Thirteen Orphans (13 page)
“In the beginning was the word,” Riprap said softly.
“Truer than you know,” Des said, and Brenda thought he might have said more, but Pearl gave him a really sharp look and he fell silent.
Brenda decided that she wasn’t going to ask what that was about. Probably Des had been about to go off on some esoteric tangent and Auntie Pearl was forestalling him. Already, just in ordering tea and cookies, they’d heard more about the various types of tea than Brenda had known existed.
Instead, Brenda turned to Riprap. “If you want, we might be able to find a movie that shows some of this kind of magic in action. Mom and Dad love foreign films, and I remember seeing some Chinese martial-arts fantasy things where spells were written on pieces of paper. You see it in Japanese anime, too. I guess they got it from the Chinese.”
“Chinese culture,” Des said, “permeated the developing traditions of many lands—Japan, Korea, and elsewhere.”
Again, Brenda felt certain that “elsewhere” must be the same as that place Auntie Pearl had already mentioned—those “Lands Born from Smoke and Sacrifice.” She was about to ask point-blank where this place was on the map when Auntie Pearl asked:
“Riprap, do you have the paper the man in the Chinese clothing threw at you?”
Riprap nodded, then pulled a long envelope out of the inside pocket of his jacket. He slid it across the table to Pearl Bright.
“Here. This is a copy. There was writing on both sides, so I made copies of both sides.”
Pearl accepted the envelope with a tight smile that, nonetheless, was not without a degree of appreciation.
“You do not trust us.”
“I saw what happened to Mr. Morris when that paper hit him in the face. I’m not giving it to anyone.”
“Did you destroy it?” Des Lee asked.
“No. It’s in my safe deposit box, back in Denver. Thought we might need it for some reason, but I thought I’d get to know you folks a bit before handing you what might be a loaded gun.”
“Wise,” Auntie Pearl said. This time there was no mistaking the approval in her voice. She opened the envelope and unfolded the piece of paper onto the table where they could all see it. “Let us see what this can tell us.”
Pearl was pleased by the intelligence and forethought demonstrated by this new Dog. Riprap had even gone so far as to write neatly at the bottom of the page: “Originally written with what looked like green ink on pale yellow paper. Paper was heavy, but with no watermark.”
Riprap looked at his notes and amended them verbally, “At least there was no watermark I could detect. I don’t claim to be an expert. The paper looked handmade, though. My sister Lily was into making paper for a while, and you learn how to tell the difference. It was good paper. Heavy. Thick. Textured, although with a texture you felt rather than saw.”
“What does the message say?” Brenda asked, leaning forward. “It looks like different things were written on the opposite sides.”
Des traced the line of characters on the side less written upon. They were beautifully ink-brushed onto the paper, the brushstokes art in themselves.
He read aloud. “This side says, ‘Dog.’ Then it adds ‘Eleventh Earthly Branch.’ Are you two familiar with the Twelve Earthly Branches?”
Riprap shook his head. Brenda tapped her right index finger on the tabletop as if the motion might conjure thought.
“Auntie Pearl said something about Branches when she was telling me how the association of the twelve animals with the signs of the zodiac was a sort of modern thing. She said the Twelve Earthly Branches came earlier than either the animals or the zodiac, that they came to be associated with the animals first, then with the zodiac. Is the Branch that’s written there the one that’s associated with the Dog?”
Des nodded. “So, effectively, the combination of the two sets of characters limits this to one Dog in particular, the Dog who is the current incarnation of the Eleventh Earthly Branch among the Thirteen Orphans.”
“Me,” Riprap said.
“You.”
Des traced his fingers along the longer series of characters. Pearl knew Des could read them as easily as she herself could, but was delaying so he could have a moment to think about the ramifications of what he was reading.
“This side says, in rough and not very poetic translation: ‘Silence the Dog’s mind. Send it forth into the Dragon’s care.’”
“The ‘Dog’s mind,’” Pearl repeated, nodding her agreement at this translation. “That is, then, the part of the person’s memory specifically associated with being the Dog. The rest would remain untouched, thus explaining the partial amnesia we have personally witnessed in both Albert Yu and Gaheris Morris. I remain impressed that the memory remains sufficiently intact to permit the level of justification that Gaheris has been demonstrating. He remembers me teaching him to play mah-jong, for example. He simply does not remember why.”
Brenda interrupted anxiously, “Dragon! That’s one of the twelve signs of the zodiac. It’s one of the signs you mentioned earlier, when we were talking about those who hadn’t lost the family tradition. Is the Dragon the one behind this, then? Could he—Shen something—or whoever, just be pretending not to remember?”
Brenda had pushed back her chair while speaking, almost as if she was preparing to set off in physical pursuit. Pearl gently pushed Brenda back into her chair.
“The dragon is perhaps the most prevalent magical being in Chinese myth and legend. The Dragon of the Thirteen Orphans is but one of many associations with the dragon of myth and legend. Think, my dear. There are three dragons associated with mah-jong alone. Certainly, we will investigate the possibility that Shen Kung has turned to treachery, but we must be careful when we do so. After the Rat, and in some capacities the Tiger, the Dragon is probably the most scheming of all the signs.”
“But not evil,” Des protested. “The Chinese dragon is little like the dangerous monster of Western Europe. The dragon is most definitely dangerous, especially if one fails to treat it with appropriate respect, but it is not a monster. Dragons are intelligent, wise, powerful, and highly magical. Not only can they change shape, but the very parts of their bodies may confer magical blessings. As in the West, dragons guard treasures. They are not only the source of earthquakes, but of enormous waves as well.”
Brenda lightly stroked the string of ink-brushed characters with the tip of her finger, as if that might help her remember what was written there.
“So when this says ‘Send it forth into the Dragon’s care,’ it doesn’t necessarily mean that Shen Kung. It could mean one of those dragons that guard treasures.”
“That’s right,” Pearl said. “However, even if we admit that the simplest solution is not necessarily the only or best solution, this does not mean that we should eliminate it completely.”
“Where does the Dragon—Shen Kung,” Riprap said, “live?”
“In New York City,” Pearl said. “Shen is one of the older members of our company, although the grandson of the original Dragon. His mother, the Dragon’s first heir apparent, did not survive her son’s birth. Shen was taught by his grandfather, and so, like me, is well-schooled in our traditional roots. Yet, when I spoke with him over the phone, he remembered nothing.”
Pearl caught her breath, trying hard not to show how much Shen’s loss of memory had bothered her. When she was certain her voice would be steady, she went on.
“I spoke with Shen’s wife, and she confided that she suspected Shen might have had a serious stroke. I hated myself for not letting her know what we suspected, but how could I?”
Riprap was making some notes on the envelope from which he’d produced the copy of the stalker’s spell.
“You keep mentioning the Thirteen Orphans. Can you tell me a little about them? Who’s in the game, who’s not? Who has training, who doesn’t? I want a sense of what we have going for us.”
Not much,
Pearl thought, but aloud she said, “It will be easier to keep them straight if we go in order. Rat comes first.”
Pearl thought, but aloud she said, “It will be easier to keep them straight if we go in order. Rat comes first.”
“Rat is Gaheris Morris,” Riprap said, scribbling on his envelope. “We know he’s out of the game.”
“Next,” Des said, “comes Ox. The current Ox is a woman named Clotilde Hilliard. She is in her mid-forties, and lives in Boston. From what we read in the augury, she has lost her connection—what we have been calling ‘memories’—to the Thirteen Orphans.”
“Out of play, then,” Riprap said. Next?”
“Next is Tiger,” Pearl said. “Very much in play. Tiger is followed by Rabbit or Hare.”
“You’ve mentioned her,” Riprap said, glancing back and forth between Des and Pearl. “Lives in Virginia, right?”
“That’s right,” Pearl said. “Nissa is only a few years into her inheritance. Her mother died a few years ago—a car wreck. Very sad. However, Nikki had taken her responsibilities seriously, and Nissa knows the lore. I do not think, however, that she believes it. My impression is that Nissa considers the stories her mother told her a charming family eccentricity. I had never seen a need to convince her otherwise.”
Brenda cut in, grinning. “This woman’s name is Nissa? Her mother’s was Nikki? No wonder she figured her mother was simply eccentric.”
Pearl found herself grinning in response. “Every female in that family has a name beginning with ’N.’ Nissa’s daughter is Noelani, although she is commonly called Lani. Noelani is her mother’s heir apparent, as you are Gaheris’s.”
Des noted that Riprap had finished writing, and said, “Next comes Dragon.”
“Shen Kung,” Riprap said. “Trained but out of play.”
“Then comes Snake,” Pearl said. “The current Snake is named Justine Bower. She is eighty-three and lives in an assisted living community in Duluth. Our auguries show that she, too, is ‘out of play,’ but since she never knew very much, this is hardly a loss.”
Riprap looked discouraged, and Pearl thought that the next several entries on his list were not going to provide much encouragement.
“Horse, Ram, and Monkey,” she said, “should go on your list as out of play—and also as never trained.”
Riprap dutifully made his notes. “It doesn’t seem like much effort was made to maintain the Thirteen Orphans.”
“Not in recent generations,” Pearl admitted. “No. There hasn’t been. Someday, when we’re not being stalked, I’ll explain a bit more of why the various lineages dropped away.”
“But what you must remember,” Des said, “is that trained or not, the link to the Earthly Branches is there. These people are members of the Thirteen Orphans, even if they don’t know it.”
Brenda leaned over and counted the entries on Riprap’s list. “That’s nine. Four to go.”
“And simple enough to answer,” Des said. “Rooster comes next. That’s me. In play. Dog comes after. That’s Riprap. In play.”
“But,” Riprap said, “pretty much ignorant as to the rules of the game.”
“We’ll fix that,” Des promised. “Next comes Pig. Her name is Deborah Van Bergenstein. She could have been quite helpful as she is fairly well-trained. Unhappily, our auguries show that, like Shen, she has already been taken out.”
“Like Dad,” Brenda reminded. “Like Albert Yu—who as the Cat is number thirteen. Riprap’s right. This looks really bad.”
“It is,” Pearl agreed, “and all the more reason why we should decide what our next move will be.”
Brenda frowned. “Move? I suppose by that you mean who do we talk with next? Who do we warn? Well, there’s something I want more than that. I want to know what I am supposed to do if that man appears and tries to do something weird to one of you. I’m not flinging myself to the floor again and waiting for someone else to turn into some shadow of him or herself. Once was enough. Once was
more
than enough.”
more
than enough.”
“And next time,” Riprap added, “that strange man might not be content to overlook Brenda like he did this time. He seemed surprised that she could see him. In fact, I think that’s what drove him to retreat. He’d been at least partially successful—with Mr. Morris, I mean—and he left to regroup.”
Pearl nodded. “Brenda, you have a point. Des, is there anything we can do to safeguard ourselves?”
Des thoughtfully stroked his long mustaches and beard.
“There are spells,” he said. “Defensive and offensive both. None of them have been much in use in recent years, since they are meant to be used against sorcery, and there has been no such threat for decades, but I suppose we could teach Riprap—and maybe Brenda. The question is whether Brenda will have any capacity for such arts. Her father remains the Rat, although his memory is gone.”
“Stolen,” Brenda said firmly. “Stolen, and what is stolen can be found. Nothing’s going to stop me from trying to get Dad’s memories back for him—nothing I can prevent anyhow—but it’s going to be hard to do if all the rest of you turn vague.”
It would be even harder,
Pearl thought,
if you were killed. Not all the original Thirteen Orphans died peacefully.
Pearl thought,
if you were killed. Not all the original Thirteen Orphans died peacefully.
Aloud she said, “Des, you are more skilled in sorcery than I am. Would you take these two on as students?”
“If they are willing. Pearl, there’s something else we haven’t considered, something you may not have thought of because it doesn’t really touch you.”
“And that is?”
“Jobs. Riprap and I have jobs. Brenda?”
“Not yet, but I was going to get one for the summer. I’ve only been done with exams for a few weeks, and even Dad believes in giving a breather now and then.”
Pearl nodded. “Actually, I had considered the problem of those of you who need to hold jobs. We could all go our separate ways, but I think that would be playing into our unknown enemy’s hands. I thought to offer Riprap and Brenda some sort of employment with me, but I had not worked out the details.”
Riprap frowned. “My job isn’t much, but I was planning on working on several summer sports programs. Still … I don’t know how much good I’d be as a coach, looking over my shoulder all the time. I met Gaheris before whatever happened to him happened to him. I didn’t know him well, but I know enough to know he’s not himself. I know that by definition I can’t miss what I don’t know’s not there, but the idea of standing by and letting someone amputate a part of my mind, my heritage … I don’t like it. The kids may need to do without me until this is solved.”
Brenda nodded. “Dad might let me take an internship or something like that with you.”
Pearl could sense Brenda working the angles.
“I’d need to figure out the best way to approach Dad,” Brenda continued, “but I think we could work something out that would suit. Like I said. I’ve got to do what I can to get Dad back his memories. The way he is now … It’s creepy.”
Pearl nodded. “Then we’ll do our best to work out an internship for you. Riprap, your giving up your job would provide you with more difficulties, I suspect. You have rent or a mortgage to pay. Arrangements will need to be made for your utilities.”
“I have a roommate. Teacher at the local grammar school. I can work out to have him actually write the checks, but you’re right. My bank account’s not so huge that I can go without working indefinitely.”
“I will handle the financial end,” Pearl said firmly. “I assure you, I have the means, and, like you, I have no desire to have my memories tampered with. I have a great many more memories than you do, and good or bad, they are mine. If the need arises, I will make similar arrangements with you, Des. For now, at least, Santa Fe may as well be your base of operations. You have room at your house for these two?”
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