Year of the Tiger (Changeling Sisters)

by Heather Heffner

  His wolf ears had indeed picked up on the discreet shame underlining my tone, my disappointment at my lack of experience next to his, and he’d…silenced them both. Mollified, I flipped over in his arms.

  “I already hunt better than you.”

  He trapped me in his arms and began hugging me tighter. “Do not!”

  “Yeah? Remember that hunt at Achasan? You ran your pretty brown tail right past a whole burrow of rabbits.”

  “Fine. You catch us breakfast tomorrow, then.”

  I pouted and rubbed my feet between his, coyly. “But it’s so cold outside! I don’t know if I’ll be fully recovered by then.”

  A deep, sensual chuckle rumbled from his throat. “Oh, I’ll make sure you’re recovered.” And he attacked me with kisses again. I laughed and tried to resist for a while, but finally curled up against him, relaxed and completely happy.

  Chapter 22: Too Soon

  The night passed far too swiftly, and when I awoke, I was alone. The fire was no more than scattered ashes.

  Rafael had gone out. I could still feel his strong arms holding me fast, but in the cold gray light of morning, it felt like a dream. I turned over, wrapped up in one of the big sweaters Rafael had brought.

  A paper fluttered around the fireplace ashes, a message that had been dropped off sometime in the darkest hours of the night. I recognized the white tiger emblem. I recalled Raina’s dreams of the white tiger, the Lady of the Spirit World, and felt frosty anger leak through my veins. Maya really dared to parade the tiger as her banner head after what she had done.

  I knew what the message said. It was an apology letter, all prettied up with ribbons and glitter, to insist that Duck Young had acted without the Court’s approval. As far as they were concerned, he was a renegade who had paid dearly for his mistake. They hoped I would still accept the Queen’s invitation to court. She still hoped. Fuck, she knew I would. They had someone of mine. Someone they had hurt really badly, if Duck Young’s taunts were true…

  I thought of the empty circle of dreams parading around my head. All one blank dreamscape after another. There had been nothing from Raina since they’d… Choked-up tears bubbled up in my throat. I felt close to hyper-ventilating. I didn’t want to think it. I couldn’t think it—

  Since they’d brainwashed her. Stolen her body. She’d be like Mari, now.

  “Oh, God, Raina.” I fell to my knees. “Oh, God. I’m so sorry.”

  Heavy footsteps in the doorway.

  “Well, the rest of the pack’s on their way— Shit! You saw the note!” Rafael reached me in two seconds and pulled me to his chest, smoothing back my hair so he could kiss my forehead, fiercely. I clung to him. I knew he understood what I was going through. How your footsteps echoed in the back of your head, echoing faster, louder, as you ran toward a truth you both needed and knew would destroy you.

  I cried against him until there were no more tears left. And then I straightened. Tied my hair in a high ponytail. Stood up.

  “Time to go.”

  “Damnit. Citlalli, seriously?” Rafael agitatedly ran a hand through his hair.

  “You know the date and time as well as I.” I took a deep breath. “It’s almost the second new moon after the winter solstice. They’ll be waiting for me. In Eve. Wait for my message on the prayer wheel. The pack’s plan goes forward as arranged.” I hesitated. “You really think Yu Li and everyone will be okay with us?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know. With us.”

  “Oh, we’re an us now, are we?” My heart thumped, but when I looked up, Rafael was grinning. “Hey, they’ll have to be. I bet half of them have guessed, anyway.” He bent over to make a new fire, brown hair falling over his face.

  “I might have…disobeyed orders, again,” he muttered to the hearth.

  “Shit, again?” I dared touch the back of his coat, where I could still feel the ridgeline of puckered scars. “Don’t you remember what Jaehoon did to you last time?”

  “So now we’re both scarred.” He said it defiantly. I remembered when I’d felt that way. After Raina had been bitten, I’d wanted to be wounded just like her. To stop the guilt.

  “I kept tabs on your house after Duck Young’s death, thinking something bad was going to happen. And fuckin’ hallelujah, I was right.” Rafael snorted in disgust. “After they took you…the pack was moving slowly. Far too slowly. They were worried that Duck Young’s attack meant a break in the stalemate, and soon vampyres would come pouring down around our ears. But I could track you. And I had to do it then, or else the trail would go cold. Juin-nim kept telling me to wait, wait, just wait… The hell with that! The goshawk leader, Xiang, commented that I showed ‘unusual attachment’ to someone who was only a student, not even a full-blooded pack member. I suppose that, and running off unauthorized, have sealed the deal.”

  I smiled. “Good. Hard part’s over then. Thanks, Raf.”

  He gave a mock sigh. “Fine. If you insist, you’re the only one who has permission to use that nickname.”

  “Oh, I will.”

  “Punk.”

  “How are my…mother and brother?” The anxious knot rose in my throat again.

  “I don’t know.”

  He held my gaze, and I felt my resolution waver. He sensed it immediately.

  “Come on, Citlalli. At least wait until the others get here so I can go with you. The Bloodsucker Queen has lived for what, a millennium? She can wait on her decaying ass a little while longer.”

  I grinned. I wished I could take Rafael up on that offer, but—I needed help from someone he had a vendetta against.

  “I’m the only one invited, Raf. And you know how these things go.” I ran my finger along his jaw. “Never go into Eve and leave your body unattended.”

  “But are you sure it’s wise for you to go alone?” His eyes burned with a hint of autumn orange. “Your Were state being what it is and all.”

  I froze. He was fishing. He had to be. If he knew for sure, then he would have brought it up last night. And I could not, would not, let Wolf bench me from this last chance to save my sister.

  “What are you talking about?” I gave a chuckle. “Wolf has never felt stronger. That stunt on the ice—well, I just don’t like crossing rivers. Scared of drowning, and all that. I had a mild panic attack.”

  Was he going to call me out on it? I held my breath. Rafael looked torn. I knew what it would mean to admit my—slip-up—with Wolf. He’d blame himself. After all, he was my creator, wasn’t he? He’d think the problem was more serious than it actually was.

  “If you’re sure… You’d tell me if anything was wrong, right?”

  I nodded, heart hammering in my throat.

  “Well, I’ll do a hell of a better job of taking care of your body than you did for mine, that’s for sure,” he muttered, and I hugged him tightly.

  “Do you think I’m strong enough?”

  I felt his muscles tense.

  “The reason you’re letting me go,” I whispered in his ear, “you think I’m strong enough to face her, don’t you?”

  He held me close, whispered back: “I know you’re strong enough. Physically. But ’Lalli: Maya grew tired of physical shows of strength a long time ago. She will test your psychological strength, Citlalli. Always remember why you’re in Eve.”

  “To save my sister.”

  “And don’t forget it.”

  He let me fall to the cot between us. I smelled cinnamon candles burning. A prayer wheel was tucked in my hands. I touched the monkey, the snake, the jackdaw, and last of all, the tiger.

  I won’t forget what happened to you.

  The early morning birds had just begun to chirp by the time I tumbled back into the world of twilight.

  Chapter 23: Third Time’s the Charm

  The pines I wandered through were enveloped in fog. So predictably, I had no idea where I was going. There was no fanged greeting committee to be found. I pulled out the prayer wheel and twisted it clock
wise, the words murmuring up from long-forgotten crevices:

  “Om Mani Padme Hum.”

  On the third try, the wood sprang to life beneath my hands. The jackdaw twrred and rustled its feathers. The snake slithered up and down its cube. The monkey laughed. The tiger remained still, staring with reproachful eyes.

  “Yeah. You guys remember me, alright,” I muttered. “Erm, Jackdaw. Glad you’re up and kicking.” Last time, the black-and-white bird had been about to guide me home before Khyber had nailed it with a spear.

  Wood splintered against my skin. I swear, the so-called peaceful spirit guide had just pecked me.

  “Listen. I’m sorry. That was a painful way to go.” The jackdaw cawed and preened its feathers. I cracked a smile. “But I need help again. Where do I go?”

  The jackdaw didn’t move. But the monkey did. It gestured to itself enthusiastically. I didn’t quite trust it, but the prayer wheel bell had already begun to clang a lower, down-to-earth note. A gleaming black monkey sprang off the wood and dashed into the fog with a liberated cheer.

  “Hey! Where are you going?”

  Talk about not needing a road map. The black monkey scrambled up the most difficult terrain possible, showering me with an unwelcome avalanche of pebbles and dirt. It was all I could do to keep up before the cloud swallowed its fleeing shape completely.

  We climbed higher and higher. A rickety red staircase unfolded before me, leading further into the clouds, and the deep toll of a gong echoed in the misty silence.

  Someone was following us. I could see her small figure standing amongst the shadows of trees, forgotten just like her name. No-Name. I’d set the young ghost girl free from her guard post at the Pavilion of Far-Reaching Fragrance, where she’d spent a lonely existence guarding Duck Young’s soul. She’d said she would go search for her long-lost mother. However, Maya’s anger haunted her. Last time, No-Name had tried to drown me until I gave Duck Young’s soul back. Just your typical relationship with a starving, amnesiac ghost.

  I didn’t want to scare No-Name off, so I pretended not to notice her presence.

  “Is that where we’re going?” I asked the monkey instead. The gong sounded like the huge brass plates that hung in Buddhist temples. Sure enough, the slow toc-toc-toc of the wooden blocks slapping against one another, in steady rhythm, followed. The monkey’s response was to pull itself up the dead, dry roots of ivy enveloping the boulders next to the stairway. I walked up the stairs alone, crunching sodden cherry blossoms beneath my boots.

  Cherry trees blooming? In winter? I stared up, confused, at the pink trees flanking the railings. Tiny Buddha statues peered at me from nooks and crannies in the boulder, looking delighted to be seated on the spikiest of seats. I couldn’t help but smile. As I passed beneath the invincible cherry trees, I caught my first sight of the temple-built-into-the-wall, its red pillars plunging into the earth like legs.

  Pebbles clattered on the steps behind me. Yep, No-Name was following.

  Delicious singing swam around my ears. Ghosts of all shapes and sizes floated around the mists, sharing rice cakes and pushing tinkling carts. They were so sickly and transparent that I couldn’t tell them apart from the clouds.

  “Madame of Memories. Discover the secret truth for why you can’t move on,” one ancient ajumma mumbled, hunched over her dwindling wares. She sat up in shock as I strode past.

  “You! You are the sun!” she gasped.

  I glanced at the tiny red candles. We cast the same amount of light. “Erm, yeah. Perk of still being alive, you know.”

  “But you must share some!” She was so weak she could only crawl after me, dislodging the lid of her kimchi pot as she did so. “Please! I make you special deal! I can give you powerful, brilliant light! Fire from your ancestors!”

  “I have enough power to deal with.” Wolf didn’t even have the nerve to feel abashed. I scowled.

  Her cries pounded my back long after I rounded the bend. I forced the guilt away. If the pack’s plan succeeded, then all of the ghosts’ problems, not just hers, would fade away. They could move on again. Not stay boxed up here for all eternity.

  I gazed around at the amount of ghosts clogging the temple grounds: Some were bundled up under ledges, and others stared off vacantly. The offering tables were all empty.

  The monkey stood absolutely still in the middle of a huge stone slab. I glanced suspiciously around the courtyard and stopped. The monkey hadn’t led me to vampyres.

  It had brought me to Old Man Zhi.

  Chapter 24: Penance

  The old lantern maker sat hunched under a craggy cliff face. His thin fingers struggled to patch together one of those lovely sunshine lanterns made of mint green and sunflower yellow paper, but he was oblivious to the water dripping with a steady pat-pat from above, leaving him holding soaked papier-mâché. In a fit of anger, he ripped the paper to pieces, and was left holding an empty cage. He raised the cage high above his head, but then my hand caught his wrist.

  “Old Man Zhi. It’s me. I’ve returned.”

  His forehead crinkled above his empty sockets. “Only one girl kept calling me old. Even though I told her it was a title I could do without. You are the wolf-girl.”

  I smiled, even as my heart thumped nervously. Last time I’d seen him, I’d been fleeing from his shop with a bunch of stolen lanterns. (Well, that had been Fred’s fault, but I was still an accomplice.)

  “What happened to your shop? All of those lanterns? Memory, Fire, Sun—”

  “Lotus.” He answered my question with another question: “Did you complete your bargain with the demon fox?”

  I winced. “I didn’t know what he was then, Old Man—erm, Zhi-nim. But yes, I fulfilled the bargain. Then the kumiho double-crossed me. I survived. I ran into him again, and he tried to…betray me. Again. But that time I got what I wanted. The Lotus Lantern is now safe in the hands of my wolf pack.”

  “So you learned something.” A small smile showed the whites of his teeth. “Don’t let there be a third double-cross, wolf-girl.”

  “Oh, I promise. Next time I see that dratted kumiho, I’m nailing its tail to the wall.”

  “If you presume to stand against a creature of so many lives and experience, then the Vampyre Queen really should have reason to fear.” His restless fingers pulled out another sheet of papier-mâché. He began folding it in the shape of a butterfly. “That is why you have come, is it not?”

  My confidence broke down. I released the fists at my sides. “I’ve come to find my sister,” I choked out. “Bring her back home for good.”

  Or what’s left of her, Wolf whispered.

  SHUT UP!

  Old Man Zhi dropped the paper to the damp ground, as if physically struck by my inner anger.

  “What do you want, wolf-girl? Your apology is far too late, and you’ve only succeeded in hurting my hurting business.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. I don’t know why the thought occurred to me, but I said it anyways: “I’m here to help you see again.”

  His hands stopped moving. “How?”

  I cursed myself. I shouldn’t be here, wasting time—

  The monkey chattered. I remembered how guilt had chased me as I fled Old Man Zhi’s shop. He obviously hadn’t fared much better since then. I’d known I’d been guilty of wrong-doing. I owed him.

  “Well, I’m still working out the details—”

  Old Man Zhi sighed. “I thought as much. I have seen older and wiser doctors than you, both while living and in dying. But, if you are set on sticking around, you can at least make yourself useful.”

  He handed me a wire cage. “Hold this still. Watch what I do.”

  “Yes, Laoshi.” I’d learned the Mandarin word for “teacher” from the goshawk clan.

  “Does your friend want to come in?”

  I peered out through the mist to where No-Name hunched among the other ghosts, her long black ponytail coiled in a puddle.

  “She’ll come when she’s ready.”
/>
  The water dripped. Wordless, Old Man Zhi beckoned me further under the ledge.

  ***

  We made lanterns. Tiny, heart-shaped ones to guard baby cradles. Orange lanterns that smelled of sweet persimmons. Thick braided lanterns sewn from wicker that glowed underwater. We made lanterns, and I couldn’t be quiet. It was just too awkward, watching this stranger I’d offended on more than one occasion, glue layers over layers, expressionless. I chatted about my family and New Mexico. I talked about my embarrassing language misunderstandings with that cute Korean boy at the movies. Yes, I even told the dreaded poodle-haircut story. Old Man Zhi never said anything, but handfuls of ghosts drifted over, filling up the doorway to our crevice until there was barely any fresh air.

  “You are the loudest thing in this temple,” Old Man Zhi said finally. “And if you do not stop talking, then you will attract the wrong kind of attention.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ghosts, tired of your ceaseless prattling, will come take it from you. Or I will. Your voice,” he said, holding up a black lantern with jagged ribbons streaming down its face like bars. “I have built cages for souls. You think I can’t build one for a chatterbox?”

  I shut up.

  “Do you think that’s what happened to you?” I ventured later, when some of the ghosts had drifted away. “That someone passed by in the night and took your sight?”

  He clammed up again, a box without a key. I suppressed a sigh.

  “I’ll go fetch us some water.”

  He said nothing, except, “You need a break already?”

  ***

  I lingered longer than necessary by the well, cherishing the feeling of fresh air rolling across my face.

  “Dog-girl.” No-Name had finally approached. Eve had not been good to her. She’d lost her shoes, the silly girl. “Do you make more soul-catching cages, now?”

  “No.” I closed my eyes wearily. “A while ago, I made a mistake I need to fix.” I shot a vicious look at the old man’s back. “Although it sure is taking a hell of a while. I expected to be meeting with the vampyres by now, not tinkering away in Lantern-Making 101.”