A Wish in the Dark

by Christina Soontornvat

  Part of Nok longed to say yes. She imagined strolling with Dee back home, maybe even stopping at an ice-cream cart along the way. She pictured them talking and laughing, making plans for sleepovers.

  The vision was fleeting. Nok shook her head. “Can’t, sorry,” she said. “I’m staying overnight the whole week. Our house is getting painted, so my mom thought it would be good timing for me to get in extra practice.”

  “Gosh, no wonder you beat the pants off the rest of us,” said Dee, laughing. “If I lived at the gym, too, maybe I’d be as good as you.”

  Nok twisted the hem of her tunic as she watched Dee walk away, taking their imaginary future friendship out the door with her. She let out a breath and shook her shoulders. She didn’t have time to think about silly things like ice cream and girlfriends. She needed to get going.

  Nok was indeed sleeping at the gym. By her calculations, she had a little over one week to track down Pong — if he was still alive. Her parents would go back to Tanaburi to visit during the upcoming holidays, and she’d have to be there. In the meantime, she had some money, but not enough to pay for a guesthouse room for a week. Her gym was on the East Side, in what used to be a good part of town, near the bridge that connected the east and west banks. There were simple sleeping quarters at the top of the building, where students traveling from other towns could stay during competitions.

  The only downside of staying at the gym was that she needed to spend at least half of each day training, to make it look convincing that she was there for a reason and not just to have a place to crash while she hunted down the runaway monk.

  In her room, Nok changed from her sweaty uniform into a fresh one. She took out her notebook and unfolded the map of the East Side that she’d bought the day before.

  She’d suspected that it would be hard to find Pong in Chattana, but it wasn’t until she got to the city that she realized how difficult her challenge was. Chattana was like a pile of pebbles: if you stepped on it, it would shift and change until the surface was the bottom and the bottom was the top.

  She’d already spent several fruitless days searching, but she wouldn’t give up. Not yet. She would stick to her plan of moving through the city methodically, neighborhood by neighborhood, scoping out the streets and canals. Pong couldn’t stay hidden forever. As an orphan and a runaway, he wouldn’t know anyone who would take him in and feed him. He’d have to surface sometime to get food or he’d starve.

  Nok folded up her map and stuck it under her mattress. Leaving her staff behind, she stepped out of the room and slid her bedroom door shut behind her.

  Out in the city, Nok wound her way from the quiet neighborhood of the gym into the gritty heart of downtown. Mobs of children ran down the gangways on bare feet, squealing as they launched off the sidewalks and dove into the river. And on a school night! They’d be useless in class the next day. Nok suddenly realized she couldn’t recall seeing a school on the East Side before. But that was silly. There had to be schools here. How else would the children learn to read or write?

  These were the neighborhoods she’d been warned about by her parents, the places good girls from the West Side didn’t dare set foot in. It was thrilling and a little scary to be there alone. But even without her staff, she didn’t worry about taking care of herself. Dee had guessed right — she did have a spire-fighting secret.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t want to share it with Dee. Well, maybe that was partly true. But mainly she didn’t want to talk about it because she couldn’t figure out how to explain it without sounding weird.

  A year ago, Nok had traveled with her father on a work trip across Chattana’s northern border, to the town of Lannaburi. The journey was long, and her father’s meetings were unbearably boring, but the last meeting of the trip took place in a library. Chattana had few books left from the days before the Great Fire, so Nok devoured the titles, reading as much and as quickly as she could before they had to leave. The last book she found was about the history of spire fighting.

  According to the crumbling book, it was an old, old art form that had begun back when Chattana was little more than a sleepy fishing village. It started as a self-defense practice used by the wise men and women who lived on the neighboring mountaintops. The name spire probably referred to the bamboo walking sticks the old sages carried with them.

  According to that book, the principles of spire fighting stated that everyone has a light deep inside them. The book said it was like an ember, or a tiny piece of glowing coal. Just as an ember can start a raging fire if it’s fed the right fuel, a person can fan the flame inside them and use it to do all sorts of extraordinary things — like knock a loudmouth named Bull flat on his back, for example.

  Nok’s teachers had never mentioned anything about this during her lessons. Perhaps that part of the sport had been long forgotten. But as soon as Nok read it, something clicked. Spire fighting wasn’t about strength or how well she memorized the moves. It was about finding that hidden light inside herself and letting it pour out. From that moment forward, she had been able to fight better than anyone else her age. Even her teachers said she was becoming as good as the old masters. But she could never explain what she had learned to anyone, not even her teachers. Just thinking about it — all that talk of flames and fire — felt sort of illegal.

  Nok shook her head and forced herself to focus on her route. She had absentmindedly let the crowd carry her along like a current, and they had pulled her away from the main canal, onto a narrow street. The air formed hazy rings around the Blue orbs that hung between shops.

  Nok avoided eye contact with the other people around her as she tried to retrace her steps. She turned down one alley, then another, but the streets grew dim instead of brighter. The Blue orbs gave way to Violet. It was so dark that Nok stumbled and put her foot into a deep puddle of mucky water. At least she hoped it was water.

  She was lost. People passed this way and that through the purple shadows, but Nok didn’t dare ask for directions. Stay calm, she told herself. Just keep walking and you’ll find your way out eventually.

  But then, up ahead, on a narrow wooden bridge, she spotted the shine of a bare scalp. All her anxiety about being lost vanished, and her heart hopped in her chest. Could it really be him? Using the Nothing Step, she stalked closer, then closer. She regretted leaving her staff behind now, but she wouldn’t let that stop her. She would drag him back with her bare hands if she had to.

  He stood with his back to her, leaning over the rail of the bridge. Nok silently threaded the gap between the crowd and lunged at him. She grabbed him with both hands. “In the name of the Governor, you’re under arrest!”

  The boy spun around.

  He wasn’t a boy at all. He was an old man, thin with hunger. His sunken eyes searched her face. “Can you spare anything, miss?” he asked hoarsely. “Any change? I haven’t eaten today. . . .”

  Nok dropped her grip on him and lurched back, nearly tripping over a mass of blankets and bones. Another person. “Please, miss.” A woman coughed, holding up her hand. Her other arm cradled a baby. “Do you have any money? Anything at all?”

  More outstretched fingers reached for Nok. She spun around. The bridge was full of people: the elderly and sick, men and women in rags, leaning on canes. Tiny children curled around their legs with dark, weary eyes that caught Nok’s own and tore at her heart.

  “Please . . .”

  “Please, miss . . .”

  “Anything? Anything at all . . . ?”

  They reached for her the way a drowning man reaches up at a passing boat. Nok backed up, but more people gathered behind her, blocking her way. She wanted to say something but couldn’t get out the words. Nok tore herself away from them and ran.

  She ran on, not caring which way she went. She just wanted to get away. She ran down one alley, up another, and another, until she came to a dead end. A monstrous building blocked her way, its top half scorched black. Fish-flavored steam billowed out the open
door on the first floor.

  Nok bolted into the shadows and collapsed against the wall of the blackened building. She slid down to her knees and covered her face with her sleeve. She couldn’t get those voices out of her head. Please. Please, miss. Nok’s pocket jangled with the money she’d brought to buy herself dinner. She could have given it to them. She imagined going back and turning her pockets inside out, even though she knew there wasn’t enough money in them to go around.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. Of course there was suffering in the world. Everyone knew that. But Nok had never seen it so close before. It had knocked the wind out of her, and she was a girl who rarely got the wind knocked out of her.

  Light shines on the worthy.

  Usually when the Governor’s words popped into her head, they gave her strength. But tonight they did nothing to banish the sad things she’d seen. They were words that belonged in a sunny classroom, as useless here on the East Side as her mother’s fancy dresses.

  Nok might have sat there all night, unable to gather herself and find her way home, but she was pulled out of her thoughts by a trio of people who seemed to be walking straight toward her. She shrank against the wall, willing herself to melt into the shadows. At the last minute, they turned sharply and went around the back of the building. Nok watched them go.

  What a strange group they made: a broad-shouldered man with a neck like an ox, a small man with a broken nose and a scuttling swagger, and a woman wearing a man’s jacket who tossed a tangerine peel over her shoulder. It tumbled across the ground and landed at Nok’s feet.

  Once they were gone, Nok reached out and picked up the peel. She put her nose to the rind and breathed in.

  It smelled sharp and bright, like sunlight and clean water, and something else that Nok couldn’t name. She clung to the rind and inhaled again and again.

  Strong hands wrapped around Pong’s shoulders and shoved him through the back door of the Mud House. He tried to wriggle free, but the big man behind him gripped him tight.

  “Somkit!” cried Pong, turning to look for his friend in the dark hallway.

  “Shut up!” said the big man, squeezing Pong’s arms.

  “Hands off him, Yai!” said Somkit. “He’s my friend.”

  Confused, Pong twisted around and tried to get his bearings.

  A short man with a crooked nose sneered at Somkit. “Since when are you friends with the Junior Patrol?”

  Somkit returned the short guy’s glare. “Since when do you care who I’m friends with, Yord?”

  “Everyone be quiet,” snapped a woman’s voice. Pong heard the clink of an orb switching on, followed by its distinctive buzz. Violet light seeped from an orb lantern and illuminated a long, narrow face with lively eyes. The woman wore a man’s jacket with the collar popped up. She inspected Pong from under heavy bangs that hung down past her eyebrows. “Somkit, your little friend here looks like he’s about to throw up.”

  To Pong’s surprise, Somkit rushed at the woman and threw his arms around her.

  “Ampai! Finally! Your trip lasted so long, I thought you were never coming back!”

  “Hey, no hugs for the rest of us?” asked the little guy with the broken nose. His big friend snorted.

  “I need to talk to you,” Somkit said to Ampai. He scowled at the two men. “Alone, please.”

  “In a minute,” said Ampai, without taking her gaze from Pong. “We have supplies and money we need to hand out first.”

  Ampai sent the big man, Yai, back into the alley to retrieve their rucksacks. As soon as they entered the main room of the Mud House, Ampai was swarmed by people. The rucksacks held food and medicine, which Yai and Yord doled out. But most of the commotion focused on welcoming Ampai home.

  The people swirled around her, thanking her again and again for the supplies. She called everyone by name and asked about their families. She reminded Pong a little of Father Cham, making time to speak with everyone, even the children. After a while, she caught Yai’s eye and gave him a short nod.

  “All right, all right,” boomed Yai, forming a one-man wall in front of her. “You said you were going to cook up a feast, didn’t you? So go get cooking. Ampai’s got a lot to catch up on from being gone so long.”

  She slipped away, up the stairs, and motioned for Somkit and Pong to follow. Yai and Yord clomped up after them. On the second floor, they followed Ampai into one of the few rooms in the Mud House that still had a full set of walls and a door, which Yai shut behind them.

  The room was an office of sorts, with a large desk in the center and shelves along the edges crammed with supplies: toilet paper, bandages, shrimp paste, coconut milk, coils of rope and pulleys, and a hundred other random items.

  Ampai sat on the edge of the desk with one leg folded underneath her. “Set those medical supplies over there with the rest,” she said to Yai. “Then you two should go back downstairs and see that the food gets doled out evenly. Keep an eye on that new cook and make sure he doesn’t skimp on filling the bowls.”

  “Right, Auntie,” said Yai with a short nod.

  As he and Yord started out the door, Ampai cleared her throat and asked, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  Yord turned around and gave her an oily gap-toothed smile. “What do you mean?”

  Ampai held out her hand, palm open. “The wad of bills that’s in your pocket. It stays here.”

  Yai rocked nervously on his feet, but Yord stretched his smile even wider. “Oh, that. I was thinking since me and Yai took such a risk to get all this loot, we should get to keep a little something for ourselves. Like a finder’s fee.”

  Ampai glared at the two men. “Everyone here takes risks,” she snapped. “Not just you. You know my rules. That money we collected isn’t for us.”

  Yord’s smile thinned as he reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out the stack of money, and placed it in Ampai’s hand. He held the smile as he and Yai slunk out the door and shut it behind them.

  Somkit stood leaning against the desk next to Ampai with his arms crossed. “Those guys,” he said with disgust. “I wish you’d left them behind.”

  Ampai shrugged. “They come in handy sometimes. Yord’s a little slimy, but that helps if you have to deal with slimy people. And it’s always a good idea to have Yai’s muscles standing behind you. Especially the places I’ve been going.”

  Ampai rubbed her palm over her face and down the side of her neck. Because she was small and had a girlish haircut, Pong had thought that she wasn’t much older than a teenager. But here, with a Violet orb hanging directly overhead, he saw the dark circles and age lines framing her eyes.

  Ampai reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a tangerine. As she peeled it, she looked at Pong from beneath the bangs that hung over her eyelashes. “You still haven’t introduced me to your friend, little brother,” she said to Somkit.

  Pong blushed as he bowed to her. “My name is Pong.”

  Ampai nodded and popped a segment of tangerine in her mouth, offering one to Somkit, too. “Pong. That’s the name for a protector. You protect my little brother here?”

  Pong looked at Somkit, who beamed every time Ampai called him “little brother.” “So far he’s the one who’s been protecting me,” Pong answered.

  Somkit took a deep breath and twisted his mouth from side to side. “We were at Namwon together, but Pong left before me, and . . .”

  “He left?”

  Somkit swallowed and nodded at Pong. “Go on, show her.”

  Pong reflexively clamped his left arm down at his side.

  “It’s okay,” said Somkit. “You can trust her.”

  Strangely, Pong did trust her. He raised his left arm and gently hooked a finger under the string bracelets. They were fraying and thin now. A couple had already snapped off. Pong felt a stab of sadness for Father Cham. He’d be getting no more new bracelets now, no more kind words of wisdom. He held out his wrist to Ampai and stepped toward her.

  She too
k his hand in her slender fingers. Up close she smelled like oranges and boat varnish. Ampai stared down at his wrist, but she seemed more interested in the bracelets than his tattoo. “Where did you get all these?”

  Pong reached up and pulled off his cap, exposing his fuzzy scalp. Ampai dropped his hand and crossed her arms. “Word on the street is that the police are looking for a monk who ran away from Tanaburi. I don’t guess that has anything to do with you guys?”

  “It’s a very long story,” said Somkit.

  Ampai slid off the desk and went to the door, checking that it was shut. She whirled around, scowling. “You brought a fugitive to our house?” she said sternly. “Do you know what could happen to all of us if the police discovered that you’ve been hiding him here?”

  “What could I do?” said Somkit. “Just leave him on the streets? He’s my best friend. You would’ve done the same thing.”

  “Not if it meant endangering everyone in this house. Everyone, Somkit! Think of all the kids! Where would they go? What would happen to them if we got arrested?”

  “I know, but he doesn’t have anywhere else to go. We were waiting for you to get back. I promised him that you’d help him get on a boat going south. That’s his only chance. He’s got to get out of Chattana.”

  Pong clamped down on the guilty feeling rising in his stomach. “It’s not Somkit’s fault. It’s mine. I didn’t give him any choice. And we’ve been really careful not to get in trouble.”

  “Oh, really?” said Ampai. “Is that why you were out in the city with that stupid disguise? Because you were being careful?”

  “Ampai, please,” said Somkit. “I know it was risky, but we had to go out to get these.” He held up the bundle of copper wire and stack of tin. “I haven’t told you this yet, but . . . I got it to work.”

  Ampai’s anger melted away. “The sun orbs?”

  Somkit smiled bashfully and nodded. “Just after you left.”

  “And it really works? You caught light from the sun?”

  “Not just that,” said Somkit, pausing for effect. “Gold light.”