The Infinity Sign That Takes Longer to Draw 2 Page 5

  “Shaman Diana, it's Houyi Feng.”

  The latch was opened, the door unlocked.

  “You found me, I’m glad!” she said.

  “I heard that you sung."

  Her grey eyes lit like drugs in a pipe,

  The beauty causing a pounding in my mind.

  “Why are there so many stairs goddammit?”

  I didn’t mean to gripe,

  But my comment made her grin.

  She shrugged, looking over my shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,

  Do come in."

  The bungalow door led straight into a dining room enclosed in a kitchen. An archway in the right wall seemed to preview a sitting room with a fireplace. Everything was lit with yellow or orange lightbulbs, pristine, clean and cozy. There it was, the harp! A silver masterpiece, carved into an intricate wolf on one pole on the sides of the strings, and a jaguar on the other, placed ever so gently on one of the sofas.

  “What brought you here tonight, Feng?”

  She pulled back a chair from the wooden table. I positioned myself on the leather cushion.

  “It’s... out of curiosity really.” I mumbled.

  She was humming the song she was playing, giggling at what I said. “How do you like your tea?”

  “Green, no sugar please.”

  “Not even milk or honey?"

  I shook my head.

  "Ay," she mused slowly, "no sugar in tea, for my surprise visitor, I host strange people.” I repeated her words in my mind and counted the syllables.

  “5-7-5. Did you come up with that right now?”

  “It’s a talent I have,” she giggled again, and I felt something soft caress my shoulder when the tea was placed before me on the table.

  The chair next to me creaked on the floor and she sat down, nuzzling up to me. “You said curiosity. Just what about?”

  I could feel my arm muscles clenching when she put her arms on my shoulder and breathed right into my ear.

  “Um, well... a friend of mine, who you could say is also a shaman like you and I, she’s certainly better than me though—“

  “Oh, get on with it.” She nudged.

  “She sensed a koo-poo-wa,” I felt her freeze, “Somewhere in the area.” Unfreeze. “I was wondering if you knew anything about that.”

  Her lips went pale, hands ice cold. She took the side of my good eye, so I could see her expression shift. A few seconds later, she removed her arms from me and crashed back into her seat.

  “A ku'pua, you say? Why would one be around here?” she tilted her head and glared at the floor.

  “What are those, anyway?"

  "Oh," she laughed, "you don't know."

  "No need to make fun."

  "Not making fun, don't worry," she smiled, "w…well, ku'puas – are like shapeshifting nymphs. Think demigods who are in spirit form, with a hint of monstrosity at times, I suppose. Ku'pua is also a name for a shaman, sometimes."

  Her cranium dwindled back to its old position gazing at the floorboards.

  “I wouldn’t worry about one being here,” she muttered airily.

  “Why not?”

  Her lips puckered again, and she was tapping her arm with her index finger. After that, she put her thumb’s fingernail in her mouth. “Drink your tea, Feng.”

  A red alarm went off in my mind. Her command and strange behavior made me doubt the liquid before me. Even still, somehow, if it were poisoned, I asked myself if I would care to die. Every day we must find something that is keeping us getting up, working, continuing our existence. Were we to stop functioning, we would be depriving ourselves of a meaningful way to spend our limited time. What have I got to live for?

  Up in the monastery, it was nothing that the eye could see.

  Now, it is still nothing, only my promise to Alioth. Maybe that's not nothing.

  I reached the palm of my hand and cuffed the small clay cup, the warmth rushing over my fingers. I brought it to my nose, and then sipped.

  I wonder what she lives for.

  The taste in my mouth was of green tea and its usual bitterness. Many minutes ticked by; I was heading towards the end of the cup. I felt emptiness take my every limb after the expectation of pain faded and crumbled. It was just an innocent cup of tea.

  I remember that, if you wanted, you could get flavor packets to add to your Kaguya's Potion cup. There were things like vanilla extract, sugar, and even fresh lychee juice for the most prestigious noble families.

  I decided to take it straight, like the medicine it was. I couldn't forget its taste. It was quite like green tea, but a watery, gooey green tea, with the faint taste of the iron in blood.

  “Once you’re done, come to the sitting room, it’s getting a little cold and the fire is wonderful.”

  She left me alone. I put the mug in the sink, grasping my forehead.

  “I heard you play when I approached your house,” I said when I walked into the pretty lounge. I was pointing at the harp. She smiled from her sitting position on the carpet right next to the fire.

  “It took me a very long time to learn how to play, but sometimes you don’t have anything else to do!” she laughed.

  “Yeah,” I whimpered, “I would know.”

  “Sit here, I’ll play you something!”

  “May I sit on the couch instead?” I asked, my tone a little too pleading.

  She shrugged, “anything for the guest.”

  We both settled down on the fluffy brown sofa. “What song would you like?” she said whilst turning around to clutch the harp in her hand.

  “Can you play anything?”

  “Mainly foreign music and folk songs,” she replied.

  “Can you… play this?" I reared my wrist, the tattoo on it bathed in orange light.

  “Huh,” she grunted. “That's… interesting."

  Her long fingers reached to the strings. As she played, the strings swaying in a patriotic tune, something dawned on her face.

  "You can read Chinese numbered musical notation?" I asked.

  "Well, it's not very complicated, the number 1 stands for the tonic," she mused, her eyes still dreadfully focused. "And this song is familiar. Does it have words?"

  I eyed her down. “Familiar? It has been erased from modern chord books because it tells of the fallen empire’s legacy.”

  She bit her lip hard. “Then why did you expect me to be able to play it?!” Groaning, she threw her harp on the sofa and got up.

  “First the ku'pua, then this! What have I done to you?"

  I watched her odd behavior cautiously. After her strange words, how could anyone remain unquestioning?

  “You’re not who you say you are. You can’t be.” I slowly got up from the sofa, and we both stood staring at each other like a predator watching their predator. I felt my dagger on my hips.

  Then, I saw her hostility disappear from underneath her eyes.

  “Feng, do you still have that moonstone I gave you?”

  I struggled not to break eye contact with her intense expression.

  “Remember what I said when I put it in your hands?”

  “Something like ‘This looks like your eye... may we meet again.’”

  “There’s a reason I am so interested in your eye.” She started breathing heavily, making her way to me in big and cautious steps. She held the ends of my jacket tightly between her fingertips, pulling me slightly closer.

  “Just let me see you. Once, and I promise I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

  “See me?!” I yelled, pushing her off me by the wrists.

  “Calm down!” she cried, shielding her face. My eyebrows were searing into my skin and my irises trembled with rage. “Just your chest and arms. I promise!”

  “If I could tolerate your flirtatiousness before, I can’t now! What kind of perverted—"

  “Just, listen to me!” she screamed, taking a step back. Her voice pained my eardrums and reverberated around the room. I could hear the crackle of the
fire.

  “Please. You came all the way here for a reason. You must want information. I can tell you everything about the ku'pua. Just please trust me on this one thing, Houyi.”

  My chest and left shoulder are those I hid from the world at any cost. I wouldn’t hesitate, it would be hiding them above all other priority. I heaved a sigh. I am now faced with a decision that will allow me to rid Akhet of much worry, but also strip years of secrets and dedication away for naught.

  I do have a few favors to repay.

  “Will you do one thing for me...?”

  I looked at her in shock.

  I put my hand on the one button of my jacket, slipping it off its hole. Then, I tugged at the shoulder pads, peeling off the first layer, the one concealing my left shoulder. I expected her to be paralyzed with stupor. Instead, she fell to her knees.

  I rolled up my vest, crossing my arms to remove it from my person. Both items of clothing were dropped on the floor near me, her eyes following them closely.

  “Oh!” she howled, doubling over, sobbing helplessly.

  I grew confused. I walked up to her and got on one knee, trying to help her back up.

  “Feng.” She was shaking horribly.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you,” I mumbled. A dull sizzle crept into my hips.

  “No,” she snuck her fingers to my shoulders and pulled herself up.

  The second after her shiny eyes gazed into mine, and I could see a gathering of tears on her lashes like stars, she pounced forward.

  Her kiss siphoned warmth into my mouth, her deep perfume drilling into my nostrils. She felt sticky and soft, her sweetness covering my tongue and burning the back of my throat. Her lips felt like they were slicing into mine - they were a padded knife. Her thumb was pressing hard into my cheek, printing the shape of my teeth into my cheek’s wall. Her other fingers squished my jaw. I could feel my oxygen draining, my eyes widening painfully. My hand got a hold of her hair’s roots, pulling her away.

  She was panting, eyes dry now.

  “Diana,” I heaved, “why?”

  “Houyi, I’m the ku'pua.”

  I held tightly her thin wrists, dazed. “That’s why you have the symbol of Oceania,” I marveled.

  She freed her arms and parted her dress, the symbol once again visible to me.

  “Who, what—“

  “Will you have me?” she broke me off.

  I glanced at her intensely, on the line of a horror-packed glare. All words I had crumbled to sand that turned my mouth into a dry desert. My heart rumbled my ribcage, and I put my hands on the sides of her neck.

  “I don't understand,” I whispered.

  She pulled up her shoulders, tightening my grip.

  “You were a monk,” Her voice swept my ear like a hot breeze through a peach tree. “You should have learned that knowing you do not understand is the first step to enlightenment.”

  I was not a monk, and far from a Buddhist one, but that same philosophy would have taught me to never touch a woman.

  I could feel her pulse in my finger. Her eyelashes parted when her glazed eyes widened, and her lips opened slowly as the eye of a dragon would, revealing an opening filled with tender words yet to be spat out.

  “Surely it’ll be more comfortable to spend the night here than in a tent somewhere?”

  Silence fell on us. I tried to think with reason, but each time I did my mind went back to the hypnotizing look of those grey eyes, grey like bismuth, hiding endless colors. My thumb brushed her lower lip.

  I traced her shoulders, slipping the robe off with my fingers.

  27

  Spill the Beans

  Part I

  My eyelids could only open into a thin crevasse, sleep yet plaguing them. Feeling the dry sweat on my skin, I reached my hand to rub my forehead, then my eyes. I could see sunlight bathing the room. I did not recognize the ceiling, and my heart jumped for a split second.

  After that, I remembered.

  Diana was fast asleep next to me, her thumb’s fingernail between her teeth and her hair wildly fluffed around her pillow.

  She slept bare chested on her stomach; her back still exposed. She had a unique back: though her skin was smooth, a small number of little dents were sprinkled across it.

  On her chest were iridescent stretch marks, tinted a little blue. Her closed eyelids were filled with purple veins like tangled jungle vines.

  She still looked elegant to me, despite how messy her appearance became.

  My clothes were no longer scattered on the floor.

  Mortified, I went out of the bed, wrapping my arms around my stomach as I waddled into the bathroom.

  My clothes were hung on a line above the bathtub and smelled of flowers.

  I switched my gaze back to Di, my eyebrows knitting. Did she wash my clothes?

  I rapidly bathed and buckled them back on, splattering my face and hair in the sink.

  Wobbling into the bedroom again, I brought my satchel over my head and positioned it on my person.

  “Houyi,” I heard a sleepy grumble.

  My posture went straight and stiff. “Yes, Di?”

  “Before you go,” she felt comfortable speaking Chinese with me now, though her words were garbled, “are you and the rest heading east?”

  “Yes,” I said without thinking.

  “Hmph.” She put her elbow on the bed in her venture to sit up. “My teacher lives near Urumqi. I am going to visit him soon, but I don’t know when. Could you return his drum to him?”

  I closed my eyes to trace the map of China in my head. Urumqi is the capital of the Xinjiang Region, the Northwestern area. In other words, the top left of China’s map. Yes, I know where that is.

  Urumqi was one of my first stops on the way to Huapaya's monastery when I first left China, because it was in proximity to the beginning of what was once the Silk Road – the trade route between China and the West, and the road along which I traveled to Iraq.

  I suppose going North from Urumqi will be a good path to see the Northern lights. Besides, I'd quite like to see what became of the empire, my empire…

  “I can,” I replied.

  She nodded; eyes still tightly closed. I hesitated for a moment, but then leaned in, sitting on the bed momentarily when I gave her one final kiss. She returned it sleepily, and tucked herself back in.

  I looked at the drum again, seeing that the image of the dragon with the head of a deer and a tail of a snake was embroidered, not painted.

  A few words in a pictographic language laced the top, and the more I looked the more it did indeed resemble Chinese, just not a script I knew how to read. I strapped the large drum to my back and started making my way back to Janet.

  They were sitting on the sand, chewing something. "Hey, Janet, let's go back."

  Janet took a big inhale of air and then shot me with a glare. "What?" I asked.

  We started our way back to the camp.

  I think that this… was revenge. Sweet, hollow, cold revenge plunging and swimming through my skeleton. My heart felt attached to me again, sown back on with a competent doctor’s stitches. I took back my sentiment, it was no longer promised to another.

  I broke a vow, like freeing a genie from its lamp, and this cleared the way for a new genie to inhabit it.

  She broke our agreement first, and now I retaliated.

  Lan’er, we’re even, apart, and through.

  Though, the more we neared camp, the more I realized how many questions I forgot to ask Diana. I felt the straps of the drum on my chest tighten with my breaths, and I realized I never asked her why she was away from Hawaii, or what kind of ku’pua she is, or why she learned with a Chinese teacher.

  However, since these are only to satisfy curiosity, I could ask her teacher about it in my native tongue when the time comes.

  Though, how native it is to me now, that's to be disputed.

  In camp I found Akhet missing and Alioth was positioning a pan over what looked like a circle of st
ones for a fire that didn't exist yet. Her prayer mat was strewn on the sand, and the emerald walking stick was plunged in the sand in the direction where the star Alioth was that night.

  "Hey, Alioth!" I waved at her and she raised her head.