Ride the Moon: An Anthology (16 page)

“Is it time?” He did not disguise the excitement in his voice.

Sister Four gripped the arms of her chair. “It is time, Honourable Wu.” She stood slowly, as she had been instructed, and stretched her arms up toward the moon. Then she shrieked, bent clutching her stomach and collapsed to the cold, stone tiles.

For a moment Master Wu did not utter a word, nor did he move. He stared at Sister Four like someone had tossed a pile of silk and satin at his feet for laundering.

Small Seven tugged on his sleeve. “Remove her, Honourable Teacher. Quickly. I will take her place.”

He swung around. “You? How can one such as you do anything? You are not prepared.”

“I am prepared.” She looked at him directly.

Shock at her impertinence widened his eyes.

“Go. If I fail, you can have me executed. You can blame me however you wish.”

Panic flooded his face and he did not move.

“Go.” She shoved him. “The moment will be wasted.”

He bent and lifted Sister Four's slight body easily. Without looking back, he stumbled through the moon gate.

Small Seven opened her box and when the moonlight had illuminated the little faces she stood and lifted her arms, letting the pulse below flow through her. She breathed deeply for a few minutes, using the measured beat of the foreign clock to pace the surges of energy she felt from above.

She lowered her head and watched the moon's face in the pond waver and become that of the Dowager Empress. Small Seven had never seen the venerable ruler before this, very few had, but she did not doubt the identity of the fierce-faced, old woman glaring up at her.

“What is this? What concubine dares mar the surface of my pool?”

How she answered was critical, but Small Seven didn't hesitate. With head bent so her eyes would not meet those of her ruler, she responded.

“It is only an insignificant insect you see. For one breath or two. Across the back of which your foreign sister will travel to you.”

In that moment, a deep thrill shook Small Seven, and the angular face of the Dowager Empress was joined by the round visage of the one who called herself the Empress of India. Her hair was parted in the middle, just like that of the august lady in the Forbidden City, but her forehead had not been plucked, giving her a disappointing, common appearance.

Nevertheless, Small Seven held steady while the two, old monarchs took each other's measure. She kept their images sharp and clear. The sounds they made as they spoke to each other were transported, just as Master Wu had predicted, by Teslascope, its radio waves having travelled into the heavens along the connection she created with the moon. From there they leapfrogged off the moon's surface, split in half and travelled toward two destinations.

Small Seven ignored the awkward translations made by the complex clockworks in each court. As the elderly voices moved through her, she stroked them and stretched them and stored them in the tiny, ceramic heads in her box. From emotions that rose to the surface of each old woman, Small Seven spun spider threads of memories full of victory and loss, full of successes and failures, full of triumph and regret.

When the formal communication ceased and each old woman settled back in her chair to ponder the wonder of what had just happened, Small Seven wound the thin threads she had extracted around the anchors she had created inside the little heads. After she secured her connections and duplicated each one for insurance, she closed the lid and clutched her box lovingly to her chest.

Master Wu stumbled into the courtyard.

“Did it... did you...”

Small Seven bent her head as if in weariness. “It is done.”

“Will the Empress be pleased?” Desperation thinned his voice to an unattractive squawk. She grabbed the back of the chair as if to steady herself.

“Only she can answer that. Only she.”

She let her voice fall to a whisper and tottered towards her rooms as if in a daze. Master Wu would think her at the point of collapse. She knew the Empress had been more than pleased, but she would let Master Wu's stomach clench like a fist for the time it took the Empress to indicate her satisfaction. Small Seven hoped his discomfort would be severe.

As she expected, Master Wu did not interrupt her departure, nor was he curious about what was in her box. She would take to her bed and languish prettily until Master Wu lost interest in her. That would not take long.

Once assured of Celestial favour he would continue his subterfuge with Princess Der-Ling, the foreign-educated First Lady-in-Waiting to the Empress Dowager; and with Princess Beatrice, the long-suffering, youngest daughter of the other monarch. Together they would complete various trade agreements, communicating by means of Master Wu's ponderous electromagnetic devices that required thousands of li of wires strung over desert and mountain and under the deep oceans.

While he was diverted by commerce, Small Seven would travel butterfly soft and lightning fast across the moon threads she had woven into the mind of the one known in the Middle Kingdom as Suh-shee, and perhaps even to the far-away one known as Victoria. Soon their thoughts would become known to her and her thoughts would become their thoughts. It would be easy then to protect the daughters of the House of Zhang. That she would do first.

Of other things she could not be certain, but it was possible that as long as she lived, so would the old rulers live. It was possible that she could extend their lives by decades. If that was true, she had her own experiment in mind. An experiment wherein control of nations would flow naturally like a spring freshet away from the heavy hand of men to the light, but courageous and therefore more ruthless hand of women. It was an experiment wherein not only moon-touched women like the daughters of the House of Zhang would direct their own destiny, but other women as well. She set the box on the table beside her bed and lifted the lid. She touched each head with a fingertip.

“Rest well, little treasures. Tomorrow we begin to stitch up the rents in the world with silver moon thread.”

Small Seven yawned as she snuggled under her rose-red satin quilt.

A spider skitters along the forest floor, winding its way through the maze of debris with quick, sure steps. It heads straight for a bush so lush its leaves tangle. A bush that springs with life, its riot of leaves full of shadowed corners and hiding-spots.

The spider lifts a spindly leg onto the woody stem of the plant and, once partway up, winds its way carefully, slowly, looking for the perfect spot. Its burden glistens in the moonlight: a soft, delicate white sac. The spider, brown and sparsely furred, stops on the underside of a leaf and deftly plucks her cargo from her abdomen. She shoots a wad of gummy silk from her spinneret and attaches the egg-sac to the leaf. She pauses and looks at her work.

A stray moonbeam finds its way past the dense foliage and lights the little spider. She touches her sac with one leg, as though sad to leave it there, hesitates, then turns and skitters away. Her steps slower this time, lazy almost, as though she has nothing left to worry about.

She walks a little ways from the leaf where she left her eggs, perches, and waits. Her eyes watch the world around her—the great trees skimming the sky, the muted mat of undergrowth against the forest floor, the smaller plants and bushes in between, and the moon that casts its light over everything. This night humid and warm, the spider's eggs a tiny sac of hope against the leaf. The spider's movements slow and her eyes dull. By the time dawn's grey light peeks into the sleeping forest, only a husk of the spider remains, empty legs clutching the stem of the bush.

The children sleep during the day. April thinks them strange, with their pale skin and pointed teeth, wiry limbs and dark eyes. These children have no colour. Twins—a boy and a girl, abandoned on the doorstep six years ago. Their mother didn't even give them clothes. Two naked, howling, newborn babes left at the door of the orphanage at dawn. She remembers their arrival—how she woke at the sound of a cry, a soft wail coming from outside. Padding softly down the stairs, opening the door, discovering the babes, their moon-white skin goosefleshed as they trembled and wailed. Overcome with a panicked love, plucking them both from the step, wrapping them in her robe. She'd been so fearful for their lives, with their skin so pale and cold, that she hadn't thought to look around for a mother who might be hiding and watching somewhere nearby. No; she'd just pulled the babes right on in and walked straight up the stairs to Mother Rachel's room to wake her.

Tom and Ava—that's what the nuns called the little ones—don't fit in with the other children. The other children run, scream, play. They fight and scrape their knees. They shriek and push each other down the stairs sometimes, or sing softly to themselves in bed when their little hearts burst with loneliness. April knows it all. She grew up here, abandoned on the doorstep in a cradle made from green willows. She tells herself that's why she loves the little ones she found—they're just like her, lost and alone, abandoned. Here for life, no doubt, like April herself, unless some kindly souls take it into their hearts to adopt them and take them far from this place. That would be good, she thinks, because no matter how hard she tries to persuade them to play with the others, to lift themselves out of their shells and join a children's game, they keep to themselves. Almost as if they don't want to belong.

She keeps her eye on them, even as she goes about her daily tasks—slicing the buns that the baker's boy brings, mopping the kitchen floor, washing the endless river of linens that comes her way. Those children walk around as though they are asleep. Small shuffling steps, vacant eyes, heads nodding off onto shoulders. While the other girls take turns hopping over the skipping rope, Ava curls into a wiry little ball and sleeps. While the boys leapfrog over one another's backs or play tug-of-war with a sheet borrowed from the laundry basket, Tom finds a dark corner and tucks his head between his knees. April can't help but notice the little bodies tucked into corners, behind boxes, curled into basketfuls of linens. Books, teddy bears, even a stray dog used as pillows. Mother Rachel and the other sisters don't seem to ever notice these little bundles of sleep, so quiet and always keeping to themselves. The nuns are too busy. But April knows.

She tries to coax the twins from their daze. Tries to lure them out of the shadows with treats and promises. Tugs at their dirty little clothes, trying to pull them outdoors into the sunlight. She knows it will do them good. Yet every time, without fail, Tom and Ava find their way inside again. For every minute of sunlight that touches their skin, they spend an hour indoors, asleep. As though they wish to sleep through their young lives.

Night. The moon beckons. Its beams spear through the window and the thin white curtain. Inside the girls' dormitory, two small feet touch the floor and pad softly to the window. A thin, narrow face looks out. Ava's eyes shoot straight to the moon's wide beaming face. Not a sound escapes her thin little lips with the strange pointed teeth hiding behind them. She stares up, up, up at the moon, entirely transfixed, oblivious to the dark dormitory around her and the two-dozen other little girls sleeping in their hard, lumpy beds.

The leaves lie still in the forest. They curl inward as though from the cold. An owlet calls from a tree, practicing his call. Two spiders walk along the forest floor, picking their careful way through the debris with thin, strong legs. They inch apart around fallen leaves, chunks of wood, twigs, deer and rabbit scat, bits of bone. They spread apart and come together again, tiny brown bodies invisible against the dark earth. They explore, winding their way up trunks of trees, along blades of grass, through the moss. Their progress slow compared to that of a larger animal, but sure. Exploring the world in the light of the moon.

April wonders why their skin won't break. Such pale skin, pale as moonlight. Translucent almost. And those dark eyes. Even in the sunlight, they shine black as a beetle's back. She's seen Tom fall. Pushed into the dust by the bigger boys, falling on hands and knees, spitting sand from his mouth. Yet he will not bleed. Any other child's skin would burst open and spill a stream of red, but not Tom's or Ava's. Their skins hard, like a shell.

When she cannot sleep, April wanders. She lifts the cloth that covers the bread and inhales its scent. Takes a sip of cold milk—never enough to be noticeable; just enough to soothe her stomach. More often than not she finds her slippered feet flitting to the bedrooms, to the rows of boys and girls.

She has noticed how Tom and Ava disappear. She knows that neither hides in the bathroom, that she will not discover them below the stairs. At first April thought they might sleep together in a cocoon of blankets, but she has never found their spot. They cannot leave—every door is double-locked, every window shut tight. The cracks under the doors and in the walls the only entries and exits, but even a mouse would have trouble fitting through.

She knows now that every time the moon is out, the children disappear. A half-moon, full moon, even just the faintest sliver—the moon wakes the little ones and steals them from their beds. But if it rains or clouds cover the moon's light, they stay sleeping, blankets tucked all the way to their chins. April has thought about reporting this, but has never breathed a word. She gives the children these nights—let them sleep during the day, then, if they may wander together at night. She sees no harm.

Summer turns to autumn, autumn to winter. Winter to spring, spring to summer. Again and again. April worries now, more than she used to. She feels like a mother to her little orphans, all growing too quickly. Still her twins wander the night, just as sure as the baker's boy brings the daily bread, but now her heart beats quicker. Six years later and still she has not discovered their hiding-spot.

She sits with Ava one day. She looks at the peculiar girl whose limbs are too long for her body and realizes with a shock that Ava may never find herself in the arms of a man either, unless she grows into her woman's body and blossoms. But she worries, so she asks,
Ava, where do you go at night?