, I’m not adopting her, said Sam. I’ve already got a dog.

            Still, said Callie, maybe Flick would like the company?

            She would not, said Sam.

            You don’t know that. And you can even name the little dog after me if you want.

            Don’t be weird, Callie, said Sam, as though he’d known her for years.

            He’s right, Callie thought, I am weird. That’s why she’d always been cast as magical creatures in the Academy’s end-of-semester shows—as Caliban, as Puck. She wasn’t believable when she played humans, according to Professor McCarver. He’d told her that she even said O Romeo, Romeo! as if it were a spell. Callie knew that that was a criticism, but she couldn’t help thinking that it was a spell, an incantation that drew Romeo into the garden and up to Juliet’s balcony.

            Hello, dog-Callie, she said to the puppy.

            Soon she and Sam were back in the village. It seemed natural now that he was in charge. Callie felt a familiar passivity settle onto her skin like dew. She’d taken a leap of faith by coming to Hong Kong like this—applying to the language school, filling in all the forms—and had been forced into action for a while. It was a relief, at last, to relinquish control.

            In the village parking lot, an old man was sitting in front of the convenience store, his bald head bathed in yellow light. Sam unlatched the gate to his apartment. I’m going to clean the puppy, Callie said as they walked inside. She switched on the bathroom light and put dog-Callie down in the shower-bath. She just stood there, legs splayed, a growl rising in her throat like a purr. Then Callie stripped off her sundress, stepped into the tub in her bikini, found the knob for the hot water and twisted it, drenching them both.

            There was a comb on the rim of the tub. Callie drew it through dog-Callie’s dark fur. About halfway down her spine it lodged against a bone—her shoulder-blade, Callie assumed. She thumbed the puppy’s left side and found a matching bone there. Then she put the comb back on the rim of the tub and followed the ridges down both of her sides. They were too big to be shoulder-blades. She turned off the shower and called out: Sam? She cleared her throat. Sam, can you come here?

            He leaned around the bathroom door. Dog-Callie stiffened and bristled.

            She’s got these bones, Callie said, stepping out of the tub. She pointed at the puppy’s back.

            What do you mean, bones? Sam stepped towards dog-Callie.

            She barked once, short and sharp, and in a flash of fur and water she wasn’t small anymore—she’d unfurled the bones on her back into two wings, huge and feathered. They rose abruptly, out of proportion with her tiny body, rattling the shower curtain where they beat against it.

            With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls… The phrase flew free in Callie’s mind until she remembered that it belonged to Romeo. And here was this strange creature, shivering in front of her, stranger than Caliban, stranger than Puck, flapping her wings and growling in her brother’s college roommate’s bathtub.

            Sam bundled Callie out of the bathroom and slammed the door behind them. Her last impression of dog-Callie, or creature-Callie, or whatever she was, was of her eyes, black and frightened and asking for help. Then Sam dragged a chair over and wedged it beneath the door handle. He hauled the sofa over, too, and rammed it up against the chair.

            We have to get rid of her, Callie heard herself saying, knowing that she was betraying creature-Callie with those words. She was trembling, now, too. Her skin was still wet.

            No shit, said Sam. What do you think she is?

            Let’s wait until daylight, said Callie. And then we can go put her back where we found her.

            Good idea, said Sam. He grabbed Flick by the collar and pulled her towards the bathroom door. Guard this, he told her, and she whimpered. Her fur was standing on end. Then Sam turned back to Callie. You can share my bed tonight if you want.

            Callie nodded, and they retreated to Sam’s room, wading through his dirty laundry. She made her way to the window and lowered the blinds. Sam walked towards her and kept going, pressing his lips to hers and then pressing her up against the wall. She didn’t mind. She kissed him back. Someone was singing outside as they hosed down the building. The wall felt cool against her bare skin. Sam pushed the fabric of her bikini aside. She tensed and moaned and pretended to come, letting her thoughts wander through the day’s events. She thought of Edgar and wondered if he were really a Chinese soldier. She thought of Callie and wondered if she were really a dog. She listened for noises from the bathroom, but everything was quiet. Fuck, said Sam. Yes.

            When he was done, Callie curled into the dip she’d left in his bed that afternoon. He turned off the light and wrapped his arms around her, and they fell asleep.

            Callie didn’t usually remember her dreams, but that night she did. She was back in Providence, onstage in one of the Academy’s end-of-semester shows. She’d finally been cast as Viola, and she was binding her breasts on the beach in Act One, so that she could pass as a man. As she pressed the bandages to her skin, she realised that she was binding something else, too: she had wings, huge and feathered, which were being pinned flat against her naked back. She turned and turned in the bandages as the Captain unspooled them, binding her breasts, binding her wings, until he came to the end of the last length of fabric and tucked the end into itself.

Callie woke, sweating, on the edge of the bed. Her wings were gone, and Sam had already left for the office. She felt trickling relief. She’d been due to stay with him for a week, go to museums and monasteries while he was at work, eat dim sum and snake soup, prepare for her Cantonese classes, look for somewhere more permanent to live—but she already knew that she wouldn’t return to New Territories after her orientation meeting at the language school. She’d skip the meeting altogether: she’d go to the airport instead. Something inside her had changed, and she saw now that she didn’t belong in Hong Kong any more than she did in Rhode Island.

            I’m an in-between person, she thought, and a sense of certainty settled in her chest, beautiful and sad. Carrying it with her, Callie let herself back into the living room. She’d book the first flight to Ho Chi Minh City. Why not? She had her parents’ credit card. She’d keep moving, moving, until one day she’d be ready—she’d be fully herself, at last—and then she’d get back onstage and someone would see her and talent-scout her and make her a star.

            Flick was stretched out on the sofa, twitching in her sleep. Callie’s suitcase was still in the corner, with the previous day’s clothes slung across it. She eyed the door to the bathroom, braced herself, and then shoved the chair and sofa out of the way and twisted the handle.

            Everything was as they’d left it the night before: Sam’s toothbrush and contacts and razors scattered everywhere, the floor strewn with towels. There was no sound from the shower-bath except for the dripping of the faucet. Callie the dog, or not-dog, was nowhere to be seen. She wasn’t in the sink or the washing machine. She wasn’t under any of the piles of Sam’s stuff. She wasn’t in the cupboards, and there was no way she could have left through the door. But the window was open, filling the room with not-yet-sticky air. Callie leaned out. The ground beneath it was smooth and unprinted. Above her, trees stretched their branches up to the sky.

            Callie blew out a long breath. The other Callie was gone.

            She walked back into the living room, unzipped her suitcase and took out her makeup and shampoo, and some jeans and a creased shirt. Then she bundled her clothes from the day before into the suitcase and zipped it back up. She wouldn’t leave anything behind. Not a trace.

            Flick stirred, rolled over, and went back to sleep. Callie locked herself in the bathroom and turned on the shower.

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Nina Ellis’s short stories have appeared in Granta, American Chordata, Carve Magazine, The London Magazine, Ambit, 3:AM, the Mays anthology and elsewhere. Her essays have appeared in The Paris Review, Granta, The Oxford Review of Books and elsewhere. She won an Editors’ Choice Award in the 2021 Raymond Carver Short Story Contest and was awarded the 2023 Chip Bishop Fellowship by the Biographers International Organization. Born in Dallas, Texas, and now living in Cairo, Egypt, she recently completed her doctorate at the University of Cambridge with a thesis on the short story writer Lucia Berlin. She currently adapting this into a trade biography, Looking for Lucia, which will be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 2026.