What I discover is shocking. Numbing, even. I lose track of time and am only startled out of my study when I hear Li Wei’s steps in the adjacent hall. Did you find anything? I ask when he enters. I manage to appear calm, but inside, I’m reeling.
More than I wanted, he tells me. Most of the homes are empty, but others have bones as well. I don’t know what killed them.
I do, I say, setting down one of the records. Starvation and sickness. My attempts at control begin to falter. My hands are shaking, and I clasp them in my lap. It’s not fear that has unsettled me so much as shock.
Do you want to go outside to talk? Li Wei asks. It’s getting warmer.
I nod. I feel chilled in this place full of memories and ghosts. I need to be back out in the sun, back among living and growing things. We travel toward last night’s camp, but just as we are at the edge of the village, we encounter another gruesome sight: skeletons shackled to a stone block. My stomach turns at the thought of the terrible fate they must have endured there. Characters etched into the stone condemn them for their crime: food thieves.
With a shudder, I avert my gaze and see Li Wei scowling. I’m not surprised he’s upset, considering the way he protected the thief in our village. This is savage, he states. At least our people have never taken punishment to such an extreme.
They might, I say, thinking of what I learned. If our village ever has to face what this one did.
What do you mean? he asks.
We reach our camp, now enjoying the full force of morning sunlight. It helps chase away the gloom of what I uncovered in the library—but only a little. Li Wei looks at me expectantly once we are there.
They were like us, I tell him finally. Exactly like us. A mining town. They lost their hearing and became trapped up here, with no easy way to climb down, but they established a deal with the township. They had their own line and sent metals down the mountain in exchange for food. And just like us, they began to go blind.
Those similarities are still too shocking, too unbelievable, and that’s what makes it hard to keep going. This village’s history was so much like our own: Had I just taken a walk in my own future? Is this what’s in store for us in ten years? Five years? One year? Fear makes me lose track of my story—not for myself, but for those we left behind. What fate is waiting for Zhang Jing? For the masters and other students?
What happened? How did they die? Li Wei asks, his expression urgent. Fei, you said starvation?
I swallow and try to regain my composure. With blindness, their mining output depleted, and just like with us, the township started limiting their food. They weren’t exactly like us—they stopped feeding their beggars altogether. The blindness also resulted in more accidents, so some died that way too. Near the end, their water supply got contaminated. The record keepers believed some of the bodies weren’t disposed of properly and fouled the water. People grew sick and died before they discovered the problem. It was a couple of years ago, so it eventually cleared, I add, seeing him shoot a concerned look at our canteens. By then, there was hardly anyone left. The township stopped food shipments completely, and chaos broke out. Those that didn’t die of starvation attempted to climb down, but it’s unknown how many made it. The elevation is lower, but from what I’ve read, the stone on the cliffs below is softer—more prone to avalanches, less likely to hold ropes and body weight. Some may have escaped. Some didn’t. Some may have thrown themselves over purposefully.
I sink to the ground, unable to shake the thought of this happening to our village. Li Wei paces in front of me, his expression dark. He bravely investigated the ghost village, with all its horrors, but now I can tell his resolve is wavering. Or maybe he’s just losing hope.
Is this what it comes to then? he asks. Is this what our village can expect? Food disappearing altogether? Despair and hopelessness?
We can’t know that, I say. We can’t know anything until we speak to the line keeper. And our village isn’t like theirs . . . not yet.
Isn’t it? he asks angrily. It’s already happening! The blindness has started. The metals have decreased. The food has decreased. Just the other day, the township said they were sending less as “punishment.” How much longer until they stop the food? How long until our own people turn on each other in desperation? Is this what my father died for? How many other villages has the township done this to?
I don’t know. We must talk to the line keeper.
We need to do something, he snaps. But I don’t know if talking is enough.
Li Wei is understandably worked up, and I know it’s from more than just the gruesome discoveries in this village. The pain of his father’s death is still fresh, making everything that much worse . . . and desperate.
He sighs. Perhaps there was some misunderstanding with this village. Perhaps they asked for too much.
Perhaps, I agree.
I can tell we’re both trying to put on good faces for each other. In reality, I know we are both filled with doubts. We want to believe the best, that the line keeper can help us, but we’ve seen and suffered too much. And if the line keeper can’t help, then what? It’s that uncertainty that casts the real pall over us.
I summon an image of Zhang Jing and muster my courage as I follow Li Wei to a spot he deems suitable for continuing our descent down the cliffs. The warnings of the writings stick with us, and he is extra cautious as he begins planting the ropes into the rock face. Some of the stone is softer in this area, and he won’t let us descend until he’s certain each stake and rope will hold.
Even though we have less distance to cover than we did the previous day, it’s still a long way down to the base of the mountain. Every inch we travel is filled with fear that the rock is going to crumble and loosen our stakes, sending us plummeting. More avalanches tumble after us, and again, my hearing only just saves us on more than one occasion. Sometimes I’m not quick enough, and we both earn new bruises and cuts to go with yesterday’s injuries. Adding to all this is the knowledge that we are out of food. Hunger gnaws at the edges of my stomach.
And yet a strange exhilaration is filling me as we get lower and lower and see the ground at the base of the mountain. A lush valley filled with trees spreads out before us, drawing nearer, and beyond it I can see a haze of green land that looks as though it has no trees at all. Is it possible that’s farmland? The library has books about cultivation and growing, but after the avalanches cut off the passes to our village’s fertile lands, farming has become as fantastic a concept as flying—or hearing. Dreams of what may be waiting for us spur me on in the last stretch of our climb.
Then, incredibly, we set foot on the ground. I look up and am stunned to see my own mountain and its neighbors towering off into the sky. I can’t even see the tops, as early evening clouds have moved in. It’s an entirely different perspective from the view I’ve seen my whole life: peaks surrounding us and mist-covered depths below. I realize I’m standing in the place where my ancestors first migrated from, and that’s a heady thought too.