by T. L. Xue

When I was a child, my village spent the cold days between the autumn equinox and the first warm week of spring eating such pungent foods we could barely stand each other. Onion, garlic, chives, cilantro, citrus, and salt, but never vinegar, berries, or sugar. Some refused meat, afraid of snakes and rats, but in the dead of winter, we had little choice. To be picky was to perish.

The elders insisted on the foods, odorous baths, and bandaged mouths, but most thought they only did it for tradition’s sake. It didn’t seem to help much. Every year, at least a quarter of the village caught pests. Every year, a few of them died from the strain on their bodies.

I stuck to the superstitions though. They worked until the year I turned fourteen. Due to the drought, I had a bad cough that might have opened me up. I went to sleep one night, feeling unwell, and woke up feeling worse. Odder. There was a fluttering in my stomach and chest. A beating that would not stop.

Sparrows, the doctor said. They’d gotten through the loose tiles of the roof and slithered into my coughing mouth, into my lungs and stomach where it was warmest. They’d stay there until spring, the doctor said, but at least it wasn’t insects, moles, porcupines, rats, or mice. In one case he saw, a bear had attempted to get in. It tore the man open instead.

I envied the ones with smaller, less lively creatures. The ones with ants and termites could move on with their lives if they could ignore the itching and sometimes, the gnawing. The sparrows flapped incessantly, spinning my stomach around so I couldn’t keep food down. When I tried to speak, only chirping came up. To my younger sister’s jealousy, my mother let me skip school. I was put on bed rest and told to only eat and drink after having sleeping tonics, and as soon after as possible, since I would fall asleep as well. I spent much of the winter sleeping. I missed the festivals. I missed the new year. I missed my father, who had left for the city for work, the city that I heard had been locked down. Nothing went in, and nothing came out, not even the starved bodies. I didn’t know if he was still alive. At least sleep gave me plenty of reprieve from worrying.

In the first week of spring, the movement worsens. They ache to escape. Everyone afflicted with the disease, young and old, mobile and not, is taken through the forest, up to the mountains, as far away from the village as possible in the hopes that the pests might not return. To a mountaintop, where the warmth of the sun and the fresh air will draw the creatures out. And there, we waited. Days and nights spent in tents, keeping our mouths open so the animals could see the sun had returned. We ate and slept little. It wasn’t comfortable. We did it anyway.

One clear morning, when the primroses began to bloom, a girl gagged. A snake slithered out of her mouth, down her limbs, and into the weeds. The campsite came to life. Chairs and tents were set up. Chefs began to prepare a feast that made us nauseous with hunger; meats, grains, fruits, and sugar, so much sugar. They worked in silence, so as not to frighten the creatures in our throats.

Slowly, one by one, they emerged. A family of mice from one. Beetles, termites, roaches, silverfish, and stinkbugs from many others, flowing from nostrils and lips. People cried at the pincers grabbing on skin as the insects came out. A bat flew out of another, soaring into the sky. From another came a turtle. Someone carried it to the river where it paddled away. The doctor had to see to that patient, since the shell had cut the old man’s throat; he died from blood in his stomach.

I felt the sparrows squawking, chirping, stirring up so much motion in my gut I was sure I’d die. I didn’t move, though, for fear that it would frighten them deeper. I opened my jaw, faced the sun, and prayed to the gods. Let them find the exit. Let them see the sky past my teeth.

They tore up and out of me, claws and beaks and bony wings crashing at my innards. My throat felt as if it were going to shreds. Even after healing, I could speak no louder than a whisper, my vocal cords permanently stunted.

But they came out, in a glorious squall of brown and gray feathers, flying for the branches, as if glad to be free of me. And I was glad to be free of them. I was glad to be alive.

We ate well on the mountain and soon after, the city gates unlocked. The food went in and my father came out, back to the village, skinnier than I remembered him.

• • •

The young ones hate to eat it nowadays, but sparrow’s nest is a delicacy. Tender, like the finest noodles you will ever have, and with the subtlest flavor. They make their nests in the spring on the walls of caves. To harvest them, you must climb up the wall with a scythe to cut them away. There are seasonal laborers who make good money harvesting them, and who can only access the caves through entrances guarded by the police. These are the only caves left. The smaller ones, which were filled with stones by the time I returned, didn’t matter to the sparrows or the nest collectors. When I was a child, there were caves all across the outskirts of the village, waiting to be explored. My older brother—no, I’m sure I’ve told you of him—didn’t like to study, so we did this instead. We made a game of it, daring each other to crawl through the tunnels until we reached an end, found the path to the heavens, or in most cases, became too scared. Then we’d return to the surface and pretend we hadn’t been frightened at all.

One day, we found a new hole by the stream, which was fished dry during the famine. Go inside, my brother said to me. You do it, I told him. Do it, or else you’re a baby, he said. I wanted to protest and say I was the baby, our sister not having been born yet, but that would only give him one more thing to lord over me.

You’re older, you should go first, elder brother, I said with mock respect. Instead of responding, he pretended to go toward the hole, then pushed me in.

Luckily, I wasn’t hurt, but I had fallen too far to climb back up. Help me, I called up to him. I will once you tell me what’s inside, he called back with a grin. How I hated him then.

I crawled down the tunnel, away from the sunlight. I hoped to find something beautiful, so that I could tell him about it and make him jealous. And when he jumped down, I would not help him up. I would leave him there overnight until he learned his lesson.

So childish of us. Do not treat your little brother like this. And do not let yourself be treated the way I was.

As I crawled across rough stones that scraped my skin, I heard the stream above gurgling. I saw nothing before or behind me in the darkest dark, so dark that I couldn’t understand it. This was when I’d usually turn back and say everything was fine, that I just hit a dead end. But I needed something better to report. A lie wouldn’t be enough. I needed the satisfaction of knowing I’d seen something fantastic he hadn’t, so I persevered until I began seeing again.

Shadows came to the edges of my eyes and scampered away like demons when I tried to look. I muttered a protection under my breath, but the demons remained, dancing with legs, claws, fins, tentacles, or nothing at all. They surrounded me and pulled on my sleeves, on my hair, like bothersome mice. Come with us, they burbled, come to the banquet. And as they said that, they spread out. The room spread with them, forming a great domed ceiling glittering with crystals and gems—the celestial sky. My scratched palms cooled as the sharp stones softened into jade tiles. I found myself kneeling at a seat at a circular table larger than my home. A wide, spinning plate of water covered most of the surface. Lotus leaves floated across, carrying teapots, liquors, and countless, bountiful dishes. Some I only knew through stories, and others, I had only had a few times in my life. All before the war, before we stopped having much at all. There were whole fish fried so that their heads and tails curled upward as if they still swam, fat shrimp doused red with sauce, dumplings sweating with steam and stuffed with meat, mushrooms, and chives, lobsters with claws clutching fried squash flowers, roast pigs already carved into glistening pieces, and in the center of it all, a tower of fresh fruit—lychees, grapes, kumquats, pears, peaches, apples, pomelos—overflowing with a fountain of fresh water. I had to swallow my spit before it fell from my mouth.

A cup was put before me. Tea was poured by an unseen hand. I did not drink, as it would be impolite to drink before my elders. To my left sat the dragon, his beard pinned up so that it did not drape into his bowl of nest soup. To my right, the tiger, smiling with sly eyes at the others at the table, who sat too distant for me to see.

You found your way to the celestial banquet, the tiger said, purring with contentment or alcohol. Did it take long to fly here?

I crawled beneath the earth. My voice echoed off the walls.

Curious. I thought we were in the sky. Perhaps you found another entrance.

I’m glad I did. I can’t wait to tell my brother that he cannot see this.

She laughed, growling deep. I wished to sound like her, someday.

And why do you think he wouldn’t be able to see this? she asked.

Because he would not believe it.

Many do not. We go hungry for that reason.

But your table is full, I said. I did not look at the food, to avoid being tempted by what had not been offered to me.

For now. Your village suffers. So do the cities, the rest of the country. When there is nothing to be gained from the people who rule, you turn to gods, to superstition. We do not promise anything, but we give a greater chance than some mortals do.

We are not promised anything, so we might as well ask for everything, I said.

So you do understand. Her eyes flicked across the banquet table. And what would you like to ask of me?

If she asked me that now, I would say so many things. How long would I live? Would I become an artist like I wanted? Would the occupation end? When would my brother die? If I’d asked that, I would have known to be a better sister to him. He enlisted in the army not long after, and died on an island far away from us, killed by someone who did not speak our language.

But because I was eight, I asked, Who will I marry?

She extended a claw, glowing at the edges, and pointed past my teacup toward the old dragon. He had dropped his spoon into his soup and was trying to lap it back out with his serpentine tongue.

He will be younger than you by two years, she said. He will not see the benefit of having another in his life at first, but you will challenge him until you convince him otherwise. And from then on, he will be devoted like no other.

That satisfied me, though the old dragon’s appearance made me worry that my husband would become that old and bumbling someday.

Will I be happy? I asked.

The tiger tapped her chin. At times, yes. At other times, no. Such is life.

From behind me, I heard a voice calling: Sis, sis, come out! Sis, where are you?

It seems you have somewhere to go, the tiger said. She kissed my forehead, leaving the skin abraded by her barbed tongue. Always wonderful to meet a child of mine. Remember to be good. Remember to speak your mind.

After she bid her farewells, I turned and found myself back in the cave. The demons continued to pull on me, their claws and hooks digging into my skin until I reached the surface. I’d spent an hour underground. When my brother pulled me out, he swatted shadows and soot from my body. I had bruises and cuts where they’d held on too tightly.

I saw, I panted as I knelt on grass, I saw a feast, and the celestials, and—

Please, let’s just go home, he said. Tears streaked his face; I had never seen him like that before.

And we went home. And our mother scolded us for ruining our clothes and made us wash before dinner. And we never went back into the caves. After he died, I couldn’t. I married, I left, and when I finally returned, I found them blocked off, never to be entered again.

• • •

I married your grandfather for security. He came from a mercantile family in the south, where it is hotter and wetter. His family had a siheyuan. You don’t know that word? It means many houses in a courtyard. We lived in the northwest house, where all of his family’s children had been conceived, before leaving the town altogether. Then, we had nothing. But before the revolution, we were married in a banquet wedding. Very traditional. My parents met his and gave me to a better life. I found happiness in leaving for that reason.

In our second year, he wanted to travel to celebrate our marriage. To cheer me up, too, because I had not yet become pregnant. His mother began to loathe me and tasked me with more chores. I loathed myself too, for my failings. I stopped letting him touch me. He hoped reminders of home would comfort me, so he took me north, to the rooster’s head, for the winter. He’d seen snow before, he said, but never any that stuck for longer than a moment. He anticipated magic; mountaintops and tundras coated white as far as the eye could see. I told him I hoped he would enjoy it. He confessed to wondering if he’d see more than just snow.

He had heard from the merchants, clients, and suppliers his family worked with that the northern skies glowed some nights. When the clouds were clear and the air seemed to buzz with electricity, dragons left trails across the sky. I did not believe this, and neither did he. Dragons did not reside that far north, and certainly not above. They lived deep beneath the sea, in the fissures and bowels of magma that kept them from destroying our realm. They ventured out only to negotiate with our emperors—though soon there would be no more of those—or to lay waste to their enemies. But the travelers said that they flew about peacefully, like birds soaring through the sky. And so we went to see.

We took the train into the station that the occupation had built and designed the city around. Though they’d gone back to their islands, their influences remained. They left lush trees lining blocks and filling the gratuitous parks. Grand buildings with stone walls, tile roofs, and gilt inlays—abandoned then repurposed because they were so beautiful—awed my husband. He said that it looked like Berlin or New York. Having only seen pictures of those cities, I thought the same. We passed castles, ponds, a war memorial that had been built since the last time I visited with my father, before the siege. Street names that had once been in their language had changed to another’s. The city’s name had been changed, too, to Changchun. I thought it was new, but later learned it had been returned to what it was before. That surprised me. I thought I’d visited the old city as a child, but that already ceased to exist when I was born. Where had the dragons been when this had all begun? Why did they never come to destroy our enemies? Perhaps they knew that after the occupation, the starvation, the war, the abandonment, we would be the ones to get this beautiful city. Even so, they should have stopped it.

We camped in the mountains for part of our trip. Early spring had brought back my longing for the sun and air of the mountaintops. He saw the thickness of snow for the first time, and after the initial excitement, quickly tired of the damp, the cold, and the drudgery of walking through snowdrifts. The scars in my throat hurt in the dry air, but I soothed them with tea. During the day, we hiked and visited teahouses for people and meals. At night, we slept side by side in our tent, not touching. I did not let him, and he honored that wish. He was a kind husband. Devoted. Better than I had asked for.

On the fourth day in the mountains, I roused to a rumbling. At first, I thought it an earthquake, and shook my husband awake. After he remembered where he was, his eyes jolted wide. He leaped up, pulled his coat over his sleep clothes, and ran out of the tent with only socks on. I tried to call after him, but he did not hear me. I put on my coat, my boots, and brought his as I followed him. He stood on the cliffside under the stars and moon, pointing upward.

Look, he said, they’ve left trails.

At first I could not see, but as my eyes adjusted to the moonlight and my skin began to buzz like insect wings, I saw them. Faint streaks of green, blue, and red, wavering above. They shimmered like ripples on the sea, flowed down like waterfalls toward earth. What would happen when those streams touched soil? I wondered if that was why the earthquake had occurred.

Something roared, distant, but so loud that I felt it in my bones. I squinted between the streaks and saw it: a thread, thin and white, twisting through the sky like a hair lost on the wind. I could not see how many claws it had, the length of its horns, nor the count of its scales, but I could see it flew frantically. At first, I thought it chased the pearl-like stars, or the droplets of milk falling from the moon. But then I saw a second thread, this one black, twisting near it, almost invisible in the sky. It was being chased. No—it was being seduced.

The two dragons flew, almost touching. Their tails brushed past each other. Their talons flicked against scales. Another roar, this one sending a shiver up my spine. Coral horns collided, as if sparring, then grew to entangle the other. The two dragons were locked together. They curled the lengths of their bodies around each other and flew, making slashes in the sky. The buzz of my skin grew as the sky opened up. The wounds wavered before bleeding red, green, and blue, staining and streaking the sky. I reached out to hold your grandfather’s hand. He squeezed it. I turned to look at him and saw, as if for the first time again, that he was beautiful. He was kind. No matter what happened, he would make me happy.

Nine months later, your mother was born. Fat, loud, healthy, in the year of the ram. People loved her, and she loved them too. She loved them so much, she was willing to follow them. Away from us. Away from home to another country across an endless sea. I resented her for that, at first, but I heard from her that you have dragons too. I hear that on some clear nights, you can also see the sky bleed. Does it look the same as what I saw? They’re immortal, you know. Where you are, do they live in the sea or in the sky? Have you seen them? Have you seen their lights? Do they remember what your home used to be, before everything you know?