When the Sea Turned to Silver

by Grace Lin

  The emperor laughed again and waved his hand. In an instant, the guards piled atop Yishan, his red hat disappearing from view.

  “Here, only a mountain can lift the moon!” the emperor cackled. He began to stalk toward the hill of soldiers, his hand reaching for his sword. “The moon that is a tear cried by a ­fish-­tail goddess! The tear that is stone that only you as the Mountain Spirit can carry! And you, as the Ginseng Boy, who I will kill to be immortal!”

  “No!” Pinmei screamed. This time her scream released her legs, and she flew at the emperor. But his arms simply grabbed her as if scooping up a mound of snow, and his cruel laughter boomed in her ears.

  However, instead of kicking and thrashing, Pinmei clutched at the emperor’s golden robes, searching. Where was it? There! There it was! It wasn’t a pin after all! It was a needle! A needle sticking into black embroidery. Black embroidery of a tortoise!

  Her glimmering thought now sparked and flared. The Iron Rod can shrink to the size of a needle, the Sea King had said. I gave her that needle from the treasury, Joy to the Heart had said. I sewed him a dragon shirt to protect him, even leaving in my needle, said Lady Meng. The Tiger King held the piece of shirt in his hands, the king of the City of Bright Moonlight said, and then became invincible. Pinmei stared at the needle. Could it? Could it be? It had to be!

  So, with the emperor’s laughter still echoing across the courtyard, Pinmei grabbed the needle and yanked the Iron Rod off the Black Tortoise of Winter.

  CHAPTER

  72

  The sky bellowed.

  It was a deafening noise, and those who were not already on the ground were knocked to their knees. ­Pinmei fell also, her fingers still clutching the needle, its point brandished toward the emperor like a sword. The unraveled black thread of the embroidered turtle stretched between them and melted away into the dark sky like a thin wisp of smoke. The emperor stared in disbelief.

  But that was all he could do. An enormous burst of wind and winter ripped through the heavens. Pinmei flew forward, the power of it shoving her to her hands and knees, still clutching the needle, its point wedged into the mosaic stones of the courtyard. Between the thunderous roars of the wind, Pinmei heard screams and shouts and the chaos of fleeing figures. The earth seemed to be cresting a gigantic wave, throwing everyone around her like shaken droplets of water.

  The sedan chair splintered into pieces, and lanterns were scattered. Oil and flames were flung across the courtyard, and flowers of fire bloomed from the frozen earth. Trees bowed in deep kowtows or broke their backs, a series of snaps like firecrackers popping, until one loud, sickening crack added to the cacophony in the sky.

  Pinmei raised her head and watched in horror. A gigantic, invisible force was crushing the Black Tortoise Gate. The grand gate tore apart as if made of paper, scattering tiles and stone on the earth like sudden rain. The emperor was tossed forward and backward, his robe making him look like a golden ingot being juggled. Finally, he crashed against the largest column of the gate just as it collapsed. It fell to the ground, and the emperor disappeared beneath it. An inhuman howl, full of pain and resentment and anger, cut through the bellowing wind. The awful sound echoed and reverberated so much that even the stars seemed to shiver. A huge cloud of black dust swelled into the sky, and even the moon ceased to exist.

  But in the darkness, Pinmei saw the faint red glow of the thread around her wrist. Her fingers still held the needle, its point embedded in the ground, the only ground that was unmoving and unshaken. The light from the thread spread down to the needle and over her arm, covering her entirely. She heard the shards of tile, torn branches, and slivers of wood pounding against the stone courtyard like the beating of drums, but nothing touched her. “The thread,” she whispered. “It’s protecting me and the needle is keeping this ground still.”

  A great gust split through the cloud, the black dust disintegrating into the night sky. The full moon burst through the darkness, brighter and more brilliant than before. Its light cascaded upon the earth like the divine glory of a goddess, and the world was silent again.

  CHAPTER

  73

  It was a soft silence. The wind and the sky had finally quieted, and it was not the tense, anticipating stillness of winter, the pause of the tortoise taking a breath before a thunderous howl. No, it was the calm, grateful quiet of one seeing a friend return home.

  Pinmei stood. The moon above spread its light generously, muting the ruins and wreckage. But Pinmei did not notice, for moonlight also fell upon a small, fragile figure crumpled in heap not far from her.

  “Amah!” The name tore from Pinmei’s throat, and she fell to her knees next to the fallen form. Amah’s eyes were closed, her arms outstretched as if reaching. “Amah?” Pinmei said again, this time in a coarse, cracked whisper.

  Amah did not move. She was as still as a clay figure. The only color to her ashen face was the dark trickle of blood from an ugly cut on her forehead. Pinmei threw herself against Amah’s chest. “Amah! Amah!” she repeated desperately, willing her to awaken, but Amah was deaf to her pleas. Pinmei began to weep. Had she left the mountain for this? Had she borne the cold, run from soldiers, gone through the frozen sea, and fought the emperor for this? She wept heartbroken tears, tears as inconsolable as Lady Meng’s and as despairing as Nuwa’s.

  “Pinmei,” a voice said, and a hand touched her shoulder. She looked up and, through her tears, she saw Yishan.

  He was bareheaded and his face was dirty, but he was unscathed, standing before her with an object in his hands. At first, Pinmei thought it was his hat, but as she blinked away more tears, she saw it was Amah’s special rabbit rice bowl.

  Yishan knelt next to her and placed his hand on Amah’s chest. He drew it away swiftly and held his hand out to Pinmei.

  “The Iron Rod,” he said, in a tone so urgent Pinmei’s tears stopped flowing. “Quickly!”

  Pinmei handed Yishan the needle. He looked at her, and the corner of his mouth curved up in a smile. He reached out and gave her braid an affectionate tug.

  Without a word, he pricked his finger and held it above the bowl. Only a single drop of clear, golden liquid fell from his finger, but when Pinmei looked into the bowl, it was full. He brought the bowl to Amah’s lips, letting the liquid drip into her mouth.

  Little by little, Amah’s face began to color, the gray waxen tinge warming to rose gold. The evil gash on her temple disappeared as if wiped away, the stains of blood nothing more than dried paint. Her chest began to move with rhythmic breathing, and, slowly, very slowly, Amah opened her eyes.

  She looked directly at Pinmei, and the love and longing Pinmei had carried for so long melted in her like a piece of ice in warm tea. Amah reached up and pulled Pinmei toward her. “My brave girl,” Amah said. Pinmei began to weep again, but this time the tears were ones of happiness.

  CHAPTER

  74

  After hugging Pinmei, Amah sat up and, to Pinmei’s surprise, a sad expression came over her face.

  “Yishan,” Amah said, sitting up and shaking her head, “Meiya would never forgive me.”

  Pinmei turned to look at Yishan, and her mouth fell open. Yishan was not there. Instead, there was an old man, tall and silver and dressed in gray. He held a red bag in his hand, a bag Pinmei recognized as made from the same cloth as Yishan’s clothes. She stared as the moon bathed him in its luminous light and he seemed to glow.

  “She wanted you to finally live as a boy and grow old as you are supposed to,” Amah lamented, “instead of always giving up your youth to keep her alive. You shouldn’t have done it for me.”

  “Nonsense, Minli,” the old man said. He shook the needle in his hand, and it grew into an iron walking stick. “You know this is exactly what she would have wished me to do. Besides, what is another ­ninety-­nine years? I’ll soon be young again and I’ll start over.”

  Pinmei’s eyes bulged as she glanced back and forth between her grandmother and the old man. Yishan had turned
into an old man because he saved Amah? He had done it before with Auntie Meiya?

  “Yishan?” Pinmei started doubtfully.

  “I never realized how short you are,” he said, and the ­half-­amused, ­half-­serious black eyes she knew so well looked down at her from his wrinkled face. As impossible as it seemed, this old man was Yishan.

  “I guess,” she said unsteadily, “I guess this is what you were hiding from me?”

  He gave a wide smile, and she was surprised again, for it was Yishan’s grin on the old man’s face. “I told you it wasn’t anything important,” he said.

  He turned away and, with the Iron Rod, knocked over a small glowing light at the ground near their feet. Two monkeys popped up, whimpering and sobbing. The old man bent down, grabbed something, and then in a sharp voice said, “Go! And stay out of mischief!”

  The monkeys ran off into the darkness, and the old man began to pick his way through the ruins of the courtyard, with Pinmei and Amah following. He stopped in front of the fallen column of the Black Tortoise Gate and, as if he were brushing away a dead leaf, pushed it aside.

  “Amah,” Pinmei said, finally recovering from her shock, “why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Well,” Amah said gravely, motioning toward the ground near Yishan, “that is one reason.”

  Pinmei followed her gaze and caught sight of the gold silk robe. At Yishan’s feet was the body of the emperor.

  The form was unmoving. The emperor’s face was frozen in a glare, and his arms were locked in an empty grip, as if even in his final moments he was grasping. Pinmei, again, felt a strange pang of pity.

  “I know,” Amah said, touching Pinmei’s shoulder. “So much life but so little happiness. Perhaps the peace he never sought in life will find him in death.”

  “Is… is he dead?” Pinmei asked.

  “Dead enough,” Yishan said, and motioned her and Amah away. When they were far enough, the old man tossed the white-rabbit rice bowl at the emperor’s lifeless body. As the bowl spun in the air, it grew and grew. When it finally fell upon the ground, it covered the emperor completely and turned into a mountain!

  They stood at the foot of it and, for a moment, all ­Pinmei could do was gaze upward.

  The old man grunted. “Not much of a mountain, is it?” he said in a familiar mocking tone. “More a hill, really.”

  Pinmei stared at him in bewilderment.

  “But I thought…” she said. “The Paper said the emperor would be immortal.”

  “And so he will be,” the old man said. “But not the way he thought.”

  “How?” Pinmei asked.

  “Why don’t you ask the Paper?” Yishan said, his eyes twinkling.

  Pinmei took the Paper from her sleeve and unfolded it. A single line of words formed on the page. It was the same word, over and over again and to Pinmei’s surprise, she could read it. The word was Stories.

  “B-but…” Pinmei stuttered. “How will stories make the emperor immortal?”

  Yishan laughed his bold and irreverent laugh. “How do you think?” he said. “The emperor was always trying to steal immortality. He never understood immortality is a gift that has to be given. A gift you will give him, even though he does not deserve it.”

  “Me?” Pinmei said. “I will give him immortality?”

  “Yes, you, my friend I will never forget,” Yishan said, and his wrinkled hands grasped hers. “And that is truly the only immortality that matters.”

  He released her, and as he bowed his head at Amah, Pinmei saw that instead of the red string, the jade bracelet was on her wrist. As she lifted her arm to look at it in the moonlight, she saw the old man was walking up the mountain. Yishan was leaving.

  “Yishan!” Pinmei cried. “Will we see you again?”

  He turned and grinned at her. “Every night,” he said, cocking his head at the huge moon above. As Pinmei looked up at it, she thought she saw the silhouette of a rabbit sitting at the top of the mountain, waiting. Yishan’s smile turned soft. He swung the Iron Rod to point up at the sky beyond them. “Look,” he said.

  They turned. A silver mist was rising from the snow and a delicate arc of light had formed above them. Tints of rose and gold and violet were washed upon it as if painted by the softest brush. It glowed with the light of the Sea King’s palace, shimmered with the reflected ­colors of Lady Meng’s tear, and shone with the gentle splendor of the moon itself. Pinmei knew, of all the wonders she had seen on her journey, this rainbow by the light of the moon was the loveliest of them all.

  Amah looked at her, eyes glistening. “Nuwa is smiling at us,” she whispered. Pinmei nodded and, almost in unison, they turned back to see Yishan.

  But he was gone. A warm breeze blew around them, and water was dripping like strings of pearls from melting icicles. The swallows, drowsy from their long naps as mussels, were singing, and a silver sea of clouds had drifted up to where the mountain met the moon.

  Amah turned to Pinmei. “Let’s leave this place,” she said. “Do you know the way?”

  Pinmei took her grandmother’s arm.

  “Yes,” Pinmei said, and she smiled. “I’ll take you.”

  CHAPTER

  75

  He was free.

  He leaped on the wind, drinking in the delicious cold air. It flew him upward, higher and higher, until he burst through the thick clouds to where the sky flowed into the edge of the sea.

  Ah, the black waters! He let it wash over him. Wonderful, wonderful water! The cool, tranquil blackness.

  A thin wave coiled toward him. It was the snake. It looked at the tortoise with shining eyes, and he let it wrap around him in a loving embrace.

  Below, the moon floated and the stars swam.

  The Black Tortoise of Winter had returned home.

  CHAPTER

  76

  In the City of Bright Moonlight, after the snow had melted away, a ­boy—­or was he a man?—­leaned heavily on a stick and shuffled down the Long Walkway to a pavilion. Panting, he rested on its railing. Above, the sky was the brilliant blue court artists could only imagine, and the sun was so warm he was glad to have the shade. He smiled to himself. What a feeling, to be too warm!

  “Sifen!” a voice called his name. “Sifen!”

  The boy turned and his smile widened. It was Yanna.

  “We heard from Old Sai and Suya,” Yanna called out as she ran to him. “They said some men have already returned to the village.”

  “Good,” Sifen said. Yanna sat down next to him.

  “I bet all the men will be back soon,” Yanna said. “Now that the Vast Wall is abandoned, men have been streaming into the city every day!”

  “Has the palace provided for them?” Sifen asked.

  “We don’t have to,” Yanna said. “What used to be the House of Wu has opened its doors to all ­travelers—­the new owner, I guess she used to be the servant ­there—­is truly a hero to…”

  Yanna stopped in midsentence and rose, looking down the corridor. Sifen pushed himself up with his stick to follow her gaze. Three figures were walking toward them. The bright sun cast them in shadow, but he could see the shapes of a girl, an aged man, and an old woman.

  “Who is it?” he asked Yanna.

  “My… my… my father!” Yanna almost shrieked, the words trailing behind her as she burst forward, running faster than a flying dragon, to meet the visitors. The silhouette of the man also broke away from his companions, rushing toward Yanna with open arms. The two embraced tightly, laughing and crying at the same time, and Sifen could not help doing the same at the pure joy of their reunion. Even the peonies seemed to be exploding with happiness, their vibrant colors radiating in the sun.

  The elderly woman and the young girl stepped forward, their faces also smiling with delight. The boy cocked his head. Did the girl seem familiar? Now she was walking toward him, calling his name. Yes! Now he knew her! She was…

  “The Storyteller’s granddaughter!” Sifen laughed. “What are you doi
ng here?”

  “Sifen!” Pinmei cried out. “I was about to ask you the same question!”

  “Well, I asked first,” Sifen said, grasping Pinmei’s arm.

  “We are here to return the stonecutter to his daughter,” Amah said, “and to return a special paper to the king of the City of Bright Moonlight.”

  “My father is at his Pavilion of Solitude,” Sifen said, waving his hand toward a remote building far down the lakeside, “painting as usual.”

  “Your father?” Pinmei said, and shook her head as she looked at Sifen’s gleeful face. “The king of the City of Bright Moonlight is your father? I should have known.”

  Sifen continued to grin, but then, as if remembering his manners, he bowed to Amah. “You must be the Story­teller,” he said, and then looked at Pinmei with sudden concern. “Where is your friend? The boy in red?”

  “He too had to return something,” Pinmei said. “But he is probably home now.”

  “As I am home now too,” Sifen said, and if it was at all possible, his grin grew broader, as if trying to include the entire garden and sky. “But tell me: What happened? You made it to the city, obviously. Did anything happen on your travels? And what is it your friend had to return?”

  “Ahh, young man,” Amah said. “That is quite a story.”

  “Good!” Sifen said, and he looked at Pinmei. “You know I love stories.”

  Amah smiled and sat down.

  Pinmei, however, looked at the decorated beam above her. It was a painting of an old man on a mountain, looking at the sea below. A sea dragon roared up from the waves with a maiden of extraordinary beauty by its side, her arm extended as if she had just caught something. All the creatures of the sea, from a graceful longma to a smiling fish, were bowing toward the mountain in grati­tude. Above the ­sun—­or was it the moon?—­a rainbow arched in the sky. The painting was so detailed Pinmei could even see that between the fingers of the maiden’s outstretched hand was a thin silver needle.