Just when the night reached its deepest chill and Lotus had nearly given up hope, the shadows on the moon shifted. A bright light fell upon the mountaintop. A white rabbit rose out of the pool of moonlight and stood in front of Lotus. It was the Jade Rabbit, inhabitant of the moon. The Jade Rabbit was a small creature—the tips of its ears barely reached Lotus’s knees—but it contained more magic in its front paws than did half the world.
“Please help me,” Lotus begged. “My husband was killed, and my heart is heavier than a storm cloud.”
The Jade Rabbit twitched its whiskers. It normally did not intervene in human affairs. But it took pity on the woman and her infant.
“I cannot help you exact revenge or carry out justice,” the Jade Rabbit replied. “However, I will grant you some of my powers from the moon, so that your heart may heal.”
“Yes, please, you are very kind,” wept Lotus.
A few moments later, the magical creature produced a glistening vial. “A single drop of this elixir is more valuable than all the silver in China. It brings language to life and will guarantee you and your child many blissful years to come.” The Jade Rabbit handed the vial to Lotus. “Drink it and think of soothing words,” it instructed. “Words like ‘peace,’ ‘prosperity,’ and ‘happiness.’ Do you understand?”
Lotus took the vial and drank the liquid. A warm, tingling sensation spread over her body, all the way into her fingertips. She could feel a power growing inside her, bursting to be released. She smiled dreamily.
Then, an instant later, her smile vanished.
“Words, my dear rabbit, are what I’m best at,” she responded quietly.
CHAPTER SIX
六
Disappearing Act
There’s a saying that once you hit rock bottom, you can’t go any lower—that things can’t get any worse, they can only get better. Of course, this analogy works only if you’ve actually hit rock bottom, and not something like quicksand, which continues to pull you farther into unpleasant depths.
Mei and Yun felt they had sunk into never-ending quicksand.
Sometime in the night after the disastrous festival, the moon completely wiped itself from the sky and never came back, not even after the clouds finally drifted away. The disappearance of the moon was followed by a sudden, sunless heat wave that gripped the village, so hot that the ground was scorched. As dawn approached a few hours later, the heat was lifted by a snowstorm that pelted every crop in the fields. The villagers had never seen such a thing. They looked on from their windows in horror. Shivering farmers frantically tried to save their crops and livestock in the morning. Animals froze and keeled over in the snow.
The twins hid inside their home, trying to figure out their next step amidst all the confusion. Neither sibling had slept all night. Like everyone else, they’d stayed up watching the bizarre events unfold outside their window. In the pitch-black darkness, they thought they saw wisps of bright and dark green smoke rising from both the ground and the other villagers’ windows. They’d observed green strands like this once before, when one of the village kids had dozed off by the river and woken up yelling. It was not a good sign.
“It’s sabotage!” Yun said for the thirty-fourth time that afternoon. His eyes were bloodshot as he paced their bedroom, his mind whirring at top speed. “Someone poisoned Grandpa’s mooncakes. I bet it was Madam Hu, that jealous busybody—”
Madam Hu was not the first suspect on Yun’s list. Every other villager was also a candidate, all the way down to the toddlers. (“They were probably the ones who tossed the mooncakes at the emperor’s son’s head!” fumed Yun.)
“What about the snowstorm?” piped up Mei, who was curled tight under the covers with her eyes shut. Part of her still believed it all was a bad dream (a very realistic bad dream), and she thought if she closed her eyes long enough, everything might go back to normal. “And the moon disappearing?” she added. “No villager could have done that. Could it be...could it be punishment from the emperor’s son himself, like the neighbors said? As in, he controlled the weather?”
Earlier that morning, Mei had tried to visit several of the villagers, only to have doors shut in her face. The nicer ones said the terrible weather made it impossible to do anything about the previous night’s events. The not-so-nice ones outright blamed Grandpa for everything. “He angered the prince, and now our village is being punished!” they’d shouted.
Mei poked her head out from under her covers and looked at Yun. “On second thought, I take that back about the prince and the snowstorm,” she said. “It would be strange that a man who seems to barely get enough sunlight could control the weather with such force.”
Yun agreed. He deduced it wasn’t the work of the emperor’s son, but something bigger.
“Think about it,” he said. “If someone from the imperial court had such powers, wouldn’t everyone across China already know about it?”
He sifted through the messy pile of scrolls he’d taken from his father’s collection. They were from Baba’s old days in the Imperial City—copies of mandates, historical records, and notes on palace regulations. Yun had spent the morning studying them feverishly, looking up rules of the imperial court and how to challenge an arrest, and searching for any similar strange weather patterns from history. So far, he hadn’t come across anything like it.
“It is odd that the weird weather started after they took Grandpa, isn’t it?” asked Mei. “That was when the moon vanished into thin air.”
“The weird weather started the day before the festival with the rolling clouds,” Yun corrected her. “Either way, something as big as the moon disappearing can wreak havoc on nature. As it already has.”
“It must not be just our village, then? The effects of the moon would alter the entire country, right?”
Yun rubbed his forehead in thought. He had a suspicion—just an inkling, but nonetheless a strong one—that the neighbors had been partially right; that the odd weather was indeed only affecting their village. But saying so was neither helpful nor useful, as he had no way to confirm it.
For the rest of the day, they studied maps and outlined futile plan after futile plan to rescue their grandpa. The Imperial City was a month away by foot, more than one week on horseback. No matter how much the twins brainstormed, the journey seemed next to impossible—especially since the only horses in the village had died in the storm. Outside, the afternoon waned and the sky grew dark. They huddled around the brazier in their bedroom for warmth and light, reading under the dim orange glow of the ember rocks inside.
Late in the evening, Yun lit a small lamp and headed to the kitchen. Smelly Tail was curled underneath the table, trying to stay warm in the sudden winter. When she saw Yun, she leapt toward him and whined, clearly distraught by the unusual happenings. Yun rummaged through the cupboards for something to feed the cat.
Sh-sh-sh-sh. A rattling noise made Yun stop.
He heard it again. Sh-rat-a-tat-a-tat-sh-sh.
It was coming from the shelf where Grandpa kept his jars and spices. Yun went closer. There he saw a porcelain jar shaking on the shelf.
It was a pretty jar. The outside was white with delicate artwork painted in blue glaze, one of those elaborate designs that looked like random swirls from afar but were actually detailed drawings up close, of blossoms and birds and dragons. It was Grandpa’s favorite jar; he usually kept it displayed on the shelf in his room, and had often told the twins that out of all the things in their small house, the jar was the only item off-limits to them. Out of respect for Grandpa, Mei and Yun did not play with the jar, though unbeknownst to the others, Yun had peeked inside once or twice. The jar had always been empty, leading him to conclude it was likely a decorative memento of some sort.
But now it was shaking side to side on the shelf in the kitchen, as if an earthquake was causing it to move. Yun grabbed the jar and plucked off the lid.
He stifled a gasp.
“Mei!” he yelled. “Come quick!”
A few seconds later, Mei stumbled into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes. “I’m not very hungry,” she said. “I can’t think about food at a time like—”
“No, look!”
Inside the porcelain jar were puffs of gray substance, with swirling threads of black and green.
“Those look familiar,” whispered Mei. “Aren’t those the—?”
“They don’t look anything like this.” Yun clamped the lid back on.
The contents looked like the mysterious, colorful vapors the twins had grown up seeing around the village their whole lives. Yet the wisps they saw were often gold or blue, like the sky on a pleasant day. The ones in the jar, meanwhile, looked more like the underside of a miniature storm cloud, and just as turbulent. Parts of the cloud glowed bright, followed by a thunderous rattle that nearly made Yun drop the jar.
“Isn’t that the jar Grandpa always keeps locked in his room?” asked Mei.
“Yes. I found it just now on the kitchen shelf. He must’ve put it there yesterday...”
Mei stared at the shaking jar. Her eyes grew wide. “Do you think,” she said in a hushed tone, “that this is Grandpa’s secret ingredient?”
“Secret ingredient?”
“For the mooncakes.”
Yun snuck another peek inside the jar. The tiny storm cloud glowed and thundered. “This doesn’t look like anything that could go into food.”
“But he talked about using magic in the mooncakes, remember?”
“That was just a metaphor, Mei.”
But even as Yun said it, they both knew the jar contained something not quite of this world, something extraordinary.
Neither said anything for several long minutes. Outside, the wind howled. A cup clattered to the floor. The noise jolted them from their thoughts.
“Whatever it is, it’s not important right now,” said Mei. “We have to get to the Imperial City and rescue Grandpa. We can tell people there about what’s happening to the village.” She opened the window shutters to peek outside, where snow continued to fall.
It wasn’t clear how the rest of the villagers were faring. Mei and Yun could see lights in their neighbors’ windows, glowing fires and dimly lit lanterns. Nobody was outside. Earlier in the day, Mei and Yun had overheard Doctor Po and several other men shouting that they would be leaving to get help from outside the village, as soon as the snowstorm wound down.
“We do have to leave the village,” Yun agreed, putting the jar carefully on the ground. “But not for the Imperial City. First, I think we should go somewhere closer to get help.”
“But what about Grandpa?”
As if in answer to Mei’s question, another gust of wind shrieked like a teakettle and shook the window shutters.
“Going somewhere closer is the only way we can get help fast,” Yun said solemnly. “The snow isn’t letting up anytime soon. I’d be surprised if Doctor Po and his men leave tomorrow. Even if they do, there’s no way they’d take us along, and then nobody else would know about Grandpa’s plight. It’s up to us.”
“You’re right,” grumbled Mei, wrapping her arms around her body. “I suppose if we don’t try to help our village first, everyone’s dying thought will be of how Grandpa caused all this.” Her teeth chattered, partially from the cold, partially from uneasiness. “Let’s sleep on it, and then say the first plan that comes to our minds in the morning,” she finally said. “Whatever it is, we’ll do it.”
To an outsider, it might seem a rather odd way to make a decision, but the twins often shared what they called a connected sixth sense—the kind of intuition twins understand. It was responsible for the times Mei knew her brother’s thoughts before he spoke them aloud, and likewise the times Yun finished his sister’s sentences. After a good night’s sleep, Mei and Yun were almost always on the same page when they awoke, and for this reason, they liked making decisions together this way—when they both agreed on something, neither needed to explain themselves.
That night, as it sometimes happened, the twins had the same dream. Often enough, the dream would be about something trivial—an argument they’d left off earlier that day, for instance, or the conclusion to a game or sword fight. On this night, the dream was far more somber, but it was a familiar dream, one they’d had many times since their parents’ departure.
In their dream, their parents were alive and well, but they were as ghosts—not quite belonging to this world. They stood opposite the twins on an unfamiliar street. Both Mei and Yun tried to run to them, calling out, “Mama! Baba!” only to have their cries swallowed by thick fog. They could never get close enough for their parents to hear or notice them.
Only this time, Grandpa was in the dream, too. He stood next to them, there but not quite there, and said calmly, “In the city lies your answer.”
When they woke up in the early morning, the twins knew what they had to do.
They would go to the City of Ashes.
It wasn’t a completely ridiculous plan. As Yun pointed out, the City of Ashes was technically the closest place to their village, and it was on the way to the Imperial City. There, they could see if they could hitch a ride from someone heading to the palace. And if not, they could at least notify someone that their village had succumbed to a flash blizzard, burying all the crops and animals.
“Unless the city’s in an even worse state than our village,” he added, highlighting the unease they were both feeling. In order for the twins to believe that they could actually get assistance in the City of Ashes, they first had to convince themselves the rumors about the city were hogwash. And that was much easier said than done.
When the twins were nine, about three years after Mama and Baba had left, Grandpa departed one weekend to run some errands. Grandpa didn’t reveal the details of his trip, but he had gone on similar trips before, to get supplies from larger towns or to visit friends he knew who lived in the mountains. In his absence, the twins had stayed at Madam Hu’s. By Sunday afternoon, they’d had their fill of Madam Hu’s questions and proclamations, and they’d pretended to doze off in the bedroom while Madam Hu and several of her friends chatted in the living room.
That was when they overheard whispers about Grandpa’s trip.
“Don’t know what he expects,” Madam Hu had tutted. “Made the same trip two years in a row already. The City of Ashes is as haunted as a tomb. Soon as his daughter and that husband of hers announced they were headed over there, I knew they were goners.”
The others murmured in agreement.
“What were they thinking?” said Mrs. Po.
“Oh, the son-in-law was one of those scholar types, you know,” answered Madam Hu. “Always hungry for information. He worked up at the palace for a brief period before traveling down this way and meeting Wu’s daughter. They had a lot in common, those two. They were both interested in history and ancient ruins, that kind of awful stuff. Said they were ‘intrigued’ by the mysteries of the City of Ashes and wanted to see it for themselves. I say, the only real mystery is why some people have no practical sense!”
“So you think they’re really...gone then?” Madam Lilian whispered.
“Lilian, it’s been three years. Same thing happened to a neighbor of a cousin of mine, who lives on the other side of the mountains. Neighbor went to the city, hoping to do some business, and was never heard from again.”
At this point, Mei and Yun had sat upright and were staring at each other in stunned silence.
“What happened the last time Old Wu went?” someone else asked.
“Didn’t you hear?” Madam Hu lowered her voice, and Mei and Yun inched closer to the bedroom door to hear what came next.
According to Madam Hu, Grandpa had borrowed one of Farmer Jao’s horses, then headed off into the steep mountain trails toward the City of Ashes. When he’d arrived at the city gates, however, the entrance was locked. There had been no guards in sight. He’d waited until nearly another day passed, when he had no choice but to return home.
Until that day, the twins had been too young to grasp the true significance of their parents’ absence and how little Grandpa really knew. In the tales he used to tell them about the City of Ashes, the city had supposedly been barricaded by a high-ranking general after its downfall, and anybody who tried to enter would be punished. Their parents, unlike most people, did not believe in the rumored curses of forbidden walls, unseen voices, and empty streets. Neither did Grandpa. In fact, it was their steadfast rejection of the rumors that had consoled Mei and Yun all these years. Whenever other people spoke of the city’s supposed horrors, the twins would smile secretly at each other because they alone shared inside knowledge. They had their trusted grandfather, who assured them again and again, “Your parents are busy; they will be staying in the city for a few more months,” and Mei and Yun would casually accept the fact before going back to their reading or dueling or arguing.
That weekend at Madam Hu’s had marked the first time they understood an inkling of the truth. Like a tangram puzzle, all the pieces suddenly began to fit to form a coherent picture. To date, they’d never received a letter from their parents. All this time, Grandpa could not possibly have known what Mama and Baba were up to. Grandpa, their trusted guardian who was like a third parent to them, was in the dark like everyone else. He had gone to the City of Ashes, looking for answers.
Since then, seeing no reason not to do the same, the twins had tried several times to sneak to the city to find out what had happened to their parents. But Grandpa always seemed to know what they were planning and caught them even before they reached the entrance to the village. Because they couldn’t outright disobey or lie to Grandpa, they made a secret pact that once they were of age, they’d make a trip to the City of Ashes no matter what.
The Dreamweavers Page 4