Part 2, Chapter 11

Going to the festival you never know who you’ll meet

Ch 11

The road was filled end to end with market stalls selling everything imaginable, holiday treats were on display everywhere and Xiaomin bought each of them a sugar man to eat. Xun was happier than she had been in a long while. She loved the busy atmosphere and the delicious smells in the air. Paper lanterns in all shapes and sizes hung in long, zig zagging rows over the street and by the river couples and children were writing their wishes on lotus lanterns and sending them downstream. 

Shun and Xiaomin walked close together giggling and pointing at the different street performers as they passed each display. Leng Zai clung to Xun’s sleeve with two fingers like a child so he didn’t lose her in all the confusion. He had tried to put her hand on his arm the way he had seen other couples behaving, but she had pushed him away telling him it was inappropriate. He didn’t see why it was inappropriate, but he wanted her to be happy so he said nothing.

They were passing by an oddly dark stall draped in dark brown velvet when a hand shot out from the tent and grabbed him, pulling him inside. Convulsively he tightened his grip on Xun’s sleeve, dragging her with him into the pitch black opening.

Leng Zai blinked, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the gloom of the tent after the brightness of outside. 

“Leng Zai, what happened,” Xun asked from the darkness. He could feel her hand in his, their fingers twined tightly together and feel the heat from her as she pressed in close. He was suddenly much more kindly inclined towards whoever had dragged him off the street.

“What are you? What are you?” Asked a voice cracked with age. “Never seen one like you before. Seen things that acted like you before, but they were willful. Willful! They chose. Not you. You don’t have a choice do you? Odd child. Odd thing you are.”

Leng Zai was starting to make out the figure of a little old woman with long, thick, straggling green hair that looked more like some sort of moss than something grown on a human head. Her skin was as wrinkled as an apple that had been left too long in the storehouse but it had an odd green blue cast to it. She was dressed in what had clearly been an expensive embroidered robe at one point, but now it was tattered and frayed, hanging off her frame as if it had been made for a much larger person. She bobbed and weaved in a circle around them, her little black eyes winking in the light from the few dim candles that were set about the floor at the perimeter of the tent. 

Leng Zai was about to snap at the old woman for startling them when Xun laid a hand on his arm. 

“Excuse me,” she said as politely as she could, “Have we met before?”

The old woman peered up at her. “Don’t know you, don’t know you,” she said in a singsong voice. “Know him. Known him for years and years. Knew his father and his brother too. Nasty in the blood his brother is.”

“Who am I then,” Leng Zai asked. He was getting annoyed.

“You’re nobody now,” the hag replied. “Bits and pieces floating in the wind. Stuck in other people, you are. Never seen one like you.”

Leng Zai annoyance grew at the hag’s cryptic answers, but Xun stroked his arm again. The sensation was so surprising that Leng Zai grew quiet.

“If you won’t say who he is, can you at least tell us who you are?”

The hag stopped moving and stood so still it seemed she had stopped breathing. Suddenly she said, “Don’t know who I am. Know who I used to be. I was the Sea Witch. Great and powerful. All the magic, me. Gone now. Emperor called me here from the sea, my lovely sea. Emperor kept me here, weeks, months, years, I don’t know. Kept me from the waves. Kept me from the water. All my power drained away. Dried up. Emperor still won’t let me go. Stay here on land until I wither away. Hate him. Hate him so much.” 

The last words were said with such viciousness that Xun flinched. 

The Sea Witch turned her gaze on Leng Zai. “You should hate him more, shadow man. Nothing man. Nothing but spirit and bones you. No soul. No magic. No identity.” She peered at him. “No memory either. Hollow man. Moment man. No future. No past. Nothing. You nothing man.”

Leng Zai was shocked. He didn’t know what to say. Nothing man? Him? He didn’t feel like a nothing man. But that wasn’t really right either. He knew there was something still wrong with him, he could see it in the way Xun or some of the others looked at him.

Xun’s voice filled the suddenly heavy silence. “Can we get the pieces back? Can we make him whole again?”

The Sea Witch started her ungainly circling again. “Maybe... dunno... not much left...” 

The witch stopped and peered at Xun, who to his surprise stared back calmly. Leng Zai looked at her. She was trembling, he could feel her hand shaking in his, but she didn’t look away from the Sea Witch’s gaze. 

“Chance. She give you chance. More to silly girl than meets the eye. Always the case in these little dramas. More than you see. More than you see. Sea Witch can help. If you see Sea Witch Sea Witch can help. Not much magic left in her, but enough for revenge. Revenge is sweet. Revenge is cold. Revenge like ice cream.” The hag shook her head, her seaweed hair flopping untidily. “Think think. Focus. Help. Bring magic. Bring Sea Witch magic and she make robe. Weave robe into nothing man. Make him magic man. Only thing I can do. Only thing left. Hate Emperor. Can’t kill him. Not enough magic left.”

Leng Zai frowned, “But what exactly do you want us to do?”

“Clothes, idiot!” The hag yelled at him. “Bring me the clothes!” 

“What clothes!?” Leng Zai yelled back.

“Where you find spirit you find clothes. Done now. Tired. Sleep. Come to back garden tomorrow or don’t bother. Tired now. Too much people. Too much noise. You go. Tomorrow magic.”

And with as little ceremony as she had dragged them into the tent she pushed them back out into the street.