Shadow Sister (21 page)

Do not weep for the past
.

Illuminated by the moon
,

Make your way at last
.”

“That’s perfect!” Tao said. “The best poem you’ve ever composed.”

Tao copied the words neatly onto the paper – or as neatly as he could using charcoal ink and a brush made by chewing the end of a twig. He placed the scrap of paper under the doll.

“What do you think, Kai?”

The dragon snorted. “I think this is nonsense.”

Fo Tu Deng hadn’t ordered the dragons to be locked up, so Kai went off to his hollow in the goat pen and Sunila flapped up to his nest on the wall. Tao was left to keep the vigil by himself. In the moonlight, the doll seemed a little sinister.

Tao lay on the couch and felt sleep pulling on his eyelids.

A gust of wind roused him from a dreamless sleep. The full moon was high in the sky. The bright moonlight had bleached the colour from the garden. The ghost girl was there already, storm-cloud grey and fully formed. Streaks of silver gathered in the folds of her gown. Tao watched as she drifted around the garden. She was no longer transparent. It was hard to believe that she wasn’t made of something solid. From a distance, she was almost beautiful, like a dark
deva
, like a bad fairy. She stopped when she saw his gift and moved closer, her shadow eyes on the doll. He hoped his plan was working, that the gift would dissolve her anger. But the shadows around her hollow eyes deepened, and she bared her sharp teeth. Tao felt the cold points of her silver-white pupils bore into him like needles. He wanted to run away, but he couldn’t move. The ghost girl whirled around him. Tao remembered how the Shenchi ghosts had circled him, creating a wind before they disappeared with a sigh. Had she accepted his gift? Was she getting ready to journey into her own next life? He muttered a sutra to help her on her way. She circled faster and faster. He waited for her to whirl into the air with a sigh, as the other ghosts had. But she didn’t.

The ghost girl picked up speed until she was a grey blur trailing silver. Moon shadow couldn’t produce wind, and yet she was making the air move somehow, swirling fallen leaves, tearing petals from flowers. The cone of incense tipped over and set light to the paper with the poem on it. But it was the doll that she was focusing on. The ghost girl’s swirling fanned the flame. The doll’s golden hair caught fire. She created a small whirlwind that lifted up the doll, spinning it round and round. The flames glowed brighter and burned off all the hair. And then the doll was thrown out of the vortex, hurled against a tree with such force that it smashed to splinters.

But the ghost girl’s anger wasn’t spent. She rushed from the garden into the house. Tao heard things crash and clatter, but he was too terrified to follow her to see what was happening.

Sunila fluttered down from his nest on the wall. Like all dragons his hearing was bad and he was unaware of the uproar. He scrabbled through the remains of the food left by the nomads. He was just looking for a snack. He glowed softly in the moonlight.

“Sunila,” Tao hissed, but he didn’t hear him.

Too frightened to run across the courtyard to warn Sunila, Tao picked up a rock from the garden and hurled it at the
naga
. His aim was bad, his strength pathetic. The rock fell on the path with a thud, well short of its target, but the vibrations from the impact reached the
naga
. He looked up, his blue eyes bright in the moonlight. That was when the ghost girl surged outside again and saw the
naga
. She let out an unearthly howl, high-pitched like the cry of a wild animal. It was the first time the ghost girl had made a sound. Howling with fury, she flung herself towards the
naga
. Sunila leaped to his feet and turned into a seven-headed snake. The ghost girl stopped in her tracks. The jewelled crests on the snakes’ heads glittered in the moonlight. For a moment she wavered and her moon-shadow body began to disperse. But the
naga
’s
teeth snapped on nothing. The ghost girl’s fury returned. She rushed at him and he transformed into his half-human form, but the writhing snakes growing out of his shoulders didn’t deter her. Then, just as she reached the shape-changed
naga
, he winked out like someone blowing out a lamp. The ghost girl howled again.

Not a breath of air stirred. The ghost girl seemed calmer, as if her anger was dissipating. Tao wondered if her strength was fading, but the full moon was still in the sky and there were no clouds to hide it. It would be some time before she faded. She drifted over and hovered in front of Tao, motionless apart from the gentle rippling of her shadow gown. Her silver needle-prick eyes pierced him and, though he wanted to run, he couldn’t move. He tried to call to Kai with his mind but no words would form. Close up, he could see that the ghost girl wasn’t beautiful at all. Her coiling hair was in knots. Her skin was pockmarked and decaying. There was no ghost flesh on the fingers of her right hand. It had fallen away completely, revealing bones and clots of black blood. The tip of her little finger was missing.

She slipped into Tao, but this time she didn’t pass through, she stayed inside him. She wasn’t calm at all. Her fury was held in, like water inside a leather skin. But the skin burst, and her wrath poured into him. Tao gasped as it filled his body like icy river water. There were no words, but her anger was more eloquent than words. She didn’t want Tao’s gift and she didn’t want to leave this world.

An image of a small cairn of stones formed in his mind. He suddenly realised who the ghost girl was. He understood why she was so angry.

Tao tried to breathe but he couldn’t. While she was inside him, his lungs wouldn’t expand. He tried to stir his
qi
, but it was thick and slow like freezing water. As his panic grew, he felt her rage turn to pleasure. Sparks of light appeared before Tao’s eyes. His ears rang as if crazed monks were ringing temple bells. She was killing him.

Tao saw Kai bound across the courtyard. He knew the dragon was speaking to him, but he couldn’t hear his words. Kai took in the ruined garden, the smashed and smouldering doll. He ran towards Tao, but stopped as if an invisible barrier blocked his way. Tao had given up any thought of breathing. He saw a burst of light, like a holy vision. He thought it was the Blessed One come to guide him to his next life. He had not avoided death at all.

But the ghost girl left Tao’s body, and he collapsed, gasping for air. The bright light was still in his eyes. He realised what it was – not a holy presence, but the first rays of the sun appearing over the wall. The sunlight had taken away the power of the moon, reduced it to a faint shape in the dawn sky. The rays of light had dissolved the ghost girl.

Kai was leaning over him anxiously. “Are you all right?”

Tao could feel the dragon’s breath on his face, smell his fishy, over-ripe plum smell.

“It was the ghost girl. I know you don’t believe me. But she was here and she tried to kill me.”

“I saw her,” Kai said. “I saw the ghost girl. I am sorry I doubted you.”

“I know who she is, Kai.”

“Who?”

“It’s Baoyu, the granddaughter of the old man from Shenchi.”

Kai didn’t argue this time. He inclined his head.

Sunila reappeared right next to them, making concerned cheeping sounds. Tao pointed at the
naga
.

“I made the doll’s hair from his mane. I gave her a gift made with the hair of the creature responsible for all her grief, the ruin of her village, the loss of her family. The creature whose bite killed her.”

“I understand that the ghost girl is angry with Sunila,” Kai said. “He was responsible for her death. But why does she wish to kill you?”

“I told her grandfather that she was at peace, and she isn’t. I sent her remaining family members far away. I was the one who found food for Sunila. I saved him from starvation and I cared for him. Then, the final insult, I gave her a gift made of his hair.”

“It is not your fault she died.” Kai glared at the
naga
, who was trying to hide behind the couch. “Our problems started when the
naga
appeared. He is the one who killed her.”

Tao couldn’t blame the
naga
for Baoyu’s death; he’d been mad with hunger when he crashed through Shenchi village. But it was true – since Sunila had entered their lives, nothing had gone right.

Baoyu had swept through Wei’s room and knocked the precious things from the shelf. Those fragile mementos of the outside world that Tao had brought back for his brother had sat undisturbed for years, but now they were broken, smashed by the ghost girl’s force. The baby spiders were all gone. Baoyu’s fury must have frightened them away. She knew all the things that were dear to him.

Outside, Tao could hear the sounds of the Zhao soldiers returning from their second night of searching for the Black Camel Bandits. From the way they trudged silently to their quarters, he guessed they’d still had no success. Fo Tu Deng would soon be awake and Tao would have to face the monk and his demands.

In the kitchen, pieces of the red clay teapot and broken bowls littered the floor. Tao knew he hadn’t seen the last of the ghost girl.

“It is time to go,” Kai said.

The thought of leaving all his problems behind was tempting. The Zhao knew all about his secret places – Yinmi Monastery and his family home – neither provided sanctuary any more. But there was still something holding him back.

“Not yet.”

“If we leave this place, you will be free of the ghost girl.”

“No, I won’t. She’s been haunting me ever since we left her grandfather. I thought if I could convince her to move into her next life, then all would be well. But she won’t go. There’s something I have to do to appease her.”

“What?”

Tao sighed. “I don’t know.”

“We cannot stay here.”

“I know that. But I can’t leave until Baoyu’s ghost is at rest. I must find out what it is she wants.”

“A ghost must stay near its remains,” Kai said.

“So how can she continue to exist in ghost form when she is so far from her grave?”

“It seems a long way to you because we had to walk up and down hills and around mountains to get here. And we travelled at human pace. But her grave is not far away – as the dragon flies. If we travel further from her grave, she will not be able to follow us.”

“Then she will haunt someone else.”

“I suspect that it is not the ghost girl you are concerned about leaving behind, but Pema.”

Tao felt his cheeks warm.

“It’s true I am worried about her, but I will happily leave her behind if she has a safe place to live, and she has chosen a peaceful way of life.”

“Huaxia is in chaos, Tao. You cannot save everybody.”

Tao knew he couldn’t save everyone. But he wanted to save Pema.

“Your duty is to be a dragonkeeper as Wei told you. You cannot allow these two girls – one dead, one alive – to shackle you to your past.”

Tao’s brain agreed with Kai though his heart disagreed.

“If you refuse to leave. I will go alone.”

Tao couldn’t let that happen.

“You’re right, Kai. We must go.”

Once Tao had made the decision, he wanted to leave immediately. He found a leather bag in a storeroom, the sort that goatherds carry on their backs when they take their flocks up to the mountain pastures in summer. It took him no more than a minute or two to collect his few possessions and put them in the bag. He looked at his toes poking out from his sandals. He needed more substantial footwear, warmer clothing. He wasn’t sure how he would endure the winter months, but that was a problem for later.

Kai composed a poem to reassure him about the cold weather that lay ahead.

“
Winter is a lovely season
,

When cleansing winds do blow
.

There is not a sensible reason

To dislike it because of a little snow
.”

“That isn’t your best poem.” Tao managed a smile.

Kai didn’t have to pack. Everything he owned fitted behind his five reverse scales. Tao went into the kitchen, bundled up as much grain, dried fruit and nuts as he could fit into the bag and slung it on his back. He picked up his staff with its new dragon head.

Kai nodded approvingly. “It is good. Fitting for a dragonkeeper.”

They walked towards the gate. “You go out through your tunnel when the guards are on the other side of the wall,” Kai said. “I will use my mirage skill.”

“What about Sunila?” Tao said. “We can’t leave him here.”

“We cannot take him to the dragon haven. He is a
naga
, not a dragon of Huaxia. The other dragons will attack him.”

“Then we must take him back to Tianzhu.”

They were still arguing about this when someone started thumping on the gate. The guards, who had been dozing in the morning sun, jumped to their feet, grabbed their weapons and peered down from the wall to see who was there. One of them gasped in horror. The thumping continued, accompanied by impatient shouting. Fo Tu Deng came out of Mrs Huan’s room, bleary eyed.

“Are we under attack?” he called up to the guards. “Are our enemies at the gate?”

“No,” one of the guards shouted back. “Not our enemies.” From the tremor in his voice, it sounded like whoever was there was worse.

Someone lifted the bar and opened the gate. A pack of Zhao soldiers astride black horses was crowded outside. They wore leather armour and red plumes on their helmets. The horses were snorting and sweaty after a long ride. At the head of the group was a handsome young man wearing a crimson jacket, shiny metal armour and a white fur hat. His leather boots were the same colour as his jacket. His black horse reared up, as if angry at being stopped from galloping, and then strode into the compound.

Tao groaned. “It’s Jilong and his personal guard!”

“We should have left at dawn,” Kai said. “The delay has cost us dearly.”

Tao couldn’t believe his bad fortune. The moment he finally decided to escape was the very moment Jilong arrived unannounced at the gate. Kai was right. They should have left as soon as they’d made the decision.