Bullet Eyes snorted and flicked the mothball back into the cupboard. It caromed against the back wall, stopping at my feet.
Then he kicked the doors closed.
Once more it went dark inside the cupboard. The soldiers laughed at him, uttering “yokai” with mocking snickers that drowned out the thunder of my heart. With a shaky exhale, I leaned forward to peer through the crack.
How had he not seen me? I waited, certain they had an evil plan, like setting fire to the cupboard with me inside. I’d never know, for there came a shout from the corridor.
Hurriedly, they extinguished their cigarettes and filed out of the bedroom.
I waited. My pulse was still a stampede, the shock of having escaped certain death taking its time to recede. Only when the room was so still that I could hear the curtains brushing against the walls did I push the cupboard doors open.
New air swept into my lungs, laced with the soldier’s cigarette smoke. Instead of reinvigorating me, it only made me feel more sick. My stomach roiled, acid threatening to rise up in a bitter spew. It was the hardest thing, swallowing it down.
I crawled out, too numb to feel the gash on my leg. The world was spinning, and I had to lean against the wall. I needed a moment to wipe my nose on my sleeve and let the nausea in my gut settle. I couldn’t believe I was alive.
A crow was nattering outside the window trying to get into the house, when all I wanted was to get out. I wanted to climb out of the window and run up the hills, back to where my family was hiding. I wasn’t even frightened of Ah Ma’s cane or the harsh words she’d holler if I returned to our camp empty-handed.
But I stayed.
The medicine’s in a pouch,Ah Ma had instructed me,underneath your mother’s mattress.
Every sound rattled me, even the soft padding of my own feet. My entire body was shaking, my hands most of all. I twisted them until they turned red, a habit Mama hated, but it helped calm me.
I crouched beside the bed. Slash marks had mutilated the mattress, and out of its bowels, little lumps of stuffing poked out like maggots. Mama’s undergarments were strewn along the headboard, and the neat stack of newspapers she kept on her desk—diligently studying an article a day to practice reading—was scattered about the floor, ink smudged from the sweat of careless foreign fingers. Just looking at it made me furious. Even though the soldiers had gone, the crude booms of their laughter were forever scorched into my memory.
I slid my arms deep under the mattress, searching for the coarse outline of a shoe.
There.
I yanked on the slipper, then fished out a small hemp pouch sewn into the toe box. Inside was a packet of herbs along with three matchsticks, a handsewn charm for safety and luck, and a string of rosary beads with a thin wooden cross. I buttoned the pouch and threw the cord around my neck.
The day that the Japanese arrived in Guangzhou, Mama hid such a pouch in every room. She started rationing our rice and growing vegetables in the hills.
“You’re wasting your time,” my grandmother chastised her daily. “The Japanese have the city. They’ll never venture this far inland.”
For a while, Ah Ma was right. We were safe in the countryside, hours from Guangzhou and its precious ports on the Pearl River Delta. But though we felt a world away from the airstrikes, the bombings, and the fires, we shared the same sky. Ashes fromthe fallen city sprinkled into our town, and before long people started to leave. My teachers went back to their villages, and Ah Ma’s friends sold everything they had and fled to Hong Kong. Our little town grew quiet, and with no hope of school resuming, I spent my days with Mama learning to farm and mend and cook.
A year later, my oldest brother, Dai Gor, spotted Japanese scout cars crawling up the dusty roads into Tunglam. “They’re coming!” he cried.
Mama was calm. She watered the flowers, fed the carp in the pond and the chickens we kept behind the kitchen. She gathered my brothers and me, and Ah Ma—her mother-in-law—in the courtyard. Her back was stooped, three stuffed bags hoisted over her shoulder.
“It’s time to go,” Mama told us. “I prepared a camp in the hills.”
For once, Ah Ma bit her tongue. I noticed the bulge in her pockets, the extra jade bangles on her wrists and the chains of gold dangling from her neck. I hugged my favorite doll, combing my fingers through her spiky black hair. Though her porcelain face was ever smiling, it did little to comfort me.
The walk was long. Ah Ma leaned on Dai Gor, wobbling forward on her tiny bound feet, while Yi Gor and I helped Mama with the bags. Our neighbors followed us, then came their neighbors andtheirneighbors. Mama didn’t turn anyone away. “I have plenty of food,” she’d say welcomingly. “Plenty of supplies.”
My mother had thought of everything. Well, almost everything.
Dysentery spread among our camp, affecting the elderly first, then the children. By the time my brother Yi Gor fell sick, Mama had used up her medicine treating everyone else.
“You have a big heart but a small brain,” Ah Ma berated her. “Look what misfortune your generosity has brought to this family: Your second son is going to die.”
Mama said nothing, but for three days she didn’t eat or sleep. She knelt by Yi Gor’s side, praying with her beads as she wiped his face with a cool compress to bring down his fever.
His health only grew worse. And I saw despair darken Mama’s eyes.
That night, when the sky was darker than an inkwell and the trees rustled with bats, my grandmother shook me awake. “Get up!” she hissed. “Second Brother’s fever is getting worse. You’ll have to go to the house and fetch medicine.”
