Chapter Nine

It had been four pulses of the light node since the frightful unravelling of Yao-chi’s thread. Life had slipped back into its placid routine. P’eng still took extra care with the small details of the ritual, but she had moments when she wondered whether the tremour in the sky had happened at all. Her sister and the guardian did not even mention it. Chuan had fallen into a sullen despair and would hardly talk at all about anything. Li-Tsai seemed as though he had suddenly grown more frail than ever.

And the lady still hadn’t come back to the garden.

This wasn’t unusual in itself. Once or twice in every season, they would come to find the bowl of porridge untouched on the offering stone and feel a subtle absence in the air. The bowl would be refilled religiously and emptied again—until finally the bowl would be found empty and the low whirring sound that indicated the lady’s presence was heard again.

P’eng often stood for a few moments after laying down the bowl, gazing at the other-worldly flowers that came and went through the seasons, listening to the trickle of water. She would find strange comfort in the whirring sound or the slow movements of the small humped figure glimpsed through branches.

She had never dared go further than the prescribed spot. But once, during one of the Lady’s absences, Chuan had gone right into the garden. She told her sister what she had seen.

“The hut has two rooms.”

“You looked inside?”

“Of course. She wasn’t around. I didn’t go right in, just stood at the door. So I couldn’t see what was in the other room. But I did see hanks and hanks of thread, all twisted up and hung on the wall. I can’t imagine what she would need so much for.”

“Power? Enchantments?” P’eng suggested. Her twin snorted.

“Power! What kind of power does she have out here on the edge of nowhere? No one pays any attention. If she had power, she’d make them send people back out here, like there used to be. If she had power, she wouldn’t let me go poking around.”

That had been last winter. Not even Chuan had dared to go into the garden during this absence.

But now, while they ate the first meal, it had happened again. Out of nowhere, the air began to shudder and the high keening sound came again. P’eng wrapped her arms around her head and didn’t even dare look up to see when her sister shouted and pointed at the sky. The thread of light was unravelling again. This time Chuan saw it, and she was as awed and terrified as anyone.

But just when it seemed for a moment that the sky must rip itself apart, the shuddering and the high-pitched sound faded away into nothing. Chuan gasped in relief, but P’eng looked up miserably.

“What’s happening,” she asked. “What’s going on?”

Li-Tsai shook his head, looking just as unhappy. “I don’t know.” He spoke as though the words were being pulled out of his throat with a fish hook.

Now Chuan was on her feet. Fear had turned into anger. “We’ve got to do something,” she shouted. “We can’t just stay here like turnips waiting to be stuck in a pot.”

The guardian, as stubborn as he was frail, would not agree. “This is our place. This is our duty,” he snapped at her, but she had lost all sense of duty—had even lost all sense of the respect the young must show the old. She said terrible things to Li-Tsai, and he shouted back at her. P’eng huddled by the fire, crying “Stop it. Stop.”

Finally, Chuan flung herself away from them, running noisily away into the trees. Li-Tsai pulled himself to his feet and went into his hut. P’eng stayed weeping a long time. Until suddenly there didn’t seem to be much point in crying any more. She sat up and scrubbed sadly at her cheeks. Then suddenly remembered—the lady’s bowl. They hadn’t taken it to her yet.

It was Chuan’s turn to do so, but P’eng didn’t even consider reminding her. She washed her face and hands, rebraided her hair and filled the bowl. Trying to clear her mind and concentrate, she watched the steam rising from the porridge as she walked slowly along the path. Just as she turned the corner, a thought flashed into her mind. “Maybe the lady has come back. Maybe that’s why the sky trembled.”

Hope flared up, even though it didn’t make much sense. The lady’s coming and going had never led to this kind of thing before. But she couldn’t check it, and found it hard not to let her steps go faster. At the entrance, she heard an unaccustomed sound and looked up.

Strangers in the garden.

She heard her own voice cry out in alarm and anger. “What are you doing her? What are you doing?”

The strangers looked around at her, and then three of them rushed towards her. She gave another cry of fright and shrank back. But even in the middle of her panic, she remembered this time that she had the bowl in her hands and had the presence of mind of put it down safely out of the way. Then she stood her ground, determined to drive the strangers away.

They looked as weird and foreign as the tai-chieh monsters her father carved into ritual vessels for the temple. Their hair was painted in strange colours, and their clothes were stiff and wild. They surrounded her, babbling. She cried out, “What are you? What do you want? Go away.”

But they crowded closer, babbling more. She put her hands over her ears, remembering how the guardian had told her it is not good to hear the speech of monsters, and how if you hear it in nightmares, ill things will happen when you waken. This seemed more and more like a nightmare.

She shouted again, “Go away, monsters. Go away.”

To her surprise, they fell silent, then began speaking more softly to each other in their indecipherable tongue. The one who had remained back near the pool called out something to them. Then another spoke to her, slowly and carefully.

“Go away, monsters,” she repeated, pale but determined. “This is not your place.”

The one near the pool listened intently, then spoke to the others again. The creature that had spoken to her seemed puzzled and then faintly indignant. It seemed to be a female creature, although its hair came only to its shoulders and was not braided up but hung loose and wild. The hair was an odd reddish-brown colour, like the hens.

The creature near the pool spoke again, and the others surrounded P’eng. One of them took her hand and tugged gently but insistently, drawing her towards the pool. She struggled a little, then gave in. They led her over the grass to stand face to face with the bizarre creature who sat on the rock. It had hair coloured like winter grass and arms like the poles that held pots over the cooking fire.

It said something to her in its strange, rapid gabble. Then they all talked together. One of them reached down to brush the hair from the grass-haired monster’s forehead and pointed first to it and then to P’eng. The grass-haired one shrugged and nodded. Two of them took P’eng’s shoulders and pushed her forward so that she was face to face with the creature. She shivered and squirmed as it leaned forward and put its horrible tongue right against her forehead. The tongue was hot, like a dragon’s breath. She could feel it burning into her skin. She wrenched herself free with a great shake and stood glowering at the monster in front of her.

“Now let’s get one thing straight,” it said. “We’re not monsters.”