"Men have a habit of not listening to women, monk or not." The goddess bends her mouth, between grimace and amusement. "The monk has help that's celestial if not holy. Is that why you're looking to us? Neither of us can confront another immortal, least of all on your behalf."
"I'm not asking for that. The monk's been relocating the pagoda to keep ahead of me, and I've scoured all the worlds. Heaven alone remains a realm I haven't searched, one I can't reach. An immortal favoring him—" As she suspected. "That means he may enter heaven."
"Xiaoqing, is it?"
"Yes, Lady Chang'e."
The goddess paces, graceful even at that. It's hard to believe she could have been some village girl. "I'm not pleased you got my niece involved. Do your peers seek to harm her?"
Your peers, not your kind or your breed. Xiaoqing marvels at it. "Only the very young and the very foolish. The archer's reputation precedes her and those on good terms with me would never bring Julienne hurt. I took her to an opera in banbuduo."
"Did you?"
"I meant—she was perfectly safe there." Xiaoqing's knee aches. She doesn't know what possessed her to mention that.
Chang'e waves her hand. "Take a chair. Fahai is beneath notice, but the immortal behind him has long held a grudge against my wife. The laws of heaven being what they are…" A toss of long, gleaming hair. "Were Houyi a man she could have demanded judicial restitution or a test of arms, warrior against warrior. She would win, too, and that'd have concluded the sorry mess."
"Do you want me to remove him? Heaven's customs hold no sway over me."
"Then someone would be obligated to come after you," Chang'e says, dispassionate. "Likely Houyi. You wouldn't want to be her quarry."
"As long as Bai Suzhen can be free the risk would be as nothing."
"To have the pagoda located, is that all?"
"Yes."
"Not so unreasonable. I may even be able to convince my unreasonable spouse that it is not. You'll have something of Bai Suzhen."
She gives it to the goddess, a box where Bai Suzhen's scales lie preserved: the white of polished silver, of new ivory, of jasmine in first bloom. Xiaoqing does not know if she will have them back, these last pieces of her sister.
But it's closer to reaching Bai Suzhen than she has been in eight hundred years, and that must have to do.
2.4
In long and longer strides Julienne leaves the hotel behind. Experience has taught her that she needs a safe, private spot to have her breakdown. The apartment is too far. She could have asked either of her aunts to take her, but they wouldn't have left her alone.
Instead she's going up and up the narrow height of iSquare, a series of escalators humming under her feet. She slips into a restroom. Under the neon, she looks exactly as she expected. Wild-haired, smeared, slightly mad; she can hardly believe she's walked so many city blocks looking like this.
Powder and lipstick are all she carries. Not anywhere near enough. She's accepted an invitation for tonight, dinner with friends who've gone on to become doctors and solicitors and academics. Julienne's expectations are low, but she wants to keep presentable.
As long as her hands are busy the memory of Olivia will resettle on its own, neat as books on a shelf. She will not let it upend her; she will not let it take her apart. It will have, she judges as she washes her face, to go into the same box as Elena.
Heels on tiles, little dark green taps like questions. "Do you," is said and then divided by the click of teeth on teeth, "need help?"
"What would a viper know about cosmetics?"
Olivia recoils. "You've become very rude."
"I've become good at self-defense."
The demon puts down a bag and extracts from it makeup remover, tubes of eyeliner and lipstick, and several compacts. They are pristinely new, none drugstore brands. Guerlain. MAC. Yves Saint-Laurent.
Julienne squares her shoulders. "If you must."
Olivia cleans her face, wiping away eyeliner smudges and foundation trapped around her eyes and nose. "I had to give you that tisane. Mortals entering banfaudou can't leave it unless they've been made to forget. This is a rule and to violate it is to be cast out. That doesn't excuse it, I know. You have every right to be angry."
"I already know that I'm right to be angry. You could've told me, if it's this unbreakable law."
"Then I'd have had to ask you, Do you want to forget me? Is that fine? I didn't want to hear you say yes. If you had, what'd that mean?"
Julienne grips the counter. "No. You're saying that to manipulate me. You could have asked." Eyeing the stalls she lowers her voice. "Before we slept together."
"You saw what I am and didn't flee. I thought that it'd do you no harm, half a pleasant memory for you to remember me by. You took me as eagerly as—"
"I'm not having this conversation." Then, because she needs to drive the knife home, "It wasn't for me. I forgot all of it, anyway, you knew I would have. You did that out of selfishness because you knew I wouldn't say no."
The brush of mascara against her eyelid pauses. "Why did you say yes?"
"Because I have no self-esteem," Julienne snaps.
The pause lengthens. She opens her eyes to find Olivia pale, stricken. "I thought," the viper says, "you desired me."
Olivia finishes up in silence. There is an underlay of teal in the eyeliner, but the rest is gold and rose. Contouring by base and powder sharpens her cheekbones to an impossible edge. She looks unlike herself: sure and comfortable in her own skin. "You didn't put green on everything."
"I chose colors to suit you." A glance, furtive, away. "I painted you as I see you."
Julienne says nothing to that, because she remembers They are beguiling and Hau Ngai was right about that, right about everything, and why didn't she listen? Why did she think she knew better?
Awkwardness pools between them like spilled food, congealing and rank. Julienne pushes "Thank you for the makeup" out between her teeth, gathers her things—avoiding what Olivia has bought as though they are contaminated—and leaves.
At the outing she laughs though the jokes aren't funny, dances though the men try to be her partners, and drinks mocktails even though they are all too sweet or too tart or contain the wrong fruits. By the time she's back at the table Julienne is relieved that she still knows how to function. Her friends who are making so much more money and don't need divine aunts to afford a car or a nice flat, who have accomplished things in the world, do not mention that she is like none of them; that she is not a success, does not run other people or her own business.
Some of them have had children. Andy Tsang, former school bully, is now a doting father of a two-year-old girl. Julienne resists the impulse for candor: a parent so young? What if your wife can't stand you in a year and divorces you, what then? Crystal, a solicitor, shares this impression; she leans in and mutters under the jazz, "I'll bet half my savings he'll be in a custody battle within the next two years. And I'm not going to represent him."
A few times Crystal brushes the back of Julienne's hand or her arm without any clear reason. Because they haven't seen each other in years they exchange numbers, and abandon the party to have a late coffee at a Pacific Coffee Company that operates until midnight. Crystal invites her to jog together. "Not that I think you're overweight or anything," she hurries to add, "but having a partner keeps me in the game, so to speak. Motivation."
Julienne makes noncommittal noises. They talk about meeting again, doing things together. It is strange; back in school they were never close. Crystal was all athlete, Julienne all books. The most contact they ever had was vying for top spots in history and English tests.
When she returns to the hotel Seung Ngo is rooted to much the same spot she was when Julienne left. Julienne remembers they've never discussed nightlife. "I'm sorry, Auntie. I didn't mean to stay out this late."
"It isn't that. You're an adult. Though I'd appreciate knowing you are upright and not, say, facedown on a sidewalk somewhere. I don't supp
ose you'd like one of us to pick you up sometimes? It's probably embarrassing for someone your age."
"Most people my age aren't menaced by demons. And I'm not embarrassed to have someone care for me. It's not embarrassing at all." Her friends find it incomprehensible that she enjoys living with older relatives, but they prefer Hollywood visions of independence over kinship, and none of them has been an orphan who spent seven years hating equally the parents that died and the extended family that did not.
"One of my regrets is that I was so young when I ascended. Had I more time with my family I might've learned to be a proper elder." Her aunt strokes her hair. "So, Olivia."
"What about her?" She tries for casual, for indifferent. What comes out is afraid and excited; what happens is her chest compresses and hurts.
"Hau Ngai will be granting her a favor. Ah—here's the number she left for you." Aunt Seung Ngo thumbs her phone, passes it to Julienne.
She looks at the glowing screen, white characters against blue-gray background. One glance and she knows she won't forget. "You're going to encourage me to talk to her? She's a demon."
"I'm not encouraging you, but she can't snatch your life through a cellular connection." The goddess' hand settles on her arm. "Think about what you want, child. Your circumstances are difficult and complicated, but I would see you content."
"I don't want to trouble—"
Seung Ngo puts a finger to Julienne's mouth. "What you want. Hold onto that. Think about that."
She doesn't have to do anything with Olivia's number. Julienne knows that. The power and choice to ignore and discard are hers. Forget, and go on with her life.
On her first call she disconnects into the first ring. The next time she lasts until the third. By the fourth attempt it's picked up almost as soon as the connection is made. Olivia's voice is a breathless "Yes?"
"You wanted me to call." Shifting accountability.
"Lady Seung Ngo's been kind."
Julienne waits. When Olivia says nothing she realizes she has to be the one to advance. "You've gotten what you wanted. In return for fixing me."
"If I had known how much that'd harm you... But yes, it shouldn't take long for the archer to locate something in the land of her birth."
"Your sister's in heaven? That's why you wanted my aunts' help?"
"They agreed to find her. The rest is mine."
"But," Julienne says, "heaven is accessible only to the pure, you said."
Olivia's chuckle is sour. "Such faultless recall you have. There are ways, and I'll find my own. Demons are cunning, or didn't your aunts warn you?"
"Why are you telling me this?"
"For closure. An ending to a story. Narratives are important to humans, aren't they?" Brief silence, as if Olivia is gathering herself. "I owe you and will honor you for taking me in when I was a stranger, one who could've done—and did—you harm. You've a virtuous, generous heart. I can't give you luck, but you've two gods watching over you, and that'll make your life long and fine and full of fortune."
"Why are you saying these things?"
"It's all I have the right to say. I won't impose myself on you again."
The call ends.
* * *
Xiaoqing has hoped it wouldn't come to begging the fox's favor. But all her life she's hoped for many things, and few ever came to fruition without her taking a hand.
She focuses. Daji is known for despising and exploiting the vulnerable.
Nuwa's fox has redecorated. Where the wall was plain and leavened by paintings it is now a collection of garish LEDs, whirling lights behind glass panels. The furniture has gone from soft plush to hard chrome and cables nest in every corner like serpents newly hatched. She finds the fox with a mortal male in her lap.
Dislodging him Daji rises. Her eyes glitter as she crosses the floor. "Younger-sister," she says in a voice like chimes. "How fortuitous! My night was getting desperately dull, and here you are."
"Older-sister." It is etiquette; it is pretense. She makes a bow, formal. "Please don't trouble yourself on my account."
The fox waves her hand, roundly dismissing the man, her admirers, and the young demons waiting for their turn to petition Daji for a place in banbuduo. "It's no trouble. Mortal boys. I don't know why I bother. They don't even make good sport."
The male continues to gaze at Daji in blank worship. He either hasn't heard, or is enthralled so far that he doesn't care. It doesn't seem to have occurred to him that Daji is done with him. "What do you do with them, older-sister?"
"What do you do with humans? You eat from them just a little, if they are delicious. You delight in their flesh sometimes, if they are not tedious. I let it be understood that I bed them all of course and several at once for preference, it makes immortals delightfully squeamish. Do you notice, all of them are locked in marriages of perpetuity, as though there's an imperial mandate against divorce?" Daji takes Xiaoqing's wrist, leads her past the tables, to the fire exit. As she leaves a collective sigh rustles behind her, desolate. But well-trained as they are to Daji's humors they don't move to follow.
The roof is a greenhouse of noon-lit waters and fruits gleaming ripe and sweet on the branch. Xiaoqing's stomach twitches. The transition jars, even for her who slips between realms as easily as water over scales, for her whose feet step over interstitial thresholds as others step through doors.
Xiaoqing lets all her scent-taste come to the fore. In a moment she is sure. She is home.
"Demons risen in the last, oh, a thousand years—none of them have seen our world. What do you think of that, little viper?"
Daji's voice drifts from behind her, even though moments ago the fox was ahead. "I haven't been here for so long," she says, gazing out at the pale sky. The cliff on which this arboretum rests is pearl. Centuries past she witnessed its nativity, the shutting of twin shells like earth sealing, their reopening like a continent being born.
"Too entangled in human affairs?" A hand rests on her hip.
Xiaoqing knows, abruptly, that if Daji presses her down now among the jasmines, she will clasp her arms around the fox, will bare her throat for Daji's lips. It is a moment of brimming, of collision, and out of loneliness she would not resist. This is what Julienne meant, what Julienne might have felt, when Xiaoqing linked her fingers on the mortal's stomach. When Julienne turned in her arms and began touching her.
So she puts her brow to Daji's wrist, for weakness is what the fox expects, and murmurs, "I require your wisdom, older-sister."
"Wisdom is not what most seek me out for."
"Then they are fools, for who is wiser than you, who has survived so much and in your thriving laughs at heaven?"
Daji's fingers move, rippling, through her hair. A hint of nails longer and sharper than human. "I remember a callow demon in her second century destroying villages because she could, entirely without respect for her elders." The fox tilts Xiaoqing's chin up to meet her and speaks against her eyelashes. "What a shame it is that the white cobra found you first. Under my guidance you'd have prospered, serving at a goddess' feet."
"Older-sister," she says and lets her voice drop tremulous, lets her eyes widen guileless.
Daji clicks her tongue. "If I were as susceptible to my appetites as I'm reputed to be, I would be doing such things to you. This sweetness cannot be for nothing. Ask."
"I need admittance to the realm above."
"That," the fox says, "is exceedingly stupid."
"I'm not Sun Wukong, older-sister. I've no wish to challenge gods—I wouldn't request this without a cause."
"And what cause is that?"
"Bai Suzhen," she says and at once wishes she can swallow it back, for abruptly her eyes burn and she's forgotten how difficult it is to say her sister's name, how difficult it is to brace against the truth of her absence.
Daji holds Xiaoqing at arm's length, appraising. "How long has it been?"
"Eight. Eight centuries."
"Not that long." Daji reaches inside her h
air; what she plucks out is not black but russet, the precious red of maple leaves at Zhongquijie. She twists the fur, knotting until it becomes a copper band. "This will give you a way in. Do not petition my mistress."
Xiaoqing accepts the ring. It is as slender as the edge of a fang and tries to cut her frail human-seeming skin. She wills scales onto her finger, puts it on, and lets a layer of humanness cover it all. "Older-sister. I'll hide it with my life. None will know it was you who granted me this gift, and I vow to repay this debt."
"Oh, you will." The fox lets go. "Believe that."
2.5
Heavenly temporal cycles being contrarian, it takes Houyi one day and four nights to locate the pagoda. There's neither challenge nor sport to it, but her objective was meant to be found. She watches for Dijun's servants. They eel through the mists of heaven's borderlands, spirits of stationery and instruments. None of them wears the telltale marks of service—the paper robes, the paper caps—Dijun puts on his creatures; even he is not so indiscreet or complacent.
When she comes back Chang'e has departed Hong Kong, and Julienne asks her whether gods would hurt a mortal. To this Houyi says, "I forbid it."
A clack of needles as Julienne puts down her knitting.
"I forbid your involvement in this. She must be exerting a pull on you still, for that is her instinct. But put your mind elsewhere and soon enough what enchantment she's put on you will fade."
"I didn't say anything about her," Julienne says carefully.
"I can approximate." Houyi sweeps diced garlic, chopped mushrooms, and minced pork into the pan. "The viper's done you nothing but harm and you recognize that. Do you hope to be her shield?"
She doesn't need to look over her shoulder to see Julienne's grimace. "You can read minds?"
"Deduction is an important part of the hunt." Houyi adds tofu.
When the food is done and transferred from pan to plate, she moves on to the steamed dumplings. "If I've made too much or too little, or if it's not to your liking, tell me. I rarely remember how much is comfortable to eat for a mortal your age."
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