‘Beg my forgiveness,’ she commands in Celestial voice. Her words slither with a multitude of echoes and whispers that burrow into my bones like termites.
Every muscle in my body tenses and I fight the urge to drop to my knees and kowtow like a snivelling worm. For once I’m grateful for all the brain-eviscerating drills Horsey has been putting me through. I may not be able to manifest the voice, but I can throw off the compulsion. Well, for everyone apart from Big Wang. I focus on my own will. Arms shaking, I yank my wrist from her grip. Her eyes widen. The last time I wasn’t able to fight her. This time I drop the roosters and lunge.
Lady Soo screams, grabbing my hands to keep me from clawing her face. I snarl and growl. We topple to the ground, roll on the parquet floors in a tangle of yellow silk and bare limbs. The spirit screen crashes to the ground. My fangs slide out. I’m about to sink my teeth into her face – but strong arms yank me off her, pulling me back. I shriek, twisting and trying to bite at the arms gripping me tight.
‘Calm, Little Jing.’ A familiar gritty voice grates down my back, amplified by Celestial voice.
My stomach drops like an iron chain into a fathomless lake – fear and shame spiralling downwards without end. Big Wang is here.
I shudder, unable to resist his compulsion. My arms drop to my side, my throat closes, cutting off my screams. My whole body quakes, trying but failing to throw off his control. It’s only when the arms release me that I finally notice their shabby brown sleeves. My face heats. Lord Black had to restrain me.Of all the deities to embarrass. I will never live this down. The dragon king steps out from behind me and helps Lady Soo to her feet. And that’s when I see the screen on the ground. I am exposed to the entirety of the Mahjong Council.
Lady Soo sniffs haughtily, pats her hair which has fallen in thick locks around her flushed face. ‘Venerable Big Wang, thischildhas abandoned her Confucian virtues. She shows her elders no respect. I demand you hand her over to the Hulijing Court so we may discipline her.’ Her voice is shrill and carries. Every yaojing in the hall has their head turned towards us. All those eyes on me. Judging me.
No. Cold fingers of panic wrap around my neck. I can’t speak, but I turn to Big Wang, pleading with my eyes.Don’t put me at her mercy. But the way Big Wang sighs, the anger in his gaze, tightens the grip around my throat. I shake my head, willing him to understand my desperation. So many eyes. They will gossip about this, everyone in Tian will hear about how the arsonist mongrel attacked a hulijing courtier, again, and had the gall to disrespect a dragon king! Hot tears prick at the corners of my eyes.
‘You would do well to remember your place,girl,’ Lady Soo hisses.
‘If I may, Big Wang,’ Lord Black says. ‘While Lady Soo’s beauty is renowned, a fragrant orchid amongst simple daisies, it does not become such a Celestial delight to forget her own virtues. As a wise man once said, one should see nothing improper, hear nothing improper, say nothing improper, do nothing improper. Taunting an orphan and calling her a mongrel does not exemplify benevolence, one of our core virtues.’
Lady Soo’s jaw drops at his words, then shuts with a snap. Her gaze darts to the Hall of Harmony where the assembled ministers are watching us with ravenous interest, and back to Lord Black. I know that look, she’s calculating what she can get away with. Lord Black outranks her many times over; I’ve heard he even outranks Big Wang and the Jade Emperor but for reasons known only to himself, he pretends he doesn’t.
She bows her head and simpers, ‘You are right Venerable Lord Black.’ She turns to me, her dark gaze glittering. She folds her right hand over her left, fingers in classic orchid formation, and holds them at hip level: theladyversion of a fist palm salute. ‘Contain my outburst, it was most unkind.’
Big Wang clears his throat, reminding me with a look about the conversation we had earlier. The importance of the plenary session, his project. To stay away from Lady Soo. I realise with horror what he expects me to do. I turn to him, frantically shaking my head, not above begging at this point. The last thing I want to do is give that rotted bitch the satisfaction. He tilts his head, waiting.
I can’t. I won’t.
He sighs, as if hearing my protests, then commands, ‘Apologise.’
A roiling black cloud rises inside me, my vision mists with rage. I put everything I am into fighting the command. My fangs push out, cut into the tender flesh of my lips. I taste copper. But even as my muscles shake, his command will not be denied. My knees thud against the polished wood floor. I jerk and grunt, trying to twist from the compulsion, but it’s no use. My hands lift above my head as my body bends forward.
A grey feather from one of the roosters lies near Lady Soo’s feet. Inch by agonising inch the feather comes closer until my hands are palm down on the floor, and my forehead touches wood. I can see the feather no more. Hot tears slide down my cheeks. My body jerks upright, betraying me with every movement. I sit back on my heels, my hands lift above my head again. My forehead touches the floor at Lady Soo’s feet. I do this once more. When I have finished kowtowing, I kneel tall, hands joined above me, head bowed. I pinch my lips shut, wishing, praying, desperate not to utter those words but they come anyway, forced out from between clenched teeth, making me drool as I speak.Damn you, Big Wang.
‘Contain my outburst, Lady Soo.’
Command fulfilled, the compulsion releases me. I fall on my hands, breathing hard, refusing to sob before that wretched bitch. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand – it comes away bloody. The single grey feather lies on the floor, blurred now.
The frayed hem of a brown robe sweeps by me. ‘Lady Soo, I have not played a game with you in many years,’ Lord Black says. ‘Lady Chang-e was telling me how much she’d like to play a hand with you. Shall we?’
Her gilded silks swish as she passes, crushing the grey feather underfoot. I can feel the eyes of all the Hall on me. Shame, contempt, and fury solidify into a burning ember inside me. I will make Lady Soo pay for my loss of face, expose her and that whole rotted court for the toxic bitches they are. My oath clenches around the ember, compressing until my resolve hardens into a glittering diamond.
When I finally muster the courage to look up, the spirit screen is back in place. Big Wang is gone. The stupid roosters, however, are not. They stand staring at the wall. I grab them and make my way back to the terrace.
Horsey’s swapped places with Bullhead. I toss the roosters at his head – they squawk and he splutters. I yank my stupid qipao right up to my thighs then shove my fingers in my ears to mute his nagging and pound across the terracotta tiles, running as fast as I can. With a leap, I soar across Nanking Road, landing so hard on the smaller rooftop of the Palace Hotel I crack the tiles. I keep running, flying over the streets, hot air whipping my hair, sweat pasting strands against my face, flinging myself off the edges of each roof, not caring how I land, cuts on my knees, hands and shins multiplying. The twin spires of the North China Daily News Building flash by me. I swing my arms, pump my legs, go faster, higher, harder. Sweat drips down my back, blood drips down my legs, as I scramble across the tops of three short buildings, clamber up the clock tower of the Custom House, fury and shame biting at my heels. I throw myself over Foochow Road and nearly miss the next ledge, skinning my knee raw as I claw myself onto the next building.
I keep going, naming the streets as I fly over them: Canton Road, Avenue Edward VII, Rue du Consulat. The rhythm of the familiar names calms me, so by the time I land on the grey tiles of Mistress Ya’s medicine shop, I manage not to break a single one. I hop over the old moat and land lightly on the dark grey wall of the Old City. A group of lady ghosts on the Quai des Fosses drift below me outside the fortified walls; their dresses eddy around their legs and their long dark hair floats on an unseen wind.
The narrow lanes of the Old City press in, a dark and comforting embrace. My rooms sit on the upper floor of the Lake Heart Pavilion, right above Old Zao’s kitchen, home of the Hearths of Hell. I lope across the zigzagging bridge and launch myself up to the sloping eaves outside my bedroom window.
‘Is that you, Lady Jing?’ Old Zao’s smoky voice wafts up from their kitchen. Being the Kitchen God, they like to personally tend the Hearths of Hell so they’re there at all hours.
‘Sorry to wake you,’ I call down, my put-on cheer unconvincing to my own ears, and duck through the open window to my rooms. My bed is in the middle of a five-sided room, lattice windows across all walls. The bedroom opens into a square room, where I have a small desk, a washing basin, a large elm cabinet, and a camphor trunk for my winter clothes. My sketches and paintings paper the walls – sunrises and blue skies strewn with silk floss clouds. Things which do not exist here in Hell.
I kick off the silk slippers with more force than necessary and wipe my eyes with the back of an arm. Silk threads criss-cross the ceiling where my collection of tiny umbrellas twirls in the breeze. I touch one of the umbrellas, making the others bob and spin in greeting, and lay back in bed to watch them. Big Wang says he can’t bring the stars to our sky; they’re part of a different ministry, and apparently moving them is a bureaucratic headache. I make do with these, my paper version of stars – pink and green and yellow and orange and blue. They normally make me feel like rainbows are possible, even in a place as dark and rainless as Hell, but today, they only make me sad.
I roll over onto my side. The pilfered pink umbrella jabs me, so I pull it out. It’s a sad crumpled thing, torn at the edges. Soo’s words slither into my ears –Forsaken piece of trash. The best thing you could do is disappear.The memory of my body being pressed to the ground in front of so many watching eyes brings with it a fresh wave of humiliation.
I close my hand around the umbrella; the sharp end of the toothpick bites into my palm but I don’t stop. Instead I clench my fist harder, feel the wood bend slowly, but just before it snaps, a tear drops onto the tiny corner of paper still visible in my fist. The paper turns a deeper shade of pink.
