A Thread Unbroken (4 page)

Jun set his lunch pail on the table. He walked past the bed, moving through the tiny living area. He pushed aside the curtain that provided privacy and peeked into his own bedroom. The bed was neatly made and everything in place. His eyes wandered to the antique side table given to them by Wei’s father, a wedding present that held the only formal family photo they owned. He glanced around the tiny space—everything was just as it should be, but no Chai. He had really hoped she’d be there, as sometimes she used their room for a quiet place to read. She never complained that their house only had one bedroom, she just figured out a way to make it work when she wanted to be alone.

Jun walked back out into the night. Even though it was totally out of character for Chai to be so irresponsible, he was irritated at her. Tired, he didn’t need to go chasing around after her, and he planned to let her know how disappointed he was in her. He doubted she’d get a spanking, as he’d never been able to follow through with physical punishment, but she’d suffer enough just knowing he was upset with her.

As he went around back to follow the trail down to the canal, he tripped over a stone and cursed at his throbbing toe. Ahead, a weeping willow cast an eerie shadow in front of him, knotting
his stomach even more than it already was. A sense of foreboding took over his entire body, and he felt dizzy. Walking more carefully, he continued down the worn dirt path to the canal.

C
hai and Josi sat huddled together in the corner. In the last bag, they had found a large shirt, and they used it as a blanket to share. They weren’t cold—unfortunately, the stale room was swelteringly hot. But to them, the blanket felt like a tiny bit of security in the dark. They had the flashlight, but Chai was worried about how long the batteries would need to last, so she only allowed Josi to turn it on occasionally. While they waited for the sun to come up, Chai told Josi stories. So far she had told her almost every story she knew, but as long as she kept talking, Josi stayed calm.

It came as no surprise that Josi was afraid of the dark. Chai didn’t like it either, but she didn’t fear it as much as her best friend. She tried to tell Josi that the dark held nothing that wasn’t already there in the light, but those words floated away unheeded as night fell.

“Chai, when will the woman come back?”

“Maybe in the morning. Don’t worry. Why don’t you try to sleep?”

“I can’t sleep, Chai. What does she want with us?”

“I don’t know, Josi. Maybe she has kidnapped us for ransom.” Chai had so far kept all her dark thoughts to herself, but she was
starting to feel very nervous, and it just slipped out before she could guard her tongue.

“What’s ransom, and how can we get it?”

“Josi, ransom is money. That means they’ll tell our parents if they can pay a certain amount, they can have us back.”

“But our families don’t have any money! How will they pay?”

“I don’t
know
, Josi! Will you please go to sleep? I’ll stay awake; you close your eyes.” She wished she had not talked about her fears in front of Josi. They were the same age, but Josi was easier to frighten. She wasn’t even allowed to watch the scary movies on television, a treat that Baba often let Chai take advantage of if her little sister was out of the room.

“Talk to me some more, Chai, and I’ll try to sleep.” She laid her head on Chai’s lap and pulled her legs up close to her belly.

“Okay, but close your eyes. Hmm...tonight my
mei mei
has our bed all to herself. She has always said she wanted it, and now she gets to see how it is to have room to stretch.”

“Do you think she’ll like having the bed to herself? I wish I had the bed to myself. Instead I have two brothers to share with.”

Chai laughed softly. “I think she
thinks
she’ll like it, but I believe she’ll be lonely. She likes to snuggle against my back, and I have to tell her stories to get her to sleep, like you. I guess I should be glad I have Luci and you have your brothers to share things with—if we lived in the city, we’d be the only children in our houses; at least in the villages, people can have bigger families.”

“Sometimes being an only child sounds like a good deal.” Josi smiled. “How long have we been best friends, Chai?”

Chai thought for a moment. “Forever. Remember, Mama always said we learned how to walk and talk together.”

“I hope you’ll always be my best friend, Chai.” Josi’s voice was getting softer. Chai knew Josi was almost asleep, but she continued to stroke her friend’s hair, giving her the comfort that she needed to relax. Her own eyes felt heavy, and she thought that if she had to be kidnapped, she was glad that she at least had her best friend with her. She finally drifted off to sleep, her hand still tangled in Josi’s long hair.

J
osi and Chai both were woken from their restless sleep by the sound of a key in the knob. They jumped to their feet and stared at the door, holding tightly to each other.

The door swung open, revealing the woman from the day before.

Alone.

Chai spoke first. “What are you doing? Why have you locked us in here? We have to go home!”

The woman entered the room and shut the door behind her. She leaned against the door and examined the girls from head to toe. Her smile was sarcastic—gone was the friendliness she had fooled them with to get them to do her bidding. In the light of their new predicament, the woman looked uglier than she had the day before.

“I see you figured out that the supplies you carried were for you.”

Josi started to cry and pointed her finger at the woman. “You locked us in! When I get home, I’m telling my father what you did!”

Chai threw her arm around Josi’s neck and put her hand over her mouth.

“No, she doesn’t mean it—she’s just angry. We won’t tell our parents anything about you. Please. Just let us go, and we’ll tell them that we stayed out all night at the canal. They’ll believe us, and they never need to know we even met you.”

The woman narrowed her eyes at Chai. “We’ll see about that. You didn’t realize it, but we’re a long way from your village. I’m going to take you by bus to a stop near your road. If you cooperate, I’ll send you back. Gather your supplies.”

She still hadn’t explained why she had locked them up, but the girls were so relieved to hear they’d be free that they didn’t ask. They frantically picked up the rice cakes, water bottles, and other things they had used and stuffed them into two bags. They each carried one and obediently waited for the woman to let them out through the door.

The woman stared down at them to speak eye to eye. “Let me tell you something, girls. If you try to run, you’ll get lost. Then you’ll be picked up by very evil men who will do bad things to you. If you stay with me, I’ll make sure you are protected until you get home. Do you understand?”

Chai squeezed Josi’s hand to signal her to stay quiet.

“Yes. We understand, and we won’t run.” The thought had crossed her mind, but even if she found the opportunity, she knew Josi wouldn’t be able to keep up.

“Then follow me, and keep your mouths shut.”

The girls obediently followed behind the woman. Chai still had hope that the woman would keep her word, take them to a safe place and leave them to find their way back home.

Chai looked down at her dress with disgust. As soon as she got home, she planned to take it off and burn it.

An hour later the girls were still on the hot bus, sitting together and watching the scenery fly by through the window. The woman had made them sit on the inside, and she sat on the outer edge of the seat.
Probably to keep us from talking to anyone
, Chai thought.

Through the window Chai watched a woman with her sleeping toddler tied to her back pull sweet potatoes from the field and drop them in a basket at her feet. The wide-brimmed hat she wore couldn’t hide her skin, darkened by long hours in the blistering heat. Chai squinted but couldn’t tell if the woman was young or old; the sun had leathered her face so much she could have been the child’s mother or grandmother. She pointed out the sleeping child to Josi, knowing her fascination with babies.

At the next farm they spotted a teenage boy on the porch, a ball cap pulled low over his eyes as he kicked back in a chair, tapping on his mobile phone.

It was amazing to Chai how different things were in only the blink of a moment. The farm woman had looked like she was painted from the pages of one of Chai’s books of an era gone by, and the boy only a mile or so from her could have been dropped in from the set of the latest Chinese reality show.
This is what Baba meant by China’s changing too fast
, she thought.

When Chai saw even more of the next few miles were made up of manicured squares of wheat crops, she realized they had driven quite a way out of town and must have already passed the small road leading to their village.

“
Qing wen.
” She tried to get the woman’s attention but was ignored. “
Excuse me!
” she said again, a bit louder this time.

The woman whipped her head around, her eyes angry. “What do you want? I told you no talking!”

“We’ve already gone a really long way. Are you sure this bus is taking us to our village? I think we should’ve been there by now.”

“You are what? Twelve? Thirteen? What could you know of distance? You have no idea how far we’ve gone or where your village is. Be quiet, and when we get there, I’ll tell you.”

Chai sighed. She wasn’t going to tell the woman anything about their ages. She also knew they were going too far, but she didn’t know what to do about it. She had thought about running when they were let off the bus, but the woman wasn’t that old—maybe not even as old as Chai’s mother. She could probably catch Josi, and Chai wouldn’t leave her alone with the woman.

The bus went around a curve and began to slow. The girls sat up straighter and looked out the window, stretching to see if anything looked familiar.

It didn’t.

They both sat back against the seat, disappointed. Chai lifted one leg up off the sticky seat, put it down, and then lifted the other. She was uncomfortable and felt she might just faint if she didn’t get some fresh air soon. The window only came down a few inches, not nearly enough to feel a breeze. Chai looked over at Josi and could tell she was feeling the same, if not worse.

The bus stopped, and the woman told them they were getting off. Relieved to finally get outside where they could get some air, the girls gathered the two bags and followed her off the bus. The crowd outside broke up as they disembarked, some going inside the small building to buy transfer tickets or refreshments, and others immediately climbing aboard the next waiting bus. Chai looked around. She badly wanted to tell someone that she was
kidnapped, but the woman was so close that she would hear, and Chai feared what she’d do.

Outside the bus, the woman went to a bench and sat down. She beckoned for the girls to do the same. As they sat and looked around to get their bearings, the woman took out her cell phone and made a call.

“
Dao le.
” The woman confirmed they had arrived and nodded as she listened to the person on the other end of the phone.

“Two of them. As he said, only one is acceptable.” The woman eyed Josi as she spoke, looking down at her bad foot and then looking away. Her voice grew impatient. “I brought them both—they’re more willing to cooperate when they’re together. You can consider the other one a bonus.”

Chai grew more worried as she tried to piece together what the woman was saying. Finally the woman hung up the phone and threw it in her bag.

“Now we wait. Our ride will come.”

“But you said you were going to let us go!” Chai exclaimed, standing up quickly. The bus station was one of those small stops between towns. As far as she could see there were no other businesses or houses, only fields. She looked to her left at a few beat-up taxis parked behind the bus, but even if she and Josi could get away from the woman, they didn’t have any money with them and she’d never met a taxi driver who would give a ride out of kindness. Chai felt helpless.

“
Zuo xia!
” the woman yelled at them to sit down. “Now. The bus has taken us the wrong way. We must get a ride back the way we came—unless you want to walk yourself about forty kilometers?” She looked at the girls, raising her eyebrows.

Chai considered it, but she knew that Josi could not walk that far. She looked around for someone—anyone—who might help,
but other than a few straggling passengers who were distracted with their own issues, they were alone.

“Do you promise you’re going to take us to our village?” She put her hands on her hips, glaring at the woman.

“Not that you are in a position to negotiate, but yes—I promise. Now sit before I slap you down.” She looked irritated enough to do it, too.

Chai sat down next to Josi, who was even quieter than usual.

“Josi, what’s wrong?” She looked at her best friend and was alarmed by her scarlet cheeks.

“I don’t feel so good. Can I have some water?” Josi answered faintly.