by Cutter, Leah
The collective gasp behind her told her she'd succeeded. She opened her eyes to a golden tiger glow. A surety and wildness filled its eyes. Xiao Yen didn't know she possessed or could have imparted such emotion.
Holding her tiger's gaze, Xiao Yen let the path around their camp, a series of landmarks she had memorized earlier, saturate her vision. The first landmark was just north of the tents: a little bush, buds only, no leaves; next was a thin sapling with more white than gray in its trunk; and then a small rock with brown veins on the right and a hollow in a tree on the left. She thought about every spot she'd chosen around the border of their camp in sequence, visualizing the unique aspects of each. When she thought of the last marker, finishing the circle around their camp, the tiger, with a sudden jump, sprang to its duty. It would patrol from one place to the next, protecting their camp with its presence as it prowled the perimeter for the entire night.
Xiao Yen pulled five candles out of her bag. She placed them at the five compass points around the paper figure still on the ground: north, south, east, west and center. Then she stood to fetch a small branch from the fire with which to light the candles.
Udo, Ehran, Bei Xi and her guard stood in a line behind her. Udo asked something in a choked tone. Bei Xi translated.
“How long . . . ?”
“Until the sun comes up,” Xiao Yen replied, indicating with her hand, palm raised.
Ehran asked something, his voice a little more normal than his brother's. Ehran didn't look up as he asked the question. His gaze stayed focused on his fingers, fiddling with the knife hilt sticking out from his belt.
Bei Xi translated. “Will it stay outside the camp?”
“Outside, yes. It will follow the path I made.”
“Is it dangerous?” Udo asked, his voice now under his control again.
Finally a question that Xiao Yen could answer without translation. “To others, if they see it. It can kill,” Xiao Yen lied. Xiao Yen's teacher, Master Wei, could create a deadly tiger, but Xiao Yen didn't have the wisdom or understanding yet.
Bei Xi smiled. “Ay! We're lucky to have you with us.”
Lucky? Was she lucky to be here, so far away from her family and everything she'd ever known? She'd lost her luck, maybe forever. With her luck gone, how could she gain enough merit to win Wang Tie-Tie an immortal peach? Xiao Yen was certain she was the unluckiest girl in the world.
Chapter Two
Bao Fang
Xiao Yen yawned loudly, knowing it was disrespectful, hoping mama would notice her boredom just the same. Instead, Gan Ou, her sister, hissed at her. Gan Ou was older, almost ten. She was supposed to take care of Xiao Yen, baby-sit her seven-year-old sister, but all she did was tease Xiao Yen and pull her hair when they were alone. In front of Mama, Gan Ou pretended to be the best daughter.
Xiao Yen raised her hands again and tried to pray. She was so tired of praying. She was sorry Papa and her three older brothers had gone to the Heavenly Pavilion, but hadn't they always been gone anyway? Working or traveling or trading? And how would praying to Jing Long, the dragon at the bottom of the well in the center of the city, help them at the bottom of the river Quang? Xiao Yen had hoped they'd go to the altar next to the river to pray that day, but Mama had taken them to the White Temple instead.
The priest that morning had talked to Mama about the dragon being the symbol of change. He'd told the story of how the dragon rose out of the water in the spring to bring the summer rains. Mama had only thanked him and told her daughters to continue to pray for the change to stop, or reverse itself.
The candles on either side of the altar flickered. Xiao Yen followed the smoke rising to the ceiling. The aqua and scarlet scales of the dragon painted on the wall shimmered and its white belly looked hard. It played with a pearl as it rose through the clouds. Xiao Yen imagined riding the dragon, floating through the sky, her hair blown back like the dragon's golden whiskers. Its back would feel solid and warm under her legs, like a sunny rock near the river. They would spiral up and up, above the clouds, into the sky where the blue was so pure and thick it would be like swimming.
Mama put her hands on the ground and touched her forehead to the earth. Xiao Yen watched out of the corner of her eye, hopeful. Was Mama finished? Xiao Yen sighed again when Mama sat back, still absorbed in prayer. It gave her an idea though.
Xiao Yen put her hands on the ground and lowered her head, like her mother had. Then she pushed with her hands, scooting backward. She did this three times, until she was behind her mother and her sister.
She stood up, holding her breath in case Mama or her sister noticed. Her legs wobbled. Mama still prayed. Gan Ou still pretended to pray. The candlelit dragon flew above them, out of the shadows, toward the light. A bubble of excitement filled Xiao Yen's chest. The strain of being quiet for so long expanded inside her, racing down her arms and legs to her fingers and toes, tingling. The tension stretched tighter and tighter until it snapped. She spun and ran into the sunlit courtyard.
It felt so good to run, to move freely. The warm sunlight on Xiao Yen's head and back soothed her. She watched the ground as she ran. Chalk was mixed in with the stone in the courtyard, and if she stamped hard enough, sometimes tiny clouds of white powder rose from her feet. She slowed as she approached the spirit wall in front of the gate on the far side of the temple complex, tapped a hinge on the gate, then took off again. She decided to run the full length of the courtyard five times, once for each of the five compass points.
To the right of the courtyard stood a large Buddhist temple. Round pillars held up the blue-tiled sloped roof. The Buddha sat cross-legged, with one hand on his knee, three fingers pointing toward the ground, summoning the earth goddess Ma Tou to witness his enlightenment. The wooden shutters along the sides of the temple had been taken down so the monks could sit in their alcoves and fill the courtyard with their chanted prayers.
Xiao Yen had reached Jing Long's temple and was going back toward the gate when a pair of feet and a brilliant flash of saffron appeared before her. Xiao Yen squealed and lurched to the side, landing on her shoulder.
When she looked up, kind brown eyes smiled at her over a silver tray. Xiao Yen stammered and used the most formal phrases she knew to address the monk.
“Excuse me, honorable sir.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No,” Xiao Yen replied as she stood up. She tried to stand very tall, but she still couldn't see what the monk carried on his tray.
“You were lucky you didn't run into me and spoil all my hard work.”
Xiao Yen felt comforted by his words. Everyone told her she was lucky. She reached up and touched the gold amulet hanging around her neck. Wang Tie-Tie had given it to her forty days after she'd been born, as part of her naming ceremony. It brought her luck. It had a stylized dragon claw on one side, representing the year of her birth, and the character for luck, Fù, on the other. Fu was also her family name, but it had a different character, and meant “teacher.”
“Would you like to see?” the monk asked.
“Please,” Xiao Yen replied.
The monk bent at the waist and lowered the silver tray to Xiao Yen's eye level. A delicate tree grew out of the center, strung out of tiny white jasmine blossoms. Eight yellow-gold peaches rested on the tray, circling the tree, attached to the branches with intricate knots. The sweet scent made Xiao Yen smile.
“Do you know who this is for?” the monk asked.
Xiao Yen replied more casually, “Yes, it's for Old Zhang and the other immortals.”
The monk raised his eyebrows. “I'm glad you're so familiar with them.”
Xiao Yen thought the monk was making fun of her, but she wasn't sure, so she spoke more formally again. “My aunt, Wang Kong-Jing, admires the immortal Zhang Gua Lao. She often tells me stories about him and his paper mule.”
“Does your auntie tell good stories?” the monk asked as he straightened up.
“They're very good stories,” Xiao Yen replied.
>
“It's good you listen to your Tie-Tie,” the monk said. “You might want to go see her now, and not run around the courtyard.”
Xiao Yen's cheeks grew hot as she blushed. The monk walked toward the main temple, where the big Buddha sat. Xiao Yen didn't want to go back inside. She sighed and looked around the courtyard. Emerald green ivy covered the northern wall with leaves as large as her hand. Xiao Yen walked along the wall, dragging her fingers through them. They bounced when she tapped them. It made her laugh. She sat down to watch them.
On the ground, in the warm sunshine, she couldn't feel any wind. There must have been some though because the ivy leaves sometimes moved in circles or bounced up and down. The wall behind the ivy was made of mud bricks painted over with white plaster. Something shiny had gotten mixed in with the plaster. When the leaves bounced out of the way and the sun touched the wall, it glittered. Xiao Yen laughed again.
“What are you laughing at?” asked someone from behind her. She didn't like the voice. It sounded like a grown-up version of her sister. Gan Ou sometimes pretended to be interested in what Xiao Yen was doing just so she could ridicule Xiao Yen.
Xiao Yen turned to see where the voice came from. A man stood behind her. He was old, maybe as old as Wang Tie-Tie, the oldest person Xiao Yen knew. Though his skin was smooth and few wrinkles gathered around his mouth, his eyes told her he'd seen ten thousand sunsets. His lips were thin and his nose hooked on the end like a hawk's beak. His eyebrows, still thick and black, flew across his forehead like raven's wings. His neck was as long and skinny as a crane's. He wore black shoes, black pants bound around his ankles with black and silver wrappings, and a long black jacket that had a pattern of dancing cranes on it.
“You laugh? Why?” he asked again.
The simple language astonished Xiao Yen. Did he think she was like Chu Long Yi's baby, who'd been three years old before he'd learned to crawl? She'd show him. She turned and pointed to the wall, addressing him directly, like an equal, instead of as an elder.
“I'm watching the glass-colored salamanders. See? There goes one!” she said, her finger following the path of the wind. “It's racing another one under the ivy leaves. That's what sparkles in the sun. And see there?” She pointed to a leaf bobbing up and down. “There's one sitting under that leaf. It has its three tails spread across the wall. It's tickling the stem, telling the leaf to grow. Its fingers are long and jointed, like bamboo. See?” Xiao Yen laughed again at the picture in her head.
The old man stared at Xiao Yen as if she had glass salamanders climbing all over her, and he was a bird that ate such things. “Might I have the honor of knowing your name?” he asked, very formally.
“My family name is Fu, my formal name is Xi Wén, but everyone calls me Xiao Yen.”
“‘Xiao' as in little?” the man asked.
“Yes,” Xiao Yen said. “And ‘Yen' is the bird, the little brown one, that Wang Tie-Tie tells me stories about, that would die before it stole food.”
“A sparrow,” the man said.
“Correct,” Xiao Yen replied.
The man bowed his head to her. “My surname is Wei. I am opening a school here, the Dancing Crane Defense school.”
Xiao Yen bowed in return, not sure what he meant.
“I hope my improper daughter hasn't been disturbing you.”
Xiao Yen hadn't heard any footsteps, but her mother now stood behind her. Hastily Xiao Yen stood up. What had she been thinking, talking with such familiarity to a stranger? An older person at that? Wang Tie-Tie would speak strictly to her for an hour or more when she found out.
“No, she's been politeness itself,” the old man replied.
Gan Ou shot Xiao Yen a look that implied the improbability of that.
“I'm here to ask the priests for blessings for my new school. Might I have the honor of calling upon your household after we're finished, gracious Lady Fu?”
Fu Be Be replied, “You may. Now please excuse us, honorable sir. We must be going.”
The old man bowed low as they passed. When Xiao Yen looked back he was still watching her with that hungry look, even though a monk had come up to him and was trying to lead him toward the main temple.
* * *
“My turn!” Xiao Yen called. She turned her back to her two cousins and threw the ball over her head. It landed in the dirt with a solid thunk, the grain inside the sewn-leather bag giving it extra weight. It bounced once, then rolled a little.
Xiao Yen turned around and urged the ball to roll more with her hands. However, the ball was a plain ball, not magic like the one in the story of Princess Lu: it wouldn't go wherever its owner wished. It stopped moving five paces away from the line drawn in the dirt.
“Drat,” Xiao Yen said. The ball had to be within one pace for her to win.
Ling-Ling, her older cousin, laughed and said, “Now, it's my turn to tell you what to do.” She walked to where Xiao Yen stood.
Xiao Yen met her eye and refused to show any fear. Ling-Ling could be mean. It showed in her sharp teeth and thin lips. For her first turn, she'd demanded Xiao Yen eat four spicy peppers. The trick had turned against Ling-Ling. Xiao Yen's mother had grown up in the south, and Xiao Yen was used to spicy food.
Sudden laughter came from the corner of the family courtyard. Ama, Xiao Yen's nurse, sat on the steps telling a story to half a dozen of Xiao Yen's younger cousins. Xiao Yen looked at them with longing. Not too long ago she'd always sat with the storytelling group. Now she only got to hear stories at night. Ama had all the children waving their arms. Xiao Yen guessed the story: “The Mandarin and the Hundred Butterflies.” She wished Ling-Ling would have listened harder to that story, which taught that cruelty was always “rewarded” with more cruelty.
“Hurry up,” called Han Wanju, another of Xiao Yen's cousins, as Ling-Ling circled Xiao Yen again. “Or it'll be time for lunch before you decide.” Han Wanju was always concerned about food, as evidenced by her fat cheeks and pudgy fingers.
The sun shone down in the square family compound. The outer walls of the “sky well” were solid stone, light yellow-red in color. One-story wooden rooms sitting on squat stilts lined the walls. If the courtyard flooded in the spring rains, the rooms didn't. Also, during the winter, fires on either side of the rooms were set up, and warm air traveled through a collection of pipes under the floors.
“I've decided,” Ling-Ling announced after she'd circled Xiao Yen a third time. “I want you to spin . . .”
“Wang Tie-Tie has a visitor!” Gan Ou interrupted as she rushed through the full-moon-shaped gate that separated the front courtyard from the family courtyard. Two servants hurried behind her. One went straight ahead, heading toward the far back courtyard where the kitchen was. The other cut diagonally across the family courtyard to the gate shaped like a vase. Beyond that gate lay the Garden of Sweet Scents, where Fu Be Be, Wang Tie-Tie, and the other aunts sat drinking tea.
“Girls! Come here, out of the way,” Ama called.
Xiao Yen turned and started walking toward the far corner where Ama and the other children sat.
Ling-Ling scooped up the ball and called, “Hey! It's still my turn to tell you what to do!”
“That's right, Xiao Yen. You need to get used to other people telling you what to do,” Gan Ou added.
Xiao Yen stopped short of the safety of the other children. “What?” she asked as she turned around. “Who's the visitor? Isn't it Chu Tie-Tie?” Aunty Chu was a cha-ping of Wang Tie-Tie. When she came over, she and Wang Tie-Tie sat and drank tea together for hours, telling stories from their childhood. Wang Tie-Tie was always jovial after a visit from one of her “tea-friends,” not upset like she'd been that morning. The incense the servants had bought at the market was poor quality and wouldn't stay lit. Wang Tie-Tie had yelled at them, calling them things Xiao Yen hadn't understood. Then her mother had started yelling at Wang Tie-Tie. Xiao Yen had been glad when her cousins had arrived and everyone had to be nice to each other again.
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bsp; “No, it isn't her,” Gan Ou said with a smile so sharp its ends glistened. At seven years old, Xiao Yen didn't know all of her sister's smiles, but she suspected this one wasn't a good one. Fu Be Be always said Gan Ou was prettier than Xiao Yen. Xiao Yen doubted her mother looked beyond Gan Ou's smiles.
“Who is it?” Xiao Yen asked.
Gan Ou didn't respond.
Wang Tie-Tie appeared in the gateway and walked across the courtyard, not deigning to look at anyone there. Her gray hair was piled high on her head and held in place by three long hairpins with pearls stretched between them. Two strands of hair hung loose from the arrangement and curled next to her ears. Her mouth was the color of spring cherries, a startling contrast to her powdered face. She wore a coat of plum-colored silk with an elegant pattern of peonies woven into it. The sleeves were longer and tighter than was fashionable. They always covered her arms to the wrist. She never drew them back.
Xiao Yen took a deep breath and felt her chest fill with pride. Wang Tie-Tie was so beautiful. Her skin was as white and fine as the statue at the Fire Mountain Temple of Nü-gua, the half-human, half-snake goddess who'd brought civilization to the Middle Kingdom.
Servants followed, carrying the best tea service, the one with fine thin cups the color of old jade. The visitor must be important.
Xiao Yen sneaked a quick look at her sister. Gan Ou wore her good red jacket, so pale it was almost pink. Xiao Yen wondered if it was good enough to greet the visitor in, or if Gan Ou would have to change into her festival clothes. At ten years old, Gan Ou was old enough to be presented. She'd put on her best smile and charm everyone with her good manners. Being younger, Xiao Yen would probably stay behind with the rest of the children.
Before Xiao Yen could look down, Gan Ou had turned around. The color of her jacket reflected in her cheeks, a very pretty pink. Her smile was sharper than before.
“I bet they're going to send for you next,” Gan Ou said. Ling-Ling and Han Wanju stood shoulder to shoulder next to Gan Ou, facing Xiao Yen.