Of course he was alive. Why would I think he wasn’t? His warm brown eyes blinked at me, as real as the dirt we used to play in by our shophouse, and so were his freckles and the jagged scar on his left thumb from cutting himself with scissors. This was my Sendo.
I wanted to touch him—to stick out my fingers and rub the soft stubble on his chin. I wanted to sit at his feet and listen to his tales of the sailors and merchants who’d come by Baba’s shop since I’d been gone. I wanted everything to be the way it used to be…but something held me back. Maybe it was the fear that if I got too close, he would disappear. For the life of me, I could not remember why I had this fear.
“Shouldn’t you be working on that scarf for Lord Belang?” Sendo teased.
His voice startled me. I tried to crush the emotions roiling in me, but my voice cracked slightly when I spoke. “The one…the one with all the tassels?” My fingers twitched, remembering something about tassels.A carpet. I shrugged away the memory. “I hate knotting. I can do it after lunch.”
Sendo held a round-bellied lute—I hadn’t realized he knew how to play. A sailor’s hat slanted on his head, like a soupspoon about to slide off the uneven slope of his black hair. Seeing it, I felt something in me melt.
“Since when do you play the lute?”
“Don’t you remember?” he said. “You bought it for me for my birthday. I’ve been practicing every day ever since.”
Oh, I did remember now. Baba had let me take on my first customer, and allowed me to keep the money I earned from the order. It’d been enough to buy presents for everyone. My parents and my brothers. I hadn’t bought anything for myself.
I sat on his bed, stretching out my legs and crossing my ankles. A breeze tickled my bare arms from the open window.
“Someone needs to provide entertainment on a ship,” Sendo said, strumming again. “Why not me? I can write poetryandsing. And I can tie knots better than anyone in Gangsun.”
“Sewing knots are very different from sailing knots,” I rebuked him gently. “Besides, Baba will never let you become a sailor.”
“He doesn’t need me in the shop,” Sendo persisted. “Business is doing so well. We have twelve hired hands now.” He stilled the lute strings with his fingers. “Will you talk to him about it?”
I softened. Seeing him had brought an ache to my heart, as if we’d been separated for a long time. “Anything for you.”
“Thank you,” Sendo said.
I made a motion to stand, but Sendo tilted his head. His thick brows knitted.
“What’s the matter?” I asked him.
“Come closer.”
Again, I hesitated. What was holding me back?
Sendo dropped his lute on the bed. “Why are you carrying a dagger, Maia?”
I looked down. I was wearing my usual navy dress, with a sash for my needles and scissors. But Sendo was right—a dagger hung at my side.
There was something familiar about it, but the memory teetered at the edge of my thoughts…ready to slide off and never be recalled again.
I bit my lip. “I don’t know.”
“Give it here,” Sendo said.
Obediently, I handed it to him. My brother stood and walked to the window. I followed, basking in the warm sunlight. The day outside was perfect. I could see the merchants’ carriages parked along the road, and children playing with dragon kites.
Sendo twirled the dagger’s silken cord. “It looks valuable. The hilt’s walnut, and the scabbard is laced with a silver stone of some sort. Meteorite, I’d say.”
“Meteorite?” I repeated. “Like from the stars?”
My stomach flipped, again with that pang of having forgotten something. Sendo tried, but he couldn’t unsheathe the dagger.
“Here,” I said. “Let me try.”
The dagger was light in my hands, and the cord was dirty with sand. Strange, I didn’t remember dropping it. Then again, I didn’t remember much of anything about the dagger.
“Jinn,” I uttered, and the scabbard released. The blade, half iron and half meteorite, flashed, catching the sun and nearly blinding me.
