Shadow Sister (20 page)

Tao took two quilts outside. Kai spent some time scrunching one of them into a heap before he lay down.

“We will have a full night’s sleep,” the dragon said. “And then we must plan our escape.”

Tao lay on the couch. Moths hovered over him protectively, but they couldn’t keep his fears at bay. Kai was snoring before Tao had even got comfortable. He would have given anything for the dragon’s ability to fall asleep so easily.

He waited. The sky was dark grey and starless, but thin shafts of moonlight pierced the clouds here and there. The night air carried a faint smell of rotting leaves. The moon showed its face in a gap in the clouds and the ghost appeared. She drifted around the garden as if she was searching for something. She lingered by the pool, gazing at her reflection. Among the flowers, with her ghost gown billowing, she looked like a lonely little girl. But when she saw Tao she lost all trace of innocent sadness. Her dark eye sockets were like deep wells of misery, except for the small pricks of moonlight. She bared her teeth, which were small, sharp and tipped with silver moonlight – more like a wolfcub’s than a little girl’s.

Tao pulled the quilt up to his chin like a frightened child, though he knew it would give him no protection. He was too far away from Kai to nudge him.

“She’s here.” His voice was no more than a whisper. The dragon didn’t wake.

Tao felt the ghost girl’s hand enter his body, reaching deep inside him. He could hear faint crackling as if his blood was turning to ice crystals. Her icy fingers found their way to his heart and closed around it. He couldn’t breathe.

Tao tried to call out to Kai again, but his mouth was freezing too. His lips wouldn’t move. The ghost girl was stopping him from speaking.

It was Tao’s fear that woke Kai, but the moment the dragon opened his eyes, the ghost dissolved into a grey mist that wafted through the pavilion like smoke. Tao collapsed back on the bed, gasping air.

Kai sat up on his haunches and looked around. “What is wrong?”

“It was the ghost girl.”

“I cannot see anything.”

“She’s gone.”

“It was the wind,” Kai said.

The air was as still as a grave.

“What wind?”

The ghost girl wanted something. What it was, Tao didn’t know, but if he didn’t find out, he knew she would kill him. If he could work out who she was, or rather who she’d been, it might help him discover what she wanted from him. He thought that she must be recently dead. Perhaps before his family moved south a child died at the compound, and in the rush to leave, no one had performed the proper ceremony for her burial. He could rectify that, as he had with the ghosts of Shenchi. First he had to find her remains.

Tao got up and stepped over the sleeping dragon before the sun rose. The guards on the wall were sleepy and, in the grey pre-dawn, Tao easily avoided being seen as he crawled out through his tunnel and ran into the fields beyond the walls.

Previous generations of his family were buried in the Huan ancestral tomb in the Mang Hills behind Luoyang, but out beyond the fields Tao found several tombs where farm workers had been buried. They were almost hidden by overgrown grass and brambles. There were no recent growths. Closer to the compound was the place where cremations took place for those who had accepted belief in the Blessed One. There was an ashy patch where a camphor wood pyre had recently been burned, but this wasn’t where a child had been cremated. It was the remains of Wei’s pyre. Tao knew his brother was in his next life, so he hadn’t visited that place since he’d returned. Still, he lingered there for a moment.

Whoever the ghost girl was, it was Tao she had chosen to haunt. He must have some connection to her. Had there been another sister born before Meiling – a first child who died young? Her death so painful that his parents had never spoken of her? She might have been quietly haunting the compound for a long time, happy to drift unseen among the living members of her family, watching her parents, her brothers and sister live their lives. Tao had never been aware of her before, but perhaps that was her choice. That would explain why she had focused on him, the remaining member of her family. Whoever she was, she had been left behind and she was furious.

Tao felt a lance point in his back. The nomads were returning after searching all night for the bandits.

“I’m not trying to escape,” he said. “I was visiting the remains of my brother.”

The Zhao soldiers hadn’t found any of the Black Camel Bandits. They were dejected and exhausted. Tao was relieved that they hadn’t captured Pema. As they marched him back to the compound, he thought about how he could get the trust of the ghost girl, this shadow sister.

In the daylight, Pema’s explanation that there had been no ghosts of the Shenchi villagers made sense. No spirits had followed them into the underground cave. It was the invisible
naga
who had touched him in the dark, whose cold breath had chilled him. But it didn’t matter how much Tao reasoned with himself, he still remembered the sensation of the ghosts departing when he’d finished his inscription, their sigh of release when he recited a sutra for them and they’d passed into their next lives. He hadn’t imagined that. He hadn’t imagined the ghost girl either. She was a child without knowledge of spiritual matters. Perhaps she didn’t understand why she had been left behind. Tao had to help her let go of her past life and begin a new one.

Tao thought about what he would’ve done if he’d had a real little sister who he wanted to please. He would probably have given her a gift. He remembered the toys his father had made for him and Wei when they were children. For Tao, he’d carved a horse and a little cart with wheels that turned, some
liubo
pieces, a small bow and arrow. For Wei, he’d made animals – a monkey, a bear and a tiger – and hung them from the rafters where Wei could see them. Their father had made all those things from wood, using just his knife and chisel. Tao decided he would make a toy for the ghost girl. None of those toys were suitable for a girl, but Tao remembered that when Meiling was young dolls were all she was interested in. Hers were made from baked clay, but there was no reason why he couldn’t make a wooden doll.

When he got back to the compound, Kai was waiting for him.

“Where have you been?” The dragon sounded like a mother berating a wandering child. “We were supposed to talk about our plans when we woke this morning. It was dangerous for you to go out. The guards on the wall could easily have shot you to relieve their boredom.”

“I was looking for the remains of the ghost girl.”

Mist streamed from the dragon’s nostrils. “Put this ghost girl out of your mind. She does not exist!”

Tao ignored Kai’s comment. “Before we leave, I must do this one thing – I have to help her move into her next life.”

He went to open the stable door, and Sunila bounded out, refreshed and full of energy.

Fo Tu Deng emerged. “What are these dragons doing loose?”

“I let them out,” Tao said. “They will be powerful allies if you treat them well.”

The monk made the exhausted nomads assemble and started admonishing them for their failure to find their enemies.

“You’re useless,” he shouted. “You don’t deserve to call yourself Zhao!”

The nomads were too tired to react to his jibes. As soon as he finished, they stumbled to their quarters to sleep.

“You must find out more information,” the monk said to Tao. “I need to know exactly where this bandit hide-out is.”

Tao bowed politely. “In the evening, before the men go out again, I will seek another vision.”

“Do it now!” Fo Tu Deng ordered.

“First I must meditate to prepare myself,” Tao said.

“I am going to ride into the city. I have to seize provisions.”

Tao thought of the hungry inhabitants of Luoyang having to give up their meagre food stores.

“I expect a vision when I return,” the monk said. “And make sure the
naga
doesn’t escape. I’ve sent men to get more frogs.”

Fo Tu Deng rode off with a guard of six men, none of who were happy that they were again denied sleep.

There was still grain in the cellar, and vegetables in the earth. When Tao had fed himself and the dragons, he went to his father’s workshop. He spent some time selecting the right piece of wood, settling on a block of pale poplar. He knew it would take most of the day for Fo Tu Deng to ride to Luoyang and back, so he fetched his father’s carving tools and settled down on a garden seat in the sunshine.

Sunila had found a grasshopper and was amusing himself making it jump. Tao was worried that the
naga
would unintentionally kill it.

“What are you making?” Kai asked.

“Something for the ghost girl. I thought if I gave her a gift, she might be willing to move into her next life.”

“The ghost girl does not exist, Tao. Except in your imagination.”

“I know you think I’m imagining her, but I’m not. And I am sure this will make her happy.”

“Forget about this foolish enterprise.” Kai looked around the ramparts. “There are just six men awake. Now is the time to escape.”

“The only way you can get out is through the gate. The guards would see us and raise the alarm. The rest of the Zhao would be roused and they would haul us back again. They might be bad tempered enough to kill us.”

“So we sit and wait? Is that your great plan?”

“I will not leave until I know Pema is safe.”

Kai stalked off.

Tao gave Sunila the job of keeping birds off his newly sown garden beds. It took him a while to explain to the
naga
that he couldn’t hurt them. Once he understood, Sunila made himself invisible and whenever a bird came near the garden, he reappeared with a squawk.

With his father’s knife, Tao fashioned a head and a body from the piece of wood. He carved delicate features on the doll’s face – downturned eyes, a small smile, a pretty little nose. He shaped arms from a smaller branch, drilled a hole through the body and threaded a length of string through it to attach an arm to either side. He cut another strip from Meiling’s abandoned gown. He’d always mended his own robes when he was a novice, so he was quite good with a needle and thread. He made a tiny version of the gown from the cloth, tying it around the waist with a length of ribbon. Finally, he carved small feet at the end of the piece of wood, so that they peeped out from under the gown.

He needed something for hair, and after searching the entire house he could find nothing suitable. He was watching Sunila startle a blackbird when he realised that he had exactly what he needed at hand. Sunila’s mane grew in a narrow band from the base of his horn to his shoulder blades. Kai’s mane consisted of coarse brown hair like frayed rope, but the
naga
’s
was the colour of wheat, and the hair was as fine and soft as strands of silk. It was quite pretty.

When the
naga
settled down for an afternoon nap, Tao crept up to him and cut off a lock of his mane with the knife. He punched small holes in the doll’s head and pushed a few of the dragon’s hairs in each hole. He glued them in place and pulled the hair back into a tiny plait, tying it with some coloured thread. It was an unnatural colour for human hair, but it was the best he could do. Finally, he painted the doll’s face. He made a sort of ink by grinding charcoal into water and outlined the eyes. He used the juice of a wolfberry to colour the lips. He found a little pot of blue cream that his sister had used to colour her eyelids. He painted blue dots in the centre of the doll’s eyes, so that they were the same colour as Pema’s.

Kai had been sitting, watching the process suspiciously from a distance. “Is it a Buddhist figure?”

Tao laughed. “No. It’s a doll.”

The dragon made an impatient sound, like someone banging a spoon on a bowl. “Even if this ghost did exist, she would not be able to hold a doll. How could she take it with her?”

Tao looked at the doll. It wasn’t as pretty as Meiling’s. His confidence in his plan was fading.

“I know she can’t take it into her next life, but I thought if she saw that someone cared about her, she might stop being angry.”

“That would make her want to stay here even more.” Kai shook his head. “I do not know why we are having this discussion. There is no ghost girl!”

Tao didn’t argue with Kai. He knew that the ghost girl existed. And he knew that she needed something.

As night approached Fo Tu Deng returned, saddle weary and bad tempered. The Zhao soldiers were waking up and they filled the courtyard with their bodies, their chatter and the smell of meat cooking. The monk drank some
kumiss
and shouted at the men, threatening them with punishment if they didn’t bring back news of the Black Camel Bandits that night. He was so tired, he forgot that he’d asked Tao for another vision. He ate some food and went to bed.

Tao made a meal of grain, bean curd and mung beans for himself and the dragons. He mixed a spoonful of honey with Sunila’s portion. The naga reached behind one of his reverse scales and pulled out some grubs that he’d found while Tao was weeding. He sprinkled the grubs on the food and ate it, leaving the beans licked clean in the bottom of his bowl.

Tao waited until the last of the Zhao had left on their night patrol before he carried out his plan.

He propped up the doll on one of the rocks, picked a few of the blue crocuses that were growing around the peony pavilion and arranged them with a sprig of bamboo in a little jar. He brought a half-burnt cone of incense from the kitchen altar, lit it and placed it next to the doll. He also found a scrap of paper.

“I need a poem, Kai. Something that a young girl would like.”

Kai didn’t want to take part in what he considered to be a foolish exercise, but in the end he couldn’t resist the opportunity to compose a poem. He walked up and down the garden path, searching for inspiration. Finally, he made a sound like wind chimes in the breeze.

“
Your young life ended too soon
.