Dark Serpent

  John rose to his feet from the blanket our family was sharing. A silver light shone from him, mirroring the light on the mountains. He raised his hands and dropped his head, concentrating, and his hair rose around him, lit with individual strands of silver. His black Mountain uniform was edged with the silver of the moonlight.

  The students watched him, discussing his appearance.

  Don’t look at me, he said. Look at … that.

  The top of the moon appeared above the horizon and everybody made loud sounds of wonder. Even the children stopped running around and shouted, ‘Wah!’

  John had made the moon so large it filled half the sky, even though only a quarter of it was above the horizon. It was like looking at it through a telescope; every crater was clearly visible. Silence fell over the Mountain as everybody watched the rising moon with awe. It hung in the sky above us like a twin planet.

  The moon shines with reflected light, John said.

  All watch its stolen finery, captivated,

  But its true beauty is held unseen.

  It searches for one with the vision

  To go beyond the silver glory

  To love the noble heart within.

  There was a smattering of applause and a few cheers.

  John sat back down and leaned into me. ‘It seems like forever since I’ve done that.’

  ‘How long did you work on the poem?’ Leo said.

  ‘I made it up on the spot,’ John said. ‘I don’t have the patience to spend time agonising over forms of words.’

  ‘It shows,’ Martin said. ‘Even in Chinese it’s awful.’

  ‘I know. Fortunately, the students don’t,’ John said. He leaned forward and studied the moon cakes on the tray. Each cake was ten centimetres across with a flaky pastry holding a sweet paste mixed with a large amount of sugar and fat. ‘White lotus, red bean … what is this, chocolate?’ He touched one. ‘Ice-cream? Wait, Hello Kitty moon cakes?’

  ‘They’re for Little Jade and Richie,’ Simone said.

  ‘Where are they?’ I said.

  ‘Running around with BJ,’ Simone said.

  ‘I thought its name was Darcy,’ John said.

  Simone shrugged. ‘BJ stuck.’

  John selected a quarter from a white lotus cake without the egg yolk and leaned back into me. I poured him some tea and he nodded his thanks.

  ‘Still can’t see them,’ John said, looking up at the moon. ‘I thought I made it big enough this time. I’ll have to arrange for a stone to do the calculations for me.’

  ‘See what?’ Simone said.

  ‘The locations of the moon landings. I thought if I magnified it enough you’d be able to see the footprints and the landing modules.’

  ‘I must go up and have a look,’ Simone said. ‘Will you take me, Daddy?’

  He was silent for a long moment, obviously thinking about what to say.

  ‘I see,’ she said.

  ‘I really would love to, Simone, and I hope to one day soon.’

  ‘No, it’s okay, I understand.’ She lay on her back, propped up on her elbows, and pulled a cushion behind her head. ‘Uncle Bai can always take me.’

  ‘Is he still dead?’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ John said.

  ‘Michael’s been complaining on Facebook,’ Simone said.

  John lowered himself so his head was in my lap and I stroked his hair. I ran my hand down over his shoulder and stopped when I felt a gauze pad under the fabric. He took my hand gently away and returned it to his hair.

  ‘When?’ I said softly.

  ‘Today,’ he replied, just as softly.

  I stroked his hair. ‘The other ones were nearly gone.’

  He rubbed my knee. ‘I know. I’ll live.’

  ‘I’m going to find Jade and Richie,’ Simone said too loudly, dropped her piece of moon cake onto the tray and stomped away.

  There was a commotion to one side of the square and John pulled himself to sit upright to see what was going on. When we saw Kwan Yin drifting across the square towards us in Celestial Form, both of us joined the students in standing. She was sitting cross-legged on a lotus flower floating on a cloud. Her shining hair was piled on top of her head, she wore a white robe, and her eyes were half-closed with contentment. She glowed from within with shen energy that radiated in visible rays from her.

  She stopped two metres in front of us, suspended on the cloud, and the students scrambled to make way for her. She dismissed the cloud and stepped down onto the stone barefoot. Her Celestial Form was more than three metres tall. When she spoke to us, her voice was soothing and calm, full of the vibrations of heavenly bliss.

  ‘Lord Xuan Wu. Emma, dearest. Walk with me.’

  She turned without waiting for us and drifted up towards one of the pagodas. John took my hand and we followed her. As we flew into the sky behind the glowing Bodhisattva, the moon huge above us, the students below went mad with joy, applauding and cheering. John squeezed my hand.

  When we reached the pagoda, Kwan Yin changed to her ordinary human form, wearing a white silk pantsuit. She landed to sit at the table and conjured some tea and moon cakes for us. We joined her, and I poured the tea before she could.

  ‘I appreciate your help,’ I said. I knew better than to say more.

  ‘I cannot help as much as I wish.’ She sipped her tea. ‘When do you depart?’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ John said.

  She nodded and turned her teacup in her hand. I glanced at John; I’d never seen her so agitated. He matched my look and made the tiniest of shrugs.

  ‘My house in Paris is there if you have need of it,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve been ordered to the UK only …’ John said, then stopped. He dropped his voice. ‘Thank you. What can you tell us?’

  ‘Jade Building Block,’ Kwan Yin said.

  ‘My Lady,’ the stone said.

  ‘Stay with them.’

  ‘It’s hard,’ the stone said.

  ‘I know.’

  She reached out and touched the stone in my ring and it glowed with shen energy.

  ‘Thank you,’ the stone said.

  ‘My pleasure.’ She sighed gently and removed her hand from it. ‘Do not hesitate to call on help from any quarter, Ah Wu.’

  ‘Any quarter?’ John said.

  ‘But do not negotiate with the forces of Hell.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Wow, how bad is this?’ I said.

  Kwan Yin held her hand out, palm up, towards John. ‘You are severed, weakened and in pain.’ She nodded to me. ‘You are small and vulnerable.’

  ‘Now it’s beginning to sound like a “what could possibly go wrong” situation,’ I said.

  ‘Could you petition the Jade Emperor to allow Emma to gain Immortality before we go?’ John said. ‘He hasn’t replied to me.’

  ‘No. It is not my place.’

  ‘Just do one thing for me, Ms Kwan,’ I said.

  ‘The answer is yes,’ she said.

  I put my teacup down and saluted her. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Is the Celestial doing the right thing?’ John said.

  ‘Of course he is,’ she said. ‘Bend. Do not break.’

  ‘I will not break. I know the Way.’

  ‘You may know the Way, but you have still a great distance to go.’

  John took my hand. ‘I do not strive for perfection and enlightenment. I have joy and love where I am.’

  ‘I know. But love brings misery and pain.’

  ‘And more joy,’ John said.

  ‘Yang and yin,’ Kwan Yin said. ‘Always cycling, one turning into the other. The darkness becomes the light. Joy becomes pain.’ She reached out and touched our hands. ‘Be strong when it is needed. Be weak when it is needed. Bend. Do not break.’ She disappeared.

  I shifted my chair so that I could lean into John. ‘That sounded very, very bad.’

  He put his arm around my shoulders. ‘Nothing we didn’t know already. What did you ask her?’

/>   ‘If it would work out okay in the end.’

  He squeezed me. ‘Of course it will. I will Raise and marry you.’

  ‘We should go back down,’ I said.

  ‘They’ll want a full account of everything we said.’

  ‘Tell them we played Uno and had jelly shots with her.’

  ‘We played what and had what?’

  ‘Oh, this is good. Tell Simone you’ve never played Uno.’

  He was silent for a moment, then stiffened slightly. ‘Suddenly she’s completely overjoyed. She says she’s finding her cards and we are playing it on the rug right now or else. She says Leo and Martin want to join in, and even the small children will play.’

  ‘I wonder if Leo can arrange the jelly shots for later,’ I said as he took my hand to carry me back down.

  Little Jade sat in Leo’s lap and they shared a hand of cards. Richie and Simone sat next to each other and she helped him.

  Little Jade’s tiny face was full of triumph as she placed the black card on the stack. ‘Take five, Uncle Martin.’

  ‘Four,’ Leo said to the top of her head. ‘You’ll make him cry.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Really?’

  Martin picked up four cards and nodded. ‘You are very mean.’ He pretended to wipe his eyes. ‘I’ll lose now.’

  ‘Don’t make Uncle Martin cry,’ Richie said.

  Little Jade studied him for a long moment, concentrating, then poked him with the hand of cards. ‘You’re only pretending,’ she said fiercely.

  ‘He can see your cards,’ Leo said, pulling her hand back.

  ‘He’s letting us win anyway,’ BJ said. ‘Stop doing that. It’s not as fun.’

  ‘You are?’ Little Jade said. She poked him with the cards again, and this time she dropped them. ‘That’s not fair!’

  Leo scooped the cards up off the rug. ‘Lord Xuan’s turn.’

  ‘What colour is it?’ John said.

  ‘You have to choose, Little Jade,’ Leo said.

  ‘Purple!’ she said with triumph.

  ‘Purple it is,’ John said, and laid a card on the pile.

  ‘Wait,’ Simone said, peering at the purple number ten. ‘This game doesn’t have purple cards.’

  ‘It does now, right, Jade?’ John said.

  Jade held her hand out palm forward and John high-fived her. ‘Yeah!’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll change it back.’ Simone touched the card, making it blue. ‘Okay, back to normal.’

  ‘These rules are not in the rule book,’ Leo said.

  Jade glanced up at him from his lap. ‘Is that special stuff, changing the colours?’

  ‘Yes,’ BJ said. ‘You won’t be able to do stuff like that when you’re down there.’

  ‘Down where?’ Martin said.

  Jade raised both her little hands. ‘We’re going to the Earfly!’

  ‘Earthly,’ BJ said. ‘Mom will be studying law in Hong Kong, so we’ll be living down there for a while.’

  ‘Amy’s studying law; Gold will be a full-time parent,’ I said.

  ‘And you permit this?’ Martin asked John.

  ‘I can’t see why not,’ John said. ‘Amy hates being a full-time mother; Gold loves it. She wants to take over his duties, so I’m encouraging them to follow their desires.’

  ‘Daddy says he can stay home with us just as good as Mummy can,’ Richie said, serious. ‘He’s better ’cause she gets cranky. They say being a girl or a boy makes no difference to being a good mum or dad.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Little Jade said. ‘We’ll live on the Earthly and Daddy will look after us.’

  ‘I’ll help,’ BJ said.

  Little Jade waved her cards in BJ’s direction. ‘You’re going to school.’

  ‘Yeah,’ BJ said ruefully. ‘What a hike up to CH every day. I may enrol in an Earthly school.’

  ‘CH is way better,’ Simone said. ‘You should stay up here.’

  BJ shrugged. ‘I don’t have any family up here.’

  ‘You have us,’ Leo said. ‘There’s a spare room in Persimmon Tree. Martin’s over at the Northern Heavens all the time, and since I stopped recruiting I’m spending most of my time on the Earthly helping Chang with the orphanages. How about you take it?’

  ‘Can I?’ BJ said, full of hope. ‘I’d like to stay up here.’

  ‘Talk to your father about it first,’ John said.

  ‘I will,’ BJ said, determined. She looked down at her card. ‘Oh. Uno.’

  Simone raised her hand. ‘Wait, I have Uno too.’

  I looked down at my hand, then around at the group. Everybody was left with one card.

  ‘Hold on, we had five cards a minute ago,’ Leo said. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Oh,’ John said. He raised his hand, holding one card. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You gave everybody one card?’ Simone said.

  ‘It wasn’t deliberate,’ John said. ‘It just happened.’

  ‘Why did that happen?’ Little Jade said, turning her card to examine the front and back. ‘Where are the other cards?’

  ‘Put them all back in the box, and when you take them home the lost ones will probably return,’ John said, handing Simone his card. ‘If they don’t, I’ll buy you a new box.’

  ‘But why did it happen?’ BJ said.

  ‘His number is one,’ I said. ‘I think he somehow just changed reality around him.’

  ‘You warped reality?’ BJ said.

  John tried to shrug it off. ‘Things like that happen sometimes. Just be glad I haven’t brought winter on early.’

  Jade waved her card at him. ‘You are so weird, Uncle John.’

  ‘Our daddy’s weirder!’ Richie said triumphantly.

  Jade pursed her lips for a moment, thinking, then nodded. ‘Yes, you’re right, Daddy is really weird sometimes.’

  ‘Is that a good or a bad thing?’ Gold said, appearing behind them.

  ‘Good!’ Little Jade said.

  ‘Yeah!’ Richie said.

  ‘Bedtime,’ Gold said. ‘But BJ can stay for a while if he likes.’

  ‘BJ’s a she right now,’ Little Jade said.

  Leo hoisted Little Jade off his lap and handed her to Gold, who rested her on his hip. He held his hand out to Richie, who rose and took it.

  ‘Say goodnight to everybody,’ Gold said.

  ‘I’ll come too, Dad,’ BJ said. ‘I want to talk to you about Leo’s idea.’ She waved one hand at us. ‘Night, everybody.’

  ‘Goodnight!’ Little Jade yelled, waving.

  ‘Night, everybody. Let’s play that again soon, it was fun!’ Richie said.

  ‘But Uncle John has to promise not to do that again,’ Little Jade said as Gold turned to go.

  Richie took BJ’s hand in his other hand. ‘Yeah, ’cause I would have won.’

  ‘I would have,’ Jade said.

  ‘No way, I only had two cards left.’

  ‘But I had more! That means I was winning, right?’

  They continued arguing as Gold led them away.

  ‘Will the cards really come back, Daddy?’ Simone said as we folded the rug. ‘What happened last time you did this?’

  ‘I haven’t done it in a very long time.’ He patted her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll buy you a new deck.’

  Leo threw the rug over his arm. ‘It’s late and we have an early flight tomorrow.’

  ‘Night, Leo,’ Simone said, and hugged and kissed him and Martin.

  She watched them walk away to put the blanket into a hamper the demons had placed at the side of the square.

  ‘This will be the first time they’ve really been apart in forever,’ she said.

  ‘They’ll be able to talk to each other,’ John said. ‘Good for them to spend some time apart; I think it will make them appreciate each other even more.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, putting my arm around his waist and leaning into him. ‘Worked for us.’

  ‘If I’d had a choice, I would not have been away for quite so long,’ John sa
id, wrapping his arms around Simone’s and my shoulders. ‘Leo’s right: we should all go to bed.’

  Simone looked up at the moon. ‘I’ll have trouble sleeping with that; it’s very bright.’

  ‘I’ll fix it,’ John said.

  As we walked back to the Residence, our arms wrapped around each other, the moon shrank back to its normal size and the sky filled with brilliant stars.

  16

  Simone slumped in the uncomfortable hard chair at the airport gate. ‘It’s so full here that we’re taking seats from people, these chairs are stupid and my bum hurts. We should go to the lounge.’

  John was sitting upright and glancing around, alert. ‘I’m not having this argument again. The business-class lounge has only one exit and it’s harder to defend.’

  ‘Is that a real concern?’ Ben said. He and Tom were accompanying us to the UK to investigate Tom’s demon nature and Ben’s Welsh heritage that was somehow linked with my own.

  ‘Not really, but he’s being extra careful,’ I said.

  ‘This is torture,’ Simone said. ‘Are you sure there were no first-class seats?’

  ‘It’s for your own safety. There’ll be nobody in business except us,’ John said.

  ‘You’re taking this safety thing way over the top, Dad. Give me back my yin and none of them can hurt me, not even the King.’ Simone slumped back in her seat again. ‘We should just go to the lounge!’

  ‘I was going to give this to you on the airplane, but you can have it now if it’ll stop you complaining,’ Leo said, handing her a small shopping bag from one of the cheap electronics stores in Tsim Sha Tsui.

  She opened it and peered inside, then jiggled with delight. She grinned up at him. ‘You are so awesome! Thanks, Leo.’

  ‘What is it?’ I said.

  She pulled out the handheld game. ‘Latest Pokemon. I didn’t buy it because of study. Leo, you’re the best.’ She went to him and gave him a quick hug, then sat back down and opened the console. Her face dropped with disappointment. ‘There are no outlets here to charge it up, and none of us is good with metal.’ She brightened. ‘We have to go to the lounge now, Daddy.’

  John glowered at Leo, who shrugged and smiled slightly. John turned back to Simone. ‘Aren’t you too old for these games?’