The Snake was furious at her father’s cavalier attitude toward Foster—and quite possibly toward herself as a member of the Twelve. “But, Father, our Tiger. Surely we owe him …”
The Dragon cut her protests off without apology. “The Tiger failed. He let a woman many times his age turn his own magic against him. He is not a Tiger we need to preserve. There were other candidates for the post, and if the auguries had been different …”
He stopped, perhaps recalling that what he was saying should not be heard by those who, despite the very civilized manner in which they had been negotiating, were his enemies.
Pearl decided to save face for him. The Japanese were not the only ones who valued that insubstantial quality.
“I will send out tea to you,” she said, “while I brush copies of our agreement. Will you bide?”
“As long as my daughter is safe, I will treat our agreement as if already sworn to.”
Pearl let the door remain open, but left the chain in place. She looked at the Snake.
“If you want to be out of here quickly, then do not distract me. I will let you have a chair, and you can converse with your father through the opening. Violate my hospitality and find out whether a Snake is strong enough to resist the wrath of a Tiger in her den.”
The Snake looked distinctly unhappy, but when Brenda brought a straight-backed chair from the front parlor, she slid into it with sulky grace. Perhaps she hoped that she could convince her father that it was not too late to make an amendment to the treaty.
Brenda glanced over at Pearl. “Want me to make tea? Des has been teaching me how to make it right, and I know where the good oolong is. That seems rather appropriate.”
Pearl nodded. Oolong was black dragon tea, and indeed, very appropriate.
“Thank you,” she said. “That would be extremely helpful. While the water boils, take a moment to treat those acid burns. There’s a first-aid kit in the kitchen.”
Brenda nodded, winced as she touched a sore spot with a fingertip.
“I think I left some clean shirts in the laundry room. I’ll change, too.”
“Good.”
Pearl went to her office, leaving the door open so she could see into the foyer. Pulling out inkstone, brushes, and appropriate paper, she quickly translated the treaty from English to Chinese, but for good measure included the English text beneath, just in case there should be any questions as to her choice of terms in Chinese.
As she was working, Pearl smelled a whiff of fragrant tea and looked up to see that Brenda had left Pearl her own small pot of oolong, along with a few almond wafers. Pearl smiled slightly, but her hand did not slow until she had finished the character she was writing. Blotting ink at this point would be a waste of good paper and time, especially since she wanted the two copies to be as close to identical as possible.
Pearl noticed with approval that Brenda had not asked why Pearl was going to all this trouble when she had both a computer that could produce texts in Chinese fonts, and a copier. By now, Des had drummed into his three students that for the Chinese the written word held its own magic, especially when lovingly created by hand.
Thus Pearl brushed elaborate patterns in ink, while Brenda played the contradictory roles of hostess and guard. When Pearl was done, she made photocopies of the treaty, and handed one of these, rather than an original, over the chain. The Dragon reviewed it.
“I see no reason for changes. This is as we discussed. Will you sign?”
Pearl nodded and handed ink and brush through the door.
“I have made two identical originals. I suggest that the Snake sign both first, since she is sitting here, then I will sign one copy while you sign the other. Then we will trade.”
“I agree,” the Dragon said, and there was that in his voice that dared his daughter to disagree.
The Snake didn’t, and was graceful with brush and ink in signing both copies. The other signatures were exchanged without prevarication or evasion, and as she brushed the final “Ming” on the page, Pearl felt a little click in her mind that meant she was bound by the agreement, and a fainter echo that told her when the Dragon was bound as well.
“Hold these, Brenda,” she said, “and I will release the Snake to her father.”
Pearl had thought about referring to the young woman by her personal name, but decided this would be gratuitously rude. Although she could not imagine such a situation, there might be a time when she would need the Snake’s goodwill.
Brenda spoke as she moved to obey. “Pearl, what about Dad? What about the others? Will Dad come back to the present? Will the others wake up?”
Pearl looked at the Snake who was rising to her feet, smoothing out her elegantly embroidered gown, clearly seeking to regain some portion of her dignity.
“Can you answer Brenda’s question?” she said. “The spells were yours.”
Pearl managed to inflect this last to imply that she thought the spells had been cast by the Snake, but perhaps she had relied on someone else to create them. The Snake responded much as Pearl had expected.
“I created them,” she said. “They will lose their hold shortly before dawn, and all will be as before. Gaheris Morris will be disoriented. He will have no memory of how he arrived here. I planned to return him to his hotel before my spell broke.”
Brenda looked confused, and Pearl thought she knew why. The Snake’s words implied that Gaheris was staying in the area. If he was, why hadn’t he told his daughter?
“Where is Gaheris’s hotel?” Pearl asked. “Perhaps we can return him and so avoid confusion.”
The Snake told them, the routine designations and directions sounding very strange coming from someone as exotic as she.
“Thank you,” Pearl said politely. “And, good night.”
The last was a dismissal, and the Dragon took it as such. Gripping his daughter firmly above her elbow, he half marched, half escorted her down the stairs and off into the night. Pearl wondered if they had a car, but didn’t leave the door open to listen. She had other things to do.
As Pearl turned from locking the door, Brenda was waiting, every line in her body showing her readiness to take orders, a certain tightness around her lips showing that she was bursting with questions, but knew this wasn’t the time to ask them.
“Your father is safer than we are,” Pearl said without pausing for preamble or praise. “The treaty we just made protects him as it does not protect us. I will go up and look to him. Go into my office and check the Rolodex for the number of Star Reliables. They’re a chauffeuring service I use when my car is unavailable. Tell them I have someone I wish driven to his hotel and escorted to his room. Imply that he is a bit inebriated, and they will understand that they are not to ask questions.”
“And Dad,” Brenda said, “are you sure he’s really going to be all right?”
“The Snake would not have dared lie, not after signing that treaty.”
Pearl spoke with more certainty than she felt. Technically, the Snake had not been bound by the treaty when she first ensorcelled Gaheris, but Pearl had a feeling in her gut that the Snake would not have lied to her. Or rather, that she would not have dared evade, not with her father already unhappy with her.
We always make the mistake of thinking of “the enemy” as some sort of monolith, but over and over again we see how many different goals and opinions may govern their actions.
While Brenda made the call, Pearl went upstairs and checked on Gaheris. He had moved to a seat by the stairway to the third floor. His body language was very similar to someone who was so drunk that he could no longer think clearly. He met Pearl’s gaze with his own dull eyes, but said nothing, not even when she checked through his pockets and wallet, finally locating the key to his hotel room. The folder that held the key also had the room number lightly penciled on it, so that was fine.
Pearl guided Gaheris downstairs, finding him willing but disoriented. The driver from Star Reliables was well-paid to do his job and noti
ce nothing. Pearl knew Gaheris would be in his room well before dawn.
“Now,” Pearl said to Brenda when the limo had pulled away, “if you and I were sensible, we would get some sleep. The others will wake at the usual hour and we will have a great deal to tell them. Do you think you could manage to drop off?”
Brenda shook her head. “But if you want to try, I could go do e-mail or read or something.”
“I don’t think I could sleep either,” Pearl admitted. “Let’s make more tea—or coffee if you’d prefer—and go into my office. We might as well note down everything that happened while it’s fresh. Who knows what little detail might be important later?”
Brenda nodded. “Okay.” She started down the hall to the kitchen, then stopped in midstride. “Pearl, you don’t think I’m an idiot for suddenly feeling really scared, do you? I mean, we won, but it’s going to be a long time before I can forget what it was like to wake up from a nightmare and find it real just on the other side of the wall.”
Pearl stared at her. “What do you mean? What nightmare?”
Brenda blinked, then dragged the tips of her fingers across her face in exhausted anguish. “That’s right. You don’t know.”
She told Pearl about her nightmare as they made both coffee and tea, then retired into Pearl’s office. Pearl stroked Bonaventure and listened, a dozen speculations rising into her mind, but she kept quiet until Brenda had finished.
“You asked me if I thought you were an idiot for feeling scared,” Pearl smiled. “Not in the least, my dear. In fact, I think being scared may be a very sensible reaction indeed.”
Brenda thought she’d be tired by the time the others woke up, but her nerves were still singing with the experiences of the night before. This wasn’t like the struggle against the Three-Legged Toad. After that she’d been physically and magically exhausted—as well as overwhelmed by having her worldview revamped to include monsters.
This time none of those things applied. The magic she had used had been stored in advance, and she’d pulled more than one all-nighter in school. Sitting up as dark grew into day, talking and drinking seemingly infinite cups of coffee, wasn’t at all unfamiliar.
Riprap was the first member of the household downstairs, although the sounds of Nissa and Lani moving around had started earlier. Pearl did not stop the Dog when he headed outside for his usual morning run.
“Riprap should be safe,” she said. “And better he fall into his usual routine since I don’t want to start telling the others about last night until after Wong has arrived and we can ask him to babysit Lani.”
“You’re not going to ask Foster to watch her?” Brenda asked hesitantly.
“I think not,” Pearl replied. “He may still be a target, and I would not put Lani in danger.”
Brenda remembered the Snake’s arrogant claims on “her beloved,” and gritted her teeth together. When Foster came down, she found it hard to look at him, to meet his friendly smile, to answer his cheerful “Good morning, Brenda,” spoken proudly in not too heavily accented English. She kept seeing him holding the Snake’s sinuous body, perhaps running his hands over the curves that dress had shown off so effectively. She wondered if he had kissed the Snake, if he had done more.
Fortunately for Brenda’s peace of mind, Nissa and Lani came down soon after, the two-and-a-half-year-old holding the bobble-headed penguins, one in each hand. Brenda forced herself to think about something even more unpleasant than Foster entwined with the Snake.
What had her father been doing in San Jose? California was on his beat, sure, but he usually restricted his visits to a few a year. Had their enemies used some magical influence to draw him back? What other influences might they be able to exert? Pearl had extracted an oath that their enemies would not harm those she defined as “friends and allies,” but did “harm” extend to manipulation?
Was that why Dad hadn’t called to tell her he was in town?
Her cell phone rang almost as soon as Brenda shaped that thought.
“Hi, Breni. Guess who’s back in San Jose?”
“Hi, Dad.” Brenda tried to sound enthusiastic, but she couldn’t. “Back so soon?”
“You don’t sound thrilled.” He chuckled. “Yeah. I’ve got a deal ready to go for some of those bobble-headed mandarin dolls that Des didn’t like. Turns out one shop with branches both here and in San Francisco …”
Brenda listened as Dad babbled about suppliers and sales. It sounded good, plausible, even. Still, she wondered if it had all been planted in his mind to make his coming to San Jose work for him. Was it a rationalization like those she’d heard both Dad and Albert Yu make to cover gaps in their memories?
“Want to come out for breakfast?”
Brenda started. “Oh, Dad. I can’t. Pearl has something she needs me to do early.”
“Will you be free by lunch?”
Brenda relayed the question to Pearl, who nodded.
“Auntie Pearl says I should be. Want me to meet you?”
“I’ll swing by and get you. I want to show you some wonderful gardens a client took me to last time. I’ll be by at or around noon.”
Brenda rang off, wondering if she could learn anything from Dad while they were out—wondering if they’d be safe. She’d get Riprap to loan her a couple of his protective bracelets. They wouldn’t be quite as good as the ones tailored to her personal elements, but they’d be better than the dusty scraps of polymer clay she’d swept up from her bedroom floor that morning.
Such thoughts kept Brenda well distracted as she took her turn with getting breakfast on the table, turning bacon, frying or scrambling eggs to order. Des came to help, although he probably would have preferred something like rice congee. Riprap reappeared, smelling freshly showered, and in time to do damage to something like half a pound of bacon and four or five eggs.
Then breakfast was over and cleared away. Lani was sent out to join Wong the gardener. Foster politely went to watch educational television up on the third floor, and Pearl convened a meeting around the long table between the kitchen and family room.
Pearl asked Brenda to begin, and so Brenda told about her dream that wasn’t quite a dream, and what she encountered in the hallway. She carried the tale to where Pearl entered, then Pearl took over, providing a good many vivid details, but doing an admirable job of avoiding inserting anything in the way of interpretation. She finished by passing around copies of the treaty she had made with the Dragon and the Snake. When everyone had been given time to review them, she opened the floor to questions or comments.
The others had listened in nearly complete silence, Nissa and Riprap both taking notes in the spiral binders they used for their lessons with Des. Des sat with his hands folded in front of him, his eyelids drooping, but Brenda didn’t doubt that he heard and comprehended far more than did the other two.
“Des and I seem to keep missing all the fun,” Riprap complained. “First, we’re out at a ball game when the Three-Legged Toad is summoned, then we sleep through an actual attempt to invade.”
Brenda wasn’t completely certain that he was joking. “It wasn’t much fun at all,” she said, turning her gaze on Riprap.
“I’ve been in enough rumbles,” Riprap said, his tone reassuring, “to know that they’re no fun.”
“As have I,” Des added. “Try being a man who wears a dress.” He kicked out against the hem of his long Chinese robe. “Or a Western historical re-creationist who reminds people that those golden days of old weren’t all six-guns and some sort of chivalric code of honor. I’ve been in fights, and while I don’t look for them, I wish I’d had Pearl’s forethought and set up wards to alert me if magic other than our own was used.”
“What could you have done that I did not?” Pearl said, not as a challenge, but in comfort. “The threat the Dragon used to neutralize my hold on the Snake was such that I would have ordered an army to retreat rather than have others harmed.”
“Ever since we realized our enemies were from t
he Lands,” Nissa said, “I’ve wondered at, well, how gentle they were being. They weren’t the other times they came after members of the Twelve, or did I misunderstand?”
“You did not,” Pearl said. “They physically attacked, took hostages, even, in a few ugly circumstances, resorted to murder. This stealing of memories is so unsettling that I had not thought to term it gentle, but you’re right. By contrast, it is gentle.”
“Gentle, but effective,” Des said, “if their goal is to neutralize us as a unit.”
Silence fell and Brenda knew they were all considering how little they still knew about their opponents’ goals.
“I don’t think,” Brenda said, trying to keep her tone level and reasonable, “that whatever the Snake was doing was meant to advance, well, the memory stealing. She came for Foster. Once she had Foster, maybe she planned to start gathering the last four memories, but she wanted Foster first.”
“I agree,” Pearl said. “The Dragon had clearly decided that their Tiger—Foster—was a failure, and they did not need to retrieve him.”
There was a note in her voice that told Brenda that, for the first time, perhaps, Pearl actually pitied Foster.
Nissa glanced down at her notes. “Pearl said that while the Snake wasn’t exactly forthcoming about why they had come here, she did admit that it was ‘to get something. ’ Then Pearl asked, what, and the Snake said, ‘Something that was taken from our land that should not have been.’ Then Pearl asked her to clarify, and what the Snake said wasn’t a lot of help, but is still interesting: ‘Something you have and know you have, although unknowing that you should not have it.’”
Pearl’s gesture acknowledged the accuracy of Nissa’s transcription, then she sighed. “The Dragon’s arrival was untimely. A few more questions, and I would have learned more.”
“Perhaps we know enough,” Des said. His eyes were shining, and Brenda remembered that this was a man who did crossword puzzles with an ink brush. “Something we know we have, although unknowing that we should not have it. Okay. The mah-jong sets and various tools like Treaty were made after our arrival here. What else did our ancestors take with them?”
Thirteen Orphans Page 33