The Red Heart of Jade (30 page)

Even if she did not entirely trust them.

There was a car waiting, hired by Ren. The driver was a small compact man with smoke pouring out of his nose and mouth. He called himself by an English name: Steven. Miri thought if it had just been her, he would have used a different moniker, something traditional— but Dean was clearly foreign, and so it was a foreign name to make it easy on the “simple” Westerner, Steven gave Dean a box. A gift from Ben. Inside was a gun and holster.

It was a ten-hour drive to Jiuzhaigou, on a narrow winding road through the mountains of northern and central Sichuan. There was a local airport, a way to get to the park faster, but Dean did not want to fly. He wanted to take time, with the jade in hand, and test the lines of energy in his head as they traveled. Make sure they were going in the right direction. Build and strengthen the connection. Perhaps, even, discover more information. Miri hoped he would. She wondered, too, if she should not handle the stone herself, but held herself back. She was afraid of what she would see, of what would happen, and for once, she let that fear guide her.

The mountain road was narrow, but heavily trafficked with tourist buses, compact cars, and the occasional donkey pulling a cart. Steven enjoyed passing the buses while oncoming traffic rushed directly at them— playing games of chicken, which always had one or two cars clinging to the edge of cliff faces, dancing air on brinks of oblivion. Higher and higher they climbed, surrounded by the relics of ancient walls and temples perched on mountaintops—and at the bottom, the wide river, cutting a ribbon through the land. Villages perched precariously; Miri saw fields hacked out of mountainsides, planted with corn and wheat and fruit trees. Only one water source: the river. Women trudged up the steep mountain paths from river to field, yokes on their shoulders. Some children followed, hauling the same burdens, the same weights; tiny girls with rosy cheeks, no older than five or six, bearing it all and staggering.

They traveled through towns, the occasional small city—houses tucked into hills. The bumpy road passed through plateaus, green places of easier living where fields of sunflowers, the largest she had ever seen, pushed and pushed skyward like crowns of gold, and the houses clustered with their roofs shining under glimpses of sun, shining like the river, which still wound and pulsed, diverging into irrigation ditches planted thick with the grain fields. They stopped, once, at a lonely restaurant. The low wooden building had a friendly feel, with plastic tablecloths and a courtyard full of trees. Fresh fruit for sale: local white peaches and nectarines, plums and grapes that had to be peeled before eaten. Koni, though they kept an eye out for him, did not make an appearance.

They stopped at a hotel just before dark, with still another five hours to go. It was a nice place, a little overdone with marble floors and thick creamy pillars, but it was clean and modern and had a restaurant. Nice views, too, of the gloomy green mountains. It advertised itself as run by locals, but while the girls working the front desk were surrounded by Tibetan kitsch, the manager who came out spoke his Mandarin with a distinct Taiwanese accent. Still, it seemed nice enough, and at least it was a place to rest.

Later that night, as Miri lay in Dean’s arms, she pressed her cheek against his chest, listening to his heartbeat, and asked, “How do you explain us? How do you explain why we feel the way we do? Still, after all this time?”

It took him a long while to answer. So long, in fact, that at first she thought he was asleep. But then he sighed and pulled her closer.

“It’s the kind of thing that’s hard to talk about, Miri. But the way I see it, the best way I can say it, is that some people have friends and it doesn’t mean much. You hang out, you do stuff, and maybe you think it’ll last, but distance tells. A little bit of time, and you stop thinking about that person. They’re just a memory, sometimes not even a good one, and after a while you forget everything except a name, and then maybe even that. “ He stopped, rolling them over so that he propped himself up on his elbow to look into her face. The room was dark, his eyes nothing but shadows, but she felt the gentleness of his touch as he stroked her face, the quiet heat of his skin as he rested his finger against her neck. She touched his hand, holding it, and in a soft voice Dean said, “But sometimes it’s different, Miri. Sometimes you find a friend that gets under your skin so you can’t think how you lived without her. You can’t imagine a life without this person because it’s like losing an arm, and if you do lose that person, it’s the same as cutting off a piece of you. You still feel the ghost pains, the echo. You still feel that presence to the point you turn around to look for it, talk to it, but hey, no go, ‘cause she’s not there. And you think,
fuck
. How am I going to live the rest of my life like this? How in the hell, when the part you need so bad is gone?”

Dean stopped. Miri held her breath. Finally, he said, “When I thought you died, it wasn’t like losing a limb. It was like losing a whole fucking body and I was just this ghost, cruising along in the world. It got better. I won’t lie to you about that. I didn’t stop grieving, but I did remember who I was again. I never fell in love, though.”

“That’s a long time to not have love.”

“I fooled around. Did some stupid shit.”

“What kind of shit?” Miri asked, because he stopped so abruptly she had a feeling it was something pretty embarrassing. “Not drugs or anything, right?”

“No,” he said, and she heard the scowl in his voice. “It’s just... I had a lot of sex. I did it because I thought it would make me feel better—but it just made it worse. I kept thinking about you, which after a while felt pretty sick, because first you were dead, and second, I kept remembering you at sixteen. Which, when you hit a certain age, just seems wrong. So I stopped. Sleeping with women, that is. I just... didn’t do it anymore. Which, uh, didn’t mean I lost my drive. I was still, um—”

“You don’t have to reassure me,” Miri said dryly. “I am completely convinced of your manliness.”

He grinned, though the smile faded. “Yeah? I put on a good act. All my friends think that sex is the only thing on my mind.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Well... yeah. But the point is they got no idea I haven’t been with anyone in years. “.

“Years,” Miri said. “How many years?”

“A lot,” he said, somewhat warily.

“My God,” she said. “You went celibate because of me. You were a total monk.”

“A monk with
Playboys
, Cinemax, and nightly dates with the magic fingers. But yeah, I basically kept it private.”

“Huh,” Miri said. “I don’t think I was quite as extreme.”

Dean looked mildly uncomfortable. “I don’t need to hear this. Really.”

“I did think of you the few times I had sex, so I suppose—”

“Miri,” Dean interrupted.

“Well,
you
said you slept around. And besides, what I got from those men wasn’t any picnic.”

Dean grunted. “That almost bothers me more.”

“At least you’re consistent.”

“Hey. I never said I was perfect.”

“Ah,” she replied. “But you are perfect for me.”

He kissed her, and they spent the next half hour wrestling on the bed, making out in random heated spurts that left Miri breathless and tingly.

“Miri,” Dean said, during a short break when his hands remained still and his mouth was not busy. “After all this is over, I want to get married. I want to make this permanent.”

She smiled. “You realize, don’t you, that I would stay with you for the rest of my life, regardless of any marriage contract?”

“I don’t care. I want it legal, I want it on paper, I want it to be legitimate and traditional and all that shit. I want the whole fucking world to say, hell yeah, those two are hitched.”

“You’re so romantic.”

“It’s only going to get worse from here on out,” Dean said, and pulled her in tight for a hard kiss.

And then, even more so—for a brief moment her reflection seemed to waver, the world falling away as her face disappeared in the glass, replaced by another woman with the same eyes, but with different skin and hair. Lips moved—words—and behind her, Miri saw a snowcapped mountain—lights, rippling iridescent.

On her chest, between her breasts, a shadow. A series of words, like the ones on the jade.

Miri blinked—the vision snapped, faded—and suddenly she was in the bathroom again and the world was normal.

No such thing as normal
, she thought, still staring at the mirror as a great and terrible dread filled her body, prickling her skin with heat.
Not anymore
. She almost ran from the bathroom, but forced herself to stay put. If she ran now in fear, she knew she would keep running, and now was not the time to chicken out. No matter how weird or unsettling her life was.

Breathe
, she told herself, and she did, slow and deep, still looking at the mirror, still focused, body alive with fear, and her vision narrowed on the skin between her breasts. She imagined those words from her vision and for a moment saw them again, so clear she touched herself. The moment she did the words disappeared, but she pressed even harder and imagined lines, a ridge, curving and twisting.

Stupid. Getting caught up. This is nothing, just your imagination. You’ve been seeing so much crazy stuff for the past couple of days, your mind is running on overdrive.

It made perfect sense, but Miri could not turn away from looking at herself, and she wished suddenly that she could just peel up her skin, tear it apart, because underneath, underneath that layer of flesh—

Miri dug her nails into her body, pressing as hard as she could. Outside the bathroom, she heard movement. Dean called her name. Soft at first, and then louder as he stood outside the bathroom. Miri ignored him, still digging with her nails, raking—so hard she made terrible welts, red marks that seemed like some kind of reminder, hypnotic and strange.

“Miri?” Dean said, voice muffled. “Why won’t you answer me?”

She could not answer because she could not speak. The doorknob rattled and Dean entered the bathroom. He did not say anything for a moment—simply stared—and then he was there, pressed up against her body, holding down her hand as she tried to mark herself again.

“No,” he breathed. “No,
bao bei
. Stop.”

“There’s something there,” she said, and her voice sounded faraway. “Like what you have. Beneath the skin. I can feel it, Dean.”

“Okay,” he said, still holding her. “I believe you. But this isn’t right. You have to stop. Miri,
listen to me. “

And she listened, and it was like having a veil torn away, or lines cut. She staggered and Dean caught her, cradling her against his body. He carried her back to the bed and laid her down, crawling close. He did not turn on the light, but pressed his warm hand between her breasts.

“It hurts,” she murmured.

“Why did you do it?”

Miri shut her eyes. “My reflection in the mirror... I was different. It was me, Dean, but my face belonged to someone else and there were mountains behind me. Lights. Words on my chest. I could see them so clearly.”

Dean said nothing. He pressed his lips against the welts, and wrapped her up tight in his arms and legs until her heart calmed and all around her body, the only thing she could feel was him, holding her, taking care with that gentle ease that was so like him. Heart of gold.

“We are going to get through this,” he whispered in her ear. “But you can’t scare me like that again. You have to promise me, Miri. Don’t hurt yourself.”

“I didn’t mean to. “ So surreal, having to say that. She was a rational woman, practical. Not prone to wild fits.

“I know,” he said, and then, softer, “I won’t live without you again, Miri. I won’t do it.”

“Dean.”

“No. I won’t kill myself. It’s not like that. But live? Live for any length of time? I wouldn’t last long, babe. It would just be me and my shadow, and then just my shadow, and then... zip. Gone. I don’t have enough heart left inside me to come back. I lost most of it the first time around, and a man can only pretend to be happy for so long.”

Her throat hurt. She turned in his arms and kissed his mouth. Dean let her pull away only far enough to turn her head, and they lay cheek to cheek, sharing breath and heartbeats. Miri remembered a little boy, she remembered a young man, she remembered grief and memory and years of dreams, and she thought,
I’m
going to keep this. I’m not going to let go
.

Not ever. But her throat would not work, and she could not find the words to tell him. All she had was her body. Her very willing heart and body.

And that was more than enough.

They entered Jiuzhaigou early the next afternoon, after a ride through grasslands tumbling high among purple ice-capped mountains, stark peaks that inspired such feelings of awe and thrill that for a time, Miri forgot her troubles and could not help but imagine herself a climber, a trekker, another kind of adventurer, braving the wilds in search of archaeological treasures. She had no doubt that some lost civilization, extinct or not, lived in that virgin wilderness; the world was still large enough for mystery. Mysteries of all kinds and shapes and forms. It felt like home.

Nomads had their camps along the road; colorful striped tents that reminded Miri of the circus, and which dotted the landscape like waving flowers. Cattle grazed. Men roamed on horseback, tall and dark and lean, and Miri thought they looked so handsome dirty, she could not imagine how fantastic they might look if they were clean.

The road curved away from the grassland into lower ground, the Minshan Mountains, within which Jiuzhaigou was tucked deep and away like a jewel of pine and straw grass valleys. Miri caught distant glimpses of it through breaks in the tree line as their car made the slow and curving descent.

“Reminds me of Montana,” Dean said.

“Just wait,” Miri said, trying to hide her excitement. “Just you wait.”

He had to wait quite some time. The road leading to Jiuzhaigou was rather crowded with hotels, and at the monument itself, tour buses and cars packed the extremely large parking lot, which was framed by mountains and wild cloud-covered hills.

“They only let in a certain number of people every day,” Miri told him, as they made the trek to the ticket counter. “And technically, you’re supposed to be out of the park by five-thirty. No camping, no staying overnight. No wandering away from the marked paths. “

“Technically?”

Miri smiled. “Some of the villages inside the park offer rooms. It’s hush-hush. The only reason I found out is that Owen knows some of the ladies who live there, and they were more than willing to earn some extra cash. We stay with them, we can sneak out. Do what we have to do. We may not even have to sneak. They know I’m an archaeologist. They think it makes me more qualified to do the wilderness thing on my own.”

“Girl power rocks,” Dean said, and dodged a light blow to his arm.

The quota for the day had not been met, so Dean and Miri walked through a metal swinging gate to the lines waiting for buses. It did not take all that long to get a ride, and Miri and Dean soon found themselves bumping along a narrow road, carried past ribbons of water that were the colors of pure emerald and turquoise, glittering clear as crystal as the sun peaked occasionally through the pearly clouds.

“This place is beautiful,” he said, and then, in a voice only she could hear, “The jade is so close I can practically feel my teeth vibrating.”

“Good,” she said. “That means my hunch may not be far wrong.”

“Though we were wrong last time.”

“It was the body,” Miri said. “For some reason you had a strong connection with that man.”

Twenty minutes later, Miri made them get off the bus at a spot in front of Huohahai, the Sparkling Lake. Around them tourists mingled, taking photos, oohing and aahing over the deep turquoise surface that was a color so rich and pure, it was almost a taste in Miri’s mouth: juicy and cool. The lake was quite large, surrounded by pine and wild grass. No one but locals were allowed near its edge, but Miri saw a few intrepid souls trying to creep off the boardwalk.

A low stone wall bordered the road. As Miri and Dean walked up to it, she pointed at the water. “Take a look at the middle of the lake, Dean. You see that yellowish stuff? Tell me what it resembles.”

It took him some time, but when he finally made the connection, a small sound escaped him. Miri smiled.

“I see a dragon,” he said.

“It’s called the Lying Dragon,” Miri told him. “It sits in about sixty feet of water, and when the winds come down from the mountain and the lake surface ripples, it looks like its stretching itself. And when the wind is really strong... well, wait.”

Several minutes later a powerful breeze swept over them, and though it died quickly, more followed until the surface of the lake whipped up into frenzy—and through the clear water, the dragon appeared to shake its head and wag its tail. It was a powerful illusion, and had Miri not been recently encountering the fantastic, she would have chalked it up to a curiosity of nature, and nothing more.

But things had changed.

“I saw this exact place in my vision,” Miri said. “It means something.”

“Yes,” he said. “I saw this lake, too, but just not with the dragon. The jade is nearby, but I can’t tell if it’s in the water. I hope to God it’s not.”

“You may be going for a swim tonight, handsome.”

“That water is going to be cold, Miri.”

“No pain, no gain.”

They took a bus to one of the nine native Tibetan villages inside the park. Tall posts stood near the borders of village and wilderness, red and blue and yellow flags cut like gigantic ribbons, hanging and fluttering from tassels dyed in similar colors. Near the rivers and waterfalls, other lines had been hung with flags, lovely in the sharp and constant breeze. In the water itself, Tibetan prayer wheels turned in the current. It was summer, but the air was still comfortably cool. Miri had to remind herself that they were not so distant from glaciers.

Miri led Dean to a small home selling food: buns and sodas and other snacks. An old woman stood out front, dressed in navy blue robes. Silver dangled from her ears. She had bright clear eyes and a smile to die for, which she used on Miri when she finally noticed her.

It was easy enough to get a room; not many visitors realized local stays were possible, and upstairs in her home the old woman pulled aside a curtain, revealing a relatively clean bed tucked within a small alcove. She gave Dean a sly look, took Miri’s money, and then scampered off.

“I just know that lady has a dirty mind,” Dean said.

“It can’t be as dirty as yours,” Miri replied.

They spent the rest of the day exploring, Miri following Dean as he traveled a path of his own making, exploring the vibrations of the jade. They passed along boardwalks that led through marshes and crystalline streams, walked around waters so blue she wanted to fall into them and make her skin the same color. They passed Pearl Shoal, a stream that splashed water about like millions of bouncing silver pearls, and later, Hanging Dagger Spring, which overlooked Swan Lake and resembled a dagger cutting the sky. Waters rushed from the peak, creating a waterfall almost a thousand feet tall.

Occasionally during their walk, Dean’s chest burned. He did not have to tell her. She saw him rub himself. She imagined it glowing, soft, out of sight.

“Lysander?” she asked him, feeling the pit of her stomach drop away as she remembered the scene in that chamber: the white body covered in blood, Kevin torn apart, and that pitiless voice that had shaken down her bones like thunder.

“Maybe something else,” he said, though he was clearly doubtful. “It doesn’t happen around regular people. Not even all shape-shifters. But I felt it with Robert, Lysander, Bai Shen...”

“What do they all have in common?”

“Magic, I assume.”

Miri frowned. “Robert had magic done to him. But Lysander? He’s a shape-shifter. And yes, he can set people on fire, but...”

“Magic,” Dean said again. “Maybe he can do it. Or maybe we’re missing out on some other clues, and it’s something else entirely. There isn’t any good way to find out. “

“Not until it’s too late,” Miri muttered. “I’m scared, Dean. I admit it. I’m terrified.”

“I am, too,” Dean said quietly, and kissed the top of her head. Miri’s skin tingled, but not from his lips. She rubbed her arms and Dean frowned.

“You’re cold,” he said. “I feel it, too.”

There was also a burning sensation in her chest. Pain.

You hurt yourself last night. That’s why.

But it felt different, as though the heat and discomfort were pushing up through her body. She remembered the dead woman with the jade in her chest, and though she did not understand what was happening to her, she felt on a deeper level some kinship, some sense of why the jade had been placed into that spot. The significance was very real.