She wished this morning had never happened, that she had never returned from the market to hear all the people calling her and running up to her with the news her family had been arrested by the emperor's soldiers. She wished they'd never taken on that passenger who had paid so well.
The wish seemed very far away as the boat bobbed in the darkness, and Ling Mei tried to hush her aching stomach and drift off to sleep. She had never slept alone before. It was too quiet. The next morning she watched, through the slits in the matting, as the Guo's junk pulled away from the swaying docks to do their day's fishing.
Her family didn't do messy, smelly fishing for a living. They carried goods, and sometimes passengers, up and down the river. Ling Mei's supple mouth turned down at the corners. That was what had gotten them into this trouble. The soldiers of the Son of Heaven, the boy emperor, had accused her family of carrying one of the barbarous, spying Mongols right into the heart of Canton. How would her family know who they carried? The man had paid his money, and they had brought him down the river to Canton.
Yen Su-wing, of four boats out, had said she could hear the wails and protests from Ling Mei's family all the way up the dock. The soldiers didn't care; they had taken everyone on the ship, even youngest brother, only ten months old. Grandmother Guo was right. Ling Mei would never see them again. But she didn't know what else to do, except hope.
The day was long. Ling Mei put on the sandals her mother had cut down for her when second oldest sister had worn out their edges, and slapped up the slats of the swaying dock to the shore. She went to the market. Perhaps there she would hear news of what had become of her family.
The market seethed with people and rumors. Some said the Mongols were at the gates of the city. Others scoffed, and said the barbarians would never get that close. The servants of the nobles who had fled here when Hangchow had fallen shoved the common people aside and bought food and cloth as if there would be no tomorrow. Ling Mei looked and listened to all of it, but nowhere did she hear mention of one small family off a junk. The marketplace did not care about one small family. Discouraged, Ling Mei turned and started to trudge back home.
Yesterday the market had been an exciting place, filled with infinite possibilities to spend a birthday coin. Instead of taking care of family business first, she had darted first to one stall, then another, fingering the coin in her pocket and putting off the moment when she would actually spend it. Sweets? A toy? A pretty bit of cloth? Ling Mei had been so excited by all the possibilities, she had still not made up her mind when the sun told her it was time to finish the family errands and run home.
Today, sticky sweets or pretty twists of cloth didn't rouse the slightest bit of interest. The only thing she wanted, her birthday coin couldn't possibly give her. She didn't even want to remember her birthday coin and what she had been doing while the soldiers had arrested her entire family.
If she had been there, at least she would have been taken with them. Ling Mei shivered, thinking even that would be better than being so alone.
A block from the marketplace, she passed a small table she didn't remember ever seeing there before. It was covered with papercuts. Papercuts! Ling Mei stopped and turned back.
Her quick eyes darted over the papercuts, trying to recognize the character for "luck." It was hard to remember what one written symbol looked like, when you couldn't really read.
The wrinkled eyes of the thin, old man who sat behind the table smiled at her.
"Do… do you have one for luck?" she asked.
He looked over the cuts carefully, then shook his ancient head. "Many people have wanted luck today. I have sold the last one."
Shoulders drooping a little, Ling Mei started to turn away.
"Wait." The wrinkled man opened a small drawer underneath the table and drew out a small papercut. He pressed it into her hand. Ling Mei looked at it, startled. It looked a bit like the outline of a tiger, which meant courage, but the head was too small. She raised her eyebrows politely.
"Hang it up. Sometimes courage makes luck," he said, his eyes narrowing and the corners of his mouth turning up ever-so-slightly into a smile.
"But… this isn't a tiger, honored sir. It's too small."
"You are small also." His eyes stared into hers.
Reluctantly, Ling Mei dug down into her one pocket for her birthday coin and placed it in the old man's hand. She didn't want a cut of something that looked a bit like a tiger and a bit like a street cat, but she couldn't insult someone old enough to be her grandmother's father. She tucked the papercut into her now empty pocket, bowed, and left, trudging back to her family's junk.
The Guo boat was back. Grandmother Guo's black eyes pricked her with their sharp gaze.
"Still here, girl? Can't survive without a family. Nothing for you to do, now, but gather up a bowl and go," she said in her harsh voice.
"I'm no beggar!"
"You think you're father-head of your family's junk? Going to sail it all by yourself?" the old woman cackled.
"I won't have to manage by myself. My family will be back soon."
"Hunh!" was the old woman's disdainful reply.
Ling Mei hunched her shoulders and cooked only a small portion of rice for herself. Her tears flavored it. She squeezed past the matting that covered the family's quarters and perched on the rear of the boat, near the big steering oar. She ate her rice as the colors of sunset filled the sky, but it failed to lift her spirits. She stayed until the moon had risen, full and round and whole. She wished her family's junk was as full, and whole and bright.
Rising, she heard a crackle from her pocket. She had forgotten the papercut. She took it out, crouched back down and carefully smoothed it out on her knee. A tear fell on it. Carefully, she wiped that away, too. It didn't look that funny in the moonlight, she thought with a sigh. The white of the paper almost seemed to glow.
Standing up, she carried it forward and hung it over the door to the family quarters before she crept inside. Perhaps it would give her just a small bit of courage, enough to let her sleep in a quiet so lonely she could hear the stars.
That night, as the odors of jasmine and eucalyptus, bamboo groves and fish mingled with the smells from tens of thousands of braziers, and wafted onto the ship, Ling Mei woke to the feel of a footstep on the deck. She sat upright, her sudden movement rustling the straw in the sack she slept on.
She listened.
Whatever movement the foot had started was now lost in the ripples of the harbor. Ling Mei sat, barely breathing, and waited.
A soft pad, pad, pad started toward her. Ling Mei could feel her heart hammer a matching rhythm at the front of her chest.
A small form cast its shadow on the door matting. Ling Mei gave a choking laugh as she recognized what it was. A cat.
It poked its head under the edge of the matting and peered in at her.
"You silly cat!" Ling Mei said, too loud in her relief. "You're lucky my honored mother isn't here, or she'd throw you into the harbor. Good only for rats and stealing food from babies, she says. Get off, now. Shoo!"
Ling Mei whooshed her hands forward like small brooms.
The cat did not scurry away. It just stared at her, calm and silent.
Ling Mei got up and darted toward the cat, shooing more vigorously.
The cat did not budge. It… just stared, its eyes huge, as huge and mysterious as the moon.
Suddenly, it was Ling Mei who was frightened. Those eyes… they seemed to glow. And the cat was big, bigger than any scrawny pier cat she'd ever seen, almost… half a tiger.
Ling Mei sat down with a thump on oldest sister's mat, her frightened breath whooshing out of her. The cat just lowered its gaze, and stared at her eye to eye.
His eyes did not glow green, or yellow, or night-red, like a normal cat's. Their eerie shine was blue, with flecks of gold.