by A. H. Shinn
Text © 2015 by A.H. Shinn
Cover and interior illustrations by Phil Powers
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, stored in a database or retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Tigerpaw Publishing
www.tigerpawpublishing.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, phrases, events, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarities to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead are coincidental and not intended by the author.
Editing by Andrea Bandle and Angelle Pilkington
ISBN-13: 978-0-9887756-2-6
ISBN-10: 0-9887756-2-X
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015917757
Tigerpaw Publishing, Stockton, CA
CONTENTS
ONE
The Letter
TWO
Pho Soup
THREE
Cat Lady
FOUR
Suspicions
FIVE
Unexpected
SIX
Where Am I?
SEVEN
Rinzen
EIGHT
Simi
NINE
The Test
TEN
Friend Or Foe?
ELEVEN
Revenge
TWELVE
Into The Woods
THIRTEEN
Survival
FOURTEEN
Ravens
FIFTEEN
The Mongoose
SIXTEEN
Training
SEVENTEEN
Decision
EIGHTEEN
Kidnapped
NINETEEN
Balance
TWENTY
Surprise
TWENTY-ONE
The Performance
TWENTY-TWO
To The Rescue
TWENTY-THREE
Challenge
TWENTY-FOUR
The Plan
TWENTY-FIVE
The Teacher
TWENTY-SIX
Birthday
To everyone who loves to imagine.
PROLOGUE
The stranger pulled on the hooded cloak and settled into a shadow beside a tree. A chaotic battle raged just ahead, but this observer’s eyes were not trained on the monks, but on a girl hiding behind the building.
Could she be the One?
It appeared that the girl moved a monkey—without touching it—and had saved a monk in the process. The fat man with a wooden stick was swinging away at the animals. He didn’t see the one over his head until it was too late. But she had it.
It was an odd sight for the outsider to see: monks and a few kids were fighting primates. The bald, Chinese men were not wearing their typical robes, but uniforms, as if they had become ready for this combat. They seemed to be fighting with such disorganized maneuvers, though. The Taiping monks were reputed for their superior kung fu skills, but it was obvious their training had not prepared them for this type of encounter.
The stranger scoffed at their ineptitude. We would know what to do. And they are known to be superb martial artists?
This monastery was in shambles. The savages hooted as they destroyed whatever they could get their hands on. Loose items, such as pots and statues, shattered as plumes of gray smoke appeared from various areas.
The monks fought with respect.
Why don’t they just spear them with their swords?
The stranger’s eyes landed back on the girl and analyzed everything about the one in the warrior-white uniform, from her jet-black hair to her ethnically ambiguous facial features. The viewer’s heart then raced in excitement when the girl ran into the heart of battle, sweeping away the animals with ease and grace. She had natural fighting skills.
Who are the two boys with her? The girl seemed to be watching over them.
She did it again! Her powers moved a plant that was beyond her physical reach! This was two times now, and not a coincidence.
It was obvious that she harnessed a special power. Had the one they’d been hoping for finally arrived? They had been waiting for the Teacher for centuries. The outsider, glowing with joy, leaned against a dry, peeling tree trunk.
But the observer had to take another look to be sure.
What is she doing now?
The girl in white stood alone and quite still. She was concentrating on something. Her head shot up and she squinted into the trees. She then looked at those around her, appearing as if she was devising a plan.
The battle began to wind down, and cheers waved across the monastery. Some of the primates began to scamper away, while the unlucky ones were removed.
The buildings and premises had much to be restored. Broken decor was everywhere. The ornateness was useless, nothing like the practical simplicity of the place the watcher was from.
Now the foreign boys were being questioned by the fat monk.
Could they be her brothers? They don’t look like her.
The observer peered farther out from the dark trees and searched for the girl, but she had disappeared!
Where did she go? Anyway, she doesn’t belong here and shouldn’t be associated with these men.
No one seemed to have noticed that she was gone. Nevertheless, the special girl had been discovered and the information collected.
The hood was pulled lower over the witness’s bald head, and the outsider fled into the darkness.
CHAPTER ONE
The Letter
Jory Stevens pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and yanked the two ends of his purple belt tightly over his kung fu uniform. He picked up a monkey staff and charged.
“Aarghh!” he bellowed fiercely. He headed straight for Kellie.
She didn’t even blink as she fastened her ponytail and focused on her crazed opponent. At the same moment, she saw a fast-spinning object about to nick her scalp. She leaned her upper body backward, and a fluorescent-orange ball whizzed past her nose. She stumbled backward as she straightened up, just barely catching her balance and dodging the wooden stick about to whip across her legs.
Jory fumbled the weapon from side to side as he eyed Kellie Wei. He had been training religiously at Chen’s Kung Fu Studio for the past seven months. He didn’t have natural athletic ability, but his coordination had improved.
He spun the stick over his head, and it slipped out of his fingers, flying a few yards away. After reaching for it and repositioning himself in front of her, Kellie thought he looked a bit deflated. He jabbed, but she easily escaped the attack.
“Come on, Jory!” shouted Kellie, giving him a smirk. “Make this a little challenging.”
Jory used his shoulder to wipe the sweat dripping down his temple, and then he swung harder and faster.
Not such big, sloppy movements, Kellie reminded herself, thinking back to the lesson she’d learned from Zurich.
She shifted barely a couple of inches to the right as Jory swooped the stick down and then to the left in the same predictable motion. Jory looked as if he was losing wind. Kellie waited for his next move.
POW!
“Ouch!” cried Jory. He dropped his weapon and rubbed the back of his head, then started writhing as plastic spheres were launched at him from the sidelines. He was hit on his s
houlders and calves. With his fists up, it appeared as if he was contemplating a move. Then his legs jerked up and he attempted to kick away the balls with his bare feet. Instead, one clipped his toes, and he yelped in pain. He landed on his rump, scrambled onto his hands and knees, and picked up some of the balls to throw back at the source.
Kellie laughed as she maneuvered—without much elegance—out of the way of the plastic spheres the size of tennis balls. She attempted to let them graze past her, centimeters from her body, but the speed was too fast. Instead she staggered from side to side.
Then an idea came to her. She stood still and stared at one of the orange balls rotating toward her. Taking in a deep, controlled breath, she focused her mind, threw up both hands, and pinpointed her energy at the flying object.
BAM!
The ball hit her right on the nose. The impact instantly numbed her face and pushed her head back. Kellie lost her balance and fell.
“Kellie!” Jake yelled from the sidelines.
When she opened her eyes, Kellie saw Jake Russo and Jory hovering over her. Jake held the toy air blaster in front of his damp, white T-shirt, which hung over his black kung fu pants.
“Sorry,” said Jake. “I thought you had that one, Kel…And what was that you were doing with your feet?” he asked Jory.
“That was a double kick,” Jory mumbled. “Are you all right, Kellie?” Jory’s light brown hair was tousled with sweat, and he was clutching a handful of the darned spheres.
“I’m fine,” Kellie murmured. The numbness had vanished, and now her face throbbed. “No, I’m not. Ice. Need ice.”
It was a hot, summer day, somewhere in the upper nineties. The sun’s rays were beating down on them, and it was time to seek cooler grounds.
The two teenage boys helped Kellie up, and the three of them walked from her expansive lawn into her yellow house.
After filling up a plastic bag with ice cubes, Kellie rested it on her face. It felt good. It didn’t take much force to cause a great amount of pain to the T-zone area, and Kellie hadn’t felt a hit there since she was in China the year before.
Jory handed her a glass of lemonade as they sat across from each other at the dining table. With one hand holding the ice to her nose, she put the cold drink to her lips with the other.
“What happened?” asked Jory.
Kellie suspected they knew very well what had happened. She couldn’t do it anymore. She lost her ability to control objects with her energy. Hagos’s Emotive Chi must have left.
The evil monkey Hagos was a former member of the Family of Chi. He had been searching for his Emotive Chi, which was removed by his ex-family members centuries ago. In the winter, when he’d learned Kellie possessed it, Hagos tried to take it back, but the special energy chose to return to her instead.
The face-off in Shenmi Forest was still fresh in her mind, even half a year later.
It wasn’t natural for her to have that source of power, anyway. Perhaps somehow it had leaked out of her when she left China. She could no longer do what Mulin and Zurich, the tiger and the white crane, had taught her. The long hours the mystical animals had spent teaching her how to use her special gifts were nothing but a waste of time. She had failed these two members of the Family of Chi.
She set the cup and bag of ice down. “I guess I’m normal again.”
“That’s a matter of opinion,” said Jake.
Kellie smiled, which intensified the pain in her face.
“Well, you’re still the best kung fu martial artist I know,” said Jory. “Except for Master Chen. He’s pretty good. And Master Zheng. He’s really good, too. Oh, and all the monks at Taiping Mon—”
He stopped talking when Jake threw him a shut-your-trap look.
“You know what I mean, Kellie,” Jory said after a moment. “You’re still really good, even without Hagos’s Emotive Chi. You’re better off without it.”
Jake had found some pot stickers in the refrigerator and was trying to pick them up with chopsticks. Kellie remembered how he’d turned up his nose when he first saw her eating them at school, but she stopped herself from teasing him now.
He gave up and used his fingers. “Yum,” he said, dipping one in soy sauce.
Jory munched on an almond cookie.
Kellie wondered if they came to her house every Saturday morning just to get their fill on Chinese food.
“So, same time, same place next week?” Kellie asked.
“I can’t next Saturday,” said Jory. “It’s my mom’s birthday. We’re going to spend the day at the museum. She’d kill me if I missed it. You know how mothers can be…”
Jake shot him another shut-your-trap look, and Jory’s cheeks turned pink.
“It’s okay,” said Kellie. She prodded the melting ice in the bag with her fingers. She thought someday she would get used to not knowing who her mother and father were, but the tug at her heart still said otherwise.
“I can’t either,” Jake said. “My mom and I are going to my uncle’s house in San Francisco. All my relatives are getting together for a family reunion thing.”
“Oh, okay,” said Kellie, trying to sound cheerful.
She would see if Master Chen needed help with something instead. He had seemed busier than usual lately anyway.
A honk outside signaled that Jory’s mom was waiting for him. He dashed out of the house, and Jake rode off on his bike soon after.
Kellie sat at the dining table, nibbling on a cookie as she watched the clock tick.
Jory’s words rang in her ear: “You’re better off without it.”
He was right. How could Kellie harbor one of the seven chis of the Family of Chi? Especially the Emotive Chi, which was supposedly the most difficult to control. So how on earth was she supposed to manage an energy that was meant for an original kung fu master?
What Hagos had said also still nipped at her. Maybe the other six mystical animals didn’t have the right to remove his Emotive Chi. Each animal had tried to contain a part of it, but they weren’t able to control it. So when they had come across Kellie as a baby, they had passed the energy to her. As she thought more about the act, it seemed selfish on their part. But she liked Zurich and Mulin. They were good. She trusted them.
Kellie drifted to her room and lay down on her bed. She stared up at the stars painted on her ceiling. The artwork was a replica of what she’d seen on the Night of Pass. That was the night Anguo, the essence that brings luck to China, had moved on to its next host. The Night of Pass was a dazzling celestial phenomenon that only the mystical animals could see. Since she’d harbored Hagos’s Emotive Chi, she had the privilege to witness it.
It had taken a few tries to get the sketch on the ceiling right. After Kellie had described what it had looked like to Master Chen, he’d come to the rescue with his artistic skills. He even had found some glow-in-the-dark stickers to accent their masterpiece.
Still locked in on the artwork, she remembered how angry and vengeful Hagos had been that night. He had almost taken Master Chen’s life.
It was for the best that she didn’t have the Emotive Chi anymore. She probably would have eventually gone crazy, and who knows what she could have been capable of? The force she had blasted Hagos with into the trees was immense. What if she’d accidentally hurt someone?
It was gone now. She just knew it, and didn’t need to worry.
Breathing a huge sigh of relief, she sat up in bed. Her fingers fiddled with the quilt Master Chen had made for her. Summer was off to a slow start. Perhaps she should begin reading her textbooks for the next school year. Junior year was supposed to be the toughest, and she wanted to do well.
Her eyes scanned her bookshelf: chemistry, trigonometry, history…an old, brown leather-bound book. It was Grand Master Jing’s art book she had “accidently” taken from his shrine. She’d had Jory hide it in his jacket, s
o she could examine the work some more. She had forgotten all about the book until he’d given it back to her at the airport in America.
“It’s time to give it to Master Chen,” she said out loud as she flipped through the delicate pages, admiring how the talented artist had captured the beauty of botanicals, animals, and various landscapes.
She stopped turning the pages at one picture, which was different than the others. It was a pair of holding hands. The softness and realism of the drawing wasn’t what glued her to the work of art, but the meaning behind it. There was a tightness in the grasp, as if they were lovers unwilling to let go.
“Interesting,” she said as she closed the book. Bouncing off her bed, Kellie took it down the hall of their one-story house. She pushed the half-open door to Master Chen’s room, knowing he wasn’t there. He’d left the house early that morning to manage their kung fu studio, which was only steps away from their house, and then to run some errands.
She carefully placed the book on his desk and looked around for a piece of paper to write a note. Weighing whether to hand it to him in person or leave it for him to find, she decided it would be safest to have him discover the art book himself. That way there would be time for him to cool down after learning about the “accidental” theft.
Kellie sifted through Master Chen’s cluttered desk. It was funny. The rest of his room was neat and spotless, like the rest of the house. It was like that in the studio, too. His desk was the one area where he allowed himself to be disorganized.
She looked under books and piles of bills. She found a pen but no blank paper. Going through the desk drawers, she didn’t find anything to write on, but something else instead: a piece of mail with her name…and it had been opened.
Kellie stared at the envelope. Her Chinese name, Bao Yu Wei, was clearly written on it along with their home address, but no return address. It couldn’t be from her school…Kellie rarely got mail, but when she did, Master Chen had always given it to her.
She put it back and continued to search for a piece of paper, but her curiosity got to her. She went for the drawer again, and her hand dove for the envelope. Fumbling with the letter, she read the first line. It was neatly handwritten and started with “Dear Bao Yu.” After scanning it from top to bottom, her eyes darting left to right, she read it slowly a second time to make sure she hadn’t misunderstood the words.
