CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER FIVE

Below her, the waves of Hangzhou Bay slapped the pilings of the dock. Around her, men worked, barefoot, the thick denim of their pants rolled up to the knees. Or stood, smoking strong tobacco rolled in cheap paper.

She needed help, but couldn’t speak. There’d been a hall. A narrow space with a low ceiling and many doors. The light was red. The walls reflected red. The floor more glowing red. Even the shadows waiting at what could be the end of the hall—for the hall had to have an end, yes?—were red.

Madame Xuo had stood in a mountain of bodies. Arms without fists that flailed and hit. Crude legs that thumped the floor as they tried to crawl, and lift, and stand. Teeth too large for mouths that sliced faces in two. Gashes that still whimpered, still wept, still bled.

And Madame had spoken. There’d been a warning, and then blood. But the air, it was cool and inviting. There’d been silence, then. And knowing what the future held, she’d stepped into the dark, the shade, the shadow.

Yes, Lucky remembered.

Here, the sun was bright and the sky was blue. Here, men rushed to and fro, piles of fish shimmering and flapping and wiggling as wheelbarrows bounced along the dock. They stood in groups, these men, talking as more ships came in, others running to retrieve the nets and fill the crates and stock the wheelbarrows and push past yet again.

No one stopped for the strange girl in the flowered dress.

She opened her eyes, but they were black, someone said from the past.

She blinked, her vision clear.

Flies crawled from between her lips.

She opened her mouth. Nothing but the sour smell of vomit.

Black started to run from under her dress and down her legs.

She glanced down. The wood beneath her bare feet was free of black and blood or anything else that might slip from her body and slide down her legs.

She was a demon.

“Hello,” she said to the man, a young scrawny thing with hooded eyes and thin lips, who passed within inches of her.

He ignored her.

A second man, this one larger with the belly of a Buddha and legs like tree trunks, shuffled near.

“Hello?” she said again.

He passed by without so much as a glance.

“Sir,” she said to the third, this one older with the bent back and frail legs of one who’d seen decades of work. But, perhaps deaf and exhausted, he, too, ignored her.

She stepped forward, out of the shade.

The shade followed.

Another step. The shadow kept pace. Tightened its grip. Refused to leave her.

A man stopped to light a cigarette.

“Hello, sir,” she said. “Sir?”

The match jumped to life, the flame meeting its target, the man drawing deep before exhaling in a cloud of silver and blue.

“Sir!” she said as she drew close, face to face, the shadow now covering him.

He paused and looked down at the sudden dark staining the dock. And then glanced up at the sun, looking for a cloud that wasn’t there.

A moment later, cigarette in hand, he turned and left, quickly moving to join the crowd welcoming a new boat to shore.

They couldn’t see her, she realized. Her shadow, this new dark that was now a part of her, had made her invisible. A second step and it followed her again. For a moment, she feared she’d never feel the sun again. And then, remembering the blood pouring between Madame’s fingers as they covered her mouth, she pushed the thought out of her mind.

She lifted her arm. It looked muted and pale, like moonlight, the boards beneath almost visible. She flexed her fingers and then made a fist. It felt normal. It all felt normal, save for the dark that would never leave her.

A man watched her.

Standing away from the crowd, he stood dressed in worn denim. Thin and older, a touch of silver to the little tufts of hair clinging to his head, he stared, his eyes shifting to the side as he noticed her looking at him.

Dragging her dark behind her, she marched over.

“Sir,” she said, “You can see me? Yes?”

He looked at his sandals, and the dock beneath, and then finally the waves rolling in from the horizon.

“I’m lost,” she said. “Is this Hangzhou Bay?”

No response.

“Please,” she said. “Help me.”

“I know what you are,” he said, his eyes refusing her.

“You can see the shadow?”

His eyes still on the horizon, the waves, his brethren pulling the nets and loading the crates, he nodded and then spoke. “I know where this comes from.”

“Madame Xuo,” she said.

He shook his head. “Madame Xuo is no more.”

“I just left her. I work for her and I was with her just—”

“Madame Xuo was found in a doorway near her home over a week ago. She’d been dead for many months. Maybe years.”

“And Yin Ying?” she said. “Her servant?”

He shrugged. “All I know is the house is no more. The servants released. The windows shuttered and the doors locked.” His eyes met hers. “Do you not know what you are now?”

She shook her head. All around her, men passed by, navigating clear of her shadow as if she was seen, though she knew she was not. “I know I’m not seen. That they don’t see me,” she said, glancing toward the crowd. “But you see me. Why?”

“It is not a gift. Seeing you is a burden. Knowing what you are is something I don’t want. Something no one wants. Go away.”

A man pushing a wheelbarrow of wiggling, snapping, jumping fish stumbled and ducked into her shade, the wheelbarrow coming to the briefest of stops in the dark as he adjusted his grip and righted the wheel.

The wiggling, snapping, jumping stopped, the fish coming to a final rest.

Her reluctant friend stood and moved away, pulling a large knife, the kind used to gut fish, from a holster wound ‘round his leg. “I’m sorry,” he said as he walked to the edge of the dock to go back to work.

She and her dark followed.

“Wait,” she said. “Talk to me. Am I invisible? Can I be seen? What can this do?”

“Were you not told?”

She shook her head.

Standing at the edge of the slapping waves, he spoke. “Then this is new. It can be stopped. If you can, do so now. Save those who will die. Save those mothers and wives and children who will weep because of you. Save all those whose lives will be ruined because you chose to live and breathe and walk among us. End this, here and now, and you can save us all.

“Do you see?” he said as she moved to stand in front of him. “You have a choice.” He held the knife out to her. “It is early. You can choose good. You can still do good.”

She took the knife.

The dark grew.

“Families will thank you,” he said. “Your death will answer prayers they’ve yet to pray.”

She thought of her cursed birth. The cruelty of her parents. Her mother smelling of vomit. And falling into selfish sleep driven by too much drink. Of her father’s fingers reaching, grabbing and gripping before pulling her close, too close, to destroy her innocence. She thought of the bend in her back and the burning scream of her muscles as she scrubbed an already spotless floor for the dead Madame Xuo.

A drop of rain slapped the dock. And another. Then another.

She realized that a life without power wasn’t one worth living. Always at the mercy of others. Saying “yes” when your body cried “no.” Hiding your exhaustion and terror beneath small smiles and low bows. Enduring smacks, slaps and kicks day after day after day.

No. He was right. That wasn’t a life she wanted. Not anymore. Perhaps the journey wasn’t even worth being blessed by a darkness with an appetite, a hunger, she could almost feel.

She didn’t know.

The man watched her, his shirt growing wet from the rain. A rain that fell from a cloud that darkened only them. He took a drag from his cigarette. His eyes narrowed and he nodded.

Her father was in those eyes, that cigarette. Even that nod.

She swallowed her rage and tightened her grip.

It cannot falter, Madame had said. It cannot fail.

She thrust the knife deep, slicing in and then up and to the side.

“Go away?” she said, her voice low.

He grabbed her wrist as the blood ran.

“A burden to see?” She dragged the knife down to rip his stomach wider. “And what am I now?” Pulling the knife free, the skin parted and his steaming, slippery guts slid free to dangle against his thin waist.

He looked at her and tried to speak, but could no longer catch his breath.

“Your family will thank me,” she said.

She could feel her shadow grow.

He tried to blink, to remain awake and present, but his eyes closed.

Her body tingled as the shadow lengthened, reaching wide to cover the dock and darken the waves.

His skin lost its blush and, the soul captured and swallowed, his body collapsed on the dock and tumbled with a splash into the water.

She felt light and free. Powerful. Feared.

She moved to the edge, her eyes on the churning current of Hangzhou Bay.

A moment later, he rose to the surface. A moment after that, dead fish, dozens and dozens and dozens, all trapped in her shade, bobbed to the surface.

Her heart pounded and her breath came in short, shallow gasps. Sweat stained her brow. She wanted to kneel, to rest. But, no, she’d never kneel again.

I’m sorry, she silently said to the stranger caught by the current to bump against the pilings. But your kindness was cruel. It was unnecessary. I no longer have to endure the shame in silence. And now people can pay for their cruelty. They’ll have consequences. I will not.

Except for the guilt, Lucky thought. As brief as it was.

There was blood on her hands. Blood that soon disappeared, the shade lifting it from her palms, her wrists. Even from between her fingers and under her nails. Her skin soon so clean it was as if there’d never been a crime.

She smiled.

A life without consequence, the wealthy, powerful woman said from the past.

Closing her eyes, she reached her arms wide, welcoming the dark and willing her shadow to grow and spread, the dock, the water, the boats soon under an umbrella of black.

And the men on the docks started to argue as more fish died and those who were older stumbled and fell and those who were healthy wiped unexpected sweat from their brows and those whose hearts were ruled by superstition fell to their knees to pray as the sudden darkness fell from the blue of a cloudless sky and Lucky the cursed, Lucky the damned, Lucky the unseen and unloved and powerless closed her eyes and allowed herself a small smile of pure satisfaction.