Holiday Magick (30 page)

We arrived at the cemetery just as the sun broke through the last of the morning haze. Hundreds of flags adorned the graves this Memorial Day, but they hung still in the breezeless air. I nodded hello to some of the other people who had gathered to pay their respects—dozens were already here, with more arriving. And it was the same across the country, according to the news—the day had reclaimed its reverence from the barbecues and car sales. The grave markers, now cleaned and straightened, created lines that converged in the distance as we passed down the rows.

I didn't see any ghosts I recognized at first, but then Corporal Sutton shimmered into place against a tree and gave me a grin. “Good to see you again, Jared. I'd shake your hand, but…”

I smiled back and then closed my eyes for a moment, finding the energy within me with a few whispered words and a crystal from my pocket, sending it into the figure before me. Gasps sounded around me, and I opened my eyes to find a wide-eyed crowd encircling us at a respectful distance, staring at the man in uniform who'd suddenly appeared before them.

I glanced over at the girl next to me, trying to gauge if she was about to run screaming. She met my eyes with a nervous smile and I stopped breathing, but that was my normal reaction to looking at her. Forcing my attention back, I swallowed hard. “Ella, this is Corporal Matthew Sutton. Matthew, this is my girlfriend, Ella…”

The Mid-Autumn Moon Festival and the Dragon Boat Festival are two of the major holidays celebrated in China. Both involve family gatherings, specific foods, and tragic legends. It's not uncommon for children to confuse elements of the two.

On the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, the moon is full and the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival is celebrated across China. Families gather to eat mooncakes and light paper lanterns, commemorating the myth of Chang'e, the mortal woman who swallowed a pill of immortality and became the goddess of the moon.

The Dragon Boat Festival falls on the fifth day of the fifth month, and is celebrated with dragon boat racing and the consumption of rice dumplings, known as
zongzi
. The festival is believed to have started in the third century BCE, when the poet Qu Yuan was exiled from his homeland. When Qu Yuan heard enemy forces had captured his beloved capital, he threw himself into the Miluo River. Mourning villagers sailed up and down the river, throwing
zongzi
into the waters to discourage the fish from eating his corpse.

However, history is written by those who survive, and beneath each story sleeps an older, darker tale.

It could have been a bridge between worlds, on a night like this. The moon was a lamp overhead as I stood on the pedestrian walkway spanning Sydney Harbour. A few kilometers south, Chinatown was bustling with festive lanterns and families celebrating over auspicious dishes.

The fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month—the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival—when Chang'e, the lady of the moon, was at her loveliest. But in Sydney, in the Southern Hemisphere, it was early spring, mid-September. And I was alone.

I'd moved to Sydney with ambitions of becoming a photojournalist, covering issues like the political battle over poker-machine reform, or the impact of malaria on subsistence communities. But it hadn't quite turned out that way.

On nights like this, I missed the stories my dad used to tell as we lit our dollar-store lanterns, the pink and orange cellophane so prone to self-immolating. He'd recount tales from Chinese folklore, and in my head, they all blended into one great tapestry of immortal archers and heroic monks, dragon princes and rebellions facilitated by lotus-seed cakes.

But the story that had stayed with me from those festivals past, that lingered long after I'd grown up, was one about a poet. Exiled from his homeland, despairing over the corruption engulfing his kingdom, he composed one last, epic poem before throwing himself into the Miluo River. Mourning villagers tossed bundles of glutinous rice, called
zongzi
, into the waters, in the hopes that the fish would leave the poet's corpse untouched.

My mother always said it was a waste of a life, and a waste of good food. It was hard to tell which bothered her more. But the story always made me cry. For the hopeless poet, for the grieving villagers, for kingdoms lost.

These days, the full moon in early spring always reminded me of home, of those childhood festivals, and the melancholy story that still haunted me.

Which left me standing on the Harbour Bridge as bats wheeled overhead, snatching moths as they fluttered in the lights. During the day, it was fifty thousand tons of steel, connecting the sticky heart of Sydney to its manicured northern shores. But at night, beneath this cat's cradle of lights and soaring silhouettes, you could forget that you were a failed photographer far from home.

I drew a
zongzi
from my bag, the dumpling still warm through the tightly wrapped bamboo leaves. To unfinished business and futile gestures. Cheers.

Glancing quickly below to ensure there were no boats, I tossed the
zongzi
through a gap in the security fence, and imagined it sinking past lost poets and sunken dreams.

“It's illegal to throw things off the bridge,” came a voice.

A man was standing a few meters down the walkway. No uniform, no badge, no weapon. I'd once been mugged in Hyde Park by a man with a bendy straw, but this guy looked harmless. He was in his early thirties, scruffy blond hair, white T-shirt, faded blue jeans, and lime-green flip-flops.

“It's a ball of sticky rice,” I said. “It's like brushing crumbs onto the pavement.”

“You threw a fork,” he said.

“I dropped the fork,” I replied, wondering how he'd seen the flimsy plastic utensil tangled in the
zongzi
string.

He leaned back against the railing and considered me for a moment.

“You've got the festivals wrong,” he said. “
Zongzi
are for the Dragon Boat Festival.”

“I like the story of the poet better.”

The man smiled casually.

“He was a lousy poet, and he never jumped.”

“Qu Yuan was one of China's greatest scholars,” I said a little hotly. “And ‘The Lament' is widely considered to be a masterful work of literary—”

“I'm not talking about Qu Yuan,” he said. “I'm talking about the original poet, the calamity he brought, the legacy behind the legend you know.”

“Where'd you get your version?”

“I was there,” said the man.

I mirrored his pose, leaning against the railing.

“Go on,” I said. “Spin me a yarn.”

“There's a price.”

I flipped him a two-dollar coin. I preferred giving food rather than cash, but I bought the occasional
Big Issue
from the homeless vendors at Town Hall Station. Plus my only edible offering had probably just concussed a kingfish.

The man inspected the gold coin before tucking it into his pocket.

“It's a long story,” he said.

I rubbed my arms. Standing on a bridge at night quickly lost its appeal once the mosquitoes got busy. Anyway, I loved a good story, and tonight it'd make me feel a little closer to home.

“How about I buy you dinner?” I said.

We threaded our way back to Chinatown, the hazy neon glow giving way to searing LED signs. Personally, I felt neon had a smoky appeal, a kind of cyberpunk Monet. LEDs had all the charm of a swarm of laser pointers.

We miraculously found a tiny table overflowing onto the sidewalk from a pocket of a noodle shop. I managed to maneuver an uncooperative folding chair far enough from the table for me to squeeze in. The man didn't seem interested in introducing himself, so I mentally labeled him ‘Joe.'

“Immortal, or time traveler?” I said.

“Let's just say when people make offerings, I might show up,” said Joe.

“You're like the god of glutinous rice?”

“I wouldn't call myself a god,” said Joe with affected modesty. “Not the usual kind, anyway.” He ordered a salad and chips, which certainly didn't seem like the traditional fare of deities.

“If you're from Chinese mythology, why do you look like a surfer?”

“I take on a local form when I appear.” Joe shrugged as he glanced at his fluorescent green flip-flops. “Can people actually run in these?”

I unwrapped the gently steaming leaves from my tetrahedron
zongzi
and settled into my wobbly chair.

“So, this original poet, some kind of calamity,” I said.

“Keep in mind, this was long before Qu Yuan,” said Joe. “When the three kingdoms were a hundred, and borders clawed and gouged at one another. In a small kingdom, sheltered between a sweep of mountains and a curving river, there lived a young farmer known as Humble Turnip. His plot was meager and parched, yet it was not for rains and ripe harvests that his heart yearned.”

“This is going to be a tragic love story, isn't it?” I said.

“Patience,” said Joe, spearing a cherry tomato. “It was a scorching summer's day when Humble plucked the solitary peach from his barren orchard and took it to a sagging bridge above the river gorge. There, raising his prayers to the heavens, he threw the peach into the sluggish waters. The peach was sour and bruised—the other gods didn't even stir at the ripples. But I was always a sucker for a hard-luck story.”

Joe took a draught of his pineapple juice.

“Humble told me of a woman in the provincial militia. She wore red lacquered beads in her braided hair, and she was ferocious with a polearm. They called her Winter Gale, because she could knock a man clean out of his shoes. Humble could have asked me for princely wealth, or warrior prowess, but what he asked of me was poetry. He wanted to win her with words, and to become a respectable scholar in the imperial bureaucracy of the empress. This gift of words, I granted him.

“He continued to make his offerings to me—roast chestnuts, preserved duck eggs. Humble developed fine calligraphy, and gained recognition among the local officials for his flowing verse. Yet Winter Gale still failed to perceive his existence.”