Ling Mei felt the small hairs on her arms lift, and her scalp tingle. This was no ordinary cat. Her eyes crept up to where she had hung the papercut cat on the other side of the door matting. They crept back down to the real cat. Perhaps…
With a masterful shrug, the cat pushed the matting aside, strode the rest of the way into the sleeping chamber and turned, looking back over its shoulder at Ling Mei. It meowed sharply, once.
Ling Mei got up. The cat walked out and strode toward the side of the junk nearest the dock. The tip of its tail glowed white in the moonlight. The rest of its body was a silvery gray. Poised on the edge of the junk, it looked back at her once more, its shining blue eyes commanding.
Ling Mei followed.
The cat led her on a twisting path through the streets, treading sure-footed between sleeping chickens and restless dogs, through circles of men engrossed in their play of liu-po, and the money that was changing hands. The cat's passage disturbed no one, although eyes blinked at Ling Mei and disparaging comments about her ancestors were muttered. Ling Mei wondered if perhaps she was dreaming, but the ground was hard beneath her feet, with none of the give and sway of her beloved home, and the night air was cool on her skin. She shivered. The glowing tip of the cat's tail beckoned her on.
The cat led her for many li. Ling Mei's legs started to ache. She was not used to so much walking. The narrow breadth and cluttered length of a junk had been her home since birth. She had never set foot off it until she was five, and since then, the most she'd walked had been back and forth to the markets of the various towns on the river. Still, the silvery sheen of the cat no one but she noticed drew her on.
The cat turned another corner and wove its way down a twisty street so narrow the flapping laundry overhead nearly blocked the stars. As Ling Mei ducked beneath a pannier of chicken feathers, she thought she could hear shouting up ahead.
It was too far away to know for sure, or to make out any words. The cat led her on, down through more twists of the street. Ling Mei widened her nose, wrapped it around a familiar, comforting scent. Water.
The noise was clearly voices now.
The cat melted close to the side of a building. Ling Mei did likewise. Softly the cat padded forward, then stopped, near a corner. Ling Mei peered around it.
The side street and docks before her were filled with the figures of men, running, jostling each other, carrying huge bundles bound with hemp, then running back for more. Before her, bright from the light of a hundred torches, lay the Imperial Ship. On either side of it was docked an entire fleet of fast, sleek junks: the boats of every Sung noble who had managed to flee to Canton.
They were being provisioned: loaded with food, clothing and luxuries. Chang Shih-chieh, defender of the Sung dynasty, and protector of the emperor's brother and heir, was preparing to flee Canton. The rumor must have been right; the Mongols are at the gates, thought Ling Mei.
She felt something brush against her leg. The cat was moving again, backward. Yes! thought Ling Mei. Let's get away from any soldiers and servants to nobles and find our way back home! Quickly she followed it back up the twisting, narrow path.
But the cat turned again, and plunged down a path that led them right back toward the docks again, toward the nobles, toward the soldiers who would have scant mercy for a peasant girl watching what they did on this moonlit night. A peasant girl whose family had already been taken for supposedly aiding the enemy.
Ling Mei stopped.
The cat turned, stared at her with glowing eyes. The tips of its silvery hairs caught the moonlight in a way that made its outline glow against the dark of the building behind it. The way it was standing, its outline exactly matched the silhouette cut into paper that Ling Mei had hung on her family's junk. The outline of a small tiger, a large cat. Courage.
Reluctantly, Ling Mei put one foot in front of another again, and followed the cat toward the sound, toward the lights, toward the soldiers. Her hands were shaking, but her heart felt full. The two, cat and girl, crept almost to the feet of the sweating workers.
Why was she doing this? Ling Mei wondered.
The cat turned, slipped behind a building. Gratefully, Ling Mei followed it into the darkness. But her relief was short-lived. A few steps beyond, a wall blocked their path. Ling Mei cast a look back toward the light and danger they'd just left. She didn't want to go back, but there was no way past the wall, and it was too high to climb.
When she looked forward again, the cat was walking through the wall. Through until only the glowing tip of its tail was visible. Then that, too, vanished. Ling Mei stared at the spot where it had disappeared.
A sharp meow commanded her from the other side of the wall. Ling Mei slithered back a step. She stopped again, stared in dismay at the wall.
The meow commanded again. Soldiers behind her and a wall in front. Courage can make luck, the voice whispered in her memory.
Ling Mei crouched down and stretched her hand forward, slowly, toward the spot where the cat had gone through. Instead of stopping at the edge of the wall, her hand slid into it.
Ling Mei snatched her hand back. Her feet ran backward, crabwise, and she fought to keep her balance. Just as she was about to turn and flee, the face of the cat shimmered, a living picture on the wall. The eyes stared at her, commanded her.
Reluctantly, Ling Mei slid her feet forward. The cat still stared. Ling Mei thought she could see its tail now, swishing, dim though the darkness of the wall. She shut her eyes, thought courage, and plunged in… to… it… The wall felt like breath crushed out of her, like grit carried on the bosom of a typhoon, like the scrape of a thousand barnacles.
She was through.
The cat meowed its pleasure, an astonishingly normal meow, and rubbed its silvery fur against her legs. Then, all business again, it trotted forward.
The next wall was easier.
The third wall took her inside a building. A red-shaded lantern glowed, dimly lighting the darkness. Crouched in the corner of the small room were her grandmother, her honored parents, oldest brother and oldest sister… her whole family! With a cry, Ling Mei ran toward them.
"Hush," the cat seemed to sigh, its breath soughing through the entire room.
With tiny gasps and whispers, Ling Mei hugged each one of the family.
"Where did you come from?"
"You've been arrested, too?"
Ling Mei tried to answer.
"Quickly, quickly!" the cat meowed.
"Yes, yes," Ling Mei answered, turning to face its silveriness.
"Who are you talking to, third daughter?" her mother asked.
"The cat, honored mother," Ling Mei replied.
"Cat? What cat?"
Her mother stared right at the spot where the silvery tail with the white-glow-end swished, back and forth, back and forth.
"Never mind," Ling Mei whispered. "Just come. Quickly, quickly."
As her family shuffled to their feet, Ling Mei heard the tramp of men approaching the door to the room.
"Soldiers!" whispered second oldest brother.
"Quickly!" Ling Mei gasped. She herded her family toward the wall. The cat walked ahead, disappearing through it. Second oldest brother gasped, and Ling Mei knew he had seen it. "Follow, follow!" she said. She grabbed grandmother's arm and shoved her after second oldest brother. Father and oldest brother snatched up two of the younger children and plunged into the wall. Hurriedly, Ling Mei picked up youngest brother, thrust him into her mother's arms, and pushed both through the wall. She was still herding her three sisters and two other brothers through, when soldiers burst into the room.
"Ai-yi!" the soldiers cried, and raced forward.
With a gasp, Ling Mei threw her arms around all the brothers and sisters she could reach, and they tumbled through the wall together, tripping over each other, landing in a heap on the packed dirt outside.