An arm started to come through the wall after them, a soldier's arm. The cat's tail swished, once. The night was pierced by a bloodcurdling scream, and the arm stopped, frozen in the hard, stone wall.
Shuddering, Ling Mei scrambled to her feet, and pulled oldest sister up with her. She was too rude for her sister's liking.
"No time!" Ling Mei whispered softly back at her, while she pulled fourth younger brother to his feet and urged him forward. Second oldest brother was already leading the rest of her family down the path, following the cat. Ling Mei counted noses in the moonlight, and breathed a sigh of relief. None of them had been left with the soldiers.
A thud vibrated the wall of the building beside them. They are trying to break down the wall! thought Ling Mei. She hushed fourth younger sister's tears, and scurried down the path.
The thuds against the wall ceased, and Ling Mei knew the soldiers had stopped trying to go through the wall. They would come after them in the streets. She trotted forward, urging her brothers and sisters faster, faster still.
With a deep breath, honored grandmother, second oldest brother and then mother carrying youngest brother plunged through the second wall. The rest of the family followed. Ling Mei could hear shouts on the streets. She knew the last wall would bring them out practically on top of the soldiers and the men loading the ships.
"No!" she hissed to second oldest brother. "We can't go that way," she apologized to the cat.
"Luck," it wished, seeming to smile, then vanished.
"No! Come back!" she half-whispered, half-cried. But there was no swish of tail or glow of eyes. With a gulp, Ling Mei realized the cat had helped them all it would. Now the yoke rested on Ling Mei's shoulders. Could she find her way back to their junk, through all the twisting streets, especially if she didn't use the ones the cat had led her down, the ones that would lead them too close to the searching soldiers not once, but twice? "Courage," she whimpered to herself, and plunged uphill, sideways to the last wall. Her family eddied, then hurried after her.
Ling Mei tried to remember what twists and turns the cat had led her through, so she could angle her way back through the city to bring them to their section of the harbor. At first they could hear the shouts and see the glimmer from the torches of the soldiers searching for them. Gradually, that was left behind.
"Third daughter, this makes no sense, her mother hissed. "The soldiers will just come to our junk, and arrest us again."
"I don't think you have to worry, honored mother," Ling Mei whispered back. "The protectors of the Son of Heaven are busy fleeing the Mongols. They will not have too much time to waste, chasing after one small family of peasants."
"Ah-yii, the barbarians," her honored grandmother moaned.
"Yes, honored grandmother," Ling Mei replied respectfully, but urged her on. Eventually the welcome scent of water and fish drew her, and gratefully they made their way down to a less exalted part of the harbor.
"I know where we are, now," second oldest brother whispered. "This is where you sent me once to buy hemp, honored father." He motioned. "Follow me."
Relieved that she no longer had to guess her way through streets she'd never seen before, Ling Mei stepped back to let him lead. Soon they were in sight of their family's junk. All was quiet. No soldiers, no torches: only the soft lap of the waters and the scrape of one junk against another.
"Is it safe, do you suppose?" Ling Mei asked second oldest brother. He shrugged.
Their honored father drew them down into the shadows of the buildings that lined the harbor. They nestled there until the sky blossomed into pale gray. Then, with still no appearance of the soldiers, they crept down the swaying dock, and boarded.
"What's this?" asked Ling Mei's mother, fingering the papercut of the cat hanging over their door to the sleeping quarters.
"That's my luck," Ling Mei replied.
Her honored mother took her hand away from it, and did not protest its presence. Luck was very important, even if it came in a distasteful shape. The family settled back onto their boat, murmuring with the comfort of being back on their home again.
Grandmother Guo's head popped up on the deck of their junk and peered over at the Ling family. Her black eyes opened so far they grew round. Muttering, she dived back down under the matting again.
Ling Mei giggled, hiding her mouth behind her hand.
As the pearly sky brightened into the colors of full dawn, the waters of the harbor swished with the sound of prows cutting through the waves, and Ling Mei and her family watched as the Imperial fleet sailed out of the harbor. Honored grandmother wept in fear of the Mongols, but Ling Mei and her parents just watched carefully. What did it matter to peasants who ruled, as long as you brought no notice down upon yourselves?
With the dawn, a breeze sprang up and flapped the rust red sails of the junk.
"Oh, no!" Ling Mei cried, as her papercut tore loose and flew over the side of the junk. "My luck!" She ran over and peered down into the narrow strip of water that appeared and disappeared between the junks with every wave. But she could see no sign of the little papercut cat. "My luck," she moaned.
The breeze, as usual, brought with it dust from the city. Ling Mei's mother handed her a reed brush. With a sigh, Ling Mei bid the last wisps of her role as savior and leader good-bye, and settled back into her position of third daughter. She swept the deck.
Later that afternoon, while honored father and oldest brother were still discussing whether they should head up the river or stay put in the harbor awhile, as the fishing families had decided, a small, skinny kitten wandered down the dock toward their boat. Its meow was pitiful and its paws stumbled with the sway of the dock. It looked up at Ling Mei. Its small mouth opened, and the pinkness within was as delicate and needy as a baby's.
"Oh!" Ling Mei cried, and clambered over the side of the boat. She dropped down and cradled the kitten.
"Third daughter! What are you thinking of! Put down that scrawny beggar at once. Good for rats and stealing food from a baby, that's all. I won't have one of those on my junk!" exclaimed her mother.
But Ling Mei had noticed its eyes were a pale blue.
"It's payment, honored mother," Ling Mei said respectfully, but more firmly than she ever would have dared before. "All of this most wonderful family would have been lost, and I would have been a beggar, without family and outcast, had the magic cat not led me to where the soldiers had taken you. Caring for this beggar, in turn, will bring us luck."
Her mother's mouth pursed as it had when she had seen the papercut, but she said, "For luck, I suppose I can spare some scraps. Very well, my third daughter who is not a beggar today. Bring this luck on board."
Ling Mei tucked the kitten under her arm and climbed back into the junk.
Luck was the first of many cats to ride on the matting of the Ling family's junk.
Shado by Marylois Dunn
Cat slipped under the castle gate and stood surveying the world outside. Fog softened the meadow shrouding the nearby forest with gray robes. There was no breath of breeze, but the cloud shifted, thickened, thinned, captured and released the objects outside the walls. To Cat's disgust, it left a thick residue of moisture over everything. Small beads of water even formed on his whiskers, which he wiped away with an impatient swipe of his forepaw. It was a dreadful morning to hunt.
Cat, however, had learned that while his kind generally chose to remain indoors near the warmth of the kitchen fires, the field mice regarded a foggy day as a Mouse Holiday and ran about fearlessly, not expecting depredations from fox, hawk, or cat on such a day. Perfect weather for a fellow who did not mind getting his paws and tail wet.