Red Skies (The Tales of the Scavenger's Daughters) (16 page)

She froze. She couldn’t really be seeing the horrendous sight her eyes were reporting to her brain. It just couldn’t be real.

Her knees gave way, and she dropped to the floor, one hand over her mouth and the other holding her stomach. It was real. She shouldn’t have left him. She rocked back and forth as an agonized scream filled the room—a sound she didn’t recognize and was too traumatized to understand came from her own lungs.

Above her, Bolin swung from the top bar of the closet, his belt around his neck so tight that his eyes bulged and his tongue protruded. Mari reached up and put her hands in her hair, yanking as hard as she could as she rocked.

Her husband was dead. She could wail and pull her hair out all she wanted, but there was no bringing him back. She only knew one thing. Bolin wasn’t the failure—she was.

Chapter Fourteen

A
n Ni felt as if she was floating. Moving through warm clouds on the colorful scarf of a fortune-teller she’d once met when walking the streets. The woman had looked down at her and offered her something most didn’t: a smile filled with kindness. An Ni hadn’t wanted to talk to her—the other kids had always warned to never look a fortune-teller in the eye, or they could curse your soul. But locking eyes had been something she couldn’t tear herself away from, and the woman had finally smiled, breaking the intensity of the moment.

Then she said, “Don’t worry, little one. You’ll know a family’s love one day.”

That was when An Ni knew she was a fake. And she’d been right. A few years had passed, and An Ni had known nothing that could even come close to that prediction. As a matter of fact, she’d known only the opposite of love. She wished she could see the woman again and declare her a fraud, even demand she pay up on her prediction or stop fooling innocent little kids who were dumb enough to cling to hope of something that would never come true.

It was too warm. That was An Ni’s first waking thought as she struggled to open her eyes. Then she remembered where she was and knew it shouldn’t be warm. She bolted upright, and the streak of agony that traveled through her leg threw her back down again, making her scream.

“An Ni, what’s wrong?” Mei was at her side in an instant, crouching down to peer into An Ni’s face.

An Ni twisted her body until she was on her side. “Why is it warm in here?”

Mei’s face was bathed in the morning light that shone through the small window, and she smiled in a proud way, then pointed. “I made a fire.”

An Ni sat up again, this time slowly, and looked at the corner of the shack. In the small portable stovetop, she could see a small fire going. “But how?”

Mei stood up and crossed her arms, her expression stubborn. “I told you, I’m not a baby. I went back to the train station when the sun came up, and I hung around and watched until I saw a man hand his wife a pack of cigarettes and a lighter to put in her bag. I waited for a long time until she finally set the bag on the chair beside her and closed her eyes.”

“Mei! You could’ve been caught, then what would you have done?” An Ni was glad Mei had made a fire, but the thought of her being caught stealing and taken in by the
chengguan
terrified her. And the train station was some gang’s turf, too. It was a miracle that Mei wasn’t snatched up by either an official or a criminal—either of which would mean a horrible outcome for the small girl.

“But I didn’t get caught. I stayed close to a woman and her child, pretending I was with them. I took her wallet out and set it on the chair under her jacket, then I took the whole bag, An Ni. She’s got some other stuff in it, too.”

An Ni couldn’t even think of what other items might be there, for her leg throbbed so badly it felt as if it were about to explode. “My leg, Mei. It hurts. I mean—it hurts really badly.”

Mei ran over to the desk top and grabbed something, then brought it back to An Ni. “She had this medicine in her bag, but I don’t know what it is.” She handed the small bottle over.

An Ni examined it. It looked like something bought in the local supermarket, and she couldn’t read the characters, but she opened the top. Inside were five pink pills.

“It might be sleeping medicine,” she mumbled. “I don’t want to go back to sleep and leave you alone anymore.”

“But it might help your leg.”

Another streak of pain ran through her leg, making An Ni’s decision easy. She shook two of the pills into her hand. “Get me some water, please, Mei. How long have we been here?”

Mei shrugged as she scrambled to get the cup from the desk and brought it to An Ni. It was already full. “Two or three days? I’m not sure. I got water this morning when the rain stopped. And it’s muddy out there. It rained all night.” She pointed at her shoes, lined up neatly beside the door.

An Ni threw the pills into her mouth and chased them down with the water, saying a prayer that they wouldn’t kill her.

Next, she scooted herself closer to the fire to get a better look.

“What are you burning?”

“It took me a long time to get a fire and I think I might have used the lighter all up. First I tried to just burn leaves, but I think they were too wet. They smoked up the room and went out too fast. So then I tore parts of an old newspaper from the desk drawer and tucked it in around sticks I found under the fullest trees. They were drier. Did I do good?”

An Ni nodded. She was surprised she’d slept through all of it. And it was actually a really good little fire. Mei had made somewhat of a teepee in the bottom of the iron stove with twigs and bigger sticks, giving room for the fire to get the air it needed. Mei was proving to be the best partner in crime that An Ni could have hoped for.

“I’m not hungry, but I think I should eat,” An Ni said. “Did you already eat something?”

Mei nodded and went back to the desk. An Ni could see she’d taken the photo of the little girl—their Guanyin—and propped it against the window, then made a tiny shrine of leaves and rocks around it. Mei plucked something off the shelf and came back.

She handed An Ni an apple. “I was saving this for you. It was in the purse.”

An Ni almost smiled through her pain. Mei loved apples. Whenever one of the boys came back with their pockets bulging from hitting a fruit stand, the little girl begged and pleaded for just a taste of their bounty—especially when there were apples. Sometimes they even allowed her a bite or two. But this time she’d resisted and left it alone. As An Ni looked around, she realized that Mei had been busy. “No, Mei. You eat it.” She handed it back. “You deserve it. I can’t believe everything you’ve done while I was asleep.”

The corners of the shack looked swept; all the leaves and trash were gone. Even the window looked as if someone had polished it, removing enough grime to let more light in. Under the desk, Mei had folded and stacked all the extra rice sacks. On top of the desk, other than their shrine to Guanyin, she’d put their remaining food trays, as well as lined up a variety of objects An Ni didn’t recognize, and a fire-red flower stood wilting in a dirty water bottle.

“We’ll share,” Mei took the apple and bit into it, then a huge smile lit up her face. She handed it back to An Ni.

An Ni took a bite. It was sweet and juicy. She rolled the bite around in her mouth, savoring the flavor and the moistness on her tongue. The food trays from the train were okay—but they couldn’t compare to the taste of the apple.

“It’s so good, Mei,” she mumbled with her mouth full. And it was. It was probably the best thing she’d ever tasted.

Mei nodded. “My mama always cut apples up for my breakfast. Red ones, green ones—she even made me fried apples sometimes. My family called me
pínggu
o
z
i
.”

An Ni smiled back at her. She could see the sadness in Mei’s eyes when she talked about her family’s nickname for her: Apple Seed. It just wasn’t fair that she’d been snatched from them. But that was then, and this was now. They had to figure out what to do. Already An Ni’s head was spinning as she thought through options. Should they try to stay there, or try to get somewhere else? But if they went to where people were, who would help them? Her gut told her no one. And if they went for help, there was a good chance that they’d be separated.

Mei stopped chewing for a moment and wrinkled her nose. “Except when I had a runny nose, then she made me eat persimmons.”

An Ni smiled at her. Everyone thought eating persimmons in winter would keep away or get rid of a head cold. Not that she’d ever tried it. Fruit was getting harder to get, as stand owners were much more wary when kids of her kind came around. Usually only the boys were successful in lifting anything, and they’d never go for persimmons.

“If the boys come back for us, don’t tell them my nickname,” Mei said.

“I won’t, Mei.” An Ni hoped they didn’t come back. She didn’t want Mei to land back in the hands of Tianbing, and he had so many friends who were
chengguan
. It wasn’t fair. They had no one they could trust. And if Mei went back to Tianbing, she’d be beaten or worse.

An Ni shivered, even though she was warm. She just couldn’t let Mei go back. Her leg needed to heal, and heal fast. Their only hope was to hop a train and hide until they were far, far away from Beijing and Tianbing. Maybe if they got far enough away, she could find someone to take Mei in as their daughter. She’d even offer herself as a house maid, a farmhand in a village, or whatever it took, as long as she could do this one thing for Mei—give her something that An Ni had never have.

A chance.

Somehow the hours slipped by in a haze until day turned into night and back into day again. She must’ve fallen asleep again for when she looked around; the scene in their little shack had changed again. If An Ni hadn’t been hurting so much—and hadn’t been so groggy she could barely focus—she’d have bust a gut laughing at what she’d opened her eyes to see. Mei had found an old dented tin bucket somewhere, and she’d filled it with water. In the purse she’d gotten at the train station, she’d found a small bottle of hand lotion and was using it as soap to wash her clothes with. Now she bent over the bucket while wrapped in a rice sack with her shoestring tied around her waist. Her hair hung stringy around her head, hiding her face. Her bare feet looked cold, her toes bent to clutch at the floor around her to give her balance as she worked.