“I think I found her.”
MEI YEE
I water the cypress tree every day. I’ve done this four times since Dai left. The tree is already dying; its green-laced leaves are spoiling. Dropping into the mud below. Maybe I’m watering it too much, but I don’t think that’s the problem. Trees weren’t meant to be crammed into dark, smoky brothels.
A sigh leaves me as I place the watering cup back on the table. I don’t know why I’m trying, really. The end is coming. Soon, whether we succeed or not, I’ll never see this tree again.
The girls are behind me, sitting in their usual places. These last four days have passed with silence and waiting. They still don’t know about Dai or the window or any of it. Four days is a long time to keep a secret in a place like this.
Nuo hears my sigh and the trouble behind it. “What’s wrong, Mei Yee?”
I stroke the tree’s tiny drying limbs. Leaves prick like needles at my skin. “There’s something I have to tell you. Something I have to trust you with.”
All three of them are staring at me as I turn.
These four days have also seen me wondering, wavering on trust like stilts. These girls—these sisters—I know they’ve stared at the ceiling the same way I do. Wanting to be anywhere else. I’ve heard them talk about home and the sea and wall-less days with something like hope in their breaths.
But they also saw what happened to Sing. Stood beside me while she thrashed and screamed and drowned in pools of blood and heroin dreams. They felt the same fear I did, creeping through their veins like a drug of its own. A paralysis meant to last days, months, years. Meant to keep us here forever.
Telling them, trusting them with this plan, could go either way.
The one redeeming factor, the final weight in my decision, was their silence on Sing’s behalf. How they said nothing when our friend ran. It feels like so many ages ago we were sitting in the same circle and it was Sing speaking. Her lips moved so fast I could catch only so many of her words. I was transfixed by how flushed her cheeks were, how bright her eyes shined.
They’re quiet now, too. Waiting, waiting, waiting for what I have to say.
“I found a way out.”
“What?” Wen Kei squeaks, so tiny by my feet.
The girls stare, blink in turn. Suddenly I feel too tall, so I move back to the edge of my bed.
“Well, really, a way out found me.…” I say, mostly to fill the silence.
“What are you talking about?” Yin Yu’s not sitting anymore, but halfway on her feet, like some cat ready to pounce.
My heart trembles, fills my head with a thousand warnings. The same ones that have whirled through my head, throbbed through my bruises these past two weeks.
Too dangerous. Don’t. There’s still time to back out. Still time to say yes.
So I do what I always do when the fears crowd in. My fingers dance across the crimson lengths of the curtain and pull.
The shell is still there. Outside looking in. Impossible to miss. My secrets through the glass, for the world to see.
“What—what is it?” Nuo leans into my mattress, trying to get a closer look through the grating. The way she’s staring reminds me of how Jin Ling and I used to ogle the chewy, sticky slivers of rice candy in the province market.
Wen Kei answers for me; the word leaves her mouth more sacred than a prayer. “Nautilus.”
Both of my friends stare at the window as if it’s some kind of magic. But Yin Yu stays back. Her stare is different, not so much magical as wary. The way I used to stare at the stray dogs my sister always insisted on feeding. The ones that could turn and sink their teeth in at any moment.
“Where?” Wen Kei finally looks at me, the entirety of her small body turning in her excitement. “How?”
“A boy gave it to me,” I tell them. “He’s been coming to see me for a while now. We’ve been trading information.”
“Information?” Wen Kei squeaks.
“About the Brotherhood.” I make a point to look at Yin Yu as I say this. “I didn’t take your duties because I want to be Mama-san. I did it because I had to spy. Get information.”
“You’ve been”—Yin Yu stops, lowers her voice to even less than a hiss—“spying? On the Brotherhood?”
“What did he want to know?” Nuo asks.
“At first it was just names. Then he wanted to know where Longwai keeps his ledger.” It’s not until I see the three pairs of eyes grow wider at the sound of the master’s name that I realize I’ve been using it.
“He says he’s going to get us out. All of us.” My words crash like stones into a still pond. They fill the room with trembling faces and ripples. Nuo and Wen Kei look at me as if I just unlocked the front door myself.
Yin Yu doesn’t move. “What’s his price?”
“We have to get Longwai’s ledger.”
Silence. More trembling.
“The red book? The one with the dragon on it?” Nuo’s fingers dance over her thigh, playing some unheard song. “Why does the boy want that?”
I ignore the question I can’t answer. It’s easy for me to trust Dai—the electrifying burn of his eyes, the deep of his voice, and his no matter what through the glass. I know the girls won’t take his mysteries as easily. “Longwai keeps the book upstairs, in the top drawer of his desk. We have to steal it tomorrow night. Well, I’m the one who’s actually going to take it. But I need you girls to help.
“The boy is going to buy time with Nuo and wait in her room. I’ll take Yin Yu’s keys and sneak into the office while Wen Kei makes sure that Longwai and Mama-san are distracted. When I get the book, I’ll drop it in Nuo’s room and the boy will walk out with it.”
Nuo and Wen Kei flinch at the sound of Longwai’s name. Yin Yu is unaffected. Bangs fall, black and short, into her eyes. They mute some of her hard, hard stare. “And where’s the part about us getting out? How do we know he’s not just going to walk out and leave us? When the master finds out his ledger is gone…”
“The boy is coming back for us. He gave me his word.” My voice fights against shake. I hope it’s enough.
“And you’re going to just trust some starving vagrant? He’s using you, Mei Yee!”
“He’s not!” I wish, now, that Dai had given me more words to work with. Something solid and concrete. I can’t translate the feelings in my chest so easily. “There’s something going on, Yin Yu. Something bigger than us.”
Yin Yu rises, her serving dress gleaming red as hellfire. “Let the boy handle his own problems. We’ll handle ours.”
Her words are an absolute. A challenge meant for me to bow or quail. A few weeks ago I might have, but my spine is stiffer now. I stand as well.
“This is it, Yin Yu. This is our chance. There might never be another.” I look at the other two girls huddled on my bed like chicks. “Even if you don’t want to do this, you have to let them decide.”
Nuo nods. “I’ll help.”
“Me too.” Wen Kei’s petite face pinches in a scowl. She’s staring at Yin Yu. “I don’t want to stay here.”
“No.” Yin Yu takes a step toward me, then pauses. “We’re never going to leave! Don’t you understand that! This is our life now. The only way out of here is on a beggar’s mat or in a body bag. You saw what happened to Sing. Don’t think the master won’t do the same to every single one of us. We’re all disposable!”
Eyes flash, blacker than night. Darker than a room without light. I look into them and realize she made up her mind a long time ago. When Sing screamed and thrashed and the needle burst poison into her veins.
I keep staring, trying not to get lost in the deep despair of her eyes. “We’ll do it without you, then.”
“No.” She reaches out, grabs the door handle. “You won’t.”
The pit in my stomach suddenly grows, stretches as if it’s outside me. I thought, at the worst, she would refuse. But now, seeing her long white fingers on the latch, pushing down, I know she’s capable of much, much w
orse.
“Yin Yu. Don’t.”
I see all of it slipping away, sliding down with the handle. She keeps pushing.
“I can’t let this happen again. I can’t let you destroy us! Destroy them!” Yin Yu looks to Nuo and Wen Kei. “One day you two will understand. I’m doing this to protect us.”
She looks back at me. “There is no escape, Mei Yee. The master will know. We can’t fool him. He’ll find out what happened, and then he’ll inject each and every one of us. Maybe even kill us.”
She keeps pushing the handle. Pushing, pushing, pushing. And a sick fills me, welling up like slimy black oil. It coats every fiber. Every vein.
I’ve never fought before. Not like Sing. Not like my baby sister. All fists, teeth, and dart. But something inside me snaps, propels me forward. Suddenly I’m at the door, shoulder slamming into its wood. My hip bone pins Yin Yu’s wrist into the handle so hard that something cracks.
At first she’s surprised. Then she shoves back. Her free hand flails, rakes at my face. I feel the sharp of her nails forging a path down my cheeks. I push out, use all my strength and more to slam her against the wall. Her tiny, wasted frame is no match for what woke up inside me.
“No.” I hold her tight against the wall. “No, no, no, no.”
It’s all I can say. This one word. Even as I say it I see my chances, my life beyond this, my sister and her stars, Dai and his sea… I see all of it consumed. Swallowed by the dark of Yin Yu’s eyes.
“What are you going to do? Kill me?” Her questions are calm and detached. The same way she floats through life here. “I’m surviving. That’s all you can do here, Mei Yee! Keep your head down and follow the rules! Survive!”
I hold her there, every muscle straining. Every piece of me shaking. She’s right. I can’t stop her. Not without rousing Longwai and Mama-san’s suspicions. Not without condemning Wen Kei and Nuo.
I can’t hold Yin Yu here forever.
“We can get out,” I manage. “We can go back home. See the sea.”
The other girl looks at me as if I’m speaking some foreign language, telling her things she can never understand.
I look back at Nuo and Wen Kei. I let go.
Yin Yu steps aside. My door unlatches and swings loose. She slips into the hall, a flash of red swallowed into the dark.
“Mei Yee…”
My head doesn’t feel like mine anymore. It swivels down toward the rug. Finds Nuo staring at me. Wen Kei is curled next to her, trembling.
“Go,” I tell them. “Before they come back.”
“It’s not right. She can’t do this.” It’s Wen Kei who’s talking. I realize, from the way the words come out, that she’s shaking because she’s angry.
I kneel back onto the bed, knees bending in a half collapse. “Yin Yu is doing what she thinks is right. She’s trying to protect you.”
They look at me. Nuo’s hands are fidgeting again. Wen Kei is breathing fast; her chest heaves in and out.
“Go,” I say again. “Please.”
“But what about the boy?” Wen Kei insists.
“It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s over.”
Nuo is shaking her head. At first I think she means to disagree with me. Then I see the wet in her eyes. She leans in, wraps her arms around my shoulder. Her hair smells like cinnamon and cloves.
We don’t say anything else. There’s no time. I hug Wen Kei and then they’re gone. Scattered like propeller seeds to the wind.
Dai’s face appears in my memory—glowing and strong behind the window. I think of how he’ll return and wait and never know. How I failed him.
The nautilus is still there, of course. Unchanged by this massive shift in my world. Behind bars and glass, still untouchable.
I look back over my shoulder at this room of useless, beautiful, dying things. Searching for something strong enough to break the glass. On the vanity is a jade hairpin, the ambassador’s second gift to me. I bring it to the grating, its sharp end slides neatly into the gap.
I need to warn Dai. I need to touch it.
My hand jams against the pin, sends it through the window. For a short, stunning second the glass sings. Pieces fly and spin and scatter like jewels across the sill. A few of them even spit and shine across my bed.
Then comes the cold. It swarms through the hole, and I realize just how warm I’ve been. Winter slides under my skin, infecting me with feelings fresh and free.
My fingers slip through the grating, past the glass’s angry edge. They reach all the way to the shell, keep pushing. And for a moment I’m touching the nautilus, feeling its smooth on my skin, hearing Dai’s promises over and over:
I can get you out.
I want you to see it, too.
I will come for you. No matter what it takes.
Then the ledge ends and the shell falls, tumbling far from my sight. Lost and gone.
My finger catches the glass. I don’t even feel the slice. But by the time I stuff one of my silk dresses into the hole, my finger is more blood than not. The curtain falls back for the last time.
I sit still on the edge of my bed, stanch the blood, and wait for them to come.
JIN LING
There are moments you wait for. And then there are moments you wait for. Moments you spend every other moment preparing for. Points of your life that click and turn. Push you in a completely new direction.
Dai and I stand at the end of the alleyway. My breath is short and the never-ending burn keeps digging a hole in my side. I ignore these things. Look down the river of trash. Count how many steps it’ll take to get to my sister.
My limbs shake with too much emotion. Dai leads the way and I follow, using one hand to steady myself on slimy stones. I’m glad Dai’s ahead. I don’t want him to see how hard it is for me to keep up.
A few feet in front of the window, Dai pauses. His body dead still. My foot lands on a loud, crunching soda bottle. His head whips back. Almond eyes narrow at me while he puts a finger to his lips.
My heart picks up: from trot to canter to gallop. Something’s wrong.
We stand still. Listen into the shadows. I hear nothing. Dai takes a few more steps forward. Skips through the trash like a cat. The window’s light colors him unreal scarlet. Dai looks at the shattered glass as if he’s seeing a ghost. He crouches down, fingers diving through old wrappers and bottle caps, picking up something all curled and hard. A shell.
“What’s that?” I hiss. “What’s wrong?”
His jaw clenches. Another finger goes up to his lips and his eyes warn, Be quiet!
I’m angry, ready to hiss again, when a noise rises up from the other side of the jagged glass.
“Has she admitted to anything?” Longwai sounds oddly awake through the curtain. Smart, sharp, alert.
“Mei Yee? Of course not. She’s just sitting there like a dullard.” A woman is speaking, her voice thin and reedy. Horribly bitter. Hearing her say my sister’s name makes me cringe. But it leaves no room for doubt. My sister used to be here. Behind this glass.
“And your search of the room?”
“There’s a hole in the window. It was stuffed up with one of her dresses. No sign of the seashell, though.”
Dai’s fingers lock around my arm. He pushes himself flat against the wall, just under the window. I follow. My stitches slam into cinder block and I try not to cry out. I bite through my lip instead. Salt and iron swim across my tongue. The alley goes blurry with tears.
The light above us changes. Falling from red to a weak yellow. Shadows spring on the opposite wall, shapes of Longwai and the woman bending closer to the glass.
“Even if it broke by accident, why would she keep it a secret?” The woman’s voice is clear. Close.
Dai’s hand is still on my arm, squeezing tight. I don’t dare move. Not even to look over at him. I hear Longwai’s breathing. Heavy and thick. Unbearably close.
“Does she have a cut on her hand?”
“I—I didn’t notice.” The
woman sounds startled. “Why?”
“Blood.” Longwai says only one word. But it’s enough.
“Do you think…”
“I’ll send Fung outside to check the alley.”
This time I do look over at Dai. He’s staring at me, too. His face is a scarecrow’s: lips stitched tight, patchworks of feeling all over. His eyes dart to the end of the alley. Keen and meaningful.
We have to get out of here.
“What should we do with Mei Yee?” the woman asks.
“Keep her where she is. I’ll be in to see her in a minute.”
“And if the ambassador shows up?”
“Tell him she’s ill. Offer him another girl.” He says this and I feel sick. I have to swallow it down. Keep that last little roll of rice and tuna the Suns’ maid handed me inside my stomach. I always knew Mei Yee’s hell was worse than mine. But listening to Longwai sell my sister like meat makes it very, very real.
My heart burns hotter than my stitches. I’m sick and murderous and ready to run.
The light sinks back into red. Voices trail off with footsteps, cut short by squealing hinges. Dai is on his feet, pulling me up. I feel like I’m moving in a dream: exhausting muscles and will, but not really going anywhere.
“Come on, Jin Ling.” Dai tugs harder and I’m standing. “You have to go.”
“We’re just going to leave? But Mei Yee—”
He cuts me off. “You heard Longwai. Fung’s coming.”
I can’t think straight. Not with the pain. Not with his tugging and pulling like this. “But Mei Yee. The book. We can’t leave!”
“Jin Ling. Look at me.”
It’s the only thing I can do. Everything else is spinning like a child’s toy top. I choose a point, the wrinkling gap of skin between his eyebrows. Focus on it.
“We are not leaving. You are.” Dai digs deep into his jeans’ pocket. Out comes a small wad of bills. “You get out of here and you take a cab back to Tai Ping Hill. Go to number sixty-two. Ask to see Ambassador Osamu.”
The ambassador? The one who would show up for Mei Yee? Use her… My mouth goes dry at the thought. My shoulders start shaking.