The Ghost Dragon's Daughter
Page 5
Yes. Oh, yes. We have done it.
My heart is leaping with excitement as we pack up our monstrosity and return to our desks. Hsi now dissects every single presentation. She is not kind or careful. I don’t care. I love the questions. I love Hsi, grizzled and prickly as she might be. I even love how she points out a flaw here and there in our design.
At last Hsi releases the class. To the senior students, she says, “Report to me tomorrow for your final evaluation.” Only as Mei and I pass her desk does she add in a low voice, “I think you will be pleased with your certificates.”
Outside, the others scatter. Mei and I stare around at the bright summer afternoon. Then we each clutch the other’s hands, laughing and crying and laughing all over again.
“We did it, we did it,” Mei babbles. “Tomorrow. Tomorrow we can talk about what comes next. But I must go home, tell my parents. Oh, Jun, there is so much to do now.”
Then she is dancing down the street, her joy brighter than the sun. I stand there a moment, watching her. I don’t want to go home, not yet. And Boss doesn’t expect me today.
I phone a quick message home to my mother and sisters. Once that is accomplished, I take the wind-and-magic lifts to the last high station beside the city walls. From here, I climb the stairways, past the guards, and up an old goat trail to my favorite lookout point, a li or more beyond the walls. Ghost dragons are wheeling through the air, like shadows against the bright blue expanse of sky. One, two, then the enormous queen soars past. I watch them with a strange detachment. I ought to feel triumphant, or devastated by victory, but I sense only a deep inner calm. Gschu is with me, a silent comforting presence.
I have earned my certificate. I will win a scholarship.
“I will do everything,” I whisper.
“You will,” says a voice.
I jump up and spin around.
The young ghost dragon, my ghost dragon, is perched on the stones behind me.
“Hello,” she says. “I thought you might come here today.”
I shrug. It’s not that I’m indifferent to her presence. It’s hard to speak at the moment.
The dragon watches me, her eyes glittering with amusement. “So. You have won the prize you desired. Is it well?”
I nod. This time I manage to speak. “It is well, yes. Thank you.”
“Ah.” She shakes her head. “I did nothing. You and your beloved did the true work.”
Beloved. My heart constricts for a moment at the word. “She...she is not my beloved.”
“She doesn’t love you?”
“No.” My voice comes out like a whisper, so I try again. “Mei loves me as a friend, nothing more.” The memory of Mei telling me how she once thought herself a monster comes back stronger than before, and I say firmly, “I would not have her be anything else.”
Even as I say it, I know it for truth. We have come to be true friends, Mei and I. Companions in the struggle. I smile, thinking how Lili would add some dramatic gesture as she recited such a phrase. Lili too is a true friend, however far away.
The dragon regards me with an almost pensive expression. “Friends are a treasure. It’s important to know that. And now, my friend, what do you say to a flight to celebrate your victory?”
I hesitate. She bows. An invitation, and one not one lightly offered, I suspect.
“Thank you,” I say. “I would like that.”
With a nod, the ghost dragon vanishes, only to reappear at my feet. I climb onto her back as before, and as before, her body solidifies into something more than mist and less than earthly flesh. My only warning is the ripple of her muscles between my legs, before my ghost dragon looses a cry and we shoot like a magical arrow toward the sky.
I clutch at the wisps and fog. Below me lies Shēn Xiù City, a glittering jewel of black and silver and golden brown. I can see Feng Hsi’s school, my mother’s laundry shop, the enormous hospital where Mei’s parents work. The dull brown quadrant where the royal mages live. And more, oh such more.
My ghost dragon cries out again, a high keen that rises and falls in an otherworldly song. It’s the sound of thunder and rain, of midnight storms and the rush of mountain streams over stones. I scream and laugh and sing along with the dragon as we fly up and up and over the ice plains and beyond into the west.
On and on we fly. It might be hours or more—I have no way to tell—before we float down to the earth again, to a sweet-scented meadow high in the mountains. Ahead lies a valley, and beyond that a golden plain that blazes in the afternoon sun.
I tumble off the dragon’s back and my knees collapse beneath me. “Where are we?”
“Shanguan,” she replies. “The gate into the western plains.”
Shanguan. One of the same languages we chose for our presentation. Before I can exclaim about the coincidence, my ghost dragon lifts her muzzle and calls out. At once, a flight of dragons appears, each carrying a basket slung over its neck. One by one they land and bow. The baskets slide to the ground and they take off again.
Ó, you are not any ordinary dragon, are you?
The thought makes me nervous. I try to distract myself by peeking in the baskets. One holds a quantity of sticky buns, wrapped in paper. The next, pots of cold spicy noodles. Not what I expected from a ghost dragon, but the past month has been anything but expected.
“I thought you might be hungry,” my friend says as I continue to explore the contents of the other baskets.
“I am. But I had no idea that dragons—ghost dragons—were ever hungry.”
“We don’t eat as humans do,” she says, “though we hunger in different ways.”
Her voice drops to a low rumble. A dragon’s voice, but I can tell the difference at once. I spin around to see that my dragon has vanished. In her place, a young woman, dressed in silvery robes and trousers, stands on the ridge. A young woman with a dark face that points into an arrow of an chin. Oh, yes, I recognize her.
“You,” I say.
“Me.” Her mouth quirks in a smile. “An impossibility, or so my mother tells me. My name is Xiao-Xing, by the way.”
It’s all too much to take in properly.
“Why?” I ask, my voice barely more than a rough whisper. “Why did you help us?”
Xiao-Xing tilts her head to regard me with eyes the color of a midnight sky. “I told you. I owed you for that terrible mistake.”
True. She did owe me. But I suspect there is more so I fold my arms and wait.
At that, my ghost dragon snorts. “Terrible human. But you are right. So. The truth. I wanted to help because I owed you, but also because it pleased me. Because I saw in you a passion and intelligence that should not be caged.” Her voice drops to a low murmur. “Because I thought you were like no one else, not dragon and not human.”
Her head turns, she lifts her chin. I can see the outline of the dragon in this woman’s face. She has admitted far more than she likes. She wants far more than she admits. My cheeks flush with sudden and inexplicable desire, but at the same time, I must be honest. “I want to leave Shēn Xiù City. I want to study at the Phoenix University.”
“I know. But you have a year until you go. Until then...”
Xiao-Xing takes a few effortless steps toward me. Her kiss is light, an almost imperceptible brush of the lips against my cheek. She withdraws at once, and I see she is as nervous as I might be. It would be endearing, if my heart were not beating so fast and so hard. Deep within, I hear Gschu whispering words of encouragement before she fades away to leave us in true privacy.
One year is all I can think. More I dare not consider. Not now.
Now, however…
I kiss her. Once, twice, then with a rush of passion that leaves us both laughing and breathless. “Let’s eat,” I whisper. “Then we shall fly wherever you like.”
The Seventy Kingdoms Stories:
Novels:
Fox and Phoenix (Viking, 2011)
Stories:
Pig, Crane, Fox (2011)