Sky of Paper: An Asian Steam-Driven Fantasy Tale

by Matthew Seaver

  "Do what I say, and then I will tell you what it all means. It’s that simple." Her voice was much calmer than I thought it would be, but it was evident that I was taxing her patience. "Choose child. Choose quickly."

  I looked at the piece of paper, then pointed at the exact center of the circle, but as I lifted my eyes to the feather, I allowed my finger to wander. "There, it will land there."

  She dropped the feather, and like a petal, it tumbled for a bit, drifting slightly from one direction to another until my eyes followed it down to the exact place where my finger rested: At the far, right edge of the paper, outside of the circle.

  She pondered at the spot where the feather had landed as it lay at the tip of my finger. Her eyes moved back and forth, like she was reading a poem. I froze, afraid to move and risk disturbing her thoughts, as she seemed to be trying to find meaning in what I had done. She waved away my hand and locked her gaze at me.

  "You have trouble making decisions child. You chose the center of the circle first, then chose the outside. Why?"

  I shifted a little on the mat, wondering I had offended her somehow. "When I looked at the circle, I thought it was going to land there. But when I looked at the feather, I knew it wanted to go somewhere else."

  "And that ‘somewhere else‘, was right where you pointed child. You guessed correctly. You see, this circle represents the common path everyone takes. They do common jobs, they do common things, they lead common lives. This feather represents your life. Wherever it lands, that is the path that your life will take. Where you point is the path that you want your life to take." Her expression dimmed, as if she were about to tell me grim news. "You’re not like everyone else, child. Your life will not take a common path. You will not do common things. Because you first chose the inside of the circle, you’ll want to do the things that everyone else does, live the life that everyone else lives, but in the end, your destiny will force you to go elsewhere."

  She took the ink brush and drew several straight lines, radiating outward from the edges of the circle. "This is your symbol, child."

  "It looks like a sun with rays coming out of it."

  "Perhaps it does. The circle in the center is the common path. The rays are the people that leave the common path in order to seek a different life. You are one of those rays."

  "Does this mean I won't be working in the factory with my sister?"

  "It means, that soon, you will have no need for this village, or your sister."

  I stuttered back as if she’d dropped small stones down my throat. "What? Why?"

  "I won’t tell you anything more." She rolled up the piece of paper and tied it with a piece of string. "Now, I will name my price. I’m not going to ask for payment, but rather, I’m going to make a request. For as long as you remain in this village, do not look for work. Do not help at trade shops, or work with the crafters in town. If someone offers you a job, say no. Let your sister do all the work for you. If you want everything that she‘s done for you to be worth something, then you need to be patient. Go to school and learn as much as you can. In time, a great opportunity will come for you."

  She handed me the rolled-up paper.

  "Do not lose this child. Keep it with you."

  The trip home was a slow one. The icy, cold air bit at my nose as I wrapped my arms tightly around my body, trying vainly to keep the shivers away. I was in no hurry. I knew my sister would be angry with me once I got home and that I would be severely punished. However, when I got back, I was relieved to find she was not there at all. She was working late at the factory again.

  Chapter 2

  I’d never thought about leaving school to seek work until Miss Nishio mentioned it in her predictions. It seemed as if fate waited to test me until a week after the fortune teller's visit. The young man who owned the wood mill, whom I’d come to know as Mr. Takaya, came to my home one evening and offered my sister the prospect of me becoming a wood worker's apprentice. I remember how formal and business-like he appeared. He had on a suit and tie, and his head was clean shaven. He looked nothing like the person that’d once beat me for throwing pebbles at him. He was standing straight with his hat in his hand, and looked at my sister with such a mature and kindly gaze, that if I had glanced at the two of them without thinking, I would have mistaken them as husband and wife.

  To work for a company was one thing, but to be apprenticed under a business owner was considered a great honor, because it guaranteed a future job with a high ranking position. I was moved by his request. I imagined that when he called me little dragon, it probably wasn’t just a hollow nickname, but rather, a title that exemplified potential.

  "I hear your brother is one of the smartest children in his class. If that’s true, I would like to begin training him in the ways of woodcraft, and later, in the ways of managing a business." He spoke directly about these things even before he had a chance to sit down at the table and wait for the tea to be served. Though he was older than me, he was still young, and I suppose he still had a lot to learn with regards to balancing manners and business.

  My sister was a person who believed deeply in formalities and tradition, especially when it involved the arrival of guests. "Mr. Takaya, while I am honored by your visit, it is my feeling that we can’t even begin such an important discussion until we’ve sat down and sipped a bit of tea. Terr, go to the kitchen and bring us some green tea, then go outside for a while."

  I told her I wanted to stay, but she gave me a stern look and shooed me away to the kitchen. Reluctantly, I did exactly as she said. I served the tea, then quickly left the house. I heard a bit of their conversation from outside, but not enough to understand everything they were talking about. Things like money, skills with my hands, my health, all these things I could make out from their muddled voices though the thin walls. The enthusiasm that Mr. Takaya had for me, made me feel quite proud, but by the way my sister described me, with how I did in school and how well I did with chores around the house, made me feel a little like cattle about to be sold to a new owner. I decided to leave before their mumbled prospects of my future drove me mad.

  I suppose I should have been angry that I had no say in their negotiations, but that night, I was feeling quite the opposite. There was a strong wind blowing through the streets. The bare trees rustled and swayed and the dead leaves flew about so wildly, I thought for a moment that a swarm of locusts had wandered into the village.

  All at once, I felt the need to run. So I hurried down the street chasing leaves, birds and anything the wind dared to move. I felt odd, as I found myself strangely amused by something. Was it the way the wind sounded, how the air moved past my clothes and hair? I couldn‘t even begin to understand why I felt the way I did that night, but I suddenly found myself infatuated, even obsessed by the slightest movements that caught my eye.

  There was no way I could have known that, that strange feeling was an omen, one which was certain to change the course of my days after that night.

  Like a blind man opening his eyes for the first time, I caught a glimpse of the first lingering clues, which would herald a fate both unusual and mysterious.

  In the middle of the empty village square, I noticed a small, blue glow taking form. At first, I thought I’d gotten sick from being in the cold too long and that it was somehow affecting my eyesight. But after a moment, I began to doubt whether or not these were truly hallucinations at all. More blue patches of light began to appear, fading in and out; drifting through the air like smoke. I should have been surprised, but rather, I found myself accepting of their presence, as if I’d always known these strange glows were a natural part of things. Like thin paper, the air in front of me was torn away, revealing a stream of colored light, like the rays of the sun shimmering beneath the water.

  I reached out to touch it, but my hand simply passed through, as if its existence was just a passing thought. As the wind grew, so did their numbers. Thousands of tiny lights emerged from nothing, fluttering about like
someone blowing dust off of a very old table. Like drifting puddles of water, their wispy shapes were formless.

  I’ve heard of people seeing some kind of light at the twilight of their deaths. I wondered if mine was near, because I suddenly felt myself grow faint, as if I had not slept in days. Air left my lungs in one, stuttered breath as I quickly fell to my knees. I felt a great pain in my chest and a sudden need to close my eyes. I was scared. I wanted to get up, to cry out for my sister, but instead, my face hit the ground before I had a chance to call out for help.

  Rain.

  I remember seeing rain through my half-shut eyes as I faded in and out of consciousness. I felt the water splatter against my hands and fingers. It was ice cold, yet calming to the touch. I heard a voice, the sound of a man, a stranger. I heard a few of his questions: "Are you ok?" "What’s your name?" "Where’s your home?", but I couldn’t answer a single one. My lips wouldn’t move. It was then that I heard my sister's voice. She’d come looking for me. I heard her hurried footsteps and through blurred eyes, watched her and the stranger look at me with great concern. I was so glad that she had found me that I decided to let go, and allowed myself to fall back into unconsciousness.

  In those days, we were fearful of sickness. A simple cough was sometimes enough to make any of us apprehensive. I remembered when my sister cried for days, believing she had a fatal skin disease only to realize it was just a permanent blue dye stain from the factory. I could only imagine how shocked she was to discover my unconscious body, soaking in the rain in the middle of the village. Surely, she must have thought that I was on the verge of death.

  Some time later, I found myself laying underneath a thick blanket next to mother's pots. The pale glow of the morning sun glinted in my eyes as I tried to look up at the blurred figure of my sister pacing about the room. I could hear her bare feet stomping against the wood. Several times, she buried her face in her hands and made a whimpering sound that made me worry more for her than she did for me. She then moved to the room where mother's shrine was and I could hear her softly murmur a prayer. Afterwards, she came back to continue her pacing and whimpering. She went on like this for what seemed like an hour. Not once did she look at me. She probably couldn‘t bare to see her precious little brother in agony. I wanted to apologize. I wanted to tell her how sorry I was for making her worry, anything to make her stop whimpering.

  I was hot, yet my body shivered. Sweat streamed down my forehead, and everything I saw was mostly out of focus and barely recognizable. Thankfully, the pain in my chest was gone. I should have been scared since I had never been this sick before, but instead, I found myself relaxed, calm. I even found a bit of comfort, seeing mother's pots beside me. Truthfully, my sister was suffering much more than I was. I tried to say something, but my words only came out as awkward gasps. To my dismay, it only made things worse and her sobbing grew. I attempted to move, maybe give her some sort of sign that I wasn‘t as worse-off as she thought I was. But when I tried to lift myself up, I hadn‘t realized that I had already expended what little energy I had left, and without warning, I was forced into unconsciousness yet again.

  I‘d never dreamed before. But one night, in the depths of my sickness, I found myself in a place that was every bit as strange as it was horrifying. I was staring down a hallway inside Miss Nishio's home. The walls were lined with my sister’s ink cloud paintings, and above me, there was no roof, only the clear, afternoon sky. The ground shook suddenly and the flimsy, wooden walls of the hallway began to topple piece by piece. I heard a terrible sound, like that of an angry beast, and as I looked up, a great, red dragon, the very same one that was painted on the underside of the airship I saw at the wood mill, flew by. It snaked through the air, billowing great heaps of smoke from its mouth and nostrils. A moment later, there was a great crash as the dragon slammed its feet into the earth and turned its head skyward. It slowly opened its mouth, then blew an enormous flame up into the sky, like water shooting from a geyser. The light from its flame was so bright, that even though I covered my face and closed my eyes, I could still see it.

  My first dream was also my very first nightmare, and when I woke up, I was gasping for air. I flailed in my bed, thinking the great dragon's flame had consumed me.

  A stern palm pressed down against my forehead, and forced me back down onto the pillow.

  "Calm down boy, before I tie you to the bed."

  I did as the voice demanded, even though I was breathing heavily. As my eyes came into focus, I saw Mr. Takaya's face. He looked as though he were about to scold me.

  He then asked, "recite me the three virtues."

  I gulped and said, "Loyalty to the Emperor, honor above self, spirit in our actions."

  "That's good. At least I now know that you're well enough to speak and hear clearly."

  As I gazed about the room, I realized I was no longer home. The crane figurines that sat atop of wood-polished tables, elaborate wall scrolls with ink brushed characters hanging from the walls, all these decorations were so familiar, I knew at once that I was in Miss Nishio's house. I was lying on a real mattress bed, the first time I had ever been on one, and the same incense that Miss Nishio burned during my last visit hung heavy in the air. Mr. Takaya wrung out a wet cloth from a white, porcelain bowl and placed it on my forehead. He continued to examine me with grim, but curious eyes.

  "Mr. Takaya, why am I here?"

  He patted me on the cheek and smiled as if he was glad that I’d asked him that question. "Because you’re sick, little dragon, very, very sick. In fact, you’ve been so sick, that you’ve been out for almost a week. But don’t worry. It’s not the kind of sickness that causes death, it’s the kind that brings good fortune."

  "I don't understand."

  He went across the room where a steaming pot of tea was waiting for him. He took his time as he poured himself a cup, and after taking a long sip, he continued.

  "Neither do I. But that’s all Miss Nishio told me before she left. She’s instructed me to watch over you until she returns. Judging by the amount of money she paid me, she must think quite highly of you."

  At that moment, the most fearful thoughts imaginable went through my head. Perhaps Miss Nishio and Mr. Takaya had kidnapped me and wanted to sell me away as a slave. Or perhaps my sister had neglected to pay some sort of debt and I was to be held until she paid the money. These were completely unrealistic conclusions, but my young mind was confused and could only think of the worst. I think Mr. Takaya saw the worry in my eyes, because he sighed and put his tea cup down.

  "Your sister couldn’t bare to see you sick. She couldn’t even go to work, because she was afraid to leave you alone. Since she and I agreed that you would become an apprentice to my business, I told her that I would watch over your health as well. Trust me, she’s doing well now and feeling much better knowing that you are under my care. In fact, I told her yesterday that you were doing much better and that your sickness had almost completely gone away. But as soon as you get better, you‘re mine. You work for me now, and you have to do as I say."

  He crossed his arms and made a stance that looked like a master gazing down at his new servant. The way he presented himself looked so exaggerated that I started to doubt his words.

  I spoke as directly as I could, but I must have sounded no more braver than a screeching rat.

  "I'm sorry Mr. Takaya, I can't work for you. Miss Nishio said that I can't accept any jobs while I stay in Rune."

  He chuckled and reached for his tea, taking another sip. "I see Miss Nishio has already told you then. Don't worry little dragon, you‘re not going to work for me. You’re much too young for that. I told your sister that I hired you because it would be much easier for me to watch over you. Also, it gives you a reason to be excused from school. Until Miss Nishio returns, just pretend that you‘re one of my employees, understand?"

  "I'm sorry, but I still don't understand. What does Miss Nishio want with me?"

  "That’s something you don't
need to know quite yet. If you’re worried, don’t be. Something good is going to come from all this. Trust me."

  I nodded solemnly and looked up at the ceiling, my mind swimming with questions. I didn‘t care for secrets, but I knew it would be rude to press him any further.

  So instead, I said, "I had a dream."

  He shook his head and finished his cup. "That’s something I don't need to know about. Dreams are best kept to yourself."

  Over the next week, the doctor came repeatedly to check on me. He was not the village doctor that everyone was acquainted with, but rather, he was a stranger from someplace outside of Rune. He wore a very important-looking suit and tie and on his jacket was a rather small pin that looked like a chrysanthemum.

  I didn’t notice it then, but looking back, it seemed that particular sort of flower appeared in a number of exotic places: on the clothing of the performers at the summer festival, a few of the wall scrolls in Miss Nishio's home, and now on the doctor's jacket. A great many people in Rui Nan have had a tradition of tying their destinies to symbols. I wondered if this was mine.

  Even though the doctor checked my pulse, my temperature and searched for any strange coloration on my skin, I noticed that he wasn’t as particularly interested about these things as I thought a doctor should have been. He was like my sister whenever we ate nabe together. Nabe was one of my favorite dishes. It consisted of a pot filled with broth and all sorts of boiled meat and vegetables. She always browsed through the vegetables, eating bits and pieces here and there, but quickly went to focusing her attention on eating the meat. The doctor was the same, except he seemed especially infatuated with my eyes. He pried my eye lids open for several minutes at a time, refusing to let me blink. Sometimes he would keep them open until my eyes felt so dry, I started to struggle. The doctor often ordered Mr. Takaya to hold down my arms and shoulders in order to keep me still. He examined them as if he were inspecting a rare piece of jade, viewing them from every possible angle. He even leaned in so close, that my nose wrinkled from the stench of his breath. Afterwards, he would write down a few things on a notepad and lead Mr. Takaya into the next room, where I would only hear tiny whispers of their conversations through the thin walls. I couldn’t understand a single word, but every time, Mr. Takaya would come back into the room with a pleasant expression on his face. He’d sip the tea from his cup as if it was the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted. I asked him if the doctor had found something wrong, but he just shook his head and told me again not to worry.