Paper Mage

by Cutter, Leah

  Paper Mage

  Leah Cutter

  Copyright © 2013 Leah Cutter

  All rights reserved.

  Published 2013 by Knotted Road Press,

  by arrangement with Book View Café

  www.KnottedRoadPress.com

  www.BookViewCafe.com

  ISBN: 978 1 61138 293 8

  Cover design by Knotted Road Press

  All the characters in this book are fictitious,

  and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Dedication

  To Amy, Charlotte, and Rachel—

  the original inspirations for Xiao Yen

  Prologue

  Mei-Mei paused at the gate of the abandoned kiln and called out, “Is anyone there?”

  No one answered.

  She looked up and down the dirt road again. It was empty. Not many merchants traveled the trade routes since the Tibetans sacked Xian, the capital of the Middle Kingdom. Farmers only came to her city, Bao Fang, on market days. But bandits, soldiers—or worse, foreign soldiers—could appear at any time. Cold shouzhi walked down Mei-Mei's spine in spite of the summer sun beating on her head.

  Maybe she should just leave the basket of cakes for her sister and run back home. Mei-Mei had always been accompanied by someone when outside Bao Fang's walls, either her mother, her siblings or her nurse. This was the first time she'd gone beyond any of the city gates by herself.

  But the cakes would spoil in the heat, and she wouldn't see Young Lu. Mei-Mei made herself call again, her voice barely rising above the chorus of cicadas hidden in the grass.

  No response.

  Was she at the right building? She thought so. It was the first kiln outside Bao Fang. Abandoned kilns made fine houses for those who weren't allowed to live inside the city walls. This one was in much better shape than its neighbors: the yard had been raked; a small altar, dedicated to Kuan Yin, goddess of mercy, stood next to the door; and a geomancer's mirror decorated with red and green ba gua hung over the entrance, protecting those inside from evil spirits. At the same time, the white building had been patched with plain mud, and garbage lay piled as high as the garden wall.

  A soft clank came from inside the kiln, the sound of a lid being placed on a teapot. Mei-Mei crossed the yard, then hesitated and peered into the semidarkness.

  Young Lu stood on the far side of the room, her back to the door. Mei-Mei would recognize the slender figure anywhere, her long thin neck, the coltish way she tilted her head.

  “Nin hau,” Mei-Mei called, using the formal greeting.

  Young Lu turned around. She raised her cane above her head, holding it like a soldier's staff. She drew in a deep breath, as if to scream, then let it out with a huff.

  “Mei-Mei?” she asked.

  “Nin hau,” Mei-Mei repeated.

  Young Lu dropped her cane and rushed, limping, to where Mei-Mei stood. Wordlessly she hugged her older sister.

  Mei-Mei returned the hug just as fiercely. Though her father had disowned his youngest daughter, and Uncle Li now called her evil, Mei-Mei still missed her.

  After a moment Young Lu pulled back and scolded Mei-Mei as if Mei-Mei were the younger one. “What are you doing? You know you shouldn't be here.” Young Lu clutched Mei-Mei's arms while she spoke. “It isn't safe outside the city walls. Come inside.” She pulled Mei-Mei across the threshold. “Does Mother know you're here?” she asked.

  Mei-Mei didn't meet Young Lu's eye. “I told her I was visiting my sister.”

  “But not that you were visiting your youngest sister, eh?” Young Lu shook her head. “What would happen if Father found out?”

  Now Mei-Mei looked up. “I'm not his favorite,” she said, then covered her mouth as if hiding the source of her thoughtless words.

  Bitterness tinged the edge of Young Lu's smile. “True. He'd probably only beat you. But your reputation could be ruined if someone saw you here. Prostitutes live in the kiln next door. Why did you come?”

  Mei-Mei stuttered, trying to put unaccustomed emotions into words. “It—it, it was so hot, waiting in Grandma's room, the—the air wasn't good. I felt . . . stifled.” She paused again.

  Just after lunch, while Mei-Mei had tucked her grandmother in for her nap, her grandmother had told a story of when she'd been a little girl, taking care of a sick aunt. She'd commented on how someday, one of Mei-Mei's descendants would take care of her.

  Normally Mei-Mei felt comforted by such stories. The cycle of death, rebirth and life swirled by but her place was as fixed as the stars in the king of Heaven's crown.

  Today was different. Maybe it was because she'd accompanied her mother to the White Temple that morning, to light incense for her cousins who had been killed defending the mountain passes against the Tibetans. She still remembered them leaving for battle, eager and optimistic, their naïve enthusiasm louder than their mother's tears. They'd laughed at the change in their fortune.

  While Mei-Mei had listened to her grandmother's tale in the afternoon, she'd realized her life would never change. She'd marry, move into the woman's compound of her husband's house, and rarely leave. She'd have children, grow old, be revered, and die. When she thought hard about her future, the air grew thick, like a winter quilt, and threatened to smother her. So she'd had to leave.

  “My xiao—filial duty—is important.” Mei-Mei held up her hand so Young Lu would let her finish. “But so is my entire family. Please,” she said, extending her basket. “It would be my honor if you would accept this inadequate token of my high esteem and regard for you.” Mei-Mei pressed the basket into her sister's hands.

  “Thank you so much,” Young Lu replied. “You don't know how much this means to me,” she said, her voice cracking. She turned away so Mei-Mei couldn't see her tears and indicated with her free hand that Mei-Mei should sit.

  “Thank you for being my relation,” Mei-Mei said formally, kneeling on the cracked and dusty bamboo mats covering the dirt floor.

  “Please, let me get you something to eat,” Young Lu said, turning back to Mei-Mei.

  “No, I'm not hungry. I couldn't eat anything,” Mei-Mei replied.

  “It won't be any trouble.”

  “I just had lunch. I wouldn't touch a bite. Really.” Mei-Mei let some iron creep into her voice. Young Lu had always been as slender as spring bamboo. Now she was even skinnier. Her cheeks were hollow, which made her cheekbones stand out, and her lips were drawn and pale. She looked more delicate than one of Master Kung's statues, made of clay so soft it could be carved with flower petals. Mei-Mei wouldn't put any strain on her sister's household by eating even a little of what they had.

  Young Lu nodded, her face saved, but still shamed. “Let this unworthy person at least offer you some tea,” she insisted.

  Mei-Mei accepted. She had to give Young Lu some way to show her hospitality.

  Young Lu limped across the floor to the back of the kiln where a small hearth held an iron pot with a cracked lid. Mei-Mei pretended not to notice her sister's infirmity by looking down at her lap and smoothing her silver robe, running both hands over the embroidered white cranes.

  “That's one good thing about living here in the kiln,” Young Lu said over her shoulder. “Pieces of coal are scattered all over the ground.”

  Mei-Mei couldn't help but smile. Only Young Lu could find any good in being cast out of their family, shunned by their father and mother, and forced to live outside the city walls. The kiln was tiny and filthy: it had only two rooms, the back one just large enough to hold a bed; the walls were covered with soot from a fire a former tenant had let burn out of control; and the incense Young Lu burned couldn't hide the smell of the garbage next door. The light from the single eastern-facing window didn't shine all the way through th
e front room, and didn't bring any fresh air in with it.

  On the right side of the hearth Young Lu, or her husband, Old Lu, had installed a small wooden altar. Pasted between the flimsy split-bamboo uprights was a brightly colored picture of Zhao Wang, the kitchen god. Under the picture sat a tiny white-and-blue porcelain bowl filled with rice. It had three sticks of incense poking out of it.

  Mei-Mei shook her head. How could Young Lu afford even a small sacrifice? She looked at her sister. Young Lu swayed in time to her own silent music, like ivy in a breeze. From that angle, Mei-Mei saw the bulge in Young Lu's abdomen.

  Young Lu's gaze followed Mei-Mei's. She brushed her fingertips across her stomach, looking more serene than the Buddha meditating under the bodhi tree.

  Mei-Mei pressed her lips together in a polite smile, hiding her surprise. She wanted to know, but couldn't ask.

  Young Lu told her anyway. “Five and a half moons,” she said. She hobbled from the stove—tiny, awkward steps—and knelt next to her sister. “Isn't it exciting? I never expected to be blessed so soon.”

  Mei-Mei hugged Young Lu. “That's wonderful! Ten thousand blessings,” she said, feeling Young Lu's shoulder blades through her robe. She was too thin to be that far along.

  Young Lu pulled back and said with a mischievous smile, “Old Lu was so happy when I told him. It made him feel more like a tiger again.”

  Mei-Mei looked down at her hands, embarrassed at the shared intimacy. Young Lu struggled to get to her feet. Mei-Mei said, “Let me help you.”

  Young Lu admonished her, “The guest shouldn't serve the tea. It isn't a problem.”

  Mei-Mei gave her a skeptical look.

  Young Lu continued. “I barely feel it anymore. See?” She got to her feet and walked to the stove, limping.

  Mei-Mei turned away. When their father had heard Old Lu's marriage proposal, he'd forbidden it. Young Lu had pleaded with Father. She told him Old Lu and she were meant to be with each other. The moon god had tied their ankles together with a red ribbon at birth, even if she was only fourteen and they were second cousins. Father and daughter fought for weeks. Girls weren't supposed to pick their own husbands. It wasn't proper.

  Young Lu tried to run away. Father caught her and treated her like a slave, not like a daughter. He put her right ankle in a press and squeezed the two boards together until the bones shattered.

  As soon as she could walk, Young Lu ran away again, this time successfully, and the marriage was consummated. Both families renounced Young Lu and Old Lu. All of Bao Fang had gossiped about the scandal for weeks. Old Lu worked hard to earn a few coins in the market, fetching and carrying from place to place, but it wasn't enough. Many merchants wouldn't serve them.

  As Young Lu poured the tea Mei-Mei asked, “Have you heard from Old Lu's friend in the north?”

  Young Lu sighed and sipped her tea. “It's so hard. I don't want to leave. Our family's here. All our ancestors are buried here.” She paused. “Can you imagine leaving?”

  Mei-Mei didn't respond. To go to live with strangers for the rest of her life? To never again tell stories with her aunts all afternoon, read one of her mother's poems, listen to her father construct a faultless argument, or talk with her sisters, her brothers, her cousins? It was the most horrible fate she'd ever contemplated. Yet when she got married . . .

  Young Lu continued. “Bao Fang is the only city I've ever known. But Old Lu wants to leave. And I'll follow him. Even to the Hell of Iron and Acid, if necessary.”

  “You're so brave,” Mei-Mei said, marveling.

  Young Lu giggled. “I'm not brave,” she said, sounding like a carefree girl for the first time that afternoon. “I'm just stubborn, like an old ox.”

  Mei-Mei also giggled at her petite sister comparing herself to such a huge beast.

  Young Lu took a sip of tea and said, “Tell me about your engagement to Wang Po Kao. Everyone in Bao Fang speaks well of him. They say he'll make a lot of money in trading.”

  Mei-Mei tried to make herself smile at the thought of her husband-to-be, but failed. She drank her tea instead. The hot liquid failed to warm her belly, and left a bitter, metallic taste on the back of her tongue. She looked at her cup instead of meeting her sister's eye. It had splashes of orange, green and yellow under a thick glaze, not fine, but artistically done. The parts of her life mingled like the colors—her family, her sister, her husband-to-be. Would the last color wash over all the others, until her life was a muddy brown, like the bottom of the river Quang?

  “When Old Lu looks at you, he sees a treasure, and thinks himself the luckiest man in the world,” she started.

  “Stop!” Young Lu interrupted, hiding her smile behind her hand.

  “The one time I met Wang Po Kao, at Mother's birthday party, he also looked at me like I was a treasure. But one he'd never share, like . . .”

  Mei-Mei bit down on her lip, but her unspoken comment, “like Father,” still echoed through the room.

  Young Lu didn't say anything.

  Mei-Mei continued. “It's a good match, good for the family. The Wangs have a cousin who has a son who is friends with the horsemen up north. If Father has horses he can sell through the winter, our family will thrive. The price for horses has tripled since the war.”

  “‘Our family will thrive,'“ Young Lu repeated. “And you'll do what Father wants, won't you?”

  Mei-Mei replied without thinking. “Of course. He's my father. I'm his daughter. It's my duty to obey him.”

  “Of course,” Young Lu said.

  Mei-Mei's blush spread from her cheeks all the way to her ears. Young Lu had defied Father. She'd changed her life, wrenched it out of the fixed shape laid out for her by all the generations of women who'd come before her. Like their dead cousins, she'd paid a horrible price. Mei-Mei couldn't imagine doing anything like that. She'd end her days at home, surrounded by her family, secure, safe, and stifled.

  “Let's be cheerful,” Mei-Mei said. “Marrying Wang Po Kao means I'll soon have my own babies. And that is something I look forward to. As well as to the birth of your little one. I'm sure you'll have a fine son.”

  When the bells tolled the change from the hour of the Sheep to the hour of the Monkey, Young Lu got up and escorted her sister to the door. She made Mei-Mei wait inside the kiln while she went out to the road to check that it was empty. Then she beckoned for Mei-Mei.

  Mei-Mei approached with her hands out, saying the traditional words of parting, “Until we meet again, may . . .”

  Young Lu held up her hand, indicating Mei-Mei should stop. Without another word Young Lu limped back into the kiln. Mei-Mei blinked hard to keep the tears out of her eyes. She might never see her sister again. Then her chin stiffened. She would see her, at least one more time. Plus, she wouldn't just bring a few cakes from the market. She'd bring the biggest basket of food she could carry.

  * * *

  The next afternoon, after Mei-Mei had sung her grandmother to sleep, she decided to go light incense for Young Lu and her unborn child. Though Mei-Mei and her family considered themselves Buddhist, they were also practical, and prayed at a number of different temples, depending on the occasion. Today, Mei-Mei decided to go to the Fire Mountain Temple and pray to Fu Xi and Nü-gua. Though they'd been brother and sister, the other gods had decreed that they should be together, and so had invented marriage just for them. Mei-Mei loved the representation of the two that hung on the wall above the altar—the top, human-halves of their bodies faced away from each other, while their snake tails intertwined together, inseparable, as white as crane feathers.

  The Fire Mountain Temple was just up the street from the southern gate. Before she could approach the altar in the main building, a priest in a tan robe stopped her.

  “Can I help you?” he asked. He was a skinny man, tall like a foreigner, and looked down his nose at Mei-Mei.

  “No, thank you, sir,” Mei-Mei responded. It was always better to be polite to priests. Her grandmother believed priests talked dir
ectly with the gods. Mei-Mei thought priests were more like scholars, whose knowledge came from study, not divine intervention.

  “Are you certain? Tell me who you pray for. I can help.” The man licked his thin lips, like a cat smelling a treat.

  Mei-Mei couldn't tell him that she prayed for Young Lu. He might have heard of the scandal, and forbidden it. Plus, she didn't have any coins to pay him for his services, as he was obviously anticipating.

  “Please, sir, just let me—”

  “Are you here alone?” the priest interrupted. He peered past her shoulder. “Where's your mother? Or your nurse? Nice girls like you shouldn't be going to temples by themselves,” he admonished.

  The priest was right. Mei-Mei shouldn't be there alone. It wasn't proper. More than one market tale of illicit romance took place in a temple. Her anger still flared. She remained silent.

  “You need to go home now,” he said. “You don't want another disgrace to mar your family's name.” The priest turned away and walked back into the main temple.

  Alternate courses of shame and rage washed through Mei-Mei. The priest had recognized her. But she wasn't doing anything wrong. Someone needed to pray for Young Lu.

  The anger won. Mei-Mei turned on her heel and stormed out of the Fire Mountain Temple compound. Instead of turning to her right and going back into the city, she turned to her left, and marched out the southern gate. Then she continued along the path, straight to a small pavilion that sat next to the river Quang. The previous summer, her family had picnicked there. An unattended altar to the river dragon sat in one corner of the pavilion.

  Without another thought, Mei-Mei lit her incense, knelt, pressed the incense to her forehead and bowed the customary three times, praying for a son for Young Lu. Then she bowed three more times, praying for Young Lu herself.

  “There,” thought Mei-Mei as she reached above her head to place the incense in the brazier. That would show that meddlesome priest. She sat back on her heels and watched with satisfaction as the thin curls of smoke rose above the red lacquered altar table.