Year of the Golden Dragon

by B. L. Sauder

  As she unbuttoned the passport clerk disguise, Hong Mei noticed again how perfectly it fit. She removed her own trousers and red turtleneck from the backpack Madam Ching had given her and pulled the clothes on. Then she reached back in and removed a black nylon jacket. She put it on and zipped it up. This, too, was the correct size.

  She picked up the uniform, hairpiece and glasses and stuffed them into a plastic bag before unlocking the door and walking out of the stall. She moved quickly toward the garbage can and pushed the plastic bag into it. Then she unzipped the left pocket of her jacket and took out her new watch. The design on its round, white face was of a dragon and phoenix facing each other. Black Chinese characters representing the hours formed a circle running around the border. In the centre, between the two creatures’ bodies, was a small rectangle. Inside this were red flashing numbers. The display beat like a pulse: 51:27:17

  Fifty-one hours, twenty-seven minutes, and seventeen seconds. When Madam Ching had given Hong Mei the timepiece, the woman had said it acted like a timer, counting down the hours, minutes and seconds left until the Year of the Golden Dragon began.

  There was just a little over two days before New Year’s Eve.

  For what seemed the umpteenth time, Hong Mei began to run through a mental checklist:

  •Get a close look at the boys. (Done. They looked just like they did in the photographs given to her by Madam Ching.)

  •Follow the Wongs and wait for Ryan and Alex to be alone.

  •Convince them that their jade pendants really belong to Black Dragon and that because of what it says in an ancient scroll, they have to return to Beijing with me to give all of our jade to Madam Ching. Black Dragon will know his jade is being returned and will come to receive it. We will be able to capture him so that the world sees that Chinese dragons actually exist.

  Right. How ridiculous. Those two boys were never going to believe her. They would probably think she was crazy, or worse, part of a kidnapping ring or something. They were probably much smarter than she was.

  Beep! Beep! Beep!

  The alarm sounded on her watch – a signal that the Wongs’ luggage was being sent out. It was time to go to where the family would be waiting.

  A woman was standing just outside the staff toilet. “Follow me,” she said to Hong Mei. She unlocked a door upon which was marked No Entry and held it open for her, pointing toward one of the dozens of baggage carousels. “They are over there,” she said.

  Hong Mei spotted the Wong family, but she did not move. Her heart sped up when the woman nudged her forward and the door closed behind her.

  She slipped her hand into her pocket. Gripping her jade, she walked slowly toward the luggage area.

  Hong Mei saw Ryan, Alex and the foreign woman, their aunt. The younger boy and his aunt were talking while the older boy stared away from them at something. He stood motionless and unblinking, as if he had been turned to stone. Hong Mei followed Ryan’s gaze and gasped. A man was staring at him with such intensity that the air between them appeared to vibrate. Hong Mei could feel the stranger’s power from where she stood.

  She watched as Alex approached his brother. Alex said something to the older boy, but Ryan didn’t respond. Hong Mei saw Alex step directly in front of his sibling, waving his hands in the air. The energy between the man and older boy immediately disappeared. Ryan removed his glasses and rubbed his face.

  The din and commotion in the giant hall suddenly subsided. The sounds of hundreds of people became muffled as if a blanket had been dropped over them. Everyone still moved around her, but their actions were delayed and exaggerated.

  What’s happening?

  Hong Mei glanced toward the man. Her instincts told her not to look directly at him, but her eyes were drawn to his. She tried to cast a charm of protection over herself, but for some reason Hong Mei couldn’t remember it.

  The man stared directly into her pupils. A second later, her eyes felt like they were being torn from their sockets. Hong Mei’s mind fought the man. Her father had trained her well, and she knew her gong fu used to be excellent, but she was out of practice. She tried to imagine her own energy pushing the man’s back at him, but all her strength and discipline had vanished. What kind of power was this?

  Deep inside her head she heard, “It is old power – as ancient as the universe itself. Do not fight it, for it is part of you.”

  Snap!

  Hong Mei was released with such force that her head flipped back, as if her neck was an elastic band. Her head rebounded and her chin smashed against her chest, snapping her teeth into her tongue. She tasted blood.

  She looked down and cupped her shaking hands around her eyes like blinders. Once again, she could hear and see everyone in a normal way. People were laughing and talking, jostling to retrieve their suitcases and other luggage. Nobody seemed to have noticed what had just happened to her.

  Hong Mei squinted towards where the Wong family was. They were gone.

  Good!

  She wanted to go, too. She didn’t need this.

  “Young Chen, I presume?” she heard someone hiss from behind, spitting something hot and wet onto the back of her neck. Her sense of the surroundings dulled once more.

  “Yeow!” she screeched, turning around and striking a warrior’s defence pose. Her body and brain were beginning to remember.

  The strange man now stood grinning at her, inches away from her face. His eyes were hidden behind large, heavy sunglasses. Hong Mei felt her insides turn to water, but she held her stance.

  “Ahhh, Chen,” the man said. He breathed into her face and began to giggle. The sound was like a high-pitched squeal, twisting her eardrums and burning into her head. “This modern gong fu cannot protect Young Chen from Black Dragon.”

  Hong Mei recoiled from the stench of his breath. She tried to back up, but felt frozen in position. Black Dragon?

  The man sneered. “Young Chen is very delicate.”

  Hong Mei glanced around for help. Surely there was someone who could –

  The man breathed heavily as he began to circle around her. He was so near she could feel his clothes brush against hers. “No one is able to assist Young Chen, for no one is able to see Young Chen at this moment.” He pushed his large, flat nose into her hair and sniffed. “Young Chen smells like ancient herbs,” he whispered into her ear.

  Hong Mei’s skin crawled.

  The man only chuckled, his open mouth giving off the putrid smell of an open sewer.

  Trying to breathe only through her mouth, Hong Mei managed to speak. “I can see you are a man of great importance. May I ask your name, sir?”

  The man smiled gleefully, showing his teeth, cracked and stained. “Indeed, you are a Chen.” He rolled his head on his thick neck from one side to the other, stretching. The closure of his mandarin collar looked as if it was about to burst open. “Master Chen was also fond of flattery.”

  Master Chen?

  “Master Chen was once a virtuous and true friend of Black Dragon,” the man said, pushing the sunglasses up higher on his nose.

  Hong Mei barely heard him as she stared at the man’s fingers. The nails were so long and sharp that his fingers looked like talons.

  “Is Young Chen listening to Black Dragon?” he asked, glancing briefly over the top of his glasses.

  Hong Mei felt a jolt in the centre of her forehead. She thought she might vomit and quickly covered her mouth with both hands.

  “Black Dragon is dreadfully sorry,” the man said. “Black Dragon failed to remember that Young Chen is a mere girl.”

  Hong Mei tried to keep her emotions in check, but her face turned red, giving her away.

  The man stopped laughing and his face suddenly twisted. As he ran a rough tongue over his cracked lips, he grabbed one of her arms and said, “Black Dragon’s precious treasure is near. So near that Black Dragon can hear it calling.”

  Hong Mei’s arm felt like it was on fire. It bubbled and burned inside Black Dragon’s grasp.


  “It is nearly time for Black Dragon and his beloved broken stone to come together once again. If Black Dragon were as selfish as humans, Black Dragon would simply take the jade back and forget the promises made in the past.”

  Promises? Hong Mei took huge gulps of air and imagined coolness racing through her body to where his talon-like fingers held on.

  “But that is not how Black Dragon thinks. Black Dragon does not only think of Black Dragon. It is true that Black Dragon has acquired some nasty human traits over the centuries; one of them being restraint.” He growled and let go of her arm.

  Hong Mei looked down in horror to see the nylon jacket melted and her new sweater singed. She could see her skin showing through, raw and blistered.

  “Black Dragon has waited more than two thousand years for this reunification. Black Dragon will try to resist the cries of his jade until the appointed hour.

  “Farewell, then. No doubt Young Chen has seen enough of Black Dragon’s power – for now.”

  Black Dragon turned and slunk away, unseen by the crowd.

  Hong Mei gritted her teeth and focused all her energy on the burn. It was torture. She looked up to see a child staring at her sleeve. Hong Mei winced as she took her jacket off and draped it over her arm, hiding the festering blisters. She’d have to think of a healing spell later. Right now, she needed to catch up to Ryan and Alex. But how could she possibly know where they were going?

  The crowd pushed in front, behind and on both sides of her. Everyone was moving in different directions. She strained to hear Mandarin in the voices of people passing by, but caught only a few words. All she could hear was Cantonese, and she couldn’t understand that dialect.

  And English? Hong Mei dreaded the thought of trying that out. She’d only ever spoken English during her lessons at school. Would anyone in Hong Kong understand her?

  Hong Mei started to nibble on one of her fingernails. She noticed, but chewed anyway.

  Did Madam Ching know about Black Dragon and how dangerous he was? Was this really the Black Dragon her father was so obsessed about? She had to focus on Madam Ching’s plan.

  A few metres away stood a massive wall of glass. Hong Mei made her way toward it, gaping at its unbelievable size. She felt someone bump her, hard enough that she nearly lost her footing. Hong Mei saw that it had been one of two young women walking together. Both of them were slim and wore stylish clothes. The slightly taller one glanced back over her shoulder at Hong Mei. She thought the stranger was about to apologize, but she merely flicked back her long, jet black hair and raised one eyebrow in disdain. Hong Mei heard her say something. It sounded like “country bumpkin.”

  Hong Mei sighed. Even perfect strangers made fun of her. She couldn’t imagine asking anyone for help.

  Turning back to the glass she looked out at the night. Madam Ching had told her to use the Chen clan’s legendary skills. For anyone in the know those were, of course, gong fu and their inherited second sight. This, she realized, was why her father had trained her so hard. Had he known that she would feel so scared and alone? Why hadn’t he warned her? She guessed he had and that was why they took him away. He’d been so worried he seemed crazy.

  It had been a long time since she’d practiced, but she now concentrated on the special breathing Baba had shown her. Filling her lungs and stomach completely, she slowly contracted her torso, pushing all the air out. She imagined her mind clearing of all thoughts, making way for new images. Hong Mei closed her eyes and began to focus. The roots of her hair started to tingle and she felt the faint tickle on her neck. It was working! Shapes began to form in her mind’s eye, but the vision was still unclear.

  Inside her head, she saw streams of coloured lights rushing past. Vehicles honked and there was the smell of diesel and automobile exhaust. Were the Wongs in a car?

  Yes. As usual. She saw more clearly as the vision unfolded. There were lights on the dashboard of a car. Then, she made out the image of a silk-tasselled lucky charm hanging from the driver’s mirror. She heard the excited chatter of several people talking at once. Was it English? No, Chinglish – a combination of Chinese and English. Someone was trying to speak Cantonese. There was laughter. She saw a hand reach over and turn the knob on the radio. Canto-pop music drowned out the passengers’ voices.

  Next she saw blackness. Was it sky? Tall steel beams stretched high into the inky night and enormous steel cables draped from one towering post to another. Lights of other vehicles flashed and buzzed past intermittently.

  Was it a bridge? Yes, that was it! The Wong family was on the suspension bridge she’d seen pictures of. The bridge linked the island where the airport was and the mainland.

  Her eyes flew open. She’d try to catch up to them on that bridge. But what if she couldn’t, then what?

  Frantically looking around, she saw symbols for taxis, buses, ferries and the underground train. She’d only taken buses and trains, and those were between her village and Beijing. The Wongs were in a car. She’d never catch them by riding a bus or train. What should she do to get to the bridge where they were?

  Hong Mei took a breath and made herself stop panicking. In a second she decided that it would be better to take a taxi and follow the same route they had taken. Her mind made up, Hong Mei raced in the direction of the taxi sign. It wouldn’t take the family long to cross the bridge. Could she catch them before they got to the other side?

  When she got to the taxi rank, she groaned at the long line of people. This was obviously no time to be polite, though. Throwing her shoulders back, she began nudging and bumping her way between people while trying not to let anything touch her burned arm. At the front of the line was a young couple holding hands.

  What was she going to do? She couldn’t just leap in front of them and steal their taxi.

  It was time for some help from Mama’s teachings. She mumbled a quick spell of love over the couple and they immediately began to kiss and grope one another. As the crowd of Chinese stared in disapproval, Hong Mei used the diversion to slip into their taxi.

  “Where to?” the driver barked at her in Cantonese, frowning into his rear-view mirror.

  She didn’t understand him, but guessed. “The bridge,” she said in Mandarin. “Please. Go fast. It is important. Very important!”

  He snorted, but began driving. “Of course bridge. Everyone must take bridge,” he said, eyes darting at her reflection. “You look Chinese. Why you no speak Chinese?” he asked in English.

  “Wo shuo Jungwen ba! Wo huei shuo Hua Yu,” Hong Mei responded.

  “You in Hong Kong now. We use Cantonese. If you no speak Cantonese, you must use English.”

  “Thank you,” Hong Mei said. “Thank you for the advice.”

  Peering into the night at the other taxis, Hong Mei realized how unlikely it was that she would catch up to the Wongs. The bridge was huge and obviously very new. There were mostly red, green and blue taxis with a few other cars mixed in. How would she find the one vehicle carrying Alex and Ryan?

  She closed her eyes and started taking the same deep breaths she’d tried in front of the glass wall. Hong Mei focused only on the rise and fall of her breath, trying to lengthen each one into the next. The pain in her arm began to recede. The pleasant tingling of her scalp and neck returned.

  An image began to form in her mind. There were streets, narrow and crowded with people and vehicles. Above them flashed neon lights and blinking billboards of every colour, shape and size. Some ran up the sides of buildings, others blinked on and off in store windows. In the space above the sidewalk, higher than a double-decker bus, hung flashing neon signs in bright pink, yellow, red, blue, orange, green and white. Yes, if white could be whiter than white, it was when it was in neon, Hong Mei thought. She knew Nathan Road in Kowloon was famous for its neon lights. Were these streets of Kowloon that she was seeing in her head?

  She continued breathing slowly and evenly, letting the gorgeous vision take over.

  The leather smel
l of the inside of the taxi faded and was replaced with – sulphur? Yuck! Her body swayed and she imagined feeling a fine mist on her face. Light rain? The softness of the taxi seat disappeared and was replaced with a feeling of hard wooden slats. Was it a bench? She made out other people sitting around her.

  Ah! It was a boat – a passenger ferry.

  She saw signs written in both English and traditional Chinese. “Beware of Pickpockets” and “No Spitting.”

  She saw another sign. What did it say?

  Star Ferry Corporation.

  The Star Ferry! The boat that ferried people between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. The Wongs must be headed towards the Star Ferry.

  She opened her eyes and sat forward.

  “The ferry terminal,” she said in English. “Take me to the Star Ferry.”

  The taxi driver looked into his rear-view mirror and said, “Okay. Which side you want? Kowloon or Hong Kong?”

  “I’m not sure.” Hong Mei’s eyes pricked and she bit her lip to stop it from quivering. “I only know I must go to the Star Ferry.”

  The driver frowned. “You only young girl. Why you alone? Where is your mother and father?”

  “Oh, they couldn’t come,” Hong Mei lied. “I am here to surprise my cousins.”

  “Well,” the driver said. “You lucky you not my daughter.”

  He gestured behind him to the seat pocket in front of Hong Mei. “You look at map. It show you Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, ferry and tunnel.”

  “There is a tunnel between Kowloon and Hong Kong?” Hong Mei asked as she opened the tourist map.

  “Three tunnel!” the driver said. “But you say you go to Star Ferry. You no need tunnel.”

  Okay, Hong Mei thought. I don’t need to use a tunnel, but I still have to figure out which Star Ferry terminal I should go to. She looked at the map and found the airport on Lantau Island. She ran her finger along the bridge they were just nearing the end of. It was connected to a smaller island and then the New Territories and Kowloon.

  She saw the snaking lines of tunnels on the map and the letters, mtr. That made sense. Madam Ching said it was easy to get around on the Mass Transit Railway, or mtr as everyone called the subway.