Serpentine (7 page)

Her old nursemaid shook her head in regret. “Nothing. It was clear you were a newborn babe. Although … ” Hesitant, Nanny Bai tugged at her tunic edge.

“What?” Skybright’s hands tingled, as if in warning or anticipation.

“When I washed you that first time, there were flakes stuck to you. Like scales from a fish. They were quite beautiful but … strange.”

“Like scales from a fish,” Skybright repeated dumbly. “What color were they?”

“Crimson,” Nanny Bai said. “They glittered like jewels in the light.”

Skybright dozed through to the next morning after taking the bitter draught Nanny Bai offered her. Zhen Ni had refused to let her return to her own quarters. In the evening, Skybright was vaguely aware of her mistress slipping into the large bed beside her. She woke with a start before dawn, her forehead covered in sweat. Terrified, she kicked her legs beneath the thin sheet, feeling her toes and her knees. What would happen if she changed with her mistress beside her? Skybright’s throat closed at the thought. She heard Zhen Ni’s steady breathing, and slipped out of bed and into a courtyard dimly lit by starlight.

When she had shifted, it was always at nighttime—she only wished she knew what triggered it, so she could anticipate it. Could she control it somehow? Will it away when it happened? Skybright sat on the stone bench beneath a peach tree, digging her toes into the earth and enjoying its coolness.

Miiisssstress
…

The hairs on Skybright’s neck rose and sharp needles danced across her scalp. The word was carried on a soft summer breeze, barely audible. Her imagination, after the past week, was getting the better of her.

Huuuuungry!

Skybright leaped from the bench and whirled, turning in a circle, heart in her throat. That word had been as loud as a stone falling from the sky.

“Who is it?” she said into the night.

Another breeze rustled the leaves overhead, seeming to hold and then disperse a multitude of pleading voices.

Pleeeease
…

Coooome
…

A single firefly materialized in front of her, hovering before her nose. It looped three times and flew a few steps ahead. She followed the insect, past the dark quarters, along winding stone paths. If she concentrated enough, Skybright thought she could hear the murmur of a hundred voices upon the wind.

Finally, the firefly paused in front of the main gate into the manor, with its grand double doors. She unlatched the lock and pulled one door open. It groaned like a dragon disturbed in its sleep, and Skybright stepped across the threshold. The heavy door slammed shut by itself; an empty street greeted her. Their manor was not near the main road, but their street was broad enough for horses and carriages to travel through. Plum trees dotted the wide path, and she could see the neighbor’s red gate and main entrance across the way.

The firefly had vanished, and Skybright stood with her head tilted, listening.

Miiiiistress Skkkky
…

Shadows darted around her, an icy wind. She clutched her bare arms with her hands. “Who are you?” she whispered into the night. The air stilled, then wavered. Images coalesced, and a group of people suddenly surrounded her. There were men and women, girls and boys, dressed in shabby clothing with dirt-smudged faces. She knew she should have been afraid, but instead, she was only curious.

They gaped at her with mournful faces, but when she tried to look at one straight on, the spirit would melt into shadow again, absorbed by moonlight. So she observed them from the corners of her eyes. At least a hundred ghosts surrounded her, and they pressed closer as one, chilling the air. Beyond them, she sensed more spirits, too tired or weak to manifest their human forms.

A man in his thirties floated forward from the rest of the pack. His cheeks were rough with facial hair, but the flesh was gone from the upper left side of his face, exposing an empty eye socket. “Mistress Skybright. We were but humble servants, as you are—”

A chorus of voices echoed.

I served Lady Pan for thirty years.

I took care of the horses and dogs for the Jins.

I was a cook for the Wang family until the kitchen fire took my life.

I’m an orphan but kept my master company!

The last voice was high-pitched and cheery, and Skybright glimpsed the shadow of a boy no more than eleven years near the front of the crowd.

“What do you want from me?” she whispered.

Their response was an uproar, lifting the loose hair from her head. She staggered back from the force of their sheer need.

Love.

Vengeance.

My wife.

Retribution.

Peace.

Rest.

My Son.

Life.

Tears sprang in her eyes because, inexplicably, she knew their loss, felt their wants and desires as if they were her own.

The man who had spoken to her raised a blurry fist and snarled. The silence that followed was immediate and eerie, and her ears rang with it.

“Please, Mistress Skybright,” the man said. It seemed to take great effort for him to speak so clearly to her. Each of his sentences was followed by the restless echo of hundreds of others. “Feed us. We have no relatives left to do so. And those who remain are too poor.”

“But the Ghost Festival hasn’t started yet,” she said. They were a few days from the middle of the seventh moon, when the gates of the underworld were supposed to open for the ghosts to visit the living. The Yuan manor was already beginning to prepare elaborate feasts in remembrance of ancestors, to pay respect and symbolically feed the dead.

We escaped, followed, pushed through. Wanting. Hunger.

“There was a breach between the realms,” the man said. “We escaped the underworld early.”

Skybright’s skin crawled, fearful for the first time in this exchange with the dead.

“But why did you seek me out?”

Us. See you. Are us.

Their crackling chants shivered across her.

“Because you’re the only one who can see us,” he said, his voice almost gentle. “Hear us.”

“The only one … ” she repeated.

He paused. “The other one is too well protected.”

“I will. I’ll feed you and burn incense in your memory. I promise.” Skybright’s eyes swept past the hundreds of glimmering ghosts floating before her in the empty road, to the indistinct forms crouched beneath the shadows of the plum trees. “But who’s the other one?”

The man grinned, though the flesh dissolved from his mouth and chin, exposing yellow, jagged teeth. He didn’t answer her question. Instead, the spirits hissed in delight, as if in acknowledgement of who she was—what she was.
One of us
, they had said. Could they see the monstrous side of her so easily? As easily as she could see them, she realized. They whirled until the pins fell from her hair, freeing her locks.

Then, the air stilled, as sudden as when it erupted.

A cat yowled in terror in the distance.

She was alone.

Something bounced against the cobblestone and rolled into her bare foot. Skybright stooped to pick it up. A copper coin, hundreds of years old, tinged green with age.

A token of gratitude.

Skybright hurried toward Zhen Ni’s quarters with the small coin clenched in her hand, and made it back right as the roosters began to crow. She almost bumped into her mistress when she entered the reception hall. The tall girl had a lavender silk robe drawn about her.

“I was just coming to find you.” It was clear Zhen Ni was concerned, but she withheld her reprimand.

“I needed fresh air, mistress.”

“Look at you, wandering like a wild animal in your bare feet. Really, Sky! Do you not want to get better?”

Skybright smiled, glad that her mistress had reprimanded her after all. It meant things were returning to normal between them. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

Zhen Ni pulled her into her bedchamber, and Skybright lit the giant pearl lanterns in each corner. Skybright’s arms shook, and she did her best to steady them.

“Are you feeling better?” Zhen Ni asked.

In truth, she felt drained and wanted more than anything to crawl back into bed. Too much was happening to her at once, all inexplicable and strange. Instead she said, “I am. And you?” She had been a poor handmaid these past few days, and it was the only normal aspect of her life now, reassuring in its rituals and cadence.

Her mistress unconsciously pressed a palm to her abdomen. “The worst of it is over now … until the next moon.”

“How long do you plan on keeping this from your mother?”

“Forever,” Zhen Ni said vehemently.

Skybright’s mouth dropped, but she clamped it shut when her mistress shot her a challenging glare.

“My parents already have two grandsons and a granddaughter! And another on the way. Why must I be married off as well? It’s not fair!”

Skybright stared at her fists. Her mistress sounded like a petulant child. There was nothing fair or unfair in the way things were. Was there any point in challenging them, when in the end, a girl such as Zhen Ni must accept her fate, no matter what? Just as Skybright must accept her own? Memories of herself in serpent form filled her mind—how
alive
she had felt. She shoved them aside. There was no place for that here.

“You’ll help me, Sky? Hide the truth from Mama?”

She led Zhen Ni to the vanity to prepare her for the coming day. “Of course, mistress. I’ll help you for as long as you want.”

Zhen Ni grinned, her relief plain. “I’ll wear the turquoise tunic today, what do you think?”

Skybright retrieved the tunic and matching skirt from her mistress’s giant rosewood wardrobe. The color especially complemented Zhen Ni’s ivory skin and set off her warm brown eyes. The tunic was embroidered with golden chrysanthemums. “Is it a special occasion? Are we receiving a visitor?”

Zhen Ni’s cheeks colored, surprising Skybright.

“Not at all.” Zhen Ni brushed her own hair in long strokes. “I just wanted to dress especially nice today, after all that’s happened this past week.”

Skybright took the brush from her and smiled. “I’ll do something fancy for your hair then, to match the outfit.”

Zhen Ni folded her hands in her lap and Skybright saw how the flush in her cheeks enhanced her natural beauty. Her face was more rounded, like she’d gained some weight in these past weeks, softening her features. Her eyes shone as she watched Skybright plait her hair, and a faint smile lifted the corners of her generous mouth. Skybright ran a cursory glance of her own reflection, noted how her dark eyes appeared too large in her pale face, before concentrating on her mistress’s locks once more, Zhen Ni had turned into a woman as well, seemingly overnight.

The realization struck Skybright with a pang of fear and regret. How long could they cling to their childhoods, ignoring the fact that they had become young women? She twisted tiny braids near the top of Zhen Ni’s head, weaving ruby flowers in them, before winding the small braids to join her single, thicker braid.

The color of the dazzling stones reminded her of her serpent scales, and Skybright’s hands trembled as she clipped the final hairpin into her mistress’s hair. What would Zhen Ni think if she ever discovered the truth? How could she possibly care for her the same? Skybright would be cast out as the cursed monster that she was.

Zhen Ni turned her head this way and that, admiring Skybright’s handiwork. She paused when she caught Skybright’s reflection in the mirror.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing, mistress.” She rubbed gardenia musk against her mistress’s wrists and behind her ears. “You look beautiful. And you haven’t even put the tunic on yet.”

Skybright helped Zhen Ni into her thin chemise and silk shorts, then dressed her in the luxurious turquoise tunic and skirt. She drew back when she was done, and her mistress stood in front of the mirror, smoothing the silk, making certain everything was in place and perfect.

“I need to change, too, mistress. I’ll meet you in the main hall?”

Zhen Ni turned, and her smile was warm. “Yes. I’ll fetch Lan on my way.”