A Thread Unbroken (24 page)

“Misplaced? What do you mean? Homeless?”

“Something like that. So, Lao Jun, what if we find nothing up there? What is your next plan?”

“I don’t really have a plan.” Jun didn’t even want to think of the possibility that they were following a dead end. He had all his hopes stacked on this one lead.

“Well, you know they may not be too welcoming here.
Nai Nai
said these people are very private; even the foreigners that visit Sandu’ao are not allowed to visit this village. They may refuse to talk to us. You need to be ready for that possibility.”

“We have a name, and I’ll go to every house to ask for her if I have to.”

Ruju picked up her bag and began to climb again. “Then come on, you stubborn old man.”

Hours later, Jun and Ruju sat on a rock under a huge tallow tree, sharing their packed lunch of crackers and the small container of rice the hotel breakfast attendant had given them. It was still raining steadily, and though the tree offered some protection, it wasn’t much. Jun shivered as he watched Ruju reach up and squeeze the water from her hair.
She is a tough one, and definitely not a complainer.
But he was discouraged and it showed. They had not had any luck in the small village. The few people who would talk to them claimed they didn’t know any woman named Bai Li—or even anyone by the family name Bai.

It was obvious the people were either afraid or simply protecting someone. Because of their dialect, they had been pegged as foreigners right away, and most of the villagers wouldn’t even look at them. They were also both insulted by the amount of doors that were closed in their faces when they mentioned the name Bai.

“Let’s rest for a few minutes and head back down to the hotel and get a room. It’s getting dark, and it looks like the storm is getting worse. I’m tired of being wet.” Ruju pulled the hood of her raincoat farther down over her eyes.

Jun raised his eyebrows. For her to finally admit her misery he knew she had to be at the end of her patience. He sighed. “I guess you’re right. And I need to get you to a real shelter. It doesn’t feel like the storm is retreating any.”

They both began eating faster, anxious to get going again and find some warmth. All around them, the village people were busy covering their windows with tarps and odd pieces of plastic, some even nailing boards across the glass. The small children ran around in a heightened state of excitement, not understanding that the break in their routine was not for a good thing. Everyone worked at a frantic pace around them—everyone except the village fortune-teller.

Jun watched him sitting across the way, playing with his tiny bird. The man didn’t look overly concerned about the impending weather, and he even appeared to be in a peaceful state of mind. When he wasn’t petting his bird or feeding it small seeds, he was stroking his long white beard.

“You know he’s blind, right?” Ruju whispered to Jun.

“Well, yes, it’s fairly obvious by the way he’s staring into space. I just don’t know how he gets that bird to stay there on his hand or around him without it flying away.” The tiny black
bird hopped all around the small table, going in and out of its small cage and on and off of its master’s hand, scattering cards in a flurry of activity all around him. “I wonder if he realizes his cards are getting rained on?”

Ruju chuckled. “My grandmother told me about him before we came. He tells fortunes using his
bai ling niao
. She said I should take you to talk to him. He’s very famous far and wide—people come up here all the way from Ningde just to have him declare their lucky wedding dates and have their futures told with the help of the bird.”

“I don’t believe in that stuff.” Jun shook his head, but he did feel a bit sorry for the old man. He popped another cracker in his mouth. “How can one insignificant little bird tell someone’s future?”

“
Nai Nai
said he began the process of enlightening his bird from the day it was conceived as an egg. It was incubated and, once hatched, was fed spiritually and physically by only the fortune-teller. Every day for forty-nine days, the chick was placed on the altar in the temple while the master did his daily chanting.

“Actually, he started with two birds’ eggs that were hatched from the same nest. The chosen one was not determined until the end of the process, and the one not chosen flew away free.”

“Ruju, that’s nonsense.”

“
Nai Nai
doesn’t speak nonsense, Lao Jun,” Ruju answered, challenging him with the serious tone she used.

Jun looked back over at the old man and was surprised to see the fortune-teller lift his gnarly hand and wave to him. “
Guo lai, pengyou.
Come over here, friend.”

“Oh, no,” Jun said to Ruju in a low voice. “Now he wants us to come over and give him some of my hard-earned money. How did he even know we were over here in the midst of all this chaos?”

Ruju laughed. “He must have very good hearing. You might want to see what he has to say. He seems insistent.”

The fortune-teller continued to wave at Jun to join him. Not wanting to show the man any disrespect, even though the fortune-teller couldn’t see them, Jun stood and stretched his aching back, then walked over. Ruju followed at a distance.

“
Zuo xia.
” The man gestured for them to sit on a small wooden stool next to his. Jun sat down, running his hands nervously through his damp hair. Ruju stood behind him, holding the umbrella over both of them.

“
Ni yao shenme?
What do you want,
lao ren
? I’m sorry, but I have no extra money to pay for a fortune today.”

“I don’t want your money. You are searching.
Dui?
”

Tao looked up at Ruju, and she raised her eyebrows questioningly.

“You heard us talking from all the way over here? Yes, I’m looking for a woman named Bai Lu. I would like to ask her some questions. Do you know of this woman or her family?” They had not talked about Chai, so the man had to be fairly ignorant of
why
he was searching.

“My bird tells me you are searching for peace. Would you like to hear more?”

“Well, I guess you could say if I find what I am after, I’ll find peace. But the first step is finding the Bai woman.” Jun sighed, wishing once again that his nightmare would end and he could go back to the way his life had been a year ago.

The man said a few words, and his bird hopped back into the cage, seeming to calmly wait on further instructions. The old man shut the cage door, picked up his deck of cards, and shuffled them, then fanned them out in front of the birdcage. He then said
a few words that Jun could not understand and opened the small door again.

“What’s your bird going to do?” Jun asked.

“
Anjing.
” The old man scolded him to be quiet.

The bird hopped out, picked up a card in its beak, and held it up for the old man. The man took it and turned it toward Jun.

“What card is this?”

Jun looked at it and searched for words to describe it. “It shows a mountain, a waterfall, and an eagle.”

The old man appeared to be deep in thought. Then he put the card back down and said a few more words to the bird. The bird picked up another card and held it in its beak. The man reached down, took the card, and held it up for Jun.

“And this one?”

Jun squinted his eyes, looking closer at the card. “It looks like a building sitting in the hills of a valley.”

Ruju inhaled deeply. “It’s a church, Lao Jun. Look, there’s the steeple.”

The old man laid the card on the table, and his bird hopped back into the bamboo cage and shook itself to scatter the water droplets from its feathers.

“As I said before, you are searching for peace. Perhaps you should examine your heart. The first card shows that you have been through a hard journey, still have more to go, but that you have the courage to reach your destination.”

A warm feeling spread through Jun despite the cold chill of the falling rain.

“The second card tells us that you must find refuge from the storms in your life, and then you will find peace.”

“That’s it?” Jun asked impatiently. “Will I find what I’m looking for or not?” He still didn’t want to mention Chai, for that would give the fortune-teller too much information.

“If you trust your heart to lead you to the right place, you will find peace. Now you must go. My bird and I should return home.” The old man stood and began deftly packing his things in a large bag sitting at his feet. He latched the door to the birdcage and turned to go.

Jun and Ruju watched him walk toward a thick grove of trees, the small birdcage dangling from one hand and the bag in the other. It amazed them both how he knew exactly where he was going and didn’t need assistance to get there. As he stepped into the woods, he stopped. Without turning around, he spoke.

“Your daughter is a strong woman. Have faith in her ability to protect herself.” Then he disappeared through the trees.

I
t was close to midnight, and the pounding rain and leaky roof ensured that Chai was still wide awake when she heard Tao at her door. He knocked and waited for her to tell him to come in. Chai wanted to punish him by ignoring him, but she was too anxious to see if he would tell her anything different.

“Come in, Tao.”

He entered the room and lowered his eyes, staring at his shoes. His shoulders slumped even more than usual. “Chai, I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for? Do you know something more about Josi and how your brother died?”

Tao continued to hang his head for a moment. Then he looked around and saw the small bucket on the floor, catching the steady stream from the ceiling. “Are you warm enough? Do you want me to bring you some of my socks?” Most of their things had been ruined by the small fire or the smoke. They hadn’t had much to begin with, and he knew that now Chai was back to almost nothing.

“You didn’t answer me, Tao. What do you know?”

“I’ll bring you more books, Chai. Tomorrow—I’ll go first thing in the morning. Tell me, what kind of book do you want me to bring?”

Chai sat straighter and narrowed her eyes at the boy. His guilt was showing all over his face, glaring like a beacon.

“What are you hiding, Tao?” She felt that there was more—lots more—that he was holding inside.

Tao hung his head again. Then his shoulders began to shake. Chai realized he was crying and went to him.

She put her arms around him. “It’s okay, Tao. Let it out. Please, talk about it.”

He continued to look down at his hands. “I killed him, Chai.”

Chai dropped her arms to her sides, her eyes wide with shock. She’d felt like he knew more about what happened, but never had it crossed her mind that he was responsible for his brother’s death. He just wasn’t that type of person, and Chai couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe it.

“Tao. What do you mean?”

“I killed Bo. I left him in the water and didn’t pull him out, so it’s my fault he drowned. But Chai—he tried to rape Josi. He beat me and would’ve killed me if he could have. But now he’s dead, and it’s my fault.” He began to sob loudly and rock back and forth, his hands covering his face.

“Shh! I don’t know if your father is asleep. Tell me exactly what happened. And if you did this, you must know where Josi is. Tell me, Tao. Now.”

Tao cried for a few more moments and then sat down on the floor. Sniffling and looking embarrassed at his show of weakness, he told her the whole story. As he described the scene he had walked in on, Chai felt sick. She winced, remembering that she had decided to stay by Mother’s side so that they wouldn’t
lose eating privileges. If Chai had only returned to Josi and been with her when Bo came, he would have never tried to hurt her.

By the time Tao got to the part where they couldn’t find Bo and he instructed Josi to run away, Chai was dizzy with fear. “Why didn’t you tell your father, Tao? Explain that Bo was trying to rape Josi? And tell him it was an accident, and Bo fell in the water? There is a chance he might have believed you. It was worth a try, Tao!”

“Chai, you know Baba would never believe anything bad about Bo. He’d probably insist that Bo walked in on me and Josi, or some other twisted story. He’d turn it around and make Josi look like the guilty one. Don’t you understand? He would never take Josi’s side—right or wrong—or even mine, his own son. Bo could do no wrong in his eyes.”

“But your face? Bo didn’t knock you into the water?”

Tao winced. “He did this to my face, but not with the oar. He used his fists. I put myself in the water to make the story more believable. I stayed in there for hours waiting on someone to find me. I was terrified something—maybe even Bo—was going to get me from beneath the water.”

Chai stood up and began pulling on her coat and mittens. Now over her initial reaction, she was calm and determined. “That’s quite a story, Tao. I would thank you for finally telling me the truth but you’ve waited so long that by now anything could have happened to Josi. For your sake, you’d better hope she is okay. Tell me where she went. I’m going after her right now.”

Finally Chai had the
real
story—one that made more sense. Now that she had something to go on, she wasn’t going to wait around any longer. She didn’t care if ten hurricanes were in her path, she was going to find Josi, and anyone who got in her way had better watch out.