February Thaw

by Tanya Huff

  *

  "So this is the family heirloom, eh?" Bradley grinned down at the dragon and then up at his sister. "Boy are you ever lucky that you're the oldest and it went to you. I mean, this must be worth, oh, seventy-nine cents."

  "Very funny."

  "Maybe you should rent a safety deposit box. Wouldn't want it to be stolen..." He rubbed a thumb over the enamel. "Hey, it looks kinda sad."

  "What are you talking about?" Donna took the dragon pin back and frowned down at it. It did look sad; its eyes were half closed and its great golden moustaches appeared to be drooping around the down-turned corners of its mouth. Its whole posture spoke of melancholy. "Yeah, I suppose it does. Do you miss grandma, Shing Li-ung?"

  "Shing Li-ung?" Bradley repeated.

  "That's its name."

  "Oh great. You've got a piece of junk jewelry with a name." He reached out one finger and stroked the red scaled curve of its tail. "So, grandma didn't mention she had a pair of ancient family chopsticks or anything for me to guard and revere did she?"

  "No." Donna sighed. "Just one seventy-nine cent dragon."

  "For you."

  "I was there."

  "Yeah, well, if you don't want old Shing Li-ung, I suppose I'll take it."

  She stared at him in surprise. "You'll what?"

  "I'll take it." He looked disinterested in his own words – the way only a young man almost seventeen could. "It'll look kinda cool on my jean jacket. Very ethnic. And besides, Chinese dragons are supposed to bring you luck."

  "Grandma said it was for protection." And she died giving it to me. Just for an instant, Donna felt the clasp of dead fingers around her wrist. "I think I'll hang onto it." She scooped her canvas shoulder bag up off the floor and forced the pin through the thick fabric. "Besides, I'm the one who's starting university in six days; I'm the one who's going to need the luck."

  "Suit yourself," Bradley shrugged, his expression unreadable, and slouched out of the family room.

  *

  "Shing Li-ung?"

  Three inches had become thirty feet; thirty feet of shimmering scarlet and gold in constant flowing motion. Tooth and claw gleamed, strength and power showed in every curve, in every edge, in every point. Its eyes were deep and black and the light from a thousand stars shone in their depths. The air around it smelled strongly of ginger and when she drew it into her lungs, it burned just a little.

  It was frightening, but she wasn't frightened – which made perfect sense at the time.

  Then it bent its great head and asked her a question.

  She spread her hands. "I don't speak Mandarin."

  It frowned and asked again.

  "If you don't speak English, how about French?" She felt it sigh, the warm wave of its breath rolling over her, sweeping her away until the dragon was no more than a red and gold speck in the distance.

  And then she woke up.

  The red and gold speck remained and for a moment the dream seemed more real than her bedroom. But only for a moment as normalcy fell quickly back into place. A narrow beam of light from a street-lamp at the curb spilled through a crack in the curtains and across her shoulder bag propped on the top of her dresser. It illuminated the pin, igniting the enamel into a cold fire.

  Pretty but hardly mystical, Donna decided, and padded across the room to twitch the curtains closed. With one hand full of fabric, she paused, frowned, and took a closer look at the dragon. Shing Li-ung no longer looked sad.

  It looked disgusted.

  *

  "Hey Bradley, have you seen my bag, I had it when I got home this afternoon but I haven't seen it... oh, there it is." She moved her brother's feet and scooped the bag up off the end of the couch. "What are you watching?"

  "Television."

  "Very informative." A quick glance at Shing Li-ung showed it still looked disgusted. Its expression hadn't changed in the last four weeks and Donna was beginning to believe she'd imagined the whole thing. Although, considering that it had just spent three hours pointed at prime time programming, it had reason for looking disgusted tonight. "This show any good?"

  "It's crap."

  "Then why are you watching it?"

  "What else am I supposed to do?" Bradley jabbed at the remote. The new program didn't look significantly different; same dizzy blonde, same square-jawed hunk, same disgustingly cute kid.

  Donna sighed and sat down on the arm of the couch. Always prickly, since Labour Day Bradley had been developing a noticeable attitude. "Is everything all right at school?"

  "Why shouldn't it be?"

  "I don't know, you just seem kind of, well, cranky." Not the right word but she couldn't think of a better one.

  "Cranky?" He spat it back at her. "Little kids get cranky."

  "Look, I just wondered..."

  "Well, you can stop. You don't know shit anymore about what's going on with me."

  She should have remembered. He'd been impossible when the year between them had left him behind in junior high. God only knew what he'd get into now. And now, he was old enough to get into things that could have serious consequences. She was the oldest. He was, to a certain extent, her responsibility.

  "So," she tried again, "how's Craig?"

  "How should I know?"

  "But he's your best friend."

  "Was. I have other friends now."

  Great. "Bradley..."

  "Kae Bing."

  Donna blinked, brought to a full stop. Finally she managed a weak, "What?"

  "Kae Bing. It's my name."

  "But you hate that name, you never let anyone use it. You told Aunt Lily it sounded like a chicken puking."

  "Maybe I changed my mind. Maybe I want to get in touch with my Chinese heritage."

  "Bradley... Okay," she raised a hand in surrender, "Kae Bing, that makes as much sense as black guys in the seventies calling themselves Kunta Kinte."

  "African-Canadian."

  "What?"

  "Nobody says black guys anymore. You're the oldest, I thought you would have known that. Everybody has a hyphen now. Oh, pardon me, everybody who isn't white has a hyphen now."

  The laugh sounded forced, even to her. "Oh come on, we live in Don Mills, the definitive suburb; you can't get any whiter than that."

  He didn't smile. "Looked in a mirror lately, Chun Chun? Well I hate to break this to you, but you aren't white. You're what's known as a visible ethnic minority. And what's really disgusting, you go out of your way to fit the stereotype." He began ticking points off on his fingers, the edge in his voice sharping with every point. "You're quiet, you're polite. I've never seen you lose your temper. You don't smoke, you don't drink, you probably don't even kiss with your mouth open. You're a dutiful daughter, a good student – 'specially in all those subjects us Asians are supposed to be good at like math and physics. You even play ping pong for fucksake."

  Donna opened and closed her mouth a few times but all she managed to get out was, "What's wrong with playing ping pong?"

  "Not a damn thing. It is the only sport we slants excel at after all." He threw the remote to the floor and flung himself up onto his feet. "Well, you can keep playing by their rules if you want to, Donna..." He weighted the name and threw it at her as he stomped out of the room. "...but I quit."

  *

  "But Mom, you should have heard him. He was really angry."

  "Young men his age are always angry."

  "Not like this." Donna paced the length of the kitchen trying to think of some way to make her mother understand. "He wanted me to call him Kae Bing."

  "It is his name."

  "But he hates it!"

  "He's just looking for something to believe in. That's common enough."

  "But he's hardly ever home anymore and when he is he spends all his time sulking in front of the television."

  "Leave him be, Donna. It's harder for boys."

  "What is?"

  "Finding out who you are."

  "I know who I am."

  "You're a girl
. And, you're the..."

  "...oldest. Yeah, I know."

  *

  "But Dad, what do you know about these new friends of his?"

  "Your brother is almost seventeen years old, Donna. He's capable of choosing his own friends."

  She couldn't believe she'd heard correctly. "You wanted to know the family background of every person I ever spoke to."

  "You're a girl. Boys need more freedom."

  The habit of being a dutiful daughter closed her mouth on the reply she wanted to make, but only just.

  "Was that all, honey? I really have to get this report done for tomorrow."

  "That's all, Dad. Good night."

  If they wouldn't listen, what could she do?

  *

  It moved like fire and air and water all at once and its beauty brought a lump to her throat. It lowered its head until she could see into the diamond strewn blackness of its eyes and it asked, "What is evil?"

  Shing Li'ung seemed to have learned English in the last month. She hoped it hadn't picked up any bad habits from all the television it had been exposed to.

  It didn't seem to mind having to wait for an answer.

  "Evil is hurting someone else," she told it at last.

  "So," golden brows drew down and light glinted off a thousand pointed teeth, "by your definition it is sometimes necessary to do evil."

  She had a sudden vision of taking a baseball bat to the side of her brother's head. "To prevent a greater evil, yes."

  It cocked its head. "The young live life so simply," it said thoughtfully.

  "And the old complicate life with the past."

  It laughed then and the sound vibrated through her body, shaking blood and bone and tissue. While not exactly an unpleasant feeling, it wasn't one she was in any hurry to repeat.

  "You are worthy," it told her, twisted back on itself and disappeared.

  "Well, whoop de do," she muttered, and fell deeper into sleep.

  *

  Donna had taken the special eight week night course at Victoria College over her parents' objection and would have thrown that small act of defiance in Bradley's face – except she never saw him anymore. She left early every morning for the long transit ride downtown and, as Bradley had no classes until ten, she was gone before he got up. He was never home in the evenings, having suddenly acquired more freedom than she'd ever been allowed.

  She'd seen his new friends only once when they'd dropped him off late one Saturday – or early one Sunday – and the noise of their talking and laughing had woken her up. From her window, she'd seen the red glow of a trio of cigarettes and heard how "...they wouldn't be allowed to take over our town. They can just fucking get back on the boats and go back where they came from." She didn't care who "they" were; she wasn't impressed.

  "What?" Bradley had demanded the next day when she'd approached him. "You think they're not good enough for me 'cause I don't have an accent? 'Cause they know what it's like to be Chinese? 'Cause they're living with their heritage not hiding and pretending?"

  "No one except you cares that you're Chinese!"

  "My point exactly," he sneered and flicked the dragon pin with a fingernail. "You think you're so smart..."

  "No," she snapped, "but I think Dad's going to kick your butt if he finds out you're smoking. You know how he got about it after Uncle Karl."

  Uncle Karl had been a two pack a day smoker and had died at fifty-one, both lungs eaten away by cancer.

  The new friends never dropped him off at the house after that, but Donna was sure nothing else had changed. Maybe next year, when he'd pulled even with her again and was at university too, they'd be able to talk. Meanwhile, she could only hope he didn't get into anything he couldn't get out of.

  She was thinking of transverse vectors, not her brother, when she came down the steps of Victoria College and realized that, except for her, the night was empty. What had happened to the other thirty-seven students in the class? She'd stayed to ask a couple of questions, but she hadn't stayed that long. Had she? The echo of a stereo drifted down from the student residence to the east but the paths were deserted and dark and the subway a long, lonely distance away.

  I'm being ridiculous. She settled her bag more firmly on her shoulder and clamped it securely down with her elbow, the edge of enamelled tin cutting into her upper arm. The soles of her shoes made a soft squelching sound against the mat of fallen leaves that covered the pavement as she started towards Queen's Park Circle and the security of street-lights and traffic. Once I get out onto the street, everything will be...

  Will be...

  Between her and the street, a shadow moved. It could have been the trees, tossing in the wind.

  One foot lifted to step forward, she paused, and turned and started moving quickly along the darker paths that cut between the university buildings. I'm being ridiculous, she told herself again but she couldn't make herself believe it.

  "Hey, Chinadoll."

  The voice came from behind her, from the way she had so suddenly decided not to go. Her legs moved faster; not running, not yet. The buildings around her were locked and dark. The only safety lay three hundred twisting meters away where the paths came out onto the blaze of light that was University Avenue. Three hundred meters.

  She started to run.

  A hand grabbed hold of her jacket and jerked back hard. She went down, arms flailing wildly in an effort to keep herself moving forward. Moving away. Moving to safety. Then a larger, heavier body landed on top of her.

  "Hey, Chinadoll, I don't want to hurt you. I just want us to have some fun."

  The hand he clapped over her mouth when she opened it to scream smelled of deodorant soap and the cuff button of his leather school jacket dug into her cheek. He was blonde. He was clean shaven. He was smiling. His breath smelled like peppermints and beer. He shifted his weight, grinding her head through the pad of dead leaves and into the concrete.

  "Now, we can get something going here if you'll just stop..."

  She didn't so much stop fighting, as stop moving. In fact, at that moment, she doubted she was capable of movement. Her eyes were open so wide, they hurt.

  "Hey! What're you staring at?"

  Red and gold it towered up behind his shoulder. Beautiful. Terrible. Impossible.

  Real.

  Blood splashed against her face as talons dug deep and lifted him skyward. He twisted against their grip for a second, staring down at her in disbelief. Then he screamed.

  Donna screamed with him. And when he stopped, she went on screaming.

  "ARE YOU HURT?"

  The voice rang through her head like a gong, impossible to ignore. "I, I don't think so."

  "THEN WHY DO YOU MAKE SUCH A NOISE?"

  "I, uh, I..." She got slowly to her feet, head craned back, eyes still open painfully wide. It was like sitting too close to the screen in a movie theatre; too much to take in all at once. The smell of ginger made her want to sneeze. I'm not afraid, she realized. I was, but now I'm not. She took a step back, and then another, and then, in the red/gold light that came off the dragon, caught sight of the broken body crumpled across the path, one massive forefoot still resting negligently across its back. "Oh my God, you killed him!"

  "YES."

  Her exclamation had been purely instinctive. Shing Li-ung's placid confirmation transferred her growing sense of wonder into outrage. "You can't do that!"

  It cocked its head to one side and regarded her with mild curiosity. "WHY NOT? I HAVE PROTECTED YOU AS I PROTECTED YOUR GRANDMOTHER."

  "You just can't kill somebody like that!"

  It looked down at the body. "YES, I CAN."

  "Well," she threw her shoulders back, "if that's the kind of protection you offer, I don't want it."

  Great golden brows drew in. "BUT I MUST PROTECT THE HOLDER OF THE TALISMAN."

  "Do you have to kill people?"

  "I MUST PROTECT YOU."

  "But you don't have to kill people!"

  The shrug
rippled the full thirty foot length of Shing Li-ung's serpentine body. It didn't look convinced. "YOU HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE TALISMAN."

  "Then you must obey me?"

  "NO. I MUST PROTECT YOU."

  "I don't believe this," Donna muttered and brushed her hair back off her face. It came away damp and sticky. Her heart back in her throat, she held it out and in the dragon's light she saw it smeared with blood. "I don't believe this!" But this time she wailed the words as whatever cocooning the dragon's presence had offered peeled away.

  An echoing wail came from behind the surrounding buildings, from the street.

  The sound brought a new panic.

  "The police! Someone called the police."

  "YOU WERE MAKING A GREAT DEAL OF NOISE," Shing Li-ung observed.

  "But what do I do? He's dead!"

  "ARE YOU IN DANGER?"

  Her laugh hung on the edge of hysteria. "I am if I stay here. I'll end up in the psycho wards. I didn't kill him, Your Honour, my grandmother's dragon did."

  "IF YOU ARE IN DANGER, I MUST PROTECT YOU."

  In the next instant, she stood on the front porch of her parent's house in Don Mills, safe in the suburbs, miles away from the savagely murdered body of a young man. And barely a month ago I was freaked by my grandmother dying peacefully in bed...

  Her hands shook too violently for her to open the door so she leaned against the bell.

  "Keep your pants on, jeez, I'm... Donna?"

  "Mom? Dad?"

  Bradley dragged her inside and managed to hang onto her as she sagged against him. "Mom's at Aunt Lily's and Dad's working late. Christ, Donna, you're covered in blood!"

  "Not mine."

  "Not yours?" His voice which hadn't cracked in years shifted an octave on the second word. He lowered her onto a chair and gripped her shoulders so tightly she squeaked in pain. "What happened to you!?"