Fiction River: Unnatural Worlds (24 page)

Tears gathered behind Lin Han’s eyes again.
This was all she had left of her younger sister. A burnt spirit
tablet, taken from their ancestors’ altar in the front greeting
room.

A hard spike of hurt pierced her chest as she
remembered how her parents were going to deny Dao Ming’s birth,
just like they’d denied her death. They claimed now that there had
only ever been two children: Lin Han and her older brother. Dao
Ming had been written out of the family records. Father had talked
of bribing the census takers to cross out her name. All her clothes
had been given away or burned. Her favorite straw-stuff doll
destroyed.

Last night, Mama and Father hadn’t even held
a funeral, barely said a single prayer before they’d placed Dao
Ming’s spirit tablet in the brazier.

Someone had to do something for Dao Ming.
There was nothing to anchor her spirit. She would become a
red-faced angry ghost, stealing food and paper ghost money meant
for others.

Lin Han’s tears fell as she stuck the shovel
in the ashes. The mound crumbled, the fine ash sliding away like
sand. When she lifted the first scoop, the early morning breeze
puffed away some of the soot, sending it dancing across the
courtyard.

She carefully tipped the scoop into the vase
so no more of the ash escaped. Moving slowly, she completed her
task, though some of it had spilled onto her fine dark-blue robes.
Mama would be mad, but Lin Han didn’t care.

Finally, Lin Han stepped back. With a bow,
she solemnly handed the small scoop to Old Cook, who just as
solemnly took it.

“I will bury this,” Old Cook assured her.

Lin Han swallowed around a dry mouth. “Thank
you,” she whispered, touched that he was treating Dao Ming’s burnt
spirit tablet like a body, as if they were actually handling the
dead.

“You take care of Little Miss,” Old Cook
instructed. “We will hide you as well as we can today, me and the
gardener and your mother’s dressing maid.”

“Thank you,” Lin Han said again, bowing
low.

Though her family might deny Dao Ming, Lin
Han was still going to see that at least in the afterlife, her
sister would be taken care of.

***

Lin Han stood on one side of the dusty
street, looking at the Taoist priest’s shop on the other. The tiny
wooden shack sat nestled between two larger stone buildings, almost
as if he’d blocked off an alley to make his home. No paint
decorated the walls, no mystic symbols were carved into the wood.
Just a hand painted sign, weathered gray wood with bright red paint
promising suitable mates for all.

The mid-morning bells had already rung. A few
laborers remained in the street, squatting under the eaves of one
of the stone buildings, rolling dice and drinking strong pear wine.
They hadn’t seemed to notice her—no one had. Lin Han knew her fine
blue robes didn’t belong in this part of Yen Tu, knew that the vase
she carried was worth more than a few
cash
.

Either Dao Ming protected her, or Lin Han had
also turned into a ghost.

Finally, the old man she’d watched go into
the Taoist’s shop came out. He clutched a brown leather bag tightly
to his chest as he hurried off. Maybe the old Taoist was also an
apothecary, though he didn’t have a sign for that.

Feeling great daring, Lin Han stepped out of
the shadows and into the brightly lit street. She rushed across
though there was no traffic, no people or palanquins to avoid this
far from the city center. She fumbled with the latch and had to use
her elbow to push on it so she wouldn’t have to put down the
vase.

The dark of the shop made Lin Han stop and
blink her eyes for a moment. Spicy medicine smells, the scent of
burnt
jing
sticks and incense all came to her, as well as
long boiled tea and sweet chrysanthemum. The Taoist sat silent and
still behind the counter against the far wall. Rough wooden
floorboards snagged her sandals as she walked forward.

Jars bigger than her vase filled with bulbous
white roots in yellow liquid hung from ropes from the ceiling. A
long dried snake skin marked with a black diamond pattern stretched
from one side of the room to the other and swayed in the slightest
breeze. Eggs cooked in tea sat in another jar on the counter. The
back wall held row after row of sealed porcelain jars, all
meticulously labeled with either red or black characters.

The Taoist rose from his seat. His long face
ended with a hanging jowl and his forehead lifted up to a bald
skull. Fringes of greasy white hair curled down from just above his
ears, over his shoulders. His nose hung like a foreigner’s and his
ears stood out like long handles.

“Good day,” he said, giving her a small bow.
His voice belied his skeletal stature, ringing from him like a deep
bell.

“Good day,” Lin Han said. She hugged the vase
closer to her, the hard nubs pressing into her chest. “I need to
find a mate.”

At his raised eyebrow, she made her voice
stronger. “For my sister.”

She carefully lifted the vase out to show
him, missing its hard pressure against her chest. “The ashes...the
ashes of her spirit tablet are in here.”

“Ah, a
minghu
,” the Taoist priest
said, nodding. “A spirit wedding.”

“You must find someone who will look after
her. She was, she was a good girl. She will work hard. But she
should also be respected. Honored.”

“Thank you for honoring me with your
request,” the Taoist said gravely, giving Lin Han another bow.

Relief made Lin Han sag where she stood.
She’d done the right thing gathering up the ashes.

“Tell me,” the Taoist said over steepled
fingers, looking down at her from his tall height. “How old was
your sister?”

“She was eight. Her name was Dao Ming.”

The Taoist came around his counter and stood
in front of Lin Han. He bowed very low to her, then knelt down so
he was closer in height to her. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “But Dao
Ming was born in the year of the Ox.”

“She was,” Lin Han said.

The lump was back in her throat.

“I cannot find a mate for her,” the priest
said simply.

Surprise took away some of the sting.

A grown up, speaking so plainly?

“Why not?” Lin Han said.

“She’s too young. She can’t even have a
funeral. Veneration is only right from the young to the old. The
other way, from someone older to someone so young—it isn’t the
natural order of things. And brides, as you know, are very
honored.”

“Please,” Lin Han whispered. The room had
suddenly grown very dark, and the medicine smells clogged the back
of her throat.

“I’m sorry. But I can’t help.”

The Taoist reached across and turned her
gently toward the door.

Lin Han felt as light as a leaf blown by the
wind, no weight to push back.

Before she could think she found herself
outside in the bright sunshine.

A group of boisterous students were walking
by in the street, causing Lin Han to shrink back under the eaves.
She stood blinking, her breath heaving.

Of course the adults couldn’t help. They
hadn’t been able to help after the accident, when Dao Ming had been
hurt.

A wailing sound startled Lin Han. She pressed
her back against the rough wood of the Taoist’s shop. Where was it
coming from? The sound of clashing cymbals and drums rolled out
next, meant to scare away any bad spirits.

From down the street she saw a group of men
carrying something on sticks over their shoulders, a palanquin she
assumed. Someone very important. As they drew closer, she saw she’d
been wrong.

They carried a paper-wrapped wooden
coffin.

On top of the coffin was a painting of the
dead: a young man with stiff black hair, a sharp nose, and kind
eyes.

Lin Han carefully watched the funeral
procession, picking out his mother and father, his younger
brothers, and the other relatives.

No wife.

As if sleep walking, Lin Han found herself
drawn out of the shadows, following the procession.

She would find a mate for Dao Ming, one way
or another.

***

White grave stones embraced the hill outside
of Yen Tu. Lin Han followed at the tail the of funeral, still
clutching her vase. Her head felt light, like a feather fluttering
across the road, while sand chained her body to the earth, heavy
and slow with exhaustion.

Wailing mourners shrieked at the front of the
procession, followed by the musicians banging cymbals and drums to
chase away any evil spirits attracted to the dead body.

The graves nearest the entrance hadn’t been
cleaned in several months—probably since the last
qingming
festival that spring: leaves littered the curving white stone and
bright grass marred the smooth lines.

Lin Han vowed to come out and clean her
sister’s memorial place every month, not to wait for the annual
tomb sweeping celebration.

As Lin Han followed the procession up the
hill her heart lightened. Only those with a proper rank were buried
up on top of the hill. This meant the family not only had money,
but power and placement.

It wouldn’t matter if the family found
another bride for their dead son: Lin Han would make sure he
married Dao Ming first. Any other brides would be second or third
wives. Not first.

The clanging cymbals and drums started to get
louder, the pace, faster. Lin Han hurried, catching up to the
stragglers in the procession, then pushing her way forward. No one
stopped her. She didn’t wear the proper white mourning clothes over
her robe, but her face was still streaked with ashes and tears, so
she must belong.

A Buddhist priest in bright orange robes
stood at the head of the grave. He was a tall, pompous man, the
kind who smiled at children but then treated them as if they
couldn’t understand even the simplest words.

Lin Han knew she wouldn’t get any help from
him.

The parents of the boy stood beside the
priest. The mother wept loudly while her husband and sons consoled
her. Lin Han looked at them closely.

Would they be kind to her sister?

They were kind with each other. Maybe they
would welcome Dao Ming, too, if their son visited one of them in a
dream and told them about his wife.

The paper-wrapped coffin sat poised over the
grave, balanced on the long poles used to carry it from the town.
Alongside each pole was strung a strong rope.

When the priest finished his prayers and
blessings, the laborers came forward. They slid the poles away
while holding onto the ropes.

Lin Han stood poised, right beside the grave,
the ashes of her sister’s spirit tablet still clenched tightly to
her chest.

As was custom, everyone in the funeral
procession turned their back as the coffin started to disappear
into the earth.

Lin Han didn’t care if the laborers saw her:
they wouldn’t say anything, not to the family. It wasn’t their
place.

So she tipped the vase and scattered the
ashes on top of the coffin.

Dao Ming and her intended would be buried
together. Their funerals would be held together, because now all
the prayers said for him would be for her as well.

It was as good an introduction between the
families as any.

***

Lin Han waited for the priest to finish the
funeral under the fragrant pine trees in the graveyard. The family
was still wailing, and they were burning incense. She’d learned her
sister’s future-husband’s name—Tu Shr. The empty vase sat beside
her. She was so tired. She just wanted to sleep. But Dao Ming must
be married, first.

The early afternoon breezes tugged at Lin
Han’s hair. She gathered twigs to her, stripped the bark down and
used it to tie the sticks together, making little figures. The one
with the sprig of long soft needles from a yew tree was Dao Ming.
It didn’t really look like a skirt but it was the best Lin Han
could do. Tu Shr’s had a knotty twig across the top, like big
strong shoulders.

Lin Han hid behind the tree as the procession
started back down the hill. She didn’t want anyone to ask her any
questions. There she found the cap of an acorn that she also
gathered up.

As soon as the last person had reached the
bottom of the hill, Lin Han raced back up. The laborers wouldn’t
fill in the grave until later, closer to twilight, when light ran
away from the world. In three days time, the younger son would
return and take a cup of the dirt back to the family that they
would use to represent their dead son on their ancestors’ altar,
replacing the spirit tablet which was buried with the body.

At the edge of the grave, Lin Han found three
trampled pieces of paper ghost money that hadn’t been thrown into
the grave, money the dead could spend in the afterlife. She wished
she had more, but she couldn’t climb into the grave and ever hope
to get back out.

The three pieces would have to do for the
bride price, what the groom’s family gave the bride’s.

Lin Hand made a small pile of dirt on the
left side of the grave and placed the figure of Dao Ming there. She
formally presented the bride price to her, wishing she had a red
envelope for the money. She tucked the money in under the little
figure. On the right side, she created a second pile, and placed
the figure of Tu Shr there.

When everything was set, Lin Han picked up Tu
Shr. Carrying him well above her head to honor him, she did a
couple of dancing steps as she walked around the top of the grave
to the other side.

“Look Dao Ming! The wedding procession has
arrived!”

Lin Han kept Dao Ming in one hand while she
hid Tu Shr in the other. It wasn’t proper for the couple to see
each other yet. Then she danced back to the other side.

“Dao Ming! You’ve arrived at your husband’s
house now. It’s so big!”