by Henry Lien
Doi begins to skate the length of the circle with her arms spread out behind her. She brushes her fingers lightly over the instruments of every student in the circle, inviting us to chase her.
Then she’s off! She leaps out of the circle and races across the campus. We follow behind in a long train, drumming and playing like a great singing dragon.
She leads us atop the roof of Eastern Heaven Dining Hall and takes a spinning shadowless kick leap off the edge into the night sky. Everyone does the leap behind her, making a wave pass along the body of the dragon and flip out of its tail.
She leads us onto the outer rails, doing one single-footed twisting leap after another, and we all follow, making the body of the dragon seem to spiral in its flight over the dark water.
She leads us inside the Temple of Heroes of Superlative Character and bows down in a side split as she skates past the restored statues, and we all follow, making the body of the dragon seem to bow to the heroes of Pearl.
She skates up the ramp of the temple, and we follow, making the body of the dragon thread up the spiral.
She leaps out of the arch at the top, making the body of the dragon fly out of the temple. She lets out a roar, and we follow and holler our throats raw, making the air thunder with a terrible bellow.
She leads us back to the Principal Island and the assembly court. We form a circle around her, and as we pound on our drums and saw on our strings faster and faster, Doi launches into a brilliant, furious spin. Fifty rotations. One hundred rotations. One hundred and fifty rotations. Two hundred rotations!
She’s done it! She’s broken the record! She has once again made Pearl Famous Academy of Skate and Sword history! She ends the rotations with a hard skid, toes pointed on the pearl, one hand on her hip, the other spread in the air like a fan, head tossed back. The students scream with joy and the circle explodes in applause for this girl, the greatest artist of wu liu that Pearl Famous has ever known, for Niu Doi, my friend.
FINAL
CHAPTER
I spend as much time as I can with Doi in the final days. She’s going to travel back to her aunt’s in Tao-Ka several hundred li south of the city of Pearl. She’ll spend the New Year’s month there to await word of whether her father is truly going to send her back to Pearl Rehabilitative Colony to be committed as a novice nun.
Cricket and I are uncertain what our status here as exchange students is now, since the goodwill exchange between Shin and Pearl is clearly over. Sensei Madame Liao has temporarily arranged for Cricket and me to stay at a boardinghouse in the city during the holiday month. We can’t stay at Pearl Famous because it undergoes “maintenance” during the recess. I guess they don’t want students seeing what maintenance means.
The day before we are to leave, I hear a voice cry out, “Iwi, it’s brushtime!” I turn to see logograms forming in the sky. The birds spell out: “Empress. Dowager. Mysteriously. Cuts. Off. All. Communications. With. Pearl. Buy. Pearl. Shining. Sun. News. To. Get. Whole. Story.”
What can it mean? All I know is what the villagers below Tianshang Mountain learned the hard way: When the Empress Dowager goes silent, it’s not the last time you will hear from her.
* * *
In the final days, I cross paths with Mole Girl.
“What’s your name?” I ask her.
She laughs. “Gou Gee-Hong.”
“Gou Gee-Hong, thank you.”
She laughs again. “For what?”
“For being good luck,” I say, and bow.
* * *
On the final day, when I’m finished with all I have to prepare, I skate to Doi’s dormitory chamber. She’s there with her few things bound in neat parcels of pearlsilk and string.
I can’t help it. It’s selfish of me. I should be brave for her now. But the tears come anyway.
“Don’t cry, Peasprout.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I’m frightened. Do you believe I’ll figure something out?”
“Yes! You’re the bravest, most talented, truest person I’ve ever known. If anyone can figure something out, it’s you.”
“Then I’m not so frightened. It might sound strange, but this has been the happiest year of my life.”
“What?”
“All those girlhood classics I read when I was young. I envied those girls so much. I wished for the friendships they found, which seemed more real than anything I’d ever known. Even though they were just imagined. And now, I’ve known friendship greater than anything anyone imagined. Thank you, my friend.”
Then, for the first time, Doi smiles at me and I see that she, of course, has dimples. I’m unprepared to see them there. I’m thrown. She looks at me, the smile and the dimples suddenly gone. She’s uncertain if she’s said too much.
Doi wants to embrace me, but she doesn’t. I feel, once again, the embarrassment and shame flash through her Chi.
So I open my arms and embrace her.
As I press her form against me, I smell that familiar scent, like plains sweetgrass, and it smells like someone I knew, but that person’s gone now. Forever. My heart clenches. I realize that there’s only one person who knows what I’m feeling right now, because she’s feeling the same thing.
When we separate, I see my friend’s face covered in tears that I caused.
And I know that she’s seeing the exact same thing.
Doi bows to me and says, “May we meet here in the New Year.”
I bow to her and say, through my tears, “May we meet here in Pearl.”
* * *
I shoulder my belongings and exit my dormitory chamber. Cricket told me that he’d want to wait until the last moment to say good-bye to all his friends. Cricket. With friends.
At last, the time comes and we have to leave for the boarding-house in the city. Cricket and I take our things and skate across the campus to the Great Gate of Complete Centrality and Perfect Uprightness at the entrance of Pearl Famous.
Something is happening at the bottom of the slope leading down toward the rail-gondolas that bridge Pearl Famous and the city.
Doi’s down there. She has her back to me and her hands cupped to her mouth as she faces some sort of great round container on a sledge being hauled by someone.
“Doi, what’s wrong?” I cry.
She turns around and lowers her hands with a look of profound emotion on her face, but I can’t tell if that emotion is happiness or misery.
“Doi, what’s happened? Is something wrong?”
“Yes. No. Yes.”
“What have I missed?” says the person behind Doi.
Doi steps aside, and I see someone holding the rope pulling the round container, dressed in the high collar and sweeping cloak of the Pearl Famous uniform.
I look into this face that my heart knows so well but that I’m seeing for the first time.
I cannot speak.
There is no air.
There is no time.
There is no world beneath my skates.
Or I am tumbling through all of it.
He smiles, and the dimples flash in his cheeks.
“Joyful fortune to make your acquaintance,” he says. “I am called familial name Niu, personal name Hisashi.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I, Disciple Lien Henry, author of this worthless novel, commence 10,000 bows of obeisance at the skates of these benevolent and sagacious persons, without whose assistance my work would be even more miserable and completely without qualities:
Fifty bows to my kindergarten teacher, Sensei Madame Sally McEachen, for seeing a light in a child who was not from here and didn’t speak the language, and for surrounding that light with mirrors;
Fifty bows to each of my Clarion West instructors, Sensei Master George R. R. Martin, Sensei Master Chuck Palahniuk, and Sensei Madame Kelly Link, for enthusiasm and guidance regarding the material that would form the foundation for this novel and this world;
Fifty bows to Sensei Madame She
ila Williams, Supreme Editor at Asimov’s, for giving a new writer his first story publication and embracing the ungrateful daughters of Pearl Rehabilitative Colony;
Fifty bows to Sensei Madame Sarah L. Thomson for early editorial wisdom that showed me what the next level of skill looked like;
Fifty bows to my mother, Shio-Mei Lien, for all the stories;
Fifty bows to my father, Fong-Chi Lien, for extensive insight on Chinese and Taiwanese language and culture;
Fifty bows to Jerry Lee Davis for encouragement to pursue writing;
Fifty bows to Gray Adams for unconditional support;
Fifty bows to Warwick Sims for telling me that birthing Pearl was the most important thing I could be doing with my life;
Fifty bows to Lian Hearn and Rachel Swirsky for inspiration and early affirmation;
Fifty bows to Ken Liu and Stephin Merritt for help with names;
Fifty bows to Miriam Spitzer Franklin and Linda Nagle for the perspectives of vegetarian and vegan figure skaters;
One hundred bows to my sister Ann Lien for early feedback and lifelong, belief in me;
One hundred bows to all at ICM for the thousand-armed defense, including Master of Statutes Colin Graham, Foreign Kingdoms Ambassador Hana Murrell, Lieutenant General Number-One Berni Barta, and Lieutenant General Number-Two Tamara Kawar;
One hundred bows to Peasprout’s army at Houtu Famous House of Literature including Supreme and Final Sensei Madame Jean Feiwel, Supreme and Flawless Sensei Master Christian Trimmer, Publicity Mage Brittany Pearlman, Design Mage Carol Ly, Creativity Mage Patrick Collins, Artist of Superlative Characters Afu Chan, Artist of Surpassing Maps Elisabeth Alba, Production Mage Thomas Nau, Managing Mage Hayley Jozwiak, Copy Mage Erica Ferguson, Logogram Neatener Number One Andrea Curley, and Logogram Neatener Number Two Kayla Overbey for their skill and talent;
One hundred twelve bows to my Clarion West classmates, our workshop director Les Howle, our workshop administrator Neile Graham, and the entire Clarion West community for the most important and transformative experience of my life; and
Eight thousand eighty-eight bows to my agent, the Mighty and Wise Sensei Madame Tina Dubois Wexler, and my editor, the Sage and Venerable Sensei Madame Tiffany Liao. Thank you, dear Senseis, for nurturing, cultivating, and growing me. Peasprout might or might not change the world as she hopes, but you have already changed mine.
All hail! All hail! All hail!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Henry Lien is a 2012 graduate of Clarion West. His short fiction has appeared in publications like Asimov’s, earning several Nebula Award nominations. Born in Taiwan, Henry currently lives in Hollywood, California. Peasprout Chen is his debut novel.
Visit him at henrylien.com or sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Lucky
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Luckyteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Lucky
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Lucky
Final Chapter
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
Text copyright © 2018 by Henry Lien. Illustrations copyright © 2018 by Afu Chan. Map copyright © 2018 by Elisabeth Alba.
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First hardcover edition 2018
eBook edition 2018
eISBN 9781250165701
