by Alice Major
“We do have the stick, and your synthesizer though,” Joss said thoughtfully. “That’s two out of three.”
“We’ve got to try,” Ariel said desperately. “I’ve got to get you guys home right now. We’ve got to get Molly’s hand looked after before that burn becomes infected.”
Molly, reminded of the pain in her hand, winced. She pulled the synthesizer out wearily. Mark, seeing how tired she was, took it from her. But when he touched the playback key, nothing happened. The long black case stayed stubbornly silent.
“You must be doing it wrong,” said Molly. “Here, give it back to me.”
But when she touched the familiar keys, the box remained mute.
“Looks like one out of three,” said Mark grimly. “Maybe something happened to the batteries.”
His words sank slowly but ominously into Molly’s brain. “Batteries?” She pressed the button to make her wheelchair go forward. Nothing happened. Frantically, she pushed and pulled the steering lever. Still nothing. “Oh, no,” she said, almost in a sob.
They all took turns pressing and pushing, but the wheelchair stayed as stubbornly inactive as the synthesizer.
“What are we going to do?” she asked desperately.
“Like I said earlier, move away from this yuck,” Mark said. “C’mon, Alasdair, help me get this thing moving.”
It was difficult to roll the heavy chair over the tough grass stems. Molly clenched her teeth—the bouncing turned the dull pain in her arm back into sharp knives. Fortunately it didn’t last long. They rolled the chair a short distance away and stopped. Mark and Alasdair sank to the ground gratefully.
“It would be lighter if we took the battery out before we go any further,” said Alasdair practically. But Molly objected. “How will I get it recharged if we leave it behind?”
“I hate to break it to you, Molly, but where do you think we’re going to plug it in around here?” Mark waved his hand at the open, empty plain.
“I have to get it recharged.” Her voice was panicky. “Otherwise I’ll be totally stuck here.”
“And where is ‘here’?” Ariel asked despairingly.
A heavy silence fell over the group. The question was so utterly unanswerable, and they were all so utterly tired, that there didn’t seem to be anything to say.
Mark found himself staring at Ariel, almost as though he hadn’t seen her for a while. A few weeks ago, Ariel had gone and got her hair cut short in one of the avant-garde, spiky styles that some of the girls in their school wore. But she wasn’t an avant-garde, spiky kind of person. Her head seemed too small and delicate, and she didn’t seem to have the self-confidence to get away with the haircut. Instead, she looked lost, uncomfortable. She caught him looking at her and gave a small, quick smile.
He smiled back and absent-mindedly pulled at a stalk of grass. It didn’t come easily, but with a sharp tug he broke the stem at ground level. It wasn’t a kind of grass he’d ever seen before—at the end it thickened into what looked like a miniature head of corn with rows of seeds packed tightly together. The leaves were dry and rustling, but slightly oily to the touch. He sighed and, without thinking, put the end of the stalk in his mouth to chew at. Then spat it out.
“Yech,” he spluttered. “Tastes awful.”
Silence settled again. Ariel and Joss sat with their backs propped against either side of the wheelchair. Ariel put her head down on her knees. The two boys flopped on their backs and stared at the haze overhead. Molly was staring into the distance. Sitting in her wheelchair, she could see a little further than the others.
“Isn’t that smoke over there?” she asked abruptly.
Alasdair got to his feet and peered. A thin pencil stroke rose from the horizon, just beyond a slight rise in the ground. It looked almost too straight and unwavering to be smoke, and fanned out at the top to disappear into the silver sky.
“Should we go see what it is?” asked Joss.
Ariel lifted her head from her knees. “Hadn’t we better stay here? How will we know where to come to get back.”
“We can’t sit here waiting for the Wizard of Oz to tap us with a ruby slipper and send us back home,” her sister said practically. “You could wait here if you wanted.”
Ariel would have none of that. She wanted them all to stay together.
“We’ll just have to mark the spot somehow,” Mark said. “What with?”
They looked around aimlessly, trying to think of something big enough with which to mark the spot so they could find it again in the wide prairie.
“The wheelchair battery,” Mark said at last.
Molly protested.
“We couldn’t push that thing across this grassland,” said Joss. “We can come back and get it if we find somewhere to recharge it. With help.”
With difficulty, they figured out how to remove the bolts that held the battery in place, and eased it out of the frame. But even with it gone, the chair was hard to maneuver over the grass. Molly’s face got whiter and whiter as the boys pushed and tugged. Eventually, they stopped and Mark drew his arm across his sweating forehead.
“I think it might be easier on everyone if we carried you,” he suggested. Molly was in too much pain to argue. The boys rested for a while, then laced their hands together to form a seat that Molly could sit on. Embarrassed, she swung herself awkwardly into their arms with Joss’s help, and circled Mark’s shoulder with one fragile arm to steady herself. They set off in a slow procession over the rough ground. Molly’s thin body looked as though a wind might blow her away, but she was still fairly heavy to carry. Alasdair gripped at Mark’s hand desperately, afraid his grip would give way.
Joss went ahead at a faster rate, climbing the gentle slope. Molly saw her outlined against the sky, then saw her turn and come racing back.
“There’s a building or something down there,” she said.
Mark and Alasdair looked at each other. “We’ll have to put you down for minute, Molly.”
“Maybe we could carry her for a little ways,” Ariel proposed. Mark looked doubtful. “Well, try if you like.”
Joss and Ariel took their places at Molly’s side, and lurched along for a gallant distance. This time, the boys hurried ahead. When they reached the top of the slope, they saw that the ground fell away again in front of them at another gentle angle. At least it would be downhill a bit, Mark thought. Some distance away, a square shape rose out of the ground. If it was a building, it didn’t seem to have a roof. The column of smoke rose behind it.
They went back to help the girls up the last bit of the slope. Molly’s face had, if possible, become whiter than before. Ariel looked anxiously at her, then down at the deserted-looking walls ahead. “I hope there’s water down there, at least,” she murmured. Everyone else immediately realized how thirsty they were.
After a few moments’ rest, they reformed their slow procession. Now, even the boys could only carry Molly a short way before resting. The wall slowly grew higher as they got closer, and now they could see a square opening at the centre. But there was still no sign of life, unless you counted a narrow footpath that wandered off to the right of the centre archway.
A few meters away from the wall, they stopped and changed bearers for the last time. Mark and Alasdair linked hands again and moved slowly forward. But this time, no one went ahead. Without saying anything, they all walked together towards the smooth clay wall that towered overhead.
At last the group stumbled out of the grass onto a dusty square just in front of the opening. Through it, they could see green branches. Alasdair and Mark grimly held on for the last short piece of pathway, their fingernails digging into each other’s hands, and staggered through. Thankfully, they slid Molly down onto the soft grass at their feet so that her back would be supported by a square stone block standing on its own, just to the right of the entrance.
She
sat with her eyes closed for a few moments, feeling pain surge into her hand and drain away, leaving her light-headed. Finally, she opened her eyes to look.
The towering wall sheltered a large square space—another world from the dry, grassy plain. In one corner grew a grove of pine trees, as tall as the wall itself. Near their roots, a small stream welled up and trickled through the garden, collecting in a pool at the center where a large, flat rock jutted over the water.
To the left of the rock, the pool broadened into a small, marshy area where sword-shaped leaves and bulrushes grew up out of the water. No flowers were blooming at this time and the sword-shaped leaves were a dull gold-brown. But even so, the garden felt green, cushioned with soft mosses, protected. Molly felt peace flowering inside her as she brushed her hair out of her eyes to look around.
The others seemed almost as enchanted, staring around quietly for a few moments.
“Water,” said Ariel at last, thankfully. “Let’s get that hand cleaned off, Molly.”
“Is the water clean enough?” Mark asked.
“I don’t care,” said Molly decidedly. “I just want to put it into something cool.”
They helped her over to the flat rock. She stretched out and dangled her hand into the water. The relief was exquisite. “Wonderful,” she breathed, moving her fingers gently. The others clustered nearby, still held speechless by the peace and the fragrance of the pines.
Until they heard a cry from the gate.
Chapter Nine
It had been four pulses of the light node since the frightful unravelling of Yao-chi’s thread. Life had slipped back into its placid routine. P’eng still took extra care with the small details of the ritual, but she had moments when she wondered whether the tremour in the sky had happened at all. Her sister and the guardian did not even mention it. Chuan had fallen into a sullen despair and would hardly talk at all about anything. Li-Tsai seemed as though he had suddenly grown more frail than ever.
And the lady still hadn’t come back to the garden.
This wasn’t unusual in itself. Once or twice in every season, they would come to find the bowl of porridge untouched on the offering stone and feel a subtle absence in the air. The bowl would be refilled religiously and emptied again—until finally the bowl would be found empty and the low whirring sound that indicated the lady’s presence was heard again.
P’eng often stood for a few moments after laying down the bowl, gazing at the other-worldly flowers that came and went through the seasons, listening to the trickle of water. She would find strange comfort in the whirring sound or the slow movements of the small humped figure glimpsed through branches.
She had never dared go further than the prescribed spot. But once, during one of the Lady’s absences, Chuan had gone right into the garden. She told her sister what she had seen.
“The hut has two rooms.”
“You looked inside?”
“Of course. She wasn’t around. I didn’t go right in, just stood at the door. So I couldn’t see what was in the other room. But I did see hanks and hanks of thread, all twisted up and hung on the wall. I can’t imagine what she would need so much for.”
“Power? Enchantments?” P’eng suggested. Her twin snorted.
“Power! What kind of power does she have out here on the edge of nowhere? No one pays any attention. If she had power, she’d make them send people back out here, like there used to be. If she had power, she wouldn’t let me go poking around.”
That had been last winter. Not even Chuan had dared to go into the garden during this absence.
But now, while they ate the first meal, it had happened again. Out of nowhere, the air began to shudder and the high keening sound came again. P’eng wrapped her arms around her head and didn’t even dare look up to see when her sister shouted and pointed at the sky. The thread of light was unravelling again. This time Chuan saw it, and she was as awed and terrified as anyone.
But just when it seemed for a moment that the sky must rip itself apart, the shuddering and the high-pitched sound faded away into nothing. Chuan gasped in relief, but P’eng looked up miserably.
“What’s happening,” she asked. “What’s going on?”
Li-Tsai shook his head, looking just as unhappy. “I don’t know.” He spoke as though the words were being pulled out of his throat with a fish hook.
Now Chuan was on her feet. Fear had turned into anger. “We’ve got to do something,” she shouted. “We can’t just stay here like turnips waiting to be stuck in a pot.”
The guardian, as stubborn as he was frail, would not agree. “This is our place. This is our duty,” he snapped at her, but she had lost all sense of duty—had even lost all sense of the respect the young must show the old. She said terrible things to Li-Tsai, and he shouted back at her. P’eng huddled by the fire, crying “Stop it. Stop.”
Finally, Chuan flung herself away from them, running noisily away into the trees. Li-Tsai pulled himself to his feet and went into his hut. P’eng stayed weeping a long time. Until suddenly there didn’t seem to be much point in crying any more. She sat up and scrubbed sadly at her cheeks. Then suddenly remembered—the lady’s bowl. They hadn’t taken it to her yet.
It was Chuan’s turn to do so, but P’eng didn’t even consider reminding her. She washed her face and hands, rebraided her hair and filled the bowl. Trying to clear her mind and concentrate, she watched the steam rising from the porridge as she walked slowly along the path. Just as she turned the corner, a thought flashed into her mind. “Maybe the lady has come back. Maybe that’s why the sky trembled.”
Hope flared up, even though it didn’t make much sense. The lady’s coming and going had never led to this kind of thing before. But she couldn’t check it, and found it hard not to let her steps go faster. At the entrance, she heard an unaccustomed sound and looked up.
Strangers in the garden.
She heard her own voice cry out in alarm and anger. “What are you doing her? What are you doing?”
The strangers looked around at her, and then three of them rushed towards her. She gave another cry of fright and shrank back. But even in the middle of her panic, she remembered this time that she had the bowl in her hands and had the presence of mind of put it down safely out of the way. Then she stood her ground, determined to drive the strangers away.
They looked as weird and foreign as the tai-chieh monsters her father carved into ritual vessels for the temple. Their hair was painted in strange colours, and their clothes were stiff and wild. They surrounded her, babbling. She cried out, “What are you? What do you want? Go away.”
But they crowded closer, babbling more. She put her hands over her ears, remembering how the guardian had told her it is not good to hear the speech of monsters, and how if you hear it in nightmares, ill things will happen when you waken. This seemed more and more like a nightmare.
She shouted again, “Go away, monsters. Go away.”
To her surprise, they fell silent, then began speaking more softly to each other in their indecipherable tongue. The one who had remained back near the pool called out something to them. Then another spoke to her, slowly and carefully.
“Go away, monsters,” she repeated, pale but determined. “This is not your place.”
The one near the pool listened intently, then spoke to the others again. The creature that had spoken to her seemed puzzled and then faintly indignant. It seemed to be a female creature, although its hair came only to its shoulders and was not braided up but hung loose and wild. The hair was an odd reddish-brown colour, like the hens.
The creature near the pool spoke again, and the others surrounded P’eng. One of them took her hand and tugged gently but insistently, drawing her towards the pool. She struggled a little, then gave in. They led her over the grass to stand face to face with the bizarre creature who sat on the rock. It had hair coloured like winter grass a
nd arms like the poles that held pots over the cooking fire.
It said something to her in its strange, rapid gabble. Then they all talked together. One of them reached down to brush the hair from the grass-haired monster’s forehead and pointed first to it and then to P’eng. The grass-haired one shrugged and nodded. Two of them took P’eng’s shoulders and pushed her forward so that she was face to face with the creature. She shivered and squirmed as it leaned forward and put its horrible tongue right against her forehead. The tongue was hot, like a dragon’s breath. She could feel it burning into her skin. She wrenched herself free with a great shake and stood glowering at the monster in front of her.
“Now let’s get one thing straight,” it said. “We’re not monsters.”
Chapter Ten
Mark stirred the broth with its chunks of what looked like turnip and took a cautious sip from his spoon. The spoon’s handle bent back into a curve and was almost as wide as the bowl he held in his other hand. The soup tasted fine but strange; the turnips had a gingery taste that he hadn’t expected but found himself liking.
Around him, the others were eating too—Alasdair and Joss hungrily, Ariel in an absent-minded way as though she just couldn’t think of anything else to do at that moment. Only Molly wasn’t eating. She was leaning back against a chair that they had dragged out from one of the huts. Mark looked at her with concern. The burn on her hand had faded remarkably after it was bathed in the pool, but she looked pale and exhausted. Even her bright hair seemed listless.
He looked at the rest of the group around the fire. Their three hosts seemed too excited, bewildered or confused to eat. The old man, Li-Tsai, had made no pretence of even touching his food. He simply sat staring at the strangers as though he wasn’t sure they really existed. Every so often he stroked his long, wispy mustache. The taller of the two girls, Chuan, held her bowl with an air of repressed excitement. The first girl, P’eng, who had found them in the garden and led them along the narrow path to this tumble-down village, seemed both proud and alarmed about what she had done. She looked at Mark’s bowl and asked, “You don’t like it?”