***
The jail was a small squat room with hefty bars. There was nothing in the space except a bare floor and splinter-inducing wooden walls. Mill tried prodding at the sticks that held him in.
“Don’t get any ideas. We’ve reinforced the jail,” the policeman said. The very first one had been absurdly easy to break out of—it was a tall tale even when I was in school. Back in 1857, the Fresno jail was a few planks and a couple of nails slapped together.
“How long will I be in here?” Mill asked the officer. His wrists were rubbed raw from the handcuffs.
“’Pends on your behavior. Maybe we’ll keep you in the calaboose for a long time.”
“You don’t have any proof.”
“We got an eyewitness, and the whole town knows about your gripe with Tanoshii.” The policeman paused. “I must say. You’re bigger than I imagined.”
“I’m a Fresno resident and a valued businessman. I deserve some respect from the law.”
The policeman looked around him. He took a mug of brownish water off his desk and spat into it. Then he grabbed a slice of moldy bread from underneath a pile of papers. He opened the door to the cell and tossed the disgusting items in. “My guest, please eat up.”
Mill sniffed the air and wrinkled his nose. He didn’t touch any of it. “Do you have a telegraph?”
The policeman blinked at him and shoved the door shut.
Mill sat scrunched up in the corner of his cell, in a spot far away from the reeking bread and foul water. His forehead pressed down against his palm for several minutes before his head shot back up. “When does your mail come in?” he asked.
“You won’t get no letters here.”
Mill persisted. “At what time?”
“In about four hours.”
“Fine. Can I write a note?”
The policeman shrugged. “Go ahead, but I’m not giving you any paper.”
Mill looked around the jail. Then he glanced down at his own body. He ripped the sleeve off his shirt. He retrieved the dirty water and placed his fingertip in it. He tried to write on the shirt, but it looked more like dust trails than letters coursing across the fabric.
Mill bit his lip. He looked at the tattered sleeve on the floor and sighed. A moment passed and then he bit his lip harder. A trickle of blood came out, and he placed his pinky on that thin stream. He started making marks on the sleeve with the red from his own body.
I could barely make out the recipients’ names, my parents. I knew they would help him despite the sour history. My kind parents would scrape up whatever money they had to get him out of this mess.
Mill motioned to the policeman. “I’ve written it.” He slid his letter underneath the jail bars.
The policeman glanced down at the torn fabric. “I won’t send this.” He stomped all over the fabric with his dirty shoes. “Can’t read a thing on it.”
Mill slunk down in his cell, his hands covering his eyes.
“Tough luck,” the policeman said, chuckling.
I wanted to knock the grin off that policeman’s mouth. But wouldn’t it be better to harness my energy and break the lock? Then again, even if I did spring Mill from jail, the policeman would chase him down. He needed to get out the proper way, and that required outside help. After some intense concentration, I managed to grab the letter and slip away unnoticed.
***
Making my body as hard as a rock, I thumped on my parents’ door. They opened it to find a dusty piece of cloth on the ground.
“What does it say, Mung?” my father asked.
“Your eyes are better than mine. Take a look.”
He squinted at it. “Handwriting looks familiar. Is this written… in blood?” My father dropped it and walked around the perimeter of the shack. “Who delivered it?”
My mother shivered. “I don’t know. Close the door.”
Before my father shut it with his good arm, I sped through the entrance with the letter. They saw it floating in the air, and their mouths dropped open. Then I grabbed the nearby ink quill and retraced Mill’s words. They were so familiar that I could follow every contour of his strokes, my fingers dancing along the cloth. My parents watched the words appear and saw his signature at the end.
My father touched a clay figurine on the shelf behind him. “Topaz delivered it.”
“She’s helping Mill,” my mother said.
She looked at the spot where I hovered, squinting her eyes. Could she see me? She opened her arms wide, and I wanted to nestle in them. I tried to remember what it felt like being in my own body, not morphing into metal or a different substance.
I gasped as I felt her arms around me, those hardworking strong limbs. Then my father came over and closed the circle, so that I was surrounded by their warmth and hugs. “We’ll help him,” he said. “That man took good care of you when you two were married.”
“Now, go check on the rest of the family,” my mother said. “They’ll need you.” She blew me a kiss as I flew away on my next mission.
CHAPTER 27
Family Confrontation
I WENT BACK TO MY in-laws’ house to check on the chaos there. I arrived in time to see Andy outlined in the front doorway. “It’s a shame what happened to Mill,” he said.
“What will we do?” Stella looked about to faint, and she seemed like a shriveled daisy beside her tall weed-like son.
“I’ll take care of everything, Mother.”
“Thank you.” She took out a lace handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes.
“You have such a heavy burden, Mother.” Andy snapped his fingers, and a carriage drove up to the front steps from around the corner. “That’s why I made the decision to get Father off your hands.”
Two men of soldier-like stature came out of the carriage. The sign on the coach read, “Insane Asylum.”
“You can’t kick your father out,” Stella said.
Andy didn’t respond, and the two men didn’t heed my mother-in-law’s protests. They barged into the house and pulled Fillmore out like he was a piece of furniture. He stayed still in their arms, unaware of anything going on around him.
As Fillmore was being loaded onto the carriage, Stella pleaded with Andy. “You need to talk to the authorities and convince them that he’s better here at home.”
“He’s no concern of ours anymore,” Andy said. I heard the pawing of the horses’ hooves, impatient to be on the move with their new passenger. As they started leaving, Stella darted over to the carriage and jumped in. The horses took off, leaving a whirlwind of dust swirling in the air.
Andy blinked at the two figures standing at the inner threshold of the house. He moved inside with strong steps. Willow and Jas let him in without a murmur.
“My dad and brother are gone, so I’m head of the business,” he said.
“Guess so,” Willow said.
“And who knows? Mill might be in jail for a real long time.”
Willow twisted the solid gold wedding band around her finger. “No. They have no evidence to keep him there.”
“Police don’t need much to get a ‘foreigner’ off their precious streets. The way I see it, I’m in charge of this family now.” He stroked Willow’s cheek, a deliberate slow trace with his skeletal forefinger. Was he serious? Even though I hadn’t liked Willow taking over Mill’s affections, she deserved respect.
Willow shook her head and stepped back. “I’m still his wife.”
“Are you sure? The last marriage Mill had wasn’t even legal. Is yours?” That wasn’t fair. Mill and I had gotten the proper paperwork signed. So what if I was a little young? The legal system couldn’t put an age limit on true love.
“It was legit,” Willow said. “We had a ceremony and everything.”
Andy shrugged. “I didn’t get invited this time around either, so I didn’t witness anything. Besides, I helped get Jasmine back, remember? You owe me.”
“We’re family.”
“Not blood-related. My efforts are worth at
least one night.” He banged the front door shut. At the loud noise, Jas fled into the bedroom. Willow pulled closed the curtain to its entrance, guarding the inner chamber. She took the dining chairs and started flinging them at Andy, but he dodged them.
He moved in and grabbed her by the shoulders. She spat at him and started throwing punches, which glanced off his chest. He grabbed her by the hair and dragged her away from the bedroom.
I heard a commotion from behind the curtain then and saw Jas running out with something small and shiny in her hand. She jabbed Andy in the arm with it, and he yelped in pain. I saw a hairpin lodged deep into his hairless, thin arm, the dragonfly decoration still attached to the end of it.
Andy focused on my daughter and slapped her in the face. Jas reeled and almost fell into the dining room table, but I saw the quick glimmer of white appear. I heard the rustle of feathers, and I knew she was protected.
I made myself into a solid battering ram and leapt at Andy. “What’s going on?” he said. His thin body shook like a leaf as I attacked him. He looked around, but could only see Jas crouching by the table and Willow creeping away from him.
My daughter seemed to glow as she sprinted back to the front door and opened it. “Get him out of here,” she said.
I redirected my physical force of fury and shoved him out of the house. Jas locked the door, and Willow pushed the dining table in front of it. Andy knocked on the door. “You can’t get rid of me. I’m in charge now. You’ll have to open up eventually.” He whistled a merry tune.
At first, Willow and Jas stayed wide awake, shivering near the back edge of the table, but Andy made no attempts to break in. When hours had gone by, Willow and Jas ended up sleeping, curled up together in a corner of the kitchen while I waited in the growing dark. I vowed to guarantee their undisturbed slumber. I myself didn’t need to sleep. I would stay on guard and protect them all through the night.
I was still alert when Mill returned home the next morning. I moved outside to watch the impending drama. Mill kicked at his brother’s sleeping form on the front porch. “Wake up.”
Andy rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “What are you doing here? I can’t believe they let you out.”
“Topaz’s parents bailed me out.”
“Huh.” Andy scratched his head. “Didn’t think they cared about you anymore.”
“Leave,” Mill said to his brother. “I’m running Dad’s business now.”
“I don’t understand. The police had an eyewitness.”
“Yes. They said their suspect was a tall, skinny Chinaman with the Woo stagecoach. That doesn’t leave too many other possibilities.” Mill stared hard at his brother.
“I was going to take care of Willow.”
“I bet. I know how you treat women.” Mill pulled his brother to his feet and gave Andy a shove. “We don’t want you around.”
Andy seemed to measure Mill’s bigger size with his eyes. He backed up and spat on the floor. “Everything has always gone to you anyway. Take it all, but you don’t even know what you’re inheriting. Father stole everything he owns.”
“Don’t talk about BaBa that way.”
“He was always great to you, but he whipped me whenever I spoke the truth. What kind of man steals someone else’s gold to start a business? That’s not the American way.”
Mill gritted his teeth. “Don’t make me come and drag you down the street.”
“You can have your precious stagecoach business. Haven’t you heard? They’re building a Southern Pacific Passenger Depot at 1033 H Street. It’s supposed to be some fancy Queen Anne-style building with turrets and gables,” Andy said. “They’re putting up streetcars, too. I’m sure people will be lining up to take trains and cable cars, leaving stagecoaches in the dust.”
Mill stepped closer to Andy. “I already gave you a warning.”
“One last thing: the house that you and your family live in. Stolen goods, too. Father took the land right from the Indians. There was supposed to be some special treaty to protect the area, but Father didn’t care. He got this property for $1.25 an acre, and the Indians got a reservation. I read about it in the Fresno Times—that’s the real reason why Father sent me away, not because of that horse racing scheme.”
“I don’t want to hear anymore.” Mill grabbed his brother’s shirt, but Andy wriggled free.
“Don’t try to come back,” Mill said.
“I won’t.”
Mill made sure that Andy walked out of sight. Then he put his key into the lock and tried to enter the house. He had to push with all his might to move the door open an inch with the dining table pinning it closed. He saw his family cowering in the room.
“Is he gone?” Willow asked.
“Forever?” Jas said.
After Mill nodded, Willow moved the furniture impeding the entrance, and they both darted into his arms.
“Are you okay?” Mill asked.
They reassured him, but stayed snuggled in his hold. They didn’t share any details about the previous night. After a while, from the crook of his arm, Willow said, “Andy had your father taken away.”
“What? To where?”
“An insane asylum. Your mother’s over there trying to stop the process now.”
***
The insane asylum was a building painted all in black. Even the windows were covered in the dark color, and it was hard to see anything in the dim interior. The people wandering the halls seemed to be shadows, or ghosts, shrieking and mumbling in turn.
Stella was perched over a counter talking to an older gentleman, his long gray eyebrow hairs half-covering his eyes, when Mill arrived.
“Husband not belong here,” Stella said.
“It’s out of my hands. Your son wanted him committed.”
“I am wife.” I saw a dark crimson mist spread out from my mother-in-law, a blaze of anger steaming off her pores. “Let him go.”
Mill started to walk forward, flexing his muscles in the process. But he stopped short when he saw his mother wave him away.
“Where is contract?” Stella asked the man behind the counter.
“It was verbal. Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of your husband.”
“No, I want him back.”
They stared at each other. My mother in-law’s hands were on her hips, and her face stayed strong and determined. “You have not papers,” Stella said. “No right to keep. I know business law.”
“Okay, okay.” The man held his hands out. “Don’t get your back up. We don’t want any trouble.”
CHAPTER 28
My Dragonfly Dream
WILLOW WAS PREGNANT. I could feel it the moment the little one was conceived. It was like a glowing orb in the middle of Willow’s womb. She herself went about her normal household tasks unaware of the change. In fact, she even did something beyond her usual routine. Mill had been so grateful for that insect pin Jas had poked into his brother that he let Willow teach about bugs to any interested neighborhood kids.
The day Willow’s belly started protruding, though—fast on a slim figure like hers—Mill asked her to lighten her duties.
“How come you didn’t tell me earlier?” Mill asked.
“I didn’t notice.”
“Let’s see how far along you are.”
They calculated the dates.
“Oh,” Mill said, dropping the pen.
The timing was such that the new child could have been conceived when Mill had been stuck in a jail cell left to fester.
Stella had not been around during the tussle with Andy, so she couldn’t give her son the psychological reassurance he needed. Sure, Mill believed his wife, but the timing was a hair’s breadth too close. He didn’t even try to get anything out of Jas (he hadn’t wanted to traumatize her). Besides, she’d been stuck in the bedroom while Willow had fended off Andy’s advances, and what did a child know about these things?
Mill’s moodiness rubbed off on Willow, and I soon followed her to a familiar setting one morni
ng. She sought out Carolyn the midwife and told her story. No untrained Chinese girl would be working on Willow’s innards.
Sparks lit up the area surrounding her, but those pinpricks of light were not friendly flames. They were the arrival of my eel acquaintances, and they slithered right inside Willow’s head. She grimaced, and her lips moved in jerky motions.
“I want to get rid of it,” Willow said. What? I felt trapped in a time warp; I remembered when Bao had visited the office and requested the same thing.
“Why?”
“I can always have another child, one that is not under suspicion.”
“But I don’t understand. You’re telling him the truth.”
“All I have is my husband for support, and I won’t let his doubt poison our child.”
A stern look spread across Carolyn’s face. “A little one’s life is precious.”
Willow stayed silent. I couldn’t bear to have another death on my hands, like with Bao. No other botched attempt to get rid of a child. Besides, I knew Willow was being used by those malicious glittering beings.
I marched toward her and tried to fling the worms away. Brute force didn’t work, so I used words of encouragement about Willow. I talked about her strength and her drive to start anew in Fresno. I spoke about her growing connection with my mother-in-law. With each statement, the golden worms slithered farther away from Willow, emitting little shrieks of pain as they left.
Finally, I went up close to Willow and said, “I admire how you take good care of my daughter.” No golden light remained near her.
Willow shook her head several times. “I think I’ll keep the child,” she said.
“Excellent choice.” Carolyn placed her hands on Willow’s abdomen and checked her. “The baby seems to be doing well, and I hope it’ll be an easy birth.”
***
Willow grunted as the baby within her tried to enter the world. A large embroidered cloth with delicate flowers and insects created through Stella’s handiwork lay beneath her. Carolyn murmured reassurances and massaged Willow’s belly with oil. Willow cried out some more. Her hands clenched into fists and even her toes curled up.
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