More seriously, she thought she’d like to draw X-Men when she grew up, even if, right now, her figures tended to be lumpy and misshapen. She knew she’d have to study hard.
But it was hard enough just to get by in school. She was out of the house so much that it was a struggle to keep up appearances. Not that she cared much about appearances the way the popular girls did, not that she bothered with makeup or painting her nails, but she did like to be clean like anybody else, and have fresh underwear. Yet if she spent all night at the library, or at the train station reading under the lights while pretending to be waiting for a late train, and then came home to find the house full of strange people and noises and odd flickering lights and had to sleep out in the yard, it showed. She hated going to school with the knees of her pants dirty or leaf bits in her hair. By the time she was in junior high, she figured out how to slip into the girl’s locker room at six o’clock in the morning and use the shower—until she got caught at it one day.
“My mom hasn’t been paying the water bills,” she said, but she didn’t think she was believed.
“Caroline,” the school counselor said, in a voice so drippingly sympathetic that it was all Caroline could do to not laugh in her face, “is everything all right at home?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Everything’s fine.”
That was the funny part, as she laughed and cried and screamed into her pillow—or sometimes, when she was alone in the park, into the sky and she didn’t give a damn who heard her—because things were not fine.
It was, again, almost November. She was sleeping out in the yard more often than not because she was afraid to go into the house, and she was likely to get frostbite in that damn hammock, even if she did wear a heavy coat and sleep under the same old, muddy blanket as always.
She lay there in the dark. Her face was cold. Her teeth chattered. She was angry. By now she was fourteen and had torn up her notebooks in a fit of rage, and wasn’t going to be an artist anymore when she grew up. No, she was going to become a scientist and learn a way to blow up the world and do it. No one cared about her. No one believed anything she said, and so, she decided, it didn’t matter what she said—because she was always a mess, because she was crazy and everyone knew it and she lived in a house with a yard that was overgrown with weeds and looked condemned or haunted or both. So it didn’t matter that time when one of the goth kids at school sidled up to her in the hallway and said, “Caroline, are you a witch? Wanna join our coven?”
“Yes,” she said, “I am a witch. I’ve sold my soul to the Devil!”
She said it with such conviction that the goth-kid seemed to just melt. He ran away, and Caroline laughed so hard and so long and so loudly that it made a scene, and everybody was staring, and she didn’t give a damn if they did.
But most of them didn’t call her a witch. Somebody saw her scrounging for pizza out of a dumpster and the next day it was all over school and kids greeted her with, “Eew, gross…” and said among themselves, but making sure she could hear them, “Caroline’s going to be a bag-lady when she grows up. Maybe she’s one already.”
“Yeah, everything’s fine,” she told the counselor again and again.
So she lay in the hammock in the late October dark, on a night when she was certain that Jack and dear old Mom, who supposedly loved her no matter what, had murdered someone. She had seen them dragging a girl not much older than herself, somebody she didn’t know, who didn’t seem to be wearing much clothing, down into the basement. She had even been able to sneak a glimpse of what was going on down there, just this once. The struggling girl must have made Mom and Uncle Jack careless.
The curtains were open, so Caroline, crouching on the back porch, could peer in through the back door and see down the basement steps. A crowd of people waited at the base of the stairs, their faces horribly pale, all of them dressed in black, their outstretched hands like claws—and then the basement door slammed shut and she knew, as she so often did, that it was time to make herself invisible.
* * * *
That night, after she’d screamed into her crumpled blanket for a long time and finally punched a hole through the darkness into that other place where the answers came from, the darkness began to speak to her, its voice more distinct than she had ever heard it before. The darkness touched her. Its touch was hard and warm, but somehow comforting, as if strong, invisible hands caressed her. That night she looked up from out of her hammock and saw that the whole house was ablaze with light. She watched as all of the windows of the house slid open simultaneously, silently. In complete silence her mother and Uncle Jack, now dressed in black robes, leaned out of the upstairs bedroom and floated into the air, ascending like smoke, while from all the other windows, even the barred ones in the basement window-wells, other people rose up, dozens of them, like an cloud of enormous bats, their black robes fluttering like wings as they spiraled up, up, blotting out the moon.
Meanwhile the darkness whispered in her ear, and something with hard, warm hands touched her and comforted her.
That night was Halloween, not that any trick-or-treaters ever came to Caroline’s house, or anyone came at this hour, as it was well past midnight, but she knew that on this night (and also in the spring, at the end of April) Mom and Jack and the rest had their big “do’s” and this must have been one of them, for which occasion they had murdered that girl, whoever she was.
The thing in the darkness took her by the hand, and helped her out of the hammock, then led her into a dance as the bat-things scattered from the face of the Moon. Pale light rippled over the back yard and she began to see what she was dancing with, a male figure, naked, utterly black, like a computer graphic, she thought, something that could morph into any shape; but now it was this gleaming, handsome man, and she danced with him as if she were Ginjer Rogers and he was Fred Astaire; and they whirled around and around with the music turned off, listening to the darkness, which spoke to her from very far away and told her that she was safe and everything would be fine and she could be anything, anything at all that she wanted to be when she grew up.
“Yeah, I’m a witch all right, just like my mom,” she said aloud, as if concluding that conversation with the goth-boy at school. “I’m pretty sure.”
But all that might have been a dream. She knew she would have to wait until dawn, when Mom and Jack and the rest would return from their distant sabbat. Then the friend she had called out of the darkness would confront them, and command them, and begin to feed.
Then she would be sure.
She shouted. She didn’t care who heard.
THE STORY OF MING-Y, by Lafcadio Hearn
Sang the Poet Tching-Kou: “Surely the Peach-Flowers blossom over the tomb of Sië-Thao.”
* * * *
Do you ask me who she was—the beautiful Sië-Thao? For a thousand years and more the trees have been whispering above her bed of stone. And the syllables of her name come to the listener with the lisping of the leaves; with the quivering of many-fingered boughs; with the fluttering of lights and shadows; with the breath, sweet as a woman’s presence, of numberless savage flowers—Sië-Thao. But, saving the whispering of her name, what the trees say cannot be understood; and they alone remember the years of Sië-Thao. Something about her you might, nevertheless, learn from any of those Kiang-kou-jin—those famous Chinese story-tellers, who nightly narrate to listening crowds, in consideration of a few tsien, the legends of the past. Something concerning her you may also find in the book entitled “Kin-Kou-Ki-Koan,” which signifies in our tongue: “The Marvellous Happenings of Ancient and of Recent Times.” And perhaps of all things therein written, the most marvellous is this memory of Sië-Thao:—
Five hundred years ago, in the reign of the Emperor Houng-Wou, whose dynasty was Ming, there lived in the City of Genii, the city of Kwang-tchau-fu, a man celebrated for his learning and for his piety, named Tien-Pelou. This Tien-Pelou had one son, a beautiful boy, who for scholarship and for bodily grace and for
polite accomplishments had no superior among the youths of his age. And his name was Ming-Y.
Now when the lad was in his eighteenth summer, it came to pass that Pelou, his father, was appointed Inspector of Public Instruction at the city of Tching-tou; and Ming-Y accompanied his parents thither. Near the city of Tching-tou lived a rich man of rank, a high commissioner of the government, whose name was Tchang, and who wanted to find a worthy teacher for his children. On hearing of the arrival of the new Inspector of Public Instruction, the noble Tchang visited him to obtain advice in this matter; and happening to meet and converse with Pelou’s accomplished son, immediately engaged Ming-Y as a private tutor for his family.
Now as the house of this Lord Tchang was situated several miles from town, it was deemed best that Ming-Y should abide in the house of his employer. Accordingly the youth made ready all things necessary for his new sojourn; and his parents, bidding him farewell, counselled him wisely, and cited to him the words of Lao-tseu and of the ancient sages:
“By a beautiful face the world is filled with love; but Heaven may never be deceived thereby. Shouldst thou behold a woman coming from the East, look thou to the West; shouldst thou perceive a maiden approaching from the West, turn thine eyes to the East.”
If Ming-Y did not heed this counsel in after days, it was only because of his youth and the thoughtlessness of a naturally joyous heart.
And he departed to abide in the house of Lord Tchang, while the autumn passed, and the winter also.
* * * *
When the time of the second moon of spring was drawing near, and that happy day which the Chinese call Hoa-tchao, or, “The Birthday of a Hundred Flowers,” a longing came upon Ming-Y to see his parents; and he opened his heart to the good Tchang, who not only gave him the permission he desired, but also pressed into his hand a silver gift of two ounces, thinking that the lad might wish to bring some little memento to his father and mother. For it is the Chinese custom, on the feast of Hoa-tchao, to make presents to friends and relations.
That day all the air was drowsy with blossom perfume, and vibrant with the droning of bees. It seemed to Ming-Y that the path he followed had not been trodden by any other for many long years; the grass was tall upon it; vast trees on either side interlocked their mighty and moss-grown arms above him, beshadowing the way; but the leafy obscurities quivered with bird-song, and the deep vistas of the wood were glorified by vapors of gold, and odorous with flower-breathings as a temple with incense. The dreamy joy of the day entered into the heart of Ming-Y; and he sat him down among the young blossoms, under the branches swaying against the violet sky, to drink in the perfume and the light, and to enjoy the great sweet silence. Even while thus reposing, a sound caused him to turn his eyes toward a shady place where wild peach-trees were in bloom; and he beheld a young woman, beautiful as the pinkening blossoms themselves, trying to hide among them. Though he looked for a moment only, Ming-Y could not avoid discerning the loveliness of her face, the golden purity of her complexion, and the brightness of her long eyes, that sparkled under a pair of brows as daintily curved as the wings of the silkworm butterfly outspread. Ming-Y at once turned his gaze away, and, rising quickly, proceeded on his journey. But so much embarrassed did he feel at the idea of those charming eyes peeping at him through the leaves, that he suffered the money he had been carrying in his sleeve to fall, without being aware of it. A few moments later he heard the patter of light feet running behind him, and a woman’s voice calling him by name. Turning his face in great surprise, he saw a comely servant-maid, who said to him, “Sir, my mistress bade me pick up and return you this silver which you dropped upon the road.” Ming-Y thanked the girl gracefully, and requested her to convey his compliments to her mistress. Then he proceeded on his way through the perfumed silence, athwart the shadows that dreamed along the forgotten path, dreaming himself also, and feeling his heart beating with strange quickness at the thought of the beautiful being that he had seen.
* * * *
It was just such another day when Ming-Y, returning by the same path, paused once more at the spot where the gracious figure had momentarily appeared before him. But this time he was surprised to perceive, through a long vista of immense trees, a dwelling that had previously escaped his notice—a country residence, not large, yet elegant to an unusual degree. The bright blue tiles of its curved and serrated double roof, rising above the foliage, seemed to blend their color with the luminous azure of the day; the green-and-gold designs of its carven porticos were exquisite artistic mockeries of leaves and flowers bathed in sunshine. And at the summit of terrace-steps before it, guarded by great porcelain tortoises, Ming-Y saw standing the mistress of the mansion—the idol of his passionate fancy—accompanied by the same waiting-maid who had borne to her his message of gratitude. While Ming-Y looked, he perceived that their eyes were upon him; they smiled and conversed together as if speaking about him; and, shy though he was, the youth found courage to salute the fair one from a distance. To his astonishment, the young servant beckoned him to approach; and opening a rustic gate half veiled by trailing plants bearing crimson flowers, Ming-Y advanced along the verdant alley leading to the terrace, with mingled feelings of surprise and timid joy. As he drew near, the beautiful lady withdrew from sight; but the maid waited at the broad steps to receive him, and said as he ascended:
“Sir, my mistress understands you wish to thank her for the trifling service she recently bade me do you, and requests that you will enter the house, as she knows you already by repute, and desires to have the pleasure of bidding you good-day.”
Ming-Y entered bashfully, his feet making no sound upon a matting elastically soft as forest moss, and found himself in a reception-chamber vast, cool, and fragrant with scent of blossoms freshly gathered. A delicious quiet pervaded the mansion; shadows of flying birds passed over the bands of light that fell through the half-blinds of bamboo; great butterflies, with pinions of fiery color, found their way in, to hover a moment about the painted vases, and pass out again into the mysterious woods. And noiselessly as they, the young mistress of the mansion entered by another door, and kindly greeted the boy, who lifted his hands to his breast and bowed low in salutation. She was taller than he had deemed her, and supplely-slender as a beauteous lily; her black hair was interwoven with the creamy blossoms of the chu-sha-kih; her robes of pale silk took shifting tints when she moved, as vapors change hue with the changing of the light.
“If I be not mistaken,” she said, when both had seated themselves after having exchanged the customary formalities of politeness, “my honored visitor is none other than Tien-chou, surnamed Ming-Y, educator of the children of my respected relative, the High Commissioner Tchang. As the family of Lord Tchang is my family also, I cannot but consider the teacher of his children as one of my own kin.”
“Lady,” replied Ming-Y, not a little astonished, “may I dare to inquire the name of your honored family, and to ask the relation which you hold to my noble patron?”
“The name of my poor family,” responded the comely lady, “is Ping—an ancient family of the city of Tching-tou. I am the daughter of a certain Sië of Moun-hao; Sië is my name, likewise; and I was married to a young man of the Ping family, whose name was Khang. By this marriage I became related to your excellent patron; but my husband died soon after our wedding, and I have chosen this solitary place to reside in during the period of my widowhood.”
There was a drowsy music in her voice, as of the melody of brooks, the murmurings of spring; and such a strange grace in the manner of her speech as Ming-Y had never heard before. Yet, on learning that she was a widow, the youth would not have presumed to remain long in her presence without a formal invitation; and after having sipped the cup of rich tea presented to him, he arose to depart. Sië would not suffer him to go so quickly.
“Nay, friend,” she said; “stay yet a little while in my house, I pray you; for, should your honored patron ever learn that you had been here, and that I had not treated yo
u as a respected guest, and regaled you even as I would him, I know that he would be greatly angered. Remain at least to supper.”
So Ming-Y remained, rejoicing secretly in his heart, for Sië seemed to him the fairest and sweetest being he had ever known, and he felt that he loved her even more than his father and his mother. And while they talked the long shadows of the evening slowly blended into one violet darkness; the great citron-light of the sunset faded out; and those starry beings that are called the Three Councillors, who preside over life and death and the destinies of men, opened their cold bright eyes in the northern sky. Within the mansion of Sië the painted lanterns were lighted; the table was laid for the evening repast; and Ming-Y took his place at it, feeling little inclination to eat, and thinking only of the charming face before him. Observing that he scarcely tasted the dainties laid upon his plate, Sië pressed her young guest to partake of wine; and they drank several cups together. It was a purple wine, so cool that the cup into which it was poured became covered with vapory dew; yet it seemed to warm the veins with strange fire. To Ming-Y, as he drank, all things became more luminous as by enchantment; the walls of the chamber appeared to recede, and the roof to heighten; the lamps glowed like stars in their chains, and the voice of Sië floated to the boy’s ears like some far melody heard through the spaces of a drowsy night. His heart swelled; his tongue loosened; and words flitted from his lips that he had fancied he could never dare to utter. Yet Sië sought not to restrain him; her lips gave no smile; but her long bright eyes seemed to laugh with pleasure at his words of praise, and to return his gaze of passionate admiration with affectionate interest.
“I have heard,” she said, “of your rare talent, and of your many elegant accomplishments. I know how to sing a little, although I cannot claim to possess any musical learning; and now that I have the honor of finding myself in the society of a musical professor, I will venture to lay modesty aside, and beg you to sing a few songs with me. I should deem it no small gratification if you would condescend to examine my musical compositions.”
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