Girl Giant and the Monkey King

by Van Hoang

  Ma sighed. “Before we move, a warrior came to the house. He wore armor, big.” Ma held a hand over her head. “He didn’t know you were the Boy Giant’s daughter, but he remembered me and suspected that you were part immortal. It was right after you broke the windows in the house, remember?”

  Thom would never forget. That was when her strength had first gotten really bad.

  “I was scared. I told him it’s not true, that an earthquake shook the house and shattered the windows. You were normal girl. But I don’t know if he believed me. I was afraid he might come back and take you away.”

  “But why would that be bad? I would have gone to the heavens. I could have stayed with Ba. He would have trained me. Why didn’t you give me the choice?”

  “Because you’re my daughter. You belong with me.”

  “I’m the Boy Giant’s daughter, too,” Thom said softly. Her life could have been so different. She could have lived in the heavens, like Jae. She would have fit in, wouldn’t have had to prove herself to people who were so completely unlike her. She would have been respected for her strength. She wouldn’t have just been normal up there; she would have been popular. People would have looked up to her.

  Ma didn’t say anything. Her bug-eyed sunglasses stared back at Thom.

  “You should have let me choose,” Thom said. “I could have learned more about my strength. The Boy Giant … Ba … He said that giants are supposed to help people and protect those who are weaker than them. But I’ve only been hiding.”

  “I won’t let you go. You would never be normal like that.”

  Thom grabbed the door handle, turning her face away. “Maybe I don’t want to be normal anymore.”

  30

  THOM RAN TO HER ROOM, ignoring Ma’s calls for her to stop. She slammed the door and locked it, pressing her forehead against the cold surface.

  “You’re back!”

  Thom whirled around. The Monkey King bounded to her, throwing his arms around her shoulders and spinning her in the air. Despite what everyone had told her, and the possibility that maybe he’d betrayed her, used her, tricked her, it was still a relief to see him. He was the only one who had understood her, accepted her, had never wanted to change her. Maybe it wasn’t true, what they said. They’d been wrong about so many things. Maybe he had a good reason for saying what he’d said.

  “Where were you?” she asked, pulling back from the hug.

  “I had to leave.” He smiled, but Thom remained hardened, thinking of all the trouble he’d put her through. “My friends needed me. I had to help them.”

  “I needed you! You sent me into the heavens! And you weren’t there when I got out. How was I supposed to get home?”

  His face formed into an expression of sympathetic concern, as quick as putting on a mask. “I went back to the Gate as soon as I could, but you weren’t there. I waited, but when you still didn’t come back, I figured your dragon servant fetched you.”

  She scowled, trying to decide what else to yell at him about. “You lied about the heavens. You didn’t tell me…” Everything. About the Boy Giant and Jae. “You didn’t tell me it was a mortal crime to intrude.”

  He cocked his head. “Well? What did you think? That you could enter freely and not face consequences?”

  Fury laced through her. “Yes! You made it seem like it was okay. You tricked me!”

  He leaned back on his haunches and held out his hands. Despite her anger, Thom almost took them, but she clenched her fists instead.

  “I might have failed,” he said, “to disclose that inf—”

  “And that I’ll be sent to the hells once they catch me.”

  “I will keep you safe from them.”

  Her chest heaved. This was true; it was what she had told herself. She had followed through with the plan only because she knew the Monkey King would fix everything. But it didn’t mean she wasn’t angry at him.

  “Do you have it?” His thick lashes fanned over innocent large brown eyes. “The staff?”

  “I…” She hesitated, stepping back. “I’m not giving it to you. I changed my mind.”

  Only, there was no point. As if the cudgel knew they were talking about it, a hum came from beneath the bed. The Monkey King’s eyes widened. He didn’t need Thom. He ducked down, and the moment he found the staff, the humming took on a different tune, like a cat’s purr. Thom felt it more than heard it, the sheer bliss emanating from the cudgel as it reunited with its master.

  The Monkey King’s eyes misted over, a look of pure joy on his face. He held his staff in both hands, studying it from one end to the other, turning it over, inspecting it for damage. The golden coil was still wrapped around it, but he didn’t seem to care. He tossed it from one hand to the other. Thom’s mouth opened. She’d barely been able to drag the thing using all her supernatural strength, and the Monkey King wielded it like it was a toy.

  He spun it, twirled, practiced a few moves. He floated off the floor, giving a few good whacks at the air, giggling with glee.

  And then, without another word, he held the staff in one hand and bounded for the window.

  “Wait!” She ran after him. He hung from the sill, looking back at her curiously. “Where are you going?” And even though she knew now that it was impossible for him to get rid of what she had been born with, even though she didn’t want her strength taken away anymore, she couldn’t help but ask. “What about my power? You said you would make me normal after I got you your staff.”

  “Oh.” He stepped back into her room. There was something in his voice that she didn’t like. “About that. I … lied.”

  Even though the Boy Giant had warned her the Monkey King had told her a lie, a part of her was hoping he was wrong, was hoping that there had been a misunderstanding, an explanation. Hearing the Monkey King admit that it had been a lie was worse than what she’d imagined. Something twisted deep inside. A fist squeezing her intestines.

  “I can’t take your power away, Thom. No one can do that. Your power is a part of you.”

  “He was right,” she whispered, more to herself than to the Monkey King.

  “I thought you would learn,” he said. “Find out in the heavens who you really are.”

  Tears clouded her vision. “Then give me back the staff,” she demanded.

  His face hardened. “What?”

  “A deal is a deal. You won’t take my power away, so you can’t have the cudgel.”

  The doorknob rattled. “Thom!” Ma shouted. “I told you not to lock the door. Open it right now!”

  The Monkey King tightened his grip on the staff. His upper lip curled over his sharp teeth. She’d seen him direct this look at others, but now that it was turned on her, fear made her limbs feel weak. But she meant what she’d said. A deal was a deal.

  “Give it back,” she said.

  He flipped the staff over his shoulder. “Aren’t you forgetting something, Thom? The heavens are against you now. The soldiers will come after you. I’m the only one who can help you, who can stop them. I have something that will save you from the wrath of the heavens, keep you safe forever.”

  “Stop lying. You don’t have anything.”

  He leaned toward her, their noses almost touching. “I have myself.”

  Thom scowled, stepping back. “What?”

  “I’m going back to the Mountain to free myself.”

  She shook her head, not understanding.

  “Someone in the heavens should have told you. They love to tell the story of how Buddha imprisoned the Monkey King under the Mountain for five hundred years.”

  “But you … you’re here. You’re…” And then she understood, her gaze landing on the fur at his shoulder, the same color as the golden pin she’d found in the temple. Like the hair she still had in her pocket, which she’d taken into the heavens. For luck. “You’re not really you. The real you is still under the Mountain.”

  The Monkey King had the power to clone each of his hairs, and this, the one she
was talking to, was just a replica. It wasn’t the real one. Jae had said the Monkey King was trapped under the Mountain, imprisoned for five hundred years, and Thom had thought she was wrong, that she didn’t know the truth. But Thom was the wrong one.

  “Once I am free, truly free,” he said, stepping close again so that her nostrils filled with the earthy smell of him, “I will be the most powerful being in the world. Unstoppable. I have defeated the heavens before. I will do it again. And this time, even Buddha will not be able to stop me.”

  What had she done? She needed to take it back, undo everything. She needed …

  The cudgel. Without it, the Monkey King wouldn’t be able to free his true self. She could still stop him.

  The door flew open. Ma burst in, keys jingling. “Thom, I told you—” She stopped short. Her eyes widened on the Monkey King, who’d raised his staff, ready for a fight. Her mouth opened in a shriek. “Thom! Get back!” She lunged for Thom and grabbed her in a wrenching hug.

  The Monkey King regarded Ma with disinterest before turning to Thom. “I can still help you.”

  “Help her?” Ma stood between them. “You go away! She don’t need you.”

  “Ma, stop.”

  The Monkey King bared his teeth, and Ma screamed and swatted at him. Her hand smacked his face, and he stepped back, his mouth open, hand raised to his cheek, shock making his features ridiculously innocent.

  And then the mask of anger was back.

  “No, don’t,” Thom said. “She didn’t mean to—”

  The Monkey King’s staff whirred so fast it blurred. Its hum grew louder, filling Thom’s ears and lungs and the blood in her veins. She couldn’t see straight. The air was thick and fast, and when she tried to move, it was like walking against a heavy gust of wind.

  When she reached for her mother, her fingers found nothing. Ma was gone.

  The hum died. The staff stopped moving. The Monkey King held it at his side, his chest puffed, his jaw tight.

  “Ma?” Thom looked around, but Ma was nowhere. “What did you do to her?”

  “She slapped me.” As if that answered the question.

  “Where is she?”

  He pointed the cudgel at the floor. At first, Thom didn’t see what he was indicating. But then she dropped to her knees.

  “No,” she whispered. She held out her hands, and the cricket—the cricket—hopped onto her palm. “No. No … no … you couldn’t … She can’t … This isn’t…” She looked up at him. “You turned her into a cricket!”

  The cricket chirped.

  The Monkey King lifted his chin. “She smacked me! Like I was a bad dog!”

  “Turn her back.”

  “No.”

  “Wukong!”

  He bared his teeth. “Only my friends call me that.”

  “I helped you. I got your cudgel back from the heavens.”

  He batted his eyelashes and bowed dramatically low, his forehead skimming the floor. “And in return, I will keep the heavens from punishing you.”

  “Turn her back,” she demanded again, holding the cricket up.

  He laughed, and it was like spikes were being driven into her ears. “No.”

  Thom didn’t think about what she did next. She dropped the cricket to the floor and lunged at the Monkey King. His face registered surprise right before she crashed into him.

  They fell through the window.

  He wrapped an arm around her. Tears blinding her, she swung her fists anywhere she could reach. She hit him hard, with punches that should have hurt, but he only giggled like she’d tickled him. It made her angrier.

  “Thom!”

  She looked up, relief making her cry out. Kha. In his dragon form, circling them.

  “Let her go!” His tail whipped at the Monkey King, and to her shock, he did let her go. She reached for something to hold on to and found the magical string still wrapped around the cudgel. But as she tried to pull herself up with it, she accidentally unraveled the knot around the cudgel, and she dropped again, the coil winding itself around her hand.

  The Monkey King’s arms stretched toward her as if on reflex, like he hadn’t meant to drop her.

  But Kha was the one who caught her, diving to grab her with his short, clawlike arms. Still, Thom lunged for the Monkey King. She wanted to hurt him, drag him back to her mom, make him undo the transformation.

  The Monkey King hovered above them, giggling.

  “Turn her back,” Thom choked out.

  “I’m sorry, Thom,” he said. “But I have other things to do. Someone I need to free.”

  “No,” she gasped as he turned to fly away. “Don’t leave.”

  “I promise not to let the heavens punish you,” he said over his shoulder. And there, that honesty was back in his gaze. The genuine concern. For her. “I promise to keep you safe.”

  “Liar!”

  Then he zipped off faster than she’d ever seen him go, the staff glinting in the setting sunlight.

  “Follow him, Kha.”

  “Thom, I can’t. It’s pointless. He’s too fast.”

  She cried in frustration. But she knew he was right. Kha hadn’t been able to keep up when they’d flown to the heavens. She could only watch as the Monkey King became a dot in the sky and disappeared completely.

  31

  THOM FOUND THE CRICKET HOPPING near her bed, and placed her—Ma—safely in a glass mason jar. Kha poked small holes through the lid, and Thom dropped some carrot shavings into the jar before closing it. They did everything methodically, until they couldn’t think of anything else to do for the cricket.

  Nothing except change her back to a human.

  “You can’t stay here by yourself,” Kha said.

  “I’m not going to.” Thom’s voice was flat. Her skin tingled, her body numb. “I have to finish what I started.”

  Kha was quiet. Then he said, “You’re going after him.”

  “I don’t think I have any other choice.” She met his eyes. “Will you still help me? I don’t … I can’t do it without you.” She meant this literally, of course, because even though she had a special power, it didn’t involve flying, and she didn’t know how else she would be able to follow the Monkey King to the Mountain.

  But she knew it was true on a deeper level, too. She needed Kha, and she was sorry she hadn’t realized it earlier. Sorry she hadn’t listened to him, sorry she’d chosen the Monkey King over him.

  “I’m … I’ve been so stupid. You were right about him. You tried to warn me.”

  He touched her arm. “You’re not the first person he’s fooled. He’s the trickster god, remember? This is what he does.”

  Yes, he was the trickster god, but it hadn’t felt like that to her, even though some part of her had always known. He had been her friend, a real friend, one who understood exactly how she felt and knew what she wanted and was willing to help her get rid of her power.

  His face flashed in her memory again: the puckered brow, the brown eyes wide and shining against the furry face. Your power is a part of you. His voice echoed, the words solidifying something she hadn’t grasped before, a truth she hadn’t seen, blinded by her desire to get rid of her strength, to be someone different.

  He was right, wasn’t he? Despite what he’d done, despite what he’d planned all along, he had always known something, what had taken her a trip to the heavens and a close encounter with the hells to figure out.

  Her superstrength was a part of her. She couldn’t get rid of it. That would be like getting rid of her soul—replacing it with something that didn’t belong to her. Sure, it was difficult, being so ridiculously strong, but if she weren’t, she wouldn’t be the same person she was now.

  “I can stop him,” she said. “I’m stronger than him.” She hadn’t been so sure before, but when she’d wielded the cudgel, she had felt the true extent of her power, had felt the strength surge in her veins, had known what she was capable of. She hadn’t wanted to hurt anyone, especially her father or the
soldiers, but now she knew she could fix everything. She would stop the Monkey King. And to stop him, she would need her power.

  How else would she stop the Monkey King? Who would she even be? With the knowledge that she’d never be able to get rid of her strength came the relief that she could learn how to control it and simply move on.

  She looked at her hands, holding the mason jar gently so she wouldn’t accidentally break it, her fingers too short to wrap completely around the glass. She thought of her father’s offer to train her. She thought of the heavens, of Jae and the immortals, of the different life that had been offered to her there, one where she didn’t have to hide her power but was instead respected for it. Valued for it. Where she maybe could master her strength.

  Staying in the heavens hadn’t been an option back then, but now she knew it wasn’t because she’d needed to get rid of her power. It was because of what she had chosen to do with it.

  She still had a choice.

  Maybe she had lost her chance to be the Girl Giant, but she could still use her power to do something good. She was going to stop the Monkey King.

  “We have to go after him,” she said to Kha. “With the cudgel, he’s even more powerful. And he…” She held the jar up. This was the worst thing he could have done to Ma. She hated crickets. “He’s going to set his true self free.”

  “And once he does,” Kha said, “once the real Monkey King has the cudgel, he’ll be just like before. So powerful no one could stop him. No immortals, fairies, gods, dragon-kings. He’ll be undefeatable.”

  Thom looked again at her mother the cricket in the mason jar. Her fingers wrapped around the glass so tight it threatened to crack. “Then we’ll have to stop him first.”

  Mochi barked, his nails clicking on the tiled floors as he ran up to Thom and Kha. They stopped to look down at the dog, then at each other. Thom’s dog had been so quiet, they hadn’t even noticed him following them around.

  “What are we going to do with Mochi?” Thom asked.

  Kha knelt down and held out his hand for Mochi to sniff. “You can’t just, like, leave out a bowl of food or something?”