by Prue Batten
Yain, tain, tethera, methera…
The concentric rings traced out across the calm of the lake, the peace of the place almost soporific.
Until a cry scoured the shore.
The Caointeach howled to warn of Death and Nicholas sprang up, began to run, off the lake bank, back to the copse where the three Celestials stood, their faces frozen.
‘No!’ He ran past them, racing back toward the house. ‘No!’
*
The door was open, just as he had left it. The late afternoon sun pooled on the waxed floor and the urn of clematis on the hall table dropped its bounty in glorious piles of ivory onto the polished wood. On a lectern lay a book – Nicholas had placed it there before he left to search for Isabella. It was an illuminated volume filled with botanical illustrations of plants. Its title, stinging Nicholas with its sheer inappropriateness, was ‘The Book of Life’. He swung his fist at the lectern, knocking it flying.
Ming Xao stood at the library door, his face white with horror as the Caointeach’s cry echoed and re-echoed around the Orchard, the call flying in the door, ravaging the entrance hall and flying out again. Nicholas pressed the carved runes about the door and then followed the closing aperture with a wild kick.
‘What is it, Nicholas? What is that sound?’
It is the Caointeach. It is the cry of the Washerwoman. She sits at streams washing shrouds and cries to warn people a loved one is to die and I am unable to tell you.
But Ming Xao’s eyes glistened behind the glass of his spectacles.
‘It sounds like Death,’ he said.
But a familiar voice had emerged from the staircase and Belle had walked down, her hair everywhere and her Han robes crumpled and grubby. She complained about the noise and he just grabbed her and spun her round, relief and happiness spilling forth to diminish even the ivory beauty of the clematis petals. Poli arrived and made facetious comment and then Belle had dragged he and Ming away to organise a party, ordering Nicholas to find the Lady Chi.
Immediately.
Ah Isabella, so like you! And I don’t mind at all.
He watched them walk away. Three mortals.
Bittersweet.
*
He drifted to the window to look out over the Orchard. Now it was possible to admire it, to love it as Jasper had.
He ran his hands over the runes on the door and they shifted, the lock clicking so he could walk through – across the gravel of the forecourt, past the dovecote, back to the lake path.
The light of dusk cast long shadows across grass that shivered in the breeze. Nightbirds began to call, a white owl dipping over Nicholas’s’ head, swooping along the track, leading him to the copse where sat the three Celestials.
*
‘Thank you,’ he mindspoke.
‘We are pleased,’ replied Kitsune. ‘It is a job well done. Isabella will have a role to play in linking the Han to the rest of Eirie. Simply by being herself and encouraging Ming Xao to break free of tradition and seek learning outside the Great Wall, she has broken the Han curse.’ She walked around, her magnificent furs trailing behind, bending to pick a leaf here or scoop a white feather off the ground there, examining them. ‘The Han and Eirie will learn much from each other.’ And then in a much softer tone, almost to herself it seemed. ‘Ming Xao is the antithesis of Lao Mi. He would never have killed me for my fur. I am content.’
‘How is Isabella, Nicholas?’ Chi Nü asked. Her face was drawn and tired as if whatever secret rites had transpired had reduced her to less than she had been.
Nicholas smiled, even though he knew Chi could not see. He hoped she heard the joy in his mindspeak.
‘She bubbles like a fountain. Just like always. Everything is just as it was.’
‘Except?’ The Moonlady had stayed seated, sitting quietly, perhaps observing. Nicholas always felt his emotions were laid bare under her scrutiny. Her hair drifted, as it always did.
Sugar floss.
‘Do you think of Viviane?’ she asked.
‘You know?’
‘It has been apparent for some time and we must pay attention to her words. I remember once saying to your father that he merely imagined a curse upon his family. It seems I am wrong. But then you know already that even Celestials can lose against the Fates.’
Joy began to fade and Nicholas shook his head.
‘Then what should I do?’
‘Nico,’ she replied. ‘How can I tell you? It is not for me to say; you know this. A Celestial only ever makes one aware, never offers conclusions. You must work it out. In fact I think you know what must be done. But as to when and how, it is up to you.’
And then she did a very rare thing.
She stood, her skirts whispering, the diamond stars and ivory moons glittering in the silky organza, and she walked over to him, placing her arms around him and hugging him like a mother would, saying,
‘You are such a worthy person.’
With that, she and Kitsune were gone.
There…and then nothing.
*
‘Nicholas?’
Chi touched his shoulder and he jumped.
‘Are you alright?’ she asked.
He nodded.
‘Are you?’ he replied.
She shrugged her shoulders and he knew immediately.
‘You thought you would earn your sight back if you could help Isabella, didn’t you?’
She nodded and a tear trickled with poignancy down a perfect cheek. He wrapped her in his arms and kissed the top of her head and they stood still until the moment passed.
‘I can return,’ she said. ‘I can rejoin the Celestials and be what I am, but…’
She stopped and he waited. Nothing emerged.
‘Chi?’
But she shook her head, saying,
‘Let’s return to the others. I want to share in Isabella’s best fortune. Take me back to the house please.’
Noise drifted toward them in the garden – music, the sounds of harp and flute with a soft pulsing tabor somewhere. Nicholas thought it might be Siofra, as the melody had an unearthly sound. Everyone sat outside under the flickering lights of fireflies. A table was set with fine food and conversation waxed – to wane as Nico and Chi approached.
‘At last,’ said Isabella. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Nicholas has walked me through the gardens describing everything. Right to the Lake of Mists. It took time.’
‘Sink me, Isabella, and didn’t I say so?’ Gallivant leaned back in his chair, his cheeks quite rosy. A surfeit of elderflower wine, thought Nico.
‘Have I missed anything?’ Chi posed the question blithely and Belle replied, laughing,
‘No, Chi Nü, nothing at all!’
*
Later, as Nico and Chi sat with the companions, the rest of the family having retired, Ming Xao spoke kindly.
‘My lady, I think you are weighted with sadness.’
‘Chi?’ Belle laid her hand over the Celestial’s.
‘It is nothing.’
‘Nothing,’ said Poli, ‘is never nothing.’
Nicholas hated watching her disquiet. She had been a pillar of calm for so long.
Agitated and unable to speak. What irony.
He signed to Poli for writing materials and Poli rushed off to the house. Once armed, Nico began to write, and Poli, by his side, began to read aloud.
‘The lady has been offered a chance to return to the celestial company of which she is part…’ He turned to her. ‘Really? How?’
Nicholas elbowed him but Poli was quite adamant.
‘You would leave us?’
‘I am a Celestial, Poli. I belong with my kind.’
‘But it is not so simple, is it, my lady?’ Ming Xao took off his spectacles and polished them. ‘For I know what they have said.’
Chi Nü closed her eyes, her shoulders lifting with a mighty sigh.
‘They offer you trial by the Bridge of Celestials, don’t they? I have scrol
ls in my library that tell this story.’ Ming Xao stood and began to pace, filled with ire. ‘And being a trial, they didn’t offer your sight back, did they?’
The Celestial shook her head.
‘Then how can you cross the bridge successfully? Compassion amongst the Spirits? Ha!’
The small group sat without speaking. Ming Xao had refused to describe the bridge and it was left to each of them to create an image in their own minds. Nico thought back to the ravine, watching it sway as Belle crossed. Although of course he hadn’t known it was her then.
What if she had failed that trial? How different it would have been.
He reached for Chi’s hand under the table and squeezed because ‘There is more power in friendship than I could possibly have imagined…’
*
Eventually sleep claimed all bar Nico and Chi, who watched as heads drifted down, pillowed on arms at the table. The moon sailed across the sky and hung perfectly round and alabaster above Jasper’s house. The fireflies flittered and the Siofra moved to other places.
‘The bridge – I suspect it is a difficult crossing.’
‘Yes.’
‘You want to return?’
She huffed a weighted sigh.
‘It is not that I want to leave this place, merely that my place, the place where I am happiest, is elsewhere.’
‘But does elsewhere involve your sight?’
‘No more than here involves your voice.’
Nico would have loved to laugh outright. Instead.
‘We are a strange duo.’
But Chi did not share his humour.
‘Nicholas, the bridge will only appear tonight.’
‘Tonight!’
‘Ssh. They may wake.’
Around Nico’s neck, a welkin wind traced its eerie fingers and he heard the whisper of silken skirts as they approached.
‘No, they will not wake. Will they, Moonlady?’
She sat herself down on the grass nearby, beckoning them to join her. The fireflies blinked out one by one, because the light from the Moonlady’s gems was all luminescence and no shadow.
‘It is true – they are enchanted, like the rest of the household. It gives you time.’
Time? Now?
‘Chi Nü,’ said the Moonlady kindly. ‘There is a bridge not far, I shall lead you and you are free to return to your life as the Celestial Weaver. By the time you reach the other side, your sight will have returned.’
Chi gasped, squeezing Nicholas’s hand tightly.
‘However,’ the Moonlady continued. ‘If you fail to reach the other side, you will be forced to remain blind amongst mortals as long as forever.’
Nico jumped up, glaring at the Greater Celestial.
‘Whatever compassion you might have shown earlier was limited, Moonlady. You are cruel and contrary!’
‘Nevertheless, Nicholas, it is the way of it.’
She swept her hand as if indicating a vista and the bridge was illuminated before them.
Almost at the end of the garden, where the wrought iron gate opened to the untrimmed fields filled with wildflowers and where a path meandered toward the Lake of Mists, a bridge arced into the heavens.
It was a piece of shimmering shifu cloth, of sunrise and sunset hues, its farthest end somewhere in infinity. Beautiful, thought Nico. But such hateful irony that the coloured cloth which had been their map of hope in the first place, should now be a bridge of hope for Chi.
An enchanted bridge.
But I expected nothing less…
And what truly horrified and repelled him was its width – as wide as a man’s foot with no sides that Chi could grasp.
‘Madame,’ spat Nico, ‘I had not thought you so cruel.’
‘Nicholas, tell me, what is wrong…’ Chi reached for him blindly and he sat and took her hands.
‘Both of you, listen,’ said the Moonlady. ‘I did not wish for this to be. It was an order from the Han Celestials and I offered to communicate their message in the hope I might soften the blow.’
Nicholas was breathless with anguish for the dainty woman by his side. His arm lifted along her shoulder and he pulled her to his side.
‘Shall it be hard to cross?’ she asked. ‘Is that why you are angry?
And suddenly Viviane’s words were clear and unambiguous.
‘Only you can stop it.’
‘No,’ he replied. ‘Not hard at all. We shall cross together.’
‘Nicholas, if you cross the bridge you can never return.’ The Moonlady’s voice seemed tinged with sadness. And of course he knew he could not return but it was the answer.
By escorting Chi Nü he was enabling her, and by removing himself he was breaking a curse that had enmeshed his family in various ways for generations.
‘My voice?’
‘It will return if you succeed,’ answered the Moonlady.
‘And my family?’
‘Everything will be explained.’
‘Then we go now.’
His heart crashed and he thought it might break in two as he walked toward his sleeping friends – removing Ming Xao’s glasses and laying them by his fingers on the table, placing his hand on Poli’s shoulder and squeezing. Bending to kiss Belle on the head, her hair silky beneath his touch. Running a finger over the scrap of shifu she clutched in her fingers.
‘You are sure?’ he asked Chi Nü.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But you, Nicholas, how certain…’
‘Ah Chi, you worry overmuch. By doing this I kill two birds with the one stone,’ he said as lightly as half a heart would allow him. ‘I help you for whom I have the greatest respect and affection and in addition I answer an old Traveller’s heartfelt plea.’
He scooped Chi up into his arms and her hands slid round his neck and she kissed him on the mouth – an unexpected pleasure, and he wanted to kiss her back and more.
But first…
He placed one foot on the shimmering fabric and it rippled around him, even though under his step it was as hard as iron. Then he took another step and was reminded of the moonbridge, balancing like a tightrope walker. On and on so that he knew if he looked back, the manor house would be in miniature and the Ymp Tree Orchard a moonlit cloud of blossom below him.
He wondered if he would become a Celestial or whether he might just fade and float away after Chi Nü had been accepted back into her fold.
It didn’t matter.
Not at all.
He knew the next time Viviane consulted her cards, her glass balls, even her rune sticks, that she would know whatever had hung about had been stopped, and he the one to do it. There was a kind of euphoria in the thought and it was that which propelled him on, cradling Chi Nü into a world he must learn to understand.
Chi’s hand touched his cheek.
‘I will help you,’ she said. ‘Because there is more power in friendship than you could possibly have imagined…’
Epilogue
As the two figures stepped from the bridge and Chi Nü looked at Nicholas with eyes that could see and he spoke to her with a voice she could hear, the bridge of shifu cloth folded back upon itself until it lay in a neat bundle on the grass of Jasper’s garden by the feet of the Moonlady. She picked it up, running her fingers over a slub here, a knot there, saying,
‘You have a memory, let Fate put you in the right hands and you will spill your memory forth…’
She passed it to the waiting Siofra and as the fireflies flittered and flickered, the material was teased, warp from weft, paper from silk, until strip upon strip of both lay side by side.
Eventually, as the sky lightened and birds called upon the new day to display itself, a sheaf of papers were placed by Isabella’s hands, waiting…
The End
The Story of Chi Nü.
There are a number of variations of the story of Chih Nü, whom I have opted to call Chi Nü in The Shifu Cloth.
From Spirits, Faeries, Gnomes and Goblins by Carol Rose ABC-CLIO Califo
rnia 1996
‘In Chinese legend Chih Nü is a celestial nymph. She was the Celestial Weaving Maid responsible for weaving the…cloth that made the robes of the gods. (In one of the versions) of her story, she was banished to the earth where she spent her time with an oxherd and they were ultimately transformed into the stars, Vega and Altair.’
But my favourite version is this online description from http://hafapea.com/thelandoffaepages/thefae6.html#chih
‘The celestial Chinese Weaving Maid and her sister saw things on the earth that made them want to leave heaven and go to bathe. While they were bathing, a cowherd had learned that he could win Chih Nü’s love by stealing her celestial garments. While she and the cowherd lived in bliss, the gods couldn’t have any more fine clothes made, so she was recalled to heaven. Her lover pursued her wrapped in the skin of a magic cow, but the celestial guards stopped him. The Jade Emperor took pity on them however and allowed them to meet once a year across a bridge made from the wings of magpies.’
Something about the bridge of magpie wings prompted me to think of my Celestial returning to heaven on a narrow bridge made of silk and paper called shifu…
Glossary
Aine: Irish folklore, a princess. In this novel, the Goddess-Creator
Cantrips: charms
Caointeach: A death spirit from the Hebrides who wails for the Dead. Legend says she sits by a stream as she cries, washing bloodstained shrouds.
Ceasg: scots folklore, otherwise known as a mermaid. Also known as the Maid of the Wave. Can be exceedingly malevolent.
Celestials: Spirits of the Heavens.
Eldritch: enchanted
Frisson: a sensation that can be felt by mortals and Others indicating a Færan is close by.
Glamour: magical power
Hob: most commonly considered a brownie and believed to be naked and hairy. Benevolent to mortals. In The Shifu Cloth, I have chosen to make Gallivant the Hob a slim ageless youth who is somewhat of a dandy.
Kizmet: in the Raji tongue, a breeze from an Other source inspiring trepidation. Identical to the welkin wind in Trevallyn, the Pymm Archipelago and Veniche.