Thirteen Orphans

by Jane Lindskold

  What did I expect? Brenda thought ruefully. A bunch of clichés I would have been furious to have applied to me.

  Brenda knew she was thinking about furniture to distract herself from the meeting she had been both dreading and anticipating for a week. She shook hands with Nissa, agreeing with the bright-eyed, fair-haired woman that they were already on their way to being friends through e-mail. She knelt and shook Lani’s shyly proffered hand, and admired the little girl’s toy cat. Through it all, she was aware of the young man who stood at the back of the room, a toy dog the match of Lani’s cat dangling from his hand.

  Foster was definitely the young man from the parking garage. The eyes were the same, the black hair, although swept back in a modern ponytail, framed a face with high cheekbones and absolutely perfect lines. He watched the introductions shyly, but with a trace of innocent eagerness.

  He’s been looking forward to more company, Brenda realized with a start. It must have been lonely for him, with Auntie Pearl barely veiling her hostility, and Riprap and Nissa taking care not to annoy their hostess.

  “This is …” Pearl Bright began, her tones, previously so warm and conversational, now touched with ice.

  “Foster!” Lani interrupted gleefully. “Say ‘hello,’ Foster.”

  “Hello,” he said, and his voice was familiar, too, even to the slight note of indecision. Brenda remembered that same voice saying how she shouldn’t be able to see him, and the panic that had underlain the notes. For a moment, she felt sorry for him.

  “Hello,” she said, and Des echoed her greeting.

  They all stood staring at each other rather stupidly, a thousand questions that couldn’t be asked echoing in the air.

  Then Auntie Pearl said briskly, “Let me show you your rooms. This place is bigger than it looks. I had the plumbing redone just a year ago, so everyone should be quite comfortable.”

  The house was indeed bigger than it looked from the outside, but somewhat narrow. Brenda was given a room that shared a bath with the room in which Nissa and Lani were staying. Pearl’s own suite was across the hall on the same floor, but the three men were staying on the next floor up, where there were more rooms and a sitting area, all fully furnished.

  Brenda dropped her bags in her room and trailed after as the group moved upstairs, wanting to see more of the house.

  “Wow, Auntie Pearl. You have a lot of bedrooms for one person.”

  Pearl laughed. “I actually do take on interns from time to time, and when I do I usually offer room and board as part of the package. I don’t have any this summer because I was planning on traveling. I’ve contacted a few theatrical agents I know, because we’re trying to line up a few auditions for Lani.”

  She glanced at Brenda and Des, who nodded to indicate they’d heard Nissa’s cover story.

  “However, other than that, I’m relatively free. I’d told most of the committees I serve on not to expect me to attend meetings in person for the next few months.”

  “But Auntie Pearl,” Brenda said, “won’t we be crowding you?”

  “I grew up surrounded by people,” Pearl replied, “my family, mobs of child actors, my parents’ friends. Although I like my privacy, there are times when I flourish in a crowd.”

  Foster had been given a room that had its own adjoining bathroom. Des and Riprap would share a bathroom.

  “I thought it made sense,” Auntie Pearl said softly, “to put Foster in a room where, in a pinch, we could keep him without undue difficulty. I have a woman who drops in to clean three days a week, but I’m going to tell her to leave the guest rooms alone for now. It shouldn’t be a problem, since she normally confines herself to the downstairs and my suite. My friends do not drop by unannounced.”

  Des set his bags down. “What about your driver? Does he live on the premises?”

  “Hastings rents an apartment of his own,” Pearl said, “but also has use of a sort of studio apartment in the garage. During the day, he’s usually there, because he likes to memorize his lines aloud, and his recitation drives his roommate up the wall. In any case, Hastings doesn’t have a key to the house. If we keep the back door locked …”

  Everyone nodded, but Brenda wondered if she was the only one who felt uncomfortable. It just wasn’t right to be keeping someone prisoner, even if he had been a sort of assassin—a memory assassin. Was that like a character assassin?

  Brenda realized she was drifting off into nonsense. The last week had been tense. She almost wished she was having a normal summer: working at her dad’s friend’s business, swimming with her friends at one of the area pools, talking about how to change the universe, and all the mistakes they would have never made if they were in charge.

  Change the universe, Brenda thought with a shiver. That’s what’s happening. My universe is changing, and I’m changing with it—and being asked to take a part in the transformation.

  Auntie Pearl was saying, “I’ve already put towels up here, but Brenda’s are in the dryer. I wasn’t quite ready for a house party. Brenda, will you come and get those?”

  “Yes, Auntie Pearl.”

  She followed the older woman down to a tidy laundry room tucked off the kitchen. It smelled of warm fabric softener.

  “These machines used to be in the basement,” Auntie Pearl said, “but when I had the plumbing redone, I had them moved up here. Stairs are fine for now, but the ones to the basement are particularly steep. Also, I don’t know about how stairs and I will get along ten years from now, and I hate being dependent.”

  Brenda thought that Auntie Pearl had nothing to worry about. The older woman moved briskly, without the least trace of stiffness in her gait.

  They went upstairs together, Brenda with her arms full of still-warm towels, Auntie Pearl with a basket of clean laundry.

  “Can I help you fold those, Auntie Pearl?” Brenda asked.

  “My unmentionables?” Auntie Pearl laughed. “I think not. Oh, something I have been meaning to ask. Would you mind just calling me ‘Pearl’? I have never minded the other name—it’s what Gaheris has always called me, and it seemed natural that his children would do the same—but if you’re going to be posing as my summer intern, just my name would be easier. During the drive here, I almost succeeded in convincing Riprap to stop calling me Ms. Bright. That young man has excellent manners, but they’re a bit much for California.”

  “I’ll do my best … Pearl,” Brenda said, then laughed self-consciously. “What’s next?”

  “Next we all rest until after dinner. Then I think Foster is going to be asked to go to his room for a while, and we will have a council. Lani should be asleep by then. Nissa usually puts her to bed no later than seven.”

  “Won’t Foster be bored?”

  “Possibly, but then again, he may want some time alone after being Lani’s toy for most of the day. Not surprisingly, he reads Chinese, and I’ve given him a large selection of books.”

  Brenda wondered about that “not surprisingly.” There had been something in the inflection that indicated Pearl had drawn some conclusions about Foster. She thought about asking what these might be, but decided to wait until after dinner. Right now a break and a chance to call some of her girlfriends sounded better than anything.

  She thought of Foster, about getting to know him better, about doing something to solve the question of who he was, why he had come after them as he did, and amended her thought.

  Than almost anything. It would be better than almost anything.

  Pearl pushed her chair back from the dining-room table. Des and Riprap had collaborated in the kitchen, and the resulting dinner had been very good. Brenda had known how to make a chocolate mousse that measured quite favorably against those Pearl had eaten in some very expensive restaurants. It had been a fit end to a fine meal.

  When Nissa had taken Lani up to bed, Foster had obediently gone to his own room. He and Pearl were developing an odd relationship, this despite Pearl’s desire to have no relationship at all with him
. Certainly, the fact that she had been the only one other than himself who spoke Chinese had something to do with it. However, she thought Foster might be developing some version of that syndrome she’d heard hostages went through—the one where they started identifying with their captors.

  Now that Des had arrived, there would be someone else who could talk to the boy in his own language, a man at that. Pearl hoped this would give her some relief from interacting with Foster. She knew she was being unfair, but Foster reminded her so much of her father that she kept expecting to see Foster’s slightly vague expression of fear and wonderment change into her father’s scowl of disappointment, an expression that no achievement on Pearl’s part—neither as an actress, nor as a sorceress—had ever erased from her father’s face.

  The five of them settled around the dining-room table, cleared now but for a pot of tea, a thermos carafe of coffee, and a cut-crystal pitcher of iced water.

  “So,” Pearl said. “Where shall we begin?”

  Riprap was quick to respond, quicker than Pearl had expected, having grown accustomed to the Dog’s place as faithful follower. Dogs were scouts, too, she reminded herself, their sharp senses compensating for their more impaired human associates. And Riprap was not the Dogs she had known. He was a coach, a former soldier, and a former baseball player—in short, a pack leader, not a follower.

  “I want to know what’s behind all of this,” he said. “From the start there has been a larger history lurking in the background. Both you and Des have implied that the Thirteen Orphans came from China, perhaps from some outlying semi-independent kingdom, but that doesn’t feel right.”

  Pearl glanced around the table. Des cocked an eyebrow at her. He’d already told her that he didn’t think they could hold back the information for much longer. Nissa looked inquisitive, Brenda almost defiant. Des was right. They couldn’t wait much longer, no matter how unlikely the explanation was that they had to give.

  “Where to start?” Pearl said. She saw Riprap frown. “Put your hackles down, young man. I am going to explain. However, this is not an easy thing to explain, especially when the question of where to begin is factored in.”

  “How about geographic location?” Riprap said simply. “Longitude and latitude. Borders. Whatever.”

  Des answered, “East of the sun and west of the moon. The center of the universe. The heart of a word.”

  Riprap pulled his head back slightly, his expression guarded, but maybe because Des had been functioning as a teacher—a coach—he reacted as if he had been handed a puzzle, not insulted.

  “I don’t get what you’re saying, man.”

  “Where our ancestors, the Thirteen Orphans, came from is not a place we can show you on any map,” Des said.

  Brenda said softly, “That’s what Pearl told me, when she and Dad were trying to tell me about why the mah-jong tiles can be used for magic: ‘A land not found on any map.’ I thought they meant that it hadn’t been located by modern explorers, or that it wasn’t recognized by modern governments. I mean, China’s always not recognizing places. They don’t recognize Taiwan and Tibet, or do they now?”

  Nissa broke in. Her expression had grown very still and very quiet, just as it did when Lani was being particularly trying. It was the expression of someone trying to keep control, no matter how challenged.

  “That’s not the point, Brenda. I mean, Taiwan and Tibet aren’t the point. I know that phrase ‘east of the sun, west of the moon.’ It’s from fairy tales. It means a place that doesn’t exist—or at least not in the way we think of places existing. It’s the type of place a hero finds when on a quest for three eggs the same size that can still fit inside each other. It’s where a girl weaves a cloak from moonbeams and fog to protect her lover from a manticore.”

  Nissa had spoken quickly, all on an exhalation. Now she paused, looking back and forth between Pearl and Des.

  “So what you’re trying to tell us is that our ancestors came out of a fairy tale. Is that it?”

  “I wish is was that nice,” Pearl said.

  “Fairy tales,” Nissa said, “aren’t nice. Not the old ones. They’re ugly, full of rape and abuse. In the old Sleeping Beauty, she isn’t awakened by a kiss. She wakes up because she’s having a baby. The prince had sex with her while she was asleep and then left. The wolf doesn’t just swallow Little Red Riding Hood’s grandma whole and then play head games with the girl. He does something much nastier. Even the cleaned-up stories aren’t very nice.”

  Brenda and Riprap were staring at Nissa in disbelief. Apparently, this was all news to them, but Pearl knew the old stories, as did Des. It was true. Sometimes the only thing that made a fairy tale bearable was knowing it would come out all right in the end. And sometimes what the old storytellers defined as “all right” still wasn’t very much of a victory by modern standards.

  Riprap said, “Not on any map, but not a fairy tale, either. What are we talking about, an alternate dimension or something? Some alternate version of reality as we know it? Those come up all the time on television, especially when the budget is too tight for really great sets. Why not in reality?”

  Pearl waggled an admonishing finger at him. “Now you’re just being flip. No. Our ancestors were not exiled from an alternate dimension, not in the sense you mean—not one of those stories where Fidel Castro decided to play baseball not politics or where Alexander Hamilton survived being shot by Aaron Burr … Is Burr the right name? I always get that one confused. The land from which our ancestors were exiled, does, however, have a close tie to our world, most specifically to China, because certain events in China gave birth to this other land.”

  “The Lands Born from Smoke and Sacrifice,” Brenda said softly.

  “That’s what it is called,” Pearl agreed. “Pour me some tea, and I will tell you from what that smoke rose, and who was sacrificed.”

  13

  Brenda poured pale green tea into Auntie Pearl’s cup, her heart pounding unnaturally fast, as if some part of her, dormant until now, dormant even while Des taught her and Riprap how to make magical spells, was coming to life.

  This is what Dad wanted me to learn when he took me to meet Albert Yu. In a moment I’ll know what both of them have forgotten. That’s too weird. It’s like somehow now I’m more Dad than he is.

  Pearl sipped her tea, and then spoke in a soft yet compelling voice. “Now, I’m sure all of you know that China has the longest continuous civilization of any now on Earth. Most estimates settle on five thousand years—three thousand if one only counts written history. During that time, China was not always united under one ruler, but there were peoples within what we shall consider China’s borders who shared a great deal in common, including language, religion, philosophy, as well as artistic and cultural values.

  “Thus, although China was not a unified nation in the political sense, it was, in many ways, already a nation before the Ch’in Dynasty came into power and made it unified in fact. The time that concerns us is the beginning of the Ch’in Dynasty, specifically the year 213 BC.”

  “Ah, relatively recent history,” Riprap muttered.

  Pearl raised her elegant eyebrows, but otherwise did not respond.

  “Now, the period directly before this was known as the time of the Warring States. As the name implies, this was a time of great disorder, with various nations competing for primacy. In the end, Ch’in won.

  “Times like that of the Warring States are not pleasant for anyone, soldier or civilian, noble or commoner. Therefore, it is not too surprising that when, about eight years after the Ch’in emperor had taken power and his rule began to suffer unrest, one of his advisors made a radical suggestion.

  “The advisor was named Li Szu. What he suggested was no less than cultural genocide. The letter he wrote his emperor—of which the text (although not the actual document) still exists today—pointed out that the emperor’s problems would be solved if all history, philosophy, theology, and the like were destroyed.

&
nbsp; “In a twisted way, Li Szu’s reasoning was very sound. The Ch’in government had established an entirely new world order. For the first time ever, all the Middle Kingdom was united under one ruler—and under one set of rules. Scholars alone, with their annoying habit of consulting the past for precedents, were the ones who complained. For example, the Ch’in government would pass a law or edict, and the scholars would immediately start harping on all the reasons the law or edict was unwise or unjust.

  “When speaking in court the scholars were prudent and polite, but away from court, they had an annoying habit of engaging in public debate. They couldn’t even agree with each other as to what the correct course of action would be, except that the emperor’s course was wrong.

  “According to Li Szu, the only thing scholars were good for was creating unrest. Get rid of the scholarly works, and you get rid of what the scholars used to prove how much better some past ruler or law was.

  “A few things could be preserved. The history of Ch’in could be preserved, because Ch’in’s ways were now to be the ways of all the Middle Kingdom. Technical manuals and handbooks of medicine, divination, agriculture, and arboriculture could be kept, because those were simple and useful, but all the rest should go.

  “If the scholars protested, well, that would be unwise and they would be warned. If they persisted in their unwise acts, then they would be executed. Those officials who aided or abetted renegade scholars would be enslaved and sent to work on the Great Wall. When the scholars and the contesting works were eliminated, one way of thought would dominate. Then peace and unity would be preserved and all China would live in contentment.”

  Nissa leaned forward, her elbows on the table, reminding Brenda of a larger version of Lani.

  “And I’m sure the emperor agreed that this policy should be promoted, didn’t he? He would have thought that was a great idea.”

  “The emperor agreed,” Pearl replied. “Li Szu’s edict was duly published, and the scholars were given thirty days to burn their books.”