Shadow Sister (12 page)

“The quickest way to the heart is through the stomach. We have saved him from starvation. If we can continue to provide food, he will not stray.”

“But I’ve run out of woodworm larvae. Tie him up until we have a plentiful supply of food.”

Tao was hungry too. Kai tethered the blue dragon, and they went in search of food. The food chests, the grain sheds, the vegetable cellars were all empty. Kai made sad sounds, but Tao hadn’t given up.

His family and the other occupants had taken the food stores with them when they moved south, but Tao knew his mother well. Though she was no longer the stern and bossy woman she had been before Wei’s death, she had been reluctant to abandon the land that had belonged to the Huan family for many generations. In one room there was a large bed with ornate carvings and a canopy of dusty curtains.

He called to Kai. “Come and help me move this bed.”

Kai used his body to push the bed aside, revealing a trapdoor. Tao pulled it open and smiled as he surveyed the contents of the cellar in the dim light. There were sacks of grain, beans and rice. He climbed down the steps to have a closer look and found jars of pickles, dried fruit, nuts and a small tin of the dried leaves of the tea plant.

“Was it a vision that told you there was food hidden here?” Kai said.

“No. Just a lifetime of knowledge of my mother. She believes that the time of the nomads will eventually come to an end and that the Huaxia will regain control, and my family will return.” He smiled sadly. “I bet my mother never thought I would be the one to return.”

“You miss your family.”

“I only saw them twice a year, but I always knew they were here, if I needed them.”

The dragon sighed.

“I did not know my parents. My mother died before I was hatched. My father flew away to the Isle of the Blest when I was less than a day old.”

“But I thought Danzi died in captivity.”

“He did not.”

“But I was told …”

“The nursery stories you heard were not always true.”

“I still have a lot to learn about dragons.”

“Jujubes!” Kai’s sharp eyes had spied his favourite treats in a corner.

Tao passed up the jar. Before he had a chance to object, the dragon had eaten six.

After their struggle to find every mouthful of food in the wild, suddenly they had all the food they needed. Outside in the vegetable garden there was squash growing and some green-leafed plants that had run to seed. Wrinkly pears lay beneath a tree. But the Huan house was perched on top of a hill that could be seen for many
li
. They had to be cautious.

“We can’t risk lighting a fire in the daytime,” Tao said.

Kai made disappointed sounds. “I was looking forward to a good cooked meal.”

“You’ll have to wait until it gets dark. And even then, we must not show any light.”

Tao explored his old home as they waited for nightfall. The rooms were mostly bare. His sister had left behind a few gowns and cosmetics. His father had left most of his carving tools. Tao’s mother had changed after Wei’s death. She became quiet and introspective. Mr Huan took over management of the compound and had no time for carving.

There was one room in the house that was as it had been when the Huan family lived there, and that was Wei’s. Their mother had insisted that it be left as it was when Wei died. His bed was covered with an embroidered quilt, there were paintings of animals and trees on the walls and, on a shelf, a row of things Tao had brought back for his brother from his walks beyond the walls – a bright blue bird’s egg, a pile of coloured river stones, a cast-off snakeskin. Their mother didn’t like having these things cluttering up the house, but though he couldn’t speak, Wei had a way of letting people know what he wanted. Tao’s childhood gifts to his brother had stayed where Wei could see them.

As soon as it got dark, Tao closed the kitchen shutters to contain the light from a single lamp. He lit the stove and prepared a meal. When he’d finished, he let the fire die down and blew out the lamp.

Tao’s cooking skills were limited, but he was able to produce a tasty dish of rice and vegetables. After so long eating with his fingers from a burnt gourd, Tao took delight in eating from a green-glazed china bowl with chopsticks his father had carved. His simple meal seemed like a feast. Kai sat up on his haunches, holding a bowl in one paw and chopsticks in the other and made appreciative sounds as he ate. Tao smiled. Ping had taught him good table manners. The blue dragon, however, wouldn’t touch the food. He finished off the last of the larvae and then made a sad sound like a gate creaking. He was still hungry. There was no rotting wood in the Huan compound, no source of more larvae.

“I don’t know why he’s so fussy,” Tao said. “You wouldn’t eat rice and cooked vegetables if you were living in the wild, but you’ll eat it now, even if it’s not entirely to your taste.”

“He is a very wild beast.”

“If I was starving, I would eat anything, I’m sure.”

“Including the flesh of animals?”

Tao didn’t know the answer to that.

“Where are the jujubes?” Tao asked. “Perhaps the blue dragon will like them too.”

Kai hung his head.

“You didn’t eat them all, did you?”

Kai nodded. “Tasted very good.”

After the meal, Tao had to settle the dragons for the night. Kai dug himself a hollow in the goat pen and filled it with straw from the stable.

“I can guard you better if I sleep out here,” he said.

The blue dragon didn’t dig a nest. He made his sad creaking sound again.

“Perhaps you could dig a hollow for him as well,” Tao suggested.

“He would dig his own if he wanted one. He must sleep some other way.”

Kai fetched more straw for the unhappy dragon and he eventually settled down.

Tao had decided to sleep in Wei’s room. Thick cloud blotted out the stars and the moon, so he allowed himself a small oil lamp. He shook out the dusty quilt, turned over the silk floss-filled mattress and collapsed on his brother’s bed with a sigh of relief. It had been his childhood bed too. Now it seemed like imperial luxury, compared to where he’d slept in recent months.

In the soft yellow light of the lamp, Tao could just make out a large spider in the corner above the bed. It was a huntsman and would have been the size of Tao’s hand, if it hadn’t had its legs tucked neatly together, four on each side. For as long as he could remember there had always been a huntsman above the bed. When he and his brother were small, they had lain there, watching one of the spiders as it shed its old skin and emerged with a bigger body to show to the world. When their mother had brushed it down with a broom, tears had poured from Wei’s eyes. Tao had stopped his mother from squashing the spider, and Wei had stopped crying. Their mother couldn’t bear to see Wei cry, so she had allowed the spider and its descendants to live.

The huntsman crept down the wall and settled itself on the headrest. Tao could see now that it had an egg sac. He was glad of the spider’s companionship. It seemed like a lifetime ago, but it had only been two or three months since he had last lain alongside his brother in that very bed, trying to decide how his life should unfold. He knew that the spiders lived for a year or two, so this spider could well have been the same one that had looked down on them that night. The smell of his brother still lingered on the quilt – sesame oil and ginger and the faintest hint of Wei’s skin. He was glad that there was no moon that night – and no moon shadows.

Tao rose early. He’d slept well, better than any other night since he’d left Yinmi Monastery. The truth was, he felt safe behind the walls of his family home. Both dragons were still sleeping. He didn’t want to waste this peaceful time when there was no need to rush off anywhere or to hide from enemies, always glancing over his shoulder. Having time to himself was a luxury. He meditated on the words of Buddha. In the dawn light he did more
qi
concentrating exercises. He could feel Wei’s
qi
within him. It was already strong, he knew that, but it was still trapped inside him. What he needed to do was learn how to control it and use it for good. Kai had described how other dragonkeepers made their
qi
flow out through their fingertips or feet, in the form of bolts of energy that moved objects or lifted the keepers off their feet. These bolts could kill people.

Did he want a skill like those other dragonkeepers? Or would he find another sort of power that was more suited to a Buddhist? Perhaps that was his problem. Most of the
qi
power that Kai had mentioned had the capacity to harm people. Other dragonkeepers, even Ping, had been willing to kill to protect their dragons. Tao’s Buddhist training wouldn’t allow him to use his
qi
in any way that could prove lethal. He was worried that, despite having a great quantity of
qi
, he would never be able to convert it into any sort of useful power.

The morning passed peacefully enough. Tao walked around the gardens, collecting fruit and vegetables, though they were wrinkled and past their prime. He discovered food that lay hidden beneath the earth – turnips, onions, ginger root. He hadn’t known such freedom from duty since his childhood. But he did have to find something that the blue dragon would eat. He selected a variety of things for him to try – dried fish, nuts, pickled eggs. The blue dragon hungrily sniffed everything Tao offered him, but he wouldn’t eat any of it. Whatever Tao tried to do, the creature was always at his heels, making plaintive noises.

In the afternoon, while the blue dragon had a nap, Tao swept the peony pavilion where Wei had spent so much time. It had been built with three sides open so that anyone sitting in it could enjoy the surrounding garden. He dusted the couch and swept the path made from coloured pebbles, but he couldn’t bring himself to brush away the spider webs that festooned the eaves. Wei had enjoyed lying on his couch and watching the
wuji
– butterflies on the flowers, slaters and worms when the gardener turned the soil, ants marching across the ceiling. He’d also liked watching creatures that repulsed most people – spiders, cockroaches, millipedes.

Although it filled him with guilt, Tao collected some of the insects. If they were its natural food, it was not for him to interfere in the ways of the world. Tao offered them to the blue dragon when he woke, but he wouldn’t eat them. Tao set them free again, relieved that they had been spared, but worried about how he would find something the hungry dragon would eat.

“We have to teach him to communicate with us,” Tao said that evening as he cooked every combination of grain and vegetables he could think of.

“I have tried to make the blue dragon comprehend me, but though he may guess my meaning, he cannot understand my sounds,” Kai said.

And when the blue dragon made his tweeting sounds, they meant nothing to Kai either.

“It is a waste of time,” Kai said.

“But he’s quick to learn. I’m sure eventually he’ll be able to understand my words and your sounds.”

“Maybe so, but that will take a long time. You have spent all day trying to get him to eat.” Kai’s stomach rumbled so loud that the blue dragon pricked up his ears. “Perhaps now you could prepare something for you and I to eat.”

Tao was quite proud of his cooking skills. He would make the vegetables he’d cooked for the blue dragon tastier by adding ginger, and improve the flavour of the rice with spices. Since he had a stove, he decided to be more adventurous and attempt to make steamed buns. He’d watched the process many times when he was a child, and even helped the servants knead the dough. But cooking was more difficult than he’d ever realised. Keeping an eye on the buns, the rice and the vegetable dish all at the same time was impossible. He was about to call to Kai to come and help him when he heard footsteps behind him.

“Can you pass me the ginger, please?”

A hand reached out and passed him a piece of ginger root.

“Thank you.”

It wasn’t until he had chopped it up and stirred it into his vegetable stew that he realised the ginger had been passed to him not with a paw, but with a hand. He spun round, brandishing the chopping knife. A dark figure was standing in front of him, a sword in hand, dressed from head to toe in black cloth so that only a pair of eyes was visible.

“If I was your worst enemy and I had murdered your family, you wouldn’t use that,” the intruder said.

Tao dropped the knife, stepped back and knocked over a pot of cooked grain. He knew that voice well. Its owner shouldn’t have been standing in the Huan kitchen dressed in such an outlandish way. But the blue eyes confirmed it. Tao’s mouth hung open while his brain sorted through the possibilities. Was it a vision? A ghost? A figment of his imagination?

Kai came into the kitchen, making rumbling dragon noises that translated into complaints about how hungry he was. He stopped in the doorway. His rumbling was replaced with the sound of wind chimes. The blue dragon was close behind him, but as soon as he caught sight of the stranger, he disappeared.

Tao knew then that the figure in front of him wasn’t a stranger at all.

“Pema,” he said.

He couldn’t think of another word to say.

Tao watched Pema unwind the length of black cloth that covered her head and face. It gave off a faint smell of incense. And then revealed her smile. He knew he was staring, but he didn’t care. Her hair was in an untidy knot on the top of her head, like a boy, but not even the scar on her cheek could detract from her lovely face.

“Whatever that is you’re cooking, it smells very good,” she said.

Tao filled bowls with food, and Pema and Kai followed him outside to the peony pavilion. The blue dragon suddenly materialised in front of them. Pema squealed.

“It’s all right,” Tao said. “He’s harmless. Most of the time.”

Pema kept her eyes on the blue dragon. “Where did it come from?”

Tao smiled. “He was here all the time. He can make himself invisible. He was frightened of you when he first saw you.”

“He was frightened! So was I.”