The Moon Pearl

by Ruthanne Lum McCunn

  Except for picking mulberry leaves, Shadow had never worked in the fields. But from her years of following Elder Brother around Strongworm, she’d become as familiar with outdoor labor as in. And when she’d seen Mei Ju about to throw away a broken hoe while cleaning out the hut, Shadow had snatched it from her, exclaiming, “We can use this to break ground for a vegetable patch.” She’d then designed a vegetable patch for the back of the hut with the same careful attention to detail that she applied to her embroidery.

  To minimize the area for cultivation, Shadow alternated vegetables that grew underground with those on the ground and in the air; she calculated the number of plants necessary to support three people, also the exact distance between each plant so there’d be no waste of space, seeds, or labor. Plan in hand, she walked the space between hut and grove a dozen times in the course of a day, studying the sun in the sky, the placement and length of shadows on the ground. Finally, she marked out a plot four feet by nine where light fell earliest in the morning and lingered the longest in the afternoon.

  So their hands wouldn’t form callouses that would snag silk and spoil their embroidery, Shadow cut her shabbiest pair of pants into narrow strips which she and her friends wrapped around their palms and fingers. So as to save their strength, Shadow shared what her father had told her brother: “Begin work from the center of the plot. Pull out the wild grasses by the roots and remove all rocks and stones before attacking the hardpacked dirt with the hoe. After turning over each layer of soil, let the sun dry out the large clods of earth for easier crumbling.”

  Shadow, though, could only bend her back to the hoe for short stretches. Nor did Mei Ju—whose grandmother assigned all heavy labor to the men in their family—bear up any better. Both had improved with time. But neither had ever matched the endurance of Rooster, who’d been forced from childhood by Old Bloodsucker to labor long and hard in the fields.

  Compared to hacking down bamboo, it seemed to Mei Ju that breaking ground for their vegetable patch had been child’s play. And knowing every family in the village had mulberry stems to spare made the sweaty, backbreaking work of harvesting the bamboo even more burdensome for her.

  But Shadow said, “The bamboo will save us work in the long run because it’s stronger than mulberry and won’t rot.”

  “At last we have something to use our cleaver for,” Rooster joked.

  Shadow giggled. “From now on, I’m going to pretend the bamboo is really a juicy suckling pig.”

  Amazed but relieved at her friends’ apparent rise in spirits, Mei Ju laughed when next she thrust their cleaver into a bamboo, “I’m chopping a chicken.”

  Rooster, taking the cleaver for her turn, smacked her lips. “Duck for me.”

  They were, in truth, needful of meat to boost their strength, and Mei Ju wished another chicken or a slab of pork would arrive on their doorstep.

  What appeared was a bolt of black gummed silk. Rooster attributed this gift to Gwoon Yum too. And Mei Ju agreed, as she had before with the hen. Where Rooster claimed Gwoon Yum had personally brought them the chicken and cloth, however, Mei Ju believed the Goddess had gifted them with an earthly benefactor who shared her merciful heart.

  The wall around the gaping hole was so weak that Mei Ju knocked it down with a few sharp taps of their broken hoe. But removing the dirt so she and Shadow and Rooster could weave the wattle into the frame was harder: they had to fill their two baskets bowl by bowl, then haul the filled baskets across the clearing to empty.

  Together they slashed through huge swathes of grass in the hills, lashed what they’d cut into sheaves that they strung onto lengths of sturdy bamboo and carried back to their hut. They spread the grass out to dry, then dragged the felled bamboo out of the grove for splicing into narrow strips that they wove through the hut’s frame.

  The wattle completed, they made countless trips to the river to fetch water for turning the dirt back into mud. They mixed dried grass into the mud to form a plaster and covered the wattle handful by handful.

  They worked on only one section of the wall at a time. And between each section, they returned to their embroidery for a few days so they’d have a break from their labor, something to sell. But after just one wall was rebuilt, even Rooster admitted exhaustion.

  Rubbing liniment on each other, they tried to ease their hurts. Nevertheless, jagged streaks of pain ripped up and down their arms and across their backs each time they lifted a bucket of water, a basket of dirt, or shouldered the yoke. Then their necks and backs became so stiff that they had difficulty bending over their embroidery frames. The joints in their fingers swelled until they could scarcely hold their needles. The muscles in their legs knotted and cramped whether they were walking or at rest. In truth, it seemed to Mei Ju that they moved more like they were seventy than seventeen and eighteen.

  Yet Mei Ju was certain that she and her friends would persist until all four walls were rebuilt. What she fretted over was whether this success would be enough to win them back their families, a place in Strongworm, and with it, a return to reeling silk.

  Yun Yun’s motherin-law, claiming the family had to make up the losses she’d caused, rationed her food, allowing her only watery gruel made from the scrapings of the rice pot.

  Yun Yun, already slender, soon became so thin her belly sank against her spine. Dark shadows circled her eyes. Her hair came out in her comb.

  No one in the village spoke up for her. Not even those who, drawn by her baby brother’s loud wails, had crowded at the Chows’ door, then spilled into the common room and pleaded with Old Lady Chow to take pity on the boy and release Yun Yun for a visit home.

  More than once, though, she heard someone mutter, “It’s people like the Chows that make girls afraid of marriage.”

  The Chows had widely proclaimed their disapproval of the spinsters from the day Shadow, Mei Ju, and Rooster had made their vows, and Yun Yun noticed that every time the talk against the women started to lose its intensity, her in-laws and husband would stir it up again the way she stirred the buckets of nightsoil before fertilizing the fields. She also frequently saw them among the men and women crowding round the mud hut, scoffing at the spinsters’ toil.

  “You’re going to fail anyway, so you might as well save yourselves this effort.”

  “Yeah, give it up.”

  “Give it up now!”

  Nor did the naysaying stop when the spinsters completed the repairs.

  “Just wait. A few heavy downpours, and those walls will wash away.”

  “They’ll collapse in a big wind.”

  “Hnnnh, a small wind will do.”

  The hut withstood the first summer storms, however. And when Yun Yun saw the spinsters wearing clothes made out of black gummed silk, she thought of the mountain pines that endure despite roots sunk into rocky ground, assaults of bitter cold and wind.

  Dead Useless

  YUN YUN’S father had long ago taught her, “Each plant has its very own character and needs. Just like a person. Plants also think about the next generation like we do.”

  “How do you know?” she’d asked.

  In answer he’d pointed to a broccoli and two bak choy that were struggling to stay alive although they’d sprouted from stray seeds beyond their field and were therefore neither regularly watered nor ever fertilized.

  “Look how undersized they are. Yet they already have little yellow flowers. Why? Because the plants are suffering and know they’re dying, so they’re rushing to make seeds in spite of being young and puny.”

  The malnourished broccoli and bak choy had indeed made seeds long before the carefully tended plants in the field had even flowered. And Yun Yun, starved for affection and weak from her motherin-law’s meager rations, was consumed by desire for a baby, fear that while her husband was young and healthy, he’d continue to overlook his obligation to ensure descendants for his parents and insist on taking his pleasure regardless of whether she was with child.

  She considered seek
ing her motherin-law’s help since Old Lady Chow called her dead useless for failing to produce a grandson. If Yun Yun told her the reason, though, Young Chow was bound to refute it, and who would Old Lady Chow believe?

  So Yun Yun sold a gold ring from her few pieces of wedding jewelry, and soon as she realized she again had life in her, she gave her husband the necessary cash to go to a house of pleasure. He forced her to serve him in bed anyway, killing their second baby as he had their first. Then he used the money to lease another field for growing mulberry, adding to her work; and his glee over tricking her was as vicious as his assaults on her body.

  That her husband’s appetite was not for pleasure but suffering, especially her suffering, Yun Yun now understood. If she couldn’t protect life in her from her husband, however, she couldn’t bear a child. And if she didn’t have at least one child to love, to soften the harshness of her life, she didn’t see how she could endure.

  Of course, she could release herself from her suffering and show who had caused it simply by looping her husband’s red wedding sash around her neck, then hanging herself from their bedpost. No one would dispute such a damning accusation. She’d be justly avenged. But her suicide would also be a condemnation of her father for agreeing to the match, and Yun Yun would not heap her own blame onto the burden of regret that so clearly weighed on him and her mother already.

  Last year, when Mei Ju had been new to weeding, she’d heard her grandmother snapping, “You really are dead useless,” each time she slowly, clumsily worked her way through the leafy tops of sweet potatoes, turnips, and peanuts. Now Grandmother was silent. Not because Mei Ju’s fingers plucked weeds from the warm, moist soil with practised ease, but because Grandmother had been crowded out by other voices.

  “What right do those three upstarts have to wear sober black?”

  “They’ll learn it takes more than dressing in black gummed silk to make a body old and wise.”

  “Hnnnh, those spinsters aren’t capable of learning!”

  “Looks like that Rooster’s brother isn’t either.”

  “The want-to-be laureate?”

  “Yeah. He’ll be in the fields before the summer’s over.”

  That gossip was as inevitable and persistent as weeds Mei Ju had realized since childhood. Mei Ju had even expected that making clothes for themselves out of the black gummed silk would spawn exactly this kind of criticism. But their cotton tunics and pants had turned into rags, and they’d had no money to buy cotton, no other use for the black gummed silk. Moreover, Mei Ju hadn’t anticipated this new round of reproof would propel the ill will against Shadow, Rooster, and herself onto Laureate.

  Of course, she’d known since Rooster’s New Year visit home that Laureate had fallen out of favor with his patron on their account. Ever since this Low elder had first shown an interest in Laureate, however, people had acknowledged the boy was aptly named. Indeed, his brilliance had been the talk of the village.

  “See how flat our foreheads are? Laureate’s bulges out with brains.”

  “That boy learns as easily as other boys spit.”

  “Mark my words, when he’s old enough for the district examinations, he’ll bring honor to the Low clan.”

  “To all of Strongworm.”

  So Mei Ju had thought popular sentiment for Laureate would hold strong despite the loss of the patron’s favor. She’d also thought it would protect Laureate from Old Bloodsucker. Now she wasn’t sure. And Rooster clearly shared her doubts. When reaching for her prayer beads the night before, she’d muttered bleakly, “If my brother is banished from the clan school, I’ll never forgive myself.”

  Mei Ju understood: she would certainly forever hold herself responsible for the part she’d played in her sister’s death.

  Yun Yun felt as dead as the brush her motherin-law was ordering her to go gather from the hills for fuel. But with no hope of deliverance, Yun Yun didn’t waste spittle pleading for release. She put on her widebrimmed straw hat, hung a basket from each end of the carrying pole, shouldered it, and headed for the uncultivated slopes beyond Strongworm’s fields.

  Even before Yun Yun left the village proper, she was panting. Moreover, the carrying pole was rubbing her bony shoulder raw, and the morning sun was burning through her hat, piercing her skull. But going back to her motherin-law with empty baskets was impossible. So Yun Yun staggered on, forcing her right leg up, setting it down; then her left; then her right.

  By the time she reached the road between village and fields, sweat was seeping through her every pore, drenching her tunic and pants so that the wet cloth clung and twisted round her arms and legs like shackles. Still Yun Yun dragged one foot after the other, stirring up clouds of dry dirt that caked her sweaty sandaled feet, stung her eyes, and clogged her nose, her throat.

  Each step demanded more effort than the last. Soon her heart was pounding so fiercely she feared it would leap from her chest. Then the fields in the distance, the bamboo grove, the very road she was walking blurred into darkness. Yet she felt no cooling clouds coming between her and the sun’s white heat.

  Stumbling to a confused halt, Yun Yun stooped to lower her shoulder pole for a moment’s rest—pitched forward and careened off the road, toppling into a shallow gully, her shoulder pole clattering after her, the baskets hurtling in, bouncing back out.

  Through it all, she uttered no sound. At first because she was too startled. And then because her spirit had flown.

  Mei Ju, weeding in their vegetable patch behind the hut, heard the rasp of small stones and dirt, the sharp snap of breaking branches. In the grip of the voices in her head, she didn’t even glance up. Then, the weeding completed, Mei Ju tossed what she’d pulled into the mound of wood ashes, leaf mold, and decaying vegetable scraps at the far end of the clearing. Instantly flies and gnats spiraled up in a noisy buzz, and Mei Ju, jumping back to avoid them, caught a flash of blue in the shallow gully between the road and bamboo grove. A trick of the eye?

  Standing on tiptoe, she stretched her neck. The wild honeysuckle and grasses around the gully were too thick for her to actually see in. But between the varying shades of green and flecks of white, there was definitely blue. Duck-egg blue.

  A magpie roosting on the hut’s roof cawed, and through the window floated Rooster’s steadfast chanting, “Nam-mo-oh-neh-toh-fu,” the clang of their wok. Mei Ju chuckled. What fun it would be to surprise Rooster and Shadow with duck eggs for their morning rice! Laughing out loud, she strode out of their clearing into knee-deep grass.

  The gully was twenty, thirty feet distant, and Mei Ju had covered about half of it when she realized she was looking at clothing, not eggs. And since no one in Strongworm would be so wasteful as to throw away clothing that, however worn, could be used as rags, the duck-egg-blue tunic or pants she was looking at was on someone. Someone who was crouched or lying absolutely still. Halting abruptly, she wondered whether she should go any further.

  Neither a child at play nor a bandit would choose such a poor hiding place, Mei Ju reasoned. So the person in the gully was likely injured. Should she take the time to go back to the hut for Shadow and Rooster? Or should she try shouting for help? Ai, what if she was blamed for whatever had happened? Anyway, what she could see of the road was empty. Everybody must have already gone to their homes for morning rice. When they returned to the fields afterwards, though, someone would notice the blue, as she had, and stop. Or ignore it, as she was tempted to. Or find it was too late to help. Maybe it was too late already.

  Overwhelmed, Mei Ju sagged onto a nearby rock, sprang back up from its heat, the memory of all the times she’d failed to help others—and plunged on through the thick tangle of her confusions and fears, the grass.

  As she approached the gully, Mei Ju recognized Yun Yun, although her hat was skewed and covered much of her face. And Mei Ju guessed from the empty baskets and shoulder pole that Yun Yun had been on the road to the fields.

  The slope between road and gully wasn’t either steep or
long, but it was strewn with sharp stones, and Yun Yun’s visible cheek was grazed, her hands had several small wounds, one leg of her pants had a long tear from knee to hem, and the exposed skin was covered with blood. Blood and flies.

  Ants and other bugs were crawling over Yun Yun too. Yet not an eyelid fluttered open. Not a finger twitched. Most worrying, Mei Ju, squinting unblinkingly at Yun Yun’s chest, couldn’t detect the slightest rise and fall.

  Reluctant to climb down to a corpse, Mei Ju squeaked, “Yun Yun,” from above. Yun Yun did not stir. But then Mei Ju could hardly hear herself.

  Taking a deep breath, she tried to squeeze something louder out of her throat, couldn’t. Again and again she tried, failed. Finally, she sank into the grass and edged into the gully.

  During Grandfather’s last months, Mei Ju had heard her mother talk about how she’d restored his spirit with white flower oil. Now, in imitation, she picked a handful of fragrant honeysuckle, crushed the petals to intensify their scent, then crouched, trembling, beside Yun Yun’s face and held the broken blossoms under her nose.

  Freedom

  AS THOUGH from a great distance, Yun Yun smelled Lucky’s distinctive musky scent.

  “Lucky?” she breathed.

  “Mei Ju.”

  Mei Ju the spinster? Yun Yun’s eyes flew open, blinked up at a halo of blinding light surrounding a hat, a face, Mei Ju’s face.

  “You fell.”

  Memory returned to Yun Yun in a rush, and with it, sharp pricks of pain, a flood of panic over her unfilled baskets.

  “I’ve got to go.”

  Over Mei Ju’s protests and with her considerable help, Yun Yun crawled out of the gully, her lips folded tight so she wouldn’t leak the howls that were roaring in her head at the tiniest movement, the gentlest touch.

  At least the cut in her leg seemed to have stopped bleeding, Yun Yun told herself. Nothing was broken either. But every inch of her hurt down to her bones. And even greater than the torment of her wounds and the exhaustion that had led to her fall was her terror that someone would see her and Mei Ju from the road.