The Girl Who Wrote in Silk (8 page)

“You’re welcome.” He cleared his throat, as she realized was his habit, and got to his feet. He looped the mailbag across his body. “I’ve got to get going. Make yourself at home while I’m gone. If you want to wash up, the spring is across the yard over by the bluff and the tub is hanging outside the door.”

He pulled a hat from a nail by the door and slipped it on. “I won’t be back for supper, so help yourself to what you find in the root cellar or milk house. Oh, and if you go down to the water, be careful. It gets deep right quick.”

As he pulled open the cabin door, a gust of cold wind carried in the spicy scent of cedar and musky soil. It smelled to her like Seattle, only cleaner. Through the open doorway she spied a small clearing surrounded by tall trees and a huge brown barn peeking through the forest from a short distance away. Stacked next to the barn was enough fresh lumber to build a large structure.

“One more thing,” he said as he looked back at her. “Although I don’t expect anyone to stop by, it, uh, might be best if no one sees you, if they do. Stop by, that is.” His eyes slid sideways, showing his discomfort even more than his shuffling feet already had. “But if you need help, my neighbor, Duncan Campbell, lives over the ridge. He travels a lot, but his wife and elderly father will be there. They’re good people.”

Mei Lien nodded, knowing she’d rather die than ask white folk for anything.

Relief washed over his face as Joseph raised a palm in the air, she supposed as a way of saying good-bye. Then he closed the door behind him and was gone.

Mei Lien sat unmoving for several long minutes, thinking. Where was she to go? Surely not back to Seattle where they’d either put her on the next steamer to her watery grave or kill her outright there on the street. China? She quickly rejected that idea. She may look like she’d belong, but she’d be foreign there. Washington Territory was all she’d ever known. There had to be somewhere else, somewhere in the territory where she could find work and be safe.

She ate a bite of potatoes and chewed as she studied her clothing. She’d have to remain a boy. No one would hire a lone Chinese woman for any kind of respectable work.

As a boy, she’d have more options. She could work as a house servant or in a cannery. She could even be a cook.

With that decided, she finished her meal and set out to explore Joseph’s property, stopping often to rest when a coughing fit overtook her and constantly listening for the sound of people coming through the trees. No one did.

• • •

Joseph must have returned after Mei Lien fell asleep, for when she woke the next morning, she found a pair of boots in her size beside the bed. He wasn’t in the cabin so she shoved her freezing feet into the boots and hurriedly finished dressing before she lost the opportunity for privacy.

Then, unable to sit and do nothing, she went about her routine as she’d done at home in Seattle. She swept the floor with the straw broom leaning in the corner and then prepared the morning meal. By the time Joseph wandered in from wherever he’d been, she had steamed root vegetables and bacon hot and ready. He didn’t say a word, but his silence—and the appreciation in his eyes as he sat down at the table—reminded her of her father and made her start to like him.

Despite herself, she was no longer afraid of him.

And so began the pattern of their days. They found themselves settling into a strange yet comfortable arrangement of sharing meals, chores, and the quiet moments at the end of the day. She helped him measure, cut, and hammer the lumber she’d spied that first day and that he was slowly building into a proper house for his future family. The only chore she refused to help him with was butchering animals for their food. The scene reminded her too much of how Yeung Lum’s head had looked after he was shot.

Hours became days; days turned into a week. Her cough cleared and images of that night plagued her mostly in her sleep instead of all the time. The relative remoteness of the property gave Mei Lien a sense of security, real or imagined. Surprisingly, she often found herself laughing at Joseph’s funny stories.

The trees surrounding the farm held her in their embrace, protecting her from the horrors of the outside world, just as Grandmother’s arms had done for her as a child.

And then, on her eighth day on the farm, just as she hung the dishcloth on the peg on the wall and turned to tell Joseph good night, it happened. She hadn’t heard him come up behind her, but when he reached for the milk pail on the shelf just as she turned, their bodies met. It was a moment so quickly ended that it wasn’t until later, as she lay in bed in the quiet cabin, that she realized why touching him had flustered her so. Touching Joseph was nothing like touching Father. Her body had startled onto a feeling she’d never experienced before, and she found herself wanting to feel it again. Her skin had felt open and alive, reaching for him.

After that she felt nervous around him, although not in fear. She wondered if he had also felt that awakening in his body that she had in hers, but it wasn’t something she would ask. They talked about the farm and his plans for it, but they never talked about why she dressed as a boy or how she came to be sharing his cabin. Even though he had undressed her the night he found her in the water, the only way Mei Lien knew for sure that Joseph was aware of her gender was the fact that he gave her his bed to sleep in while he slept in the barn, and he always knocked before entering the cabin. If she were really a boy, no doubt she’d be the one sleeping on the floor.

She knew she would need to leave sooner rather than later, and the thought saddened her. Joseph had been with her from the moment when she’d lost everything. On the day when she would leave his farm, she’d lose that final link to her old life. She would be alone in the world.

Joseph did not seem to be in a hurry to send her on her way, though. He questioned her about her life and her family, but when she didn’t answer right away, he kept on talking as if the question didn’t still hang between them. She was unable to answer most of his questions because of the terror and overwhelming pain they caused her. But she didn’t answer one of his questions because she didn’t know how.

“Why do you go to the water every night at dusk?”

She’d blinked and turned away.

Starting on that first day when she woke in the cabin and Joseph went off to deliver his mail, Mei Lien had found herself drawn to the water as the daylight faded and the world around her turned blue and then black. But even when the colors couldn’t be seen in the cold, pounding rain, as was often the case, she’d go to the water anyway, where she’d carefully stand so the lapping waves would not touch her. She’d stare at the water, knowing Father and Grandmother had not made it to China but were somewhere below the shifting surface. She’d pray to every god and ancestor she’d ever heard of that they were no longer hurt or scared. Sometimes she prayed for them to take her with them.

On the third night, as she’d searched the dark water for a vision, a sign, anything, a black head had popped up and stared right back at her. She’d cried out, thinking it was the sea monster she’d seen the night Father pushed her from the boat, that it had come back to eat her.

But then the black head dipped back below the water and she saw a curving, sleek body follow suit. Not the body of a sea monster, but a seal, like the ones that stunk up the beach on Elliott Bay in Seattle.

After that Mei Lien started watching for other sea creatures, wondering if the seal—or perhaps that orange sea star or the leaping salmon—was Father watching over her. Or if the seagull crying into the wind was really Grandmother admonishing her.

Being near the water, even though it had nearly killed her and had most likely killed her family, made her feel closer to them. And so she returned, night after night.

But she couldn’t tell this to Joseph. It was difficult, having her body yearn to reach for him even as her mind pulled her away.

One night, Mei Lien quietly cleaned her dinner plate and returned it to the cabin shelf before reaching for the warm coat Joseph had loaned her. Night was falling and it was time to go to the water. Tonight was different, though. Tonight was the first full moon of the New Year. In Seattle they would have celebrated the Lantern Festival by going to the water, where they’d release boats glowing with candles to give light to all spirits in the underworld, but most especially in remembrance of those who perished by drowning. Father’s own father had died of drowning when he’d been caught in a battle during the Taiping Rebellion and had fallen into the Yangtze, so this was a special tradition in her family.

And now Mei Lien had more family who had died by drowning. Father and Grandmother would need the light of the lanterns she’d made out of tree bark and had hidden in the barn.

Just as she was reaching for the door handle, a loud knocking sounded from the other side. She snatched back her hand as her gaze flew to Joseph. His lips pressed into a grim line as he got to his feet. Under his breath he said, “Go to the bedroom. Stay out of sight unless I call for you.”

The knock sounded again as she obeyed, slipping silently around the fireplace to the bedroom side where she pressed her back against the warm stones and tried not to breathe.

“Duncan!” she heard Joseph exclaim as he opened the door. “I didn’t know you were back. How was the voyage?”

“Good, thank ye,” the visitor replied. Something about the man’s voice pricked at Mei Lien’s memory, and she closed her eyes to listen.

“I jes’ returned today. Took the train up from San Francisco while my captain sails on ta the Orient. Got a business to run here, ye ken?” Arrogance filled the man’s voice and Mei Lien wondered why Joseph considered him a friend. He went on, “Came home ta find the missus and my pa havena’ plowed the field. Do ye think you could give me a hand tomorra?”

Memories slammed into Mei Lien, stealing the muscles from her legs and making her sink to the floor even as her mind screamed to run away. That voice. She knew that voice, the drawn-out vowels, the clipped consonants. It was the voice of certain death.

And now she knew Death’s name—Duncan Campbell, Joseph’s neighbor.

She wasn’t safe here, wouldn’t be safe anywhere.

She rested her forehead on the rough wood planks of the floor and willed herself to be silent as she listened to the men.

A chair creaked. “Didja hear the Orientals were run out o’ Seattle? About time, if you ask me. I told you we were doing the right thing when we ran them off our island last year.”

Joseph cleared his throat. “No, can’t say that I did hear that. Hey, I’ve made good progress on the new house. Care to see it?” Boots clunked, floorboards creaked. Soon the door slammed shut behind the men, taking Campbell’s hateful words with him.

Mei Lien didn’t move. She deliberately took small, shallow breaths. Until Joseph returned and assured her he’d watched the man leave the property, she was going to stay hidden. The thought of what the devil Campbell would do to her if he saw her was too frightening to let enter her mind, so she pushed it away.

But fear grabbed hold of her nonetheless, and her mind screamed with the realization that she had been rescued from death at that man’s hand by his very neighbor. Fate could not be so cruel as to spare her life only to toss her carelessly to the same end just days later.

But what if Joseph knew more about her situation than he’d let on? That would explain why he never pressed her for answers about that night—because he already knew all about it. He could be helping Campbell. Hadn’t they just said they ran the Chinese off this island themselves?

And she’d let herself come to trust him. And worse, she yearned for his touch!

She’d let her guard down too easily. Too quickly.

From the moment she’d woken in his cabin, Joseph had been there, caring for her, making her feel safe. But now she knew the truth.

She was not safe.

She was completely alone.

The water. The water called to her. It would help her know what to do next.

Suddenly frantic to get to the shoreline, she sat up and managed to climb to her feet. Silently, shaking, she tiptoed to the cabin door. Being careful to make no noise, she pressed her thumb on the latch and pulled the door open a mere crack.

She neither saw nor heard the men. Slowly she eased the door open wide enough to slip through and just as quietly closed it behind her. Then she set off at a run through the trees to where the water called, louder now.

This time she didn’t stop safely at the edge. She splashed in to her calves, ignoring the stab of sharp rocks against the side of her leg when her boot slipped. She needed to feel the water and learn from it. Only now, as she stood in the freezing wet, did she look up and realize it was a clear night. The clearest it had been since that night on the steamer.

The moon hung low in the sky, big and full and round, shining down on her. It perched atop the mountain on the other side of the long body of water that bordered Joseph’s property and shone its beam straight to her on the surface of the water like a roadway. Joseph had shown her a map of the island, so she knew this long inlet was called East Sound. If one were to go left from this property by boat, one would reach other islands, more waterways, and then finally open water.

But it wasn’t open water beckoning to her. It was the moon.

All around her the night held still, watching the moon. Watching Mei Lien, who felt outside of her own body. Questions about her fate pummeled her.

Answers didn’t come, but memories did. In the moon road on the water, Mei Lien saw her Father laughing with her as he taught her mah-jongg at the rickety table in front of his store. She watched Grandmother’s wrinkled hands patiently guiding her own through short, precise black stitches on red silk, the smell of ginger and onions scenting the air. She smiled when she saw Father standing behind the counter at his store, appearing to her so tall and powerful as customers asked him for advice and chatted with him, comforted by the use of their own language in what to them was a strange and hostile land.