by Ann Hood
Seeing the look on his sister’s face, Felix said, “Don’t worry. We’ll figure it out.”
She looked at him doubtfully.
“We figured out how to time travel in the first place, right?” he reminded her. “I’m sure we can figure out how to get back.”
Sometimes it felt like all there was to do in Shanghai was take cold baths to cool off, go to the parks and public gardens, and window-shop. As the days passed, even Wang Amah’s relenting to unbandage her feet and show them to Pearl, Maisie, and Felix had lost some of its thrill. It was hot. Blistering, relentlessly hot. And the heat made everyone cranky. Pearl began most of her sentences with “In real China…” To Pearl, Shanghai was not China at all.
One day, as they walked through one of the parks, Pearl stopped suddenly.
“What’s wrong?” Felix asked her.
Angrily, she marched over to a sign posted on the grass.
“No dogs or Chinamen,” Pearl read. “No dogs or Chinamen,” she repeated loudly. “Like the Chinese people are no better than dogs? Like the British aren’t here because the Chinese said they could be here?”
Her voice grew louder and louder, and her face grew red.
“I hate it here!” Pearl shouted. “I hate Shanghai, and I want to go home!”
Before Felix could put his arm around her shoulders and calm her down, Maisie cried, “Me too! I want to go home.”
In an instant, the two girls fell into each other’s arms, sobbing.
“Oh no,” Felix said helplessly.
For some reason, that made them cry even harder.
He glanced around as if he might find help somewhere. But the businessmen walking briskly through the park didn’t even seem to notice them. A round nanny in a white uniform pushing a fancy carriage frowned at them but didn’t pause.
Then something in the distance caught Pearl’s eye.
“Look!” she said, sniffling and pulling away from Maisie.
“What?” Maisie asked.
Pearl pointed to a statue at the end of the path.
“It’s Kwan Yin,” she explained. “She’s the Goddess of Mercy.”
Maisie did not look impressed.
“She hears the cries of the world,” Pearl said hopefully. “Surely she’ll hear ours and help us all get back home.”
Pearl took off running toward the statue.
“Well,” Felix said, “it wouldn’t hurt.”
Reluctantly, Maisie walked with Felix down the path.
When Pearl saw them, she grinned.
“I should have been asking her all along,” she said.
From her pocket, she pulled out the small jade box that Felix had given her.
“I carry it everywhere,” she added. “Remember, Felix? You said that no matter where I went, I could take this little box filled with the earth from home with me?”
“May I see that?” Maisie asked Pearl.
Pearl handed the box to her, and Maisie held it tightly in her hand, closing her eyes and concentrating hard.
When she opened her eyes again, she looked around, clearly disappointed.
“I thought…,” she began.
“Did you think you could pray to her and open your eyes and be home?” Pearl teased.
But Maisie looked at Felix and said, “Yes. Well, I hoped.”
“It doesn’t work that fast!” Pearl laughed. “You’re getting as bad as Amah. Next thing I know, you’ll believe a magic rabbit lives on the moon.”
Maisie’s eyes took in the statue in front of her: the flowing, green robe, the willow twig in one hand, and the vase dripping dew in the other. Even though she didn’t believe in all this Chinese superstition, maybe praying to Kwan Yin would help. It wouldn’t hurt, she decided.
She took a deep breath and thought as hard as she could, “Kwan Yin, do you hear me crying to go home?”
The stone face stared back at her.
When they got back to the boardinghouse on Bubbling Well Road, Mrs. Sydenstricker was waiting anxiously outside for them. As soon as she saw them turn the corner, she smiled and ran to meet them.
“Pearl! Wonderful news from your father!”
Pearl’s eyes glistened with joy. “We’re going home!” she said. “Finally!”
Felix saw Mrs. Sydenstricker’s face fall. She reminded him of his own mother when she was about to disappoint him.
“Pearl,” Mrs. Sydenstricker said, putting her hand on Pearl’s arm. “I’m sorry. It’s time for us to go to our real home.”
“Real home?” Pearl said.
“He’s booked us passage on a steamship to San Francisco,” Mrs. Sydenstricker said.
“San Francisco?” Pearl said, her eyes darkening.
“Yes!” her mother said. “And from there on to West Virginia.”
“America isn’t home,” Pearl said angrily.
“It is,” her mother said. “It will be, Pearl. I promise.”
Maisie felt like she was listening to her own mother right before the Christmas party when she’d been complaining about not having any friends in Newport. You will soon, sweetie, she’d said. I promise. Her words hadn’t made Maisie feel better. Not really. How could a mother promise something that seemed impossible to get?
Still, Maisie said to Pearl, “I never thought I would feel at home anywhere except New York City. When we moved to Newport, I was totally miserable. I hated it. New York was my home, not that awful place.”
“And now you’re happy there?” Pearl said, knowing the answer.
Maisie hesitated.
But Felix jumped right in. “I love Newport now, Pearl,” he said. “At first, I was unhappy there. But before I knew it, I had friends and I fell in love with the harbor and all the sailboats there.”
Mrs. Sydenstricker smiled at him gratefully.
“It’s taken me longer,” Maisie said. “But slowly I’m getting used to it. Maybe I’ll always miss our old apartment and the streets around that neighborhood. Maybe I’ll always want the sounds of the city outside all around me. But that doesn’t mean I’m not warming up to Newport.”
“See, Pearl?” her mother said. “They know exactly how you feel.”
At that, Pearl’s eyes flared with anger.
“I want to go to Zhenjiang. That’s my home!”
She didn’t wait for her mother or Maisie or Felix to answer. Instead, Pearl ran off, away from the boardinghouse.
Maisie turned to Felix.
“I think our wishes got mixed up,” she said. “Now what are we going to do?”
That night in bed, Felix heard Pearl crying softly.
“Don’t cry,” he told her. “Maybe you’ll come back when it’s safe.”
“Mother hates it here,” Pearl said sadly. “She won’t come back unless Father makes her.”
“Why does she hate it so much?” Maisie asked.
Pearl sighed. “Because of my sisters and brothers.”
“The ones who…” Felix hesitated.
“Yes,” Pearl said. “The ones in heaven.”
“Did you know them, Pearl?” Maisie asked. “Or did they… was it… before you were born?”
They were all sitting up now, their thin, cotton blankets around their shoulders. The moon lit the little room and shone full and white in the window.
“First Maude went to heaven. Then Arthur. He got malaria while Father was up north, and they took him by boat to bury beside Maudie. But Mother got cholera, too, and the doctor thought she would die. Father took over the care of Edith—Mother was too sick. And poor Edith contracted cholera and died, just two weeks after Arthur.”
Both Felix and Maisie were speechless at this story of loss, their eyes filled with tears.
“Mother blamed the heat of summer. The mosquitoes. The flies. The dirty water. After Maudie died, she used to beg Father to spend summers near the sea. Or to return back to America for good. But he refused. When Arthur and Edith died that summer—this was before I was born—Mother threatened to leave Fathe
r. She couldn’t bear to lose anything more.”
“But here you are, still,” Felix said. “He wouldn’t leave.”
“They went back to America. And I was born while they were there. But Father only agreed to go there because the doctor told him that Mother was losing her mind from grief. You know, it is possible to die from a broken heart,” Pearl said.
“Your poor, poor mother,” Maisie said.
“Our sorrow wasn’t over, though,” Pearl continued. Her voice had an edge of pain to it as she spoke now. “My little brother, Clyde, died several months before you arrived. He got this awful cough, and his coloring was like ashes. I had it, too, and was in my bed burning with fever when I heard a woman screaming. At first I thought it was coming from our neighbor’s. But then I recognized the voice. It was Wang Amah. That’s when I knew.”
At the same time, Maisie and Felix reached for Pearl’s hand, each of them holding one of hers in their own.
“Father was away up north when Clyde went to heaven. But he came home for the funeral,” Pearl added.
They were silent for a moment, then Pearl said, “He was my little buddy. We used to play on the hillside outside our house and go to Horse Street with Wang Amah and tell each other the most marvelous stories. Mother insisted that we leave the city in the summer, so we would go to the mountains, to Kuling, where we had a small cabin. I do wish there hadn’t been so much trouble this summer, or you would have both come with us. The trip up Mount Lu is thrilling. Four pairs of men carry us by bamboo poles on chairs all the way up the mountain. Along the way we stop in the little villages for tea, and the men hang awnings across the poles to keep the sun off us. Do you know, even in the summer it’s cool up there? And the water in the stream is so clean we can drink straight from it. Mother felt relaxed when we were there. Safe,” she said, her voice heavy with sadness.
“But this is so terrible!” Maisie blurted.
Pearl nodded. “Clyde was so brave,” she said. “He knew he was dying, and he told us that he was leaving our house to go to his home in heaven.”
At this, both Maisie and Felix could not hold back their tears.
Pearl tried to soothe them, murmuring, “There, there,” and reminding them that her mother had Grace now, and also that there was an older brother Edgar, who was safe and in school in America.
But they had never heard such a sad story or met anyone who had had to bear so much loss. Maisie’s own sadness over moving away and their parents’ divorce seemed selfish in comparison.
“I do think they are all together in heaven,” Pearl said. “But meanwhile we have to appreciate what we have here on earth, don’t we? And aren’t you two the luckiest people in the world? Twins! You’ve been together since before you were even born!”
That made them smile.
“Our mother says in our sonogram, we were holding hands,” Maisie said.
“Your what?” Pearl asked.
“Oops,” Maisie said. Of course, she realized, sonograms weren’t invented yet in 1900.
Pearl leaned closer to Maisie and Felix.
“I didn’t know Maude or Artie or Edith,” she told them. “But I knew my little brother, Clyde, and I loved him more than anything. You two have each other, and you have to always remember how special that is. You have to treasure it, always.”
Maisie let out a big sob and threw her arms around Felix’s neck.
“I’m so sorry,” she cried. “I’ve been so mean to you.”
Felix was hugging her back just as hard.
“No, no,” he was saying. “I was thoughtless. I’ll never go behind your back again.”
They grew so emotional and cried so hard to each other and repeated “I’m sorry” and “I love you” so many times, that neither of them realized that the air grew heavy with the smells of Christmas trees and cinnamon and bread baking or that they were being lifted up, up, up.
When they finally parted, they heard Lily Goldberg say in a confused voice, “What in the world are you two doing?”
Maisie and Felix blinked. Then they blinked again.
“Oh,” Maisie said happily. “We’re home.”
Lily Goldberg stared down at Maisie and Felix, who lay splayed out on the floor of The Treasure Chest.
“Well, of course you’re home,” Lily said, shaking her head, annoyed. “Where else would you be?”
They looked at each other and grinned.
“Can we go get dinner now?” Lily asked. She was wearing that dissatisfied face that Felix liked so much.
“Sure,” he said, helping Maisie to her feet. “Are you hungry?” he asked his sister.
Maisie nodded. “Don’t they have roast beef and stuff?”
Lily wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Ew,” she said. “I’m a vegetarian.”
“They’ll have something for you, too,” Felix assured her.
“Where…,” Lily said under her breath, looking around. “Where in the world…?”
“What?” Felix said.
“That little jade box,” Lily said. “Where is it?”
“Oh,” Maisie said. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Are you sure?” Lily said, unconvinced.
“We’re sure,” Felix said.
They began to walk toward the door, Lily still keeping an eye out for the box, when the doorway filled with the Blond Woman.
“Caught you!” she said, pointing a quivering finger at them. Her overplucked, overarched eyebrows shot upward, and her thin lips set into a tight line.
“Uh-oh,” Maisie said.
“Uh-oh is right,” the Blond Woman said.
Up close like this she looked even scarier with those eyebrows and lips and her beady, blue eyes flaring angrily.
“We just—” Felix began.
Lily stepped forward, her hand extended.
“Lily Goldberg,” she said. “I take full responsibility for being here. I’ve never been in one of these mansions before, and I wandered up here by myself. They just came looking for me.”
The Blond Woman narrowed her already small eyes.
“In fact,” Lily said, her hand still waiting for the Blond Woman to shake it, “they were just explaining how this room is—”
“Off-limits,” Maisie interjected.
Felix was nodding his head like a bobblehead. “Off-limits,” he repeated.
“Well,” the Blond Woman said, thinking.
Lily lifted her hand slightly as if to remind her she was supposed to shake it.
Reluctantly, the Blond Woman did.
“Now that we’ve got her,” Maisie said, “we’re going to go downstairs and get some food.”
Lily smiled up at the Blond Woman. “Roast beef,” she said with false enthusiasm.
“Well,” the Blond Woman said again.
They didn’t wait for her to think about it any longer. Instead, the three of them hurried past her, walking fast down the hall to the Grand Staircase and the party going on below.
“That was great!” Maisie said as they moved down the marble stairs.
“Yeah,” Felix said. “You were amazing.”
At the bottom of the stairs, he touched Lily’s arm lightly.
“Xiè xie,” he said.
“Huh?” Lily said.
“That’s Chinese,” Felix explained. “For thank you.”
“It is?” Lily said. “You know some Chinese?”
“A little,” Felix said.
She looked at him, impressed.
“Oh, yeah,” Maisie said. “He can even write Chinese characters in beautiful calligraphy.”
“Wow,” Lily said.
Felix was beaming. “Confucius says, ‘He who does not revere letters is no better than a blind buffalo.’”
Lily’s eyes shone. “What else does Confucius say, Felix?”
“Let’s get some food and I’ll tell you,” he said.
The day after the party, their mother took Maisie and Felix to visit Great-Aunt Maisie. The Island Retirement Cen
ter was decorated for Christmas with a big, artificial tree in the lobby. Big, blue ornaments hung from it and gold garland wrapped around its branches. Gold garland and cardboard Santas appeared just about everywhere, on desks and doorways and windows.
“It’s certainly festive,” their mother said unconvincingly.
They all felt a little guilty living in Elm Medona, with its lavish Christmas decorations and the VIP party, while poor Great-Aunt Maisie was confined here.
As they walked down the hall to her room, their mother said, “Now remember, she’s been failing a bit these last few weeks. Don’t rile her up.”
“Oh,” Felix said, “I have a feeling she’ll be doing great.”
His mother tousled his hair. “My optimist,” she said.
The door to Great-Aunt Maisie’s room was open, with one of those cardboard Santas tacked on it.
When they walked in, the room was empty. The bed was neatly made, with Great-Aunt Maisie’s favorite ivory cashmere throw blanket folded at the foot of the bed. A large, white amaryllis bloomed in a bamboo planter on her night table, and another one sat on the small, round table by the window beside the silver bell she used to call the staff. The curtains were open to let in the morning sun, and the room smelled of Great-Aunt Maisie’s perfume.
Despite the cozy feeling of the room, Maisie and Felix’s mother looked upset.
“Oh dear,” she said, worried. “I hope nothing has happened to her.”
She picked up the silver bell and rang it lightly. When Great-Aunt Maisie used it, she gave it a firm shake that pierced their ears.
A nurse in a mauve uniform came in.
“I knew that wasn’t your aunt calling,” she said. “She practically breaks my eardrums with that thing.”
