There’s a single window in my room. It’s a strange gap, the only one in the whole building. Six cinder blocks forgotten by the construction workers—filled in with afterthoughts of metal bars and glass. It hides behind a bright scarlet cloth, blocking my view of the outside. There isn’t much to see there. It isn’t even a proper alleyway—just a gap between buildings used by street children and cats. The ghost lights that shine from the main street don’t make much of a difference here… only enough to see forgotten piles of trash.
It’s a disgusting sight—all gray and rot. I never understood why Sing loved it so much. During the early-morning hours, when our clients were elsewhere, she sat on my bed, shoved the red curtain aside, and stared through the metal lattice. There was always a glaze in her eyes that made me wonder if she was really seeing the view in front of her.
After two days alone, when the walls start to close and choke, I pull back the tapestry and look out the window. At mildewed cinder block, snack wrappers, and shattered liquor bottles. I stare at the sight and try to see what Sing saw.
Something moves on the other side of the window. I can’t see much, only the reflection of the latticed metal and fragments of my face. Maybe I just imagined the movement.
But then the glass rattles. A spread palm, white and startling, swallows the space where my face just was.
My heart shudders as much as the window. I blink—again and again—but the hand doesn’t leave. It’s still there—five fingers, palm creased like a cobweb. The lines are deep and tangled, with just a hint of dirt in them.
I’m just wondering what to do—if I should draw the curtain or scream out to Mama-san—when a voice speaks, too strong for the thin glass to hold back. “Hello.”
I lick my lips, trying to think of something to say. “Who… who are you?”
The hand pulls away so the window is all darkness again. And then, a face. At first it’s just traces, collections of light and shadow curving and colliding to show the person on the other side of the glass. But then my eyes adjust to the streetlamp’s damp glow.
He’s young. I can see the strength of his arms even through his hooded sweatshirt. There’s no bulge where his belly should be. He looks as men should—active and fighting. Not made pasty fat by cakes and lazy with smoke.
And his eyes—they’re as clear as a night over the mountains. They stare hard at me, outside looking in.
“You… you’re one of Longwai’s girls,” he says finally.
I nod. I know the boy sees me. It would be impossible not to, with the light of so many paper lanterns rising up behind me.
He stays quiet. Those sharp eyes keep staring. They make the insides of my stomach lurch and flutter in a way I’ve never known before.
I don’t know what to say or what to ask. My mind is blank. All I can hear is the flow of water, the tik-tik-tik of drips that means somewhere, far above us, it’s raining.
I shouldn’t be asking anything at all. If I were a good girl—an exemplary girl—if I knew what was best for me, I would drop the curtain. I would forget about the boy, roll over, and gaze at my painted stars. I would wait for the ambassador to come with a new bouquet of flowers.
But the rain. The dirt. His eyes. The flutter in my stomach. Things both forgotten and new. They keep me at the edge of the window, make me lace my fingers through the lattice.
“What’s your name?” the boy finally asks.
My name. Mei Yee. It was my mother’s choice. I remember her telling me about the moment. She was standing outside, letting the early-night breezes tangle her hair. Her face was turned to the setting sun, cast entirely in gold. It was strange seeing her so clearly. The house, the kitchen where she spent most of her living hours, was so dark.
We stood together under the fanning yellowed leaves of a ginkgo tree, watching as the mountains grew purple and ragged, like the back of a sleeping dragon.
“It’s so beautiful,” my mother said, “just like you.”
I felt my cheeks grow hot, turn into the color of not-so-ripe plums.
“I knew you would be a beauty as soon as the midwife placed you in my arms.” Mother’s throat caught, as if she was getting ready to cry. “You made my life bright and new. That’s why I gave you your name. Mei Yee.”
Mei Yee. Refreshing beauty.
I don’t want to tell this boy my name. Too many people have stolen it, used it in ways I never intended. You never know what a fragile thing a name is until it’s used as a weapon, screamed like a curse.
“What’s yours?” I ask through the glass.
He ignores my question. “What’s it like in there?”
I look back at the room. Nothing is new. It’s what I’ve seen every day after day after day. A bed. A washstand and a tin chamber pot. Crimson drapes and paper lanterns. The shelf with the golden cat. My rainbow row of silk gowns. Violet flowers, now wilting. Dying petals, withered leaves: the only things that ever change.
Even when the door is unlocked, I can’t go far. Just my hall and the other girls’ rooms. Sometimes the lounge, if the ambassador wants to smoke and chat at the same time. He usually doesn’t.
It’s a small world.
“What’s it like out there?” I ask instead.
It seems all we want from each other is answers.
“Cold. Wet,” he says.
Beads of rain gather like crystal ladybugs on the end of the boy’s nose. I find myself staring at how they glint and shimmer against the street’s dim light. I can’t remember the last time I felt the hush of rain on my skin.
“Your turn.” The boy nods and the drops fall, glimmering bursts of silver light. Like wishing stars.
“Warm. Smoky.”
“What else?”
“It’s your turn,” I point out.
“What do you want to know?”
What do I want to know? Why am I even here, face pressed anxious against the grating? Why am I tormenting myself with tastes of a life I’ll never have again? I should pull back, let the curtain fall.
But the boy… he’s looking at me in a way I’ve never been looked at before. It’s a stare that turns my cheeks the color of plums again. What started as a flutter in my stomach is now a burn.
What do I want to know? What did Sing want to know? Outside. No more walls. I think of Jin Ling leaning against our window, hungry, so hungry, for the secrets of stars. Watching to catch them and pull them inside. I lean against my own window, feel the same stir, the same want and sick storm cloud in my chest.
“Anything,” I tell him. “Everything.”
“That’s a lot of things.” The boy frowns and his arms cross over his chest. For a moment I fear our game is over. That he’ll vanish down the alley to the song of bottle shards and dented cans. “Maybe we can arrange a trade.”
“A trade?”
“Yeah, a trade. My information for yours.”
“My information?”
“Stuff about the brothel. Do you… see them? Longwai and the other Brotherhood members?”
“Sometimes.” My mouth is dry—the same way it was when the Reapers gagged me with a cotton kerchief for the pitch-black van drive from our province to the city. What started off as a game is quickly becoming dangerous. To talk of the Brotherhood, to share the things I’ve seen, could end very badly for me.
“Don’t ever order shrimp from Mr. Lau’s booth. He keeps them out far too long. It’s a surefire way to get sick. Last time I got a dish there, I couldn’t eat again for about three days.”
“W-what?” My tongue still stumbles from the dry, feels as if it’s tied up in knots.
“We’re trading. Remember?” the boy reminds me. “You answer, I answer.”
“Oh.” Anything. Everything. Spoiled shrimp sold by a Mr. Lau. It wasn’t what I was expecting, but it’s something. I never knew there were shrimp booths so close.
“They hold their meetings in there, yeah?” His question is so quick and intentional that I suddenly don’t believe his appearance at my window was an accident. All our words and pauses have been dancing up to this: The boy wants something in here. Something he can’t reach.
And I want to know what it is. What can he want so badly in this place of smoke and locks? There’s a gleam in his eyes that reminds me of Sing’s fire. But while she was looking out, he’s staring in.
There’s the slick sound of metal sliding against itself. Behind me. I hardly have time to piece the two together. I jerk the tapestry back over the window and dive into bed.
The first thing I see are his flowers. A dozen white chrysanthemums burst through the door, and the ambassador follows. He’s a big man, and his steps shake the room. I smell the wet on his coat as he sheds it, but I can’t see any drops. He must have used an umbrella.
My pulse is all race and beat when he comes to my bed. There’s something in his hands: a gleaming gold box with a ribbon. The ambassador sets it in my lap.
“I brought you chocolates.” His voice is calm. Steady. Just the sound of it reminds me of how flustered I am.
I smile and say thank you. I untie the ribbon slowly. All I can think about is the window at my back. Is the boy still behind it, waiting for me? The burn of his eyes stays in my stomach. I pray to the gods that my cheeks aren’t flushed.
None of the lace-cupped chocolates are the same—they aren’t circles or squares, but strange shapes I’ve never seen before.
“Seashells,” the ambassador offers when he sees the bewilderment on my face. “What clams and oysters come from.”
“Seashells.” I trace the edge of one. “From the sea?”
“Yes.”
Wen Kei always loved to describe the sea. She could talk about it for hours. How it rose and fell with the size of the moon. How it gnashed like an angry cat on windy days. How its waters gleamed like fire against the sunrise. It was always impossible for me to imagine that there was so much water in the world. Sing even said there were mountains underneath—something she’d learned in school long ago. None of us believed her. “Have you ever been to the sea?”
“Many times.” He smiles. “I grew up on an island. I couldn’t go anywhere without crossing water.”
I know I’ll never be able to imagine so much water until I actually see it with my own eyes. “Do you think, maybe one day, you could take me to see the sea?”
The smile vanishes. “That’s not a good idea.”
Normally I wouldn’t push—I would stay demure and quiet, the way he likes, follow our unspoken rules—but my heart is full and thrumming from my meeting at the window. “Why?”
“You’re my princess. This is your ivory tower. You have to be protected. People outside… they wouldn’t understand us. It’s best if you stay here.”
These walls are made of cinder block. Not ivory.
I’m not sure I understand us, either.
But I’m not brave enough to tell him these things.
We go through our ritual. Our dance. By the end, my cheeks are hot. This time, instead of gazing at the stars, I look at the window and its crimson curtain. I think of the night behind it. The sharp dark of the boy’s eyes.
Maybe it wasn’t the cinder block and trash Sing loved. Maybe it was the possibility, the knowledge that the universe isn’t all opium smoke and cross, sweating men. There is a world outside, with shrimp restaurants and star secrets. A place where it rains and handsome boys get dirt wedged into their palms. A place where the sea stretches all the way out to the sky.