Paper boats are drawn in the wake of racing ones, and the ghosts were calling and beckoning, and the little bobbing things drifted out and turned obediently to follow the gentle rippling trail behind us.
The boat was vibrating like a tuning fork. On the shore I saw buildings shake and loose tiles fall. The great Yu was sounding the final notes to announce the precise second of the solstice, and a gauzy graceful waterspout was lifting into the air on the port side, higher and higher, spreading dragon wings, forming a cloud. Another dragon followed, and another, and they turned on the dirty fingers of Yellow Wind and began chasing them back into Mongolia. Clouds were spreading across half the sky, just in time to catch the light of the setting sun, and rain began to fall, and a cool fresh breeze washed the city, and people began pouring out, running to the water carrying their families’ paper boats.
“Ox!”
I turned and cried out as two ghosts came through the crowd of the dead. My mother embraced me, and my father smiled and twisted his hands together awkwardly.
Hundreds of ghosts were greeting Master Li. A huge flotilla of disease boats was following us now, bobbing up and down over gentle waves, glowing in the sunset, and when I looked up from my parents I saw some kind of dark barrier like a wall of low fog, with a shining open archway in the center, and the water that led into it was woven from the colors of the sky.
“But, Mother, Peking really isn’t all that much different from the village,” I said. “You shouldn’t believe all the alarming things you hear….”
The ghosts around Master Li had stepped back, bowing to the deck, and the sage was walking forward with a big smile of greeting on his face, and eight hooded gentlemen closed around him, and I could see hands lift and gesture in an animated conversation.
I laughed and pointed. “Look, that’s Master Li,” I said. “How could I possibly get into trouble working for a sweet little old man like that?”
The boat glided silently through the glittering arch. Ahead was the great looming shape of the Jo tree, where the goddess Kan-shui would catch the sun and bathe it and send it down the underground stream to the other side of the world, so it could climb branches of the Fu-sang tree and again reach the sky. The flowers of the Jo tree were beginning to open and form the first stars of night, and the water around us was gloriously woven from the glow of sunset.
“Ox!” cried Master Li. “Bring your esteemed parents and come say hello to some friends of ours!”
Yes, sir,” I said.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Detailed Table of Contents
Bridge of The Birds
The Story of The Stone
Eight Skilled Gentlemen
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Detailed Table of Contents
Bridge of The Birds
The Story of The Stone
Eight Skilled Gentlemen
The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox Page 79
