by Henry Lien
I don’t answer. I’ve never heard this before. Why would the nuns at the temple allow Cricket to take them if this were true? Didn’t they know? I’m frightened by Doctor Dio’s words, sickened at the thought of Cricket voluntarily taking this substance for all those years, a substance that this healer talks about as if it were poison.
Cricket shakes his head and says, “But I haven’t been exposed to them since we arrived a year and a half ago.”
“Oh, well done, little one!” Doctor Dio pats Cricket’s head. But then she draws me close and says, “I’m afraid it’s too late. His heart is much too small. It’s the size of a three-year-old child’s. I’m surprised he’s still alive.”
She whispers in a showy gesture of mock discretion, “I wouldn’t get too attached to this one, if I were you.”
I whirl away from her. What does this ludicrous quack know? I grab Cricket by the arm and shuffle out.
Doi and Hisashi follow us out the hall, asking, “What happened?”
“Nothing,” I snap. “Cricket, don’t you listen to a word of what she says. She’s a fool.”
“Am I going to die?”
“Of course not!”
“I haven’t even built anything important yet.”
What a fool I was to think I was his protector. I brought him, the most precious person under heaven to me, right into the jaws of a dragon.
“She knows nothing,” I say. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Cricket. You’re going to grow up to be a great man who does great things. And when we’re old, you’re going to remember when you were growing up and your sister kept you safe, because you didn’t have parents to do that for you and because she would die rather than ever let anything harm you, because if anything ever happened to you, her world would drown in darkness forever.”
A sob erupts out of my throat. I press my face into my hands and weep with shame and fear for how I failed him, how I failed all of them. I know they shouldn’t see their leader like this, but I’m no leader.
Cricket throws his arms around me. He says, “It’s not your fault. If you don’t mind, maybe I shouldn’t go with you near the coiling water dragons again. But it’s not your fault.”
My sobs shudder through both of us, embraced.
With Cricket in my arms, my fear and shame recede, and in their place, anger fills my being.
I dry my face and say, “You are correct, this is not my fault. It’s this Wu Yinmei’s fault. She’s the one who lured us into the mouth of the coiling water dragon.”
* * *
“You!” I cry when we find Yinmei. “Do you know how much danger you put Cricket in?”
“Cricket’s in danger?”
Doi tries to interrupt, but I cut her off. My voice shakes with rage as I recount the coiling water dragon mauling and its effect on Cricket. Yinmei’s face exhibits lots of showy emotion and the first thing she says is, “The imperial court has better healers. Maybe they can help him?”
“The last thing Cricket needs is help from you!” I point at her and say, “What did you think would happen when you sent us out there chasing after the coiling water dragon?”
“What do you mean?” she asks with such innocence. “Sensei Madame Chingu’s oracle—”
“You manipulated that. Lots of words sound the same in the gongche notation system when it’s sung. You took some meaningless notes that Chingu obsessively played and you chose words to assign to them and called it an oracle that gave me all the answers I wanted so that I would fling myself right into the mouth of danger and get myself killed. Just like your great-great-grandmother ordered you to do. And you wouldn’t even have to dirty your hands or blow your cover as her spy.”
Yinmei says solemnly, “Chen Peasprout. I swear that is not true. Chingu’s oracular powers are real. She tells the truth.”
Doi says gently, “Peasprout. Her oracle was true last year.”
“This isn’t last year!” I snap at her.
I turn back to Yinmei and say, “All right then. Even if Chingu’s powers are real, you willfully misinterpreted the notes. And if Chingu tells the truth, then we’re going to pay a visit and ask her what your real purpose was for coming here.”
* * *
Sagacious Monk Goom rarely leaves Sensei Madame Chingu’s side, so we have to wait until that night when the whole school gathers in the Hall of the Eight Precious Virtues for Pose Battle. It’s a silly exercise that signifies nothing. Each battleband skates down a runway in the middle of the hall’s central stadium, stopping to strike legendary wu liu poses, like stargazer and last warrior skating, while the third-year Conservatory of Music students drum out thunderous beats. The winner is chosen by audience applause, and it’s almost always Wu Wu Wu Liu Liu Liu. One side of the stadium chants “Wu Wu Wu!” and the other responds with “Liu Liu Liu!” faster and faster until it devolves into riotous roars and stamps.
It provides a perfect opportunity for what I want to do, because the noise of the stamping is too similar to the sound of thunder, and Sagacious Monk Goom leaves Sensei Madame Chingu at home so as not to drive her into hysterics. Thus, while the rest of the students are busy numbing their minds with Pose Battle, I lead Doi, Cricket, Hisashi, and Yinmei to the little temple in which Sensei Madame Chingu lives.
Her eyes look up softly at me as I take her scarred hand in both of mine. I ask her, Will we discover that this girl Wu Yinmei has come here seeking sanctuary from the Empress Dowager, or is it for some other reason?
Sensei Madame Chingu sings back notes six and upper one. Gongwu. The Shinian word for “official business.”
I turn to Yinmei. “So you’re not here because you fled the Empress Dowager. You’re here on her ‘official business.’”
Yinmei’s face twists in all sorts of expressions of shock and fear but it’s all so false. I take Sensei Madame Chingu’s hand again and ask, “What will I discover that this boy Niu Hisashi is to this Wu Yinmei?”
Sensei Madame Chingu sings back notes six and seven. Gongfan. The Shinian word for “accomplice.”
Hisashi says nothing. I don’t want to look at him because I don’t know what I’m going to see in his face. I don’t want to be betrayed by him all over again like last year.
Instead, I take Sensei Madame Chingu’s hand and ask her a final question: “What will I discover this Wu Yinmei’s plans to be with regard to me?”
Sensei Madame Chingu sings back the same notes, meaning “accomplice.”
What can she mean by accomplice? How can I be—
Sensei Madame Chingu shudders and then sings out two more notes—note two and note lucky. Sishang. My Chi freezes down my back as I recognize it as the Shinian word for “casualty.”
Then Sensei Madame Chingu spasms and sings the notes for “accomplice,” then “casualty,” then “accomplice,” then “casualty,” as if being tugged apart by two competing destinies.
So am I going to be Yinmei’s accomplice?
Or her casualty?
Sensei Madame Chingu can’t seem to decide.
So who’s going to decide that? This Wu Yinmei? Or me?
I say, “Wu Yinmei, Niu Hisashi, I’m going to the senseis now. And I’m going to tell them about this evidence of your treason against Pearl.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
I ignore Cricket’s cries in defense of these two traitors and throw off Doi’s hand when she tries to grab my arm. I skate out of the little temple. I have to get to Sensei Madame Liao or maybe Sensei Master Ram to report Yinmei’s treachery before my battleband tries to stop me. I hop over the gondola and skate directly on the rail back to the Principal Island. Behind me, Doi, Cricket, Hisashi, and this traitor Yinmei clamber into the rail-gondola. They row furiously after me with the oarfans, calling my name. I could easily outskate them, but I’m terrified of falling off the rail into the jaws of a coiling water dragon in the water below. However, I skate faster than I want to because Yinmei poses a greater danger—a danger to all
of Pearl.
I reach the Principal Island and hop off. I begin to skate toward the—
From around the corners of the Courtyard of Supreme Placidness come figures pouring forth in silent lines.
They wear boots, not skates.
I know these uniforms. They’re the same red as those of the soldiers who burst through the doors of the temple searching for our parents.
Shinian soldiers. Perhaps fifty of them.
They begin to surround me.
Their faces are painted so that their features are obscured, but their vision is unimpeded. Their face paint is done in the style of the actors in the Meijing opera that Nun Hou took Cricket and me to once. It had been the best day of our lives.
How did I ever think that those painted faces looked festive?
Doi, Cricket, Hisashi, and Yinmei disembark the gondola behind me.
I turn to Yinmei and say, “You called them here! You told them we would be here alone.”
Her face of serenity is gone. She’s as shocked to see the invading soldiers as I am. “I had nothing to do with this,” she says.
Each of the soldiers holds in his hand a loop of rope, encircling us just ten strides away.
“Seize the target!” one of the soldiers cries.
As they tighten their ring around us, I try to shove Cricket behind me.
“No, Peasprout!” he cries. “It’s you that the Empress Dowager wants!”
Cricket, Doi, and Hisashi form a line of defense in front of me. Behind us is the edge of the Principal Island, and beyond is dark water.
We’re trapped.
Yinmei shouts, “Pull out the hairs from the mole of the one in the center!”
I see that in the center of the line of soldiers is one with a mole as fat as a tick poking out of the face paint, right in the middle of his forehead. Three disgusting wiry hairs grow out of it as long as my forearm.
“Wha—” cries Doi.
“Just do it!” commands Yinmei.
“Seize the target—or kill her.” The soldiers descend on us in a tide of flowing red.
Doi and Hisashi instantly pivot and face away from each other.
They begin to chop and slice at the soldiers.
Five soldiers throw loops of rope at me, but Cricket and I sever them in midair with roundhouse kicks.
One of the soldiers breaks in, shoves Yinmei off her swiftboard, and kicks it into the sea. Then he ignores her.
They don’t want to seize her. Is it because she told them to come here? Because they don’t know she’s the heir? Because she’s not who she says she is?
Doi and Hisashi each furiously fend off half the soldiers, dividing their ranks and cleaving a path between them for me.
“Peasprout, get out of here!” yells Hisashi.
“I’m not going to leave you! I’m the captain!”
“They only want you,” shouts Doi. “Go!”
Doi and Hisashi both leap away from the soldiers and slam against each other, back-to-back. They intertwine their legs and form a coupled yin-yang formation. The soldiers pour in, but Doi and Hisashi spin and burst apart, sweeping the soldiers down onto their rear ends in a tide of air and released Chi.
“Go, Peasprout, go!” screams Cricket.
I’m their leader. But a leader has to make difficult decisions. I can’t keep Cricket or Pearl or myself safe if I’m stretched on a rack in the Empress Dowager’s dungeon.
I nod my thanks and skate hard on the path Doi and Hisashi have cleared for me between the scrambling soldiers.
I skate toward the dormitories, but five Shinian soldiers block my escape to the north. I scrape to a stop and change direction, skating hard to the west on the path beside the front wall of the Palace of the Eighteen Outstanding Pieties.
Shinian soldiers pour silently out of the great entrance of the palace, their red capes fluttering like jellyfish tentacles. They’ve cut off my path.
Across the Central Canal to my left, I hear a sound that freezes my Chi: the creak of bows being pulled taut.
Ten bows are pointed at me across the canal. And here I am, pressed against the spanning side of the Palace of the Eighteen Outstanding Pieties, waiting for them to nail me to the wall.
A sound like cupped palms gently slapping on the pearl approaches.
Through the mists comes a figure.
This Wu Yinmei.
Without her swiftboard. Hobbling on her unskated feet.
She took more than five steps.
She crossed half the length of the campus on those feet to get to me. She’s clutching her chest, heaving with pain. Her heart and lungs are growing as much as they would in a year. I cover my mouth in shock. If she keeps walking, they could burst.
She stretches her arms out, palms facing the soldiers around us, and stands between me and the archers, shielding me.
“Halt!” she shouts. “You shall not harm this girl.”
She turns to me and says, “Peasprout, do not return to the dormitories. The way is blocked. We have to get to the clarion formed by the tower on the eastern side of the Hall of Lilting Radiance and sound the alarm.”
“If we just get to Divinity’s Lap, we can shout for help.”
“They’ll never hear us over the noise of Pose Battle.”
“Then we should pull one of the alarm cords that send the metal balls clattering—”
“I tried,” she says between pants. “They cut all the cords. We have to get to the clarion. It’s the only thing loud enough.”
“But that’s a li and a half away! How are you going to get there?”
“It will be done, for it must be done.”
We retreat in the direction from which we came, moving slowly eastward, Yinmei protecting me from the archers with her body.
When we near the corner of the palace, she clutches her chest and stumbles. As she falls, I instantly drop to the pearl behind her just as two arrows bury themselves in the wall of the palace above us.
She rises slowly, and I rise behind her, matching each lift of her leg, each step of her foot, each limb of her body keeping each limb of my body safe.
We round the corner and proceed along the eastern wall of the palace.
“Faster, Peasprout,” she says.
Above the sound of the fighting to the south of us, I hear the beat of boots stamping around the palace. They’re trying to head us off and block our path to the Hall of Lilting Radiance.
“Flee, Peasprout!”
I skate hard across Divinity’s Lap, toward the great orchid-shaped clarion grafted along the side of the Hall of Lilting Radiance.
Behind me, I hear the little slaps of Yinmei’s steps on the pearl as she runs after me, each soft pad of her feet like fists pounding on my chest as I imagine her heart and lungs growing monstrously in her chest.
As we near the Hall of Lilting Radiance, I hear her slip and tumble onto the pearl.
“Go, Peasprout!” she cries. “Go!”
I launch forward, slam into the side of the hall, and wrench the clarion’s pearlsilk cord. A great siren trumpets out of the orchid shape high above, and I fall to the pearl as a volley of arrows pierces into the side of the hall above me.
I scramble around the corner of the hall, but there’s no need.
The soldiers are already retreating, scurrying in their boots back toward their skiffs to the south as senseis and students come pouring out of the Hall of the Eight Precious Virtues.
I skate back to Yinmei, who is lying curled on the court of Divinity’s Lap. I slide to my knees and take her hand.
“Are you harmed?” I ask her.
Her chest heaves under her hand. She gulps air through her grimacing mouth. Her teeth are stained red.
“You fool!” I say through tears. “You could’ve died!”
“I had to help you.”
“Why?”
“Because you are my…” She pauses.
“Don’t say I’m your captain. I don’t deserve to be your captain.”<
br />
“… friend,” she says softly.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
As Sensei Madame Liao and Sensei Master Ram carry Yinmei to the Hall of Benevolent Healing, Yinmei looks around frantically.
“Where’s Doi?” she cries.
In a flurry of lunging steps that end in a hard skid, Doi is beside her.
“I’m here, Yinmei,” pants Doi. “What happened to you?”
“Did you get the mole hairs off the soldier?”
“Yes, but why—”
Yinmei says to all the senseis gathered around, “Send a letter orb to the Shinian ships immediately. Say these words exactly: ‘Come ashore again and we shall chop your fortune into forty-four pieces and burn them.’”
With that, her eyes fade and she goes limp.
* * *
Doctor Dio is useless as usual. When she comes out of Yinmei’s patient room in the Hall of Benevolent Healing, all that this supposed healer says to us is, “Ivory yang salts. Very bad. Very bad. How many steps did she take? I can’t believe her heart and lungs haven’t splattered in her chest cavity already.”
“But what can you do for her?” I say.
“Do? Well, of course, there’s nothing you can do. It’s ivory yang salts!”
“But won’t her body eventually grow large enough to accommodate the enlargement in her heart and lungs?”
“That’s not the issue. It’s the rate at which they grew. It fills the tissues of the heart and lungs with all sorts of rips and tears, like the stretch marks on skin that form when muscles grow too quickly underneath them. The organs never function properly after that, even if they shrink back down some. The damage is irreparable.” She pauses and then says, slowly, “Although … of course, perhaps I could investigate other therapies, but it’d require removing her nose for study.”
* * *
Yinmei falls in and out of consciousness. Doi, Cricket, Hisashi, and I take turns sitting by her futon. Especially Doi.
When Yinmei awakens, she is delirious and desperately asks only one question: “Did they send the letter orb?”
