Serpentine by Cindy Pon Read Free Book Online Page A

away when it happened? Skybright sat on the stone bench beneath a peach tree, digging her toes into the earth and enjoying its coolness.
    Miiisssstress …
    The hairs on Skybright’s neck rose and sharp needles danced across her scalp. The word was carried on a soft summer breeze, barely audible. Her imagination, after the past week, was getting the better of her.
    Huuuuungry!
    Skybright leaped from the bench and whirled, turning in a circle, heart in her throat. That word had been as loud as a stone falling from the sky.
    “Who is it?” she said into the night.
    Another breeze rustled the leaves overhead, seeming to hold and then disperse a multitude of pleading voices.
    Pleeeease …
    Coooome …
    A single firefly materialized in front of her, hovering before her nose. It looped three times and flew a few steps ahead. She followed the insect, past the dark quarters, along winding stone paths. If she concentrated enough, Skybright thought she could hear the murmur of a hundred voices upon the wind.
    Finally, the firefly paused in front of the main gate into the manor, with its grand double doors. She unlatched the lock and pulled one door open. It groaned like a dragon disturbed in its sleep, and Skybright stepped across the threshold. The heavy door slammed shut by itself; an empty street greeted her. Their manor was not near the main road, but their street was broad enough for horses and carriages to travel through. Plum trees dotted the wide path, and she could see the neighbor’s red gate and main entrance across the way.
    The firefly had vanished, and Skybright stood with her head tilted, listening.
    Miiiiistress Skkkky …
    Shadows darted around her, an icy wind. She clutched her bare arms with her hands. “Who are you?” she whispered into the night. The air stilled, then wavered. Images coalesced, and a group of people suddenly surrounded her. There were men and women, girls and boys, dressed in shabby clothing with dirt-smudged faces. She knew she should have been afraid, but instead, she was only curious.
    They gaped at her with mournful faces, but when she tried to look at one straight on, the spirit would melt into shadow again, absorbed by moonlight. So she observed them from the corners of her eyes. At least a hundred ghosts surrounded her, and they pressed closer as one, chilling the air. Beyond them, she sensed more spirits, too tired or weak to manifest their human forms.
    A man in his thirties floated forward from the rest of the pack. His cheeks were rough with facial hair, but the flesh was gone from the upper left side of his face, exposing an empty eye socket. “Mistress Skybright. We were but humble servants, as you are—”
    A chorus of voices echoed.
    I served Lady Pan for thirty years.
    I took care of the horses and dogs for the Jins.
    I was a cook for the Wang family until the kitchen fire took my life.
    I’m an orphan but kept my master company!
    The last voice was high-pitched and cheery, and Skybright glimpsed the shadow of a boy no more than eleven years near the front of the crowd.
    “What do you want from me?” she whispered.
    Their response was an uproar, lifting the loose hair from her head. She staggered back from the force of their sheer need.
    Love.
    Vengeance.
    My wife.
    Retribution.
    Peace.
    Rest.
    My Son.
    Life.
    Tears sprang in her eyes because, inexplicably, she knew their loss, felt their wants and desires as if they were her own.
    The man who had spoken to her raised a blurry fist and snarled. The silence that followed was immediate and eerie, and her ears rang with it.
    “Please, Mistress Skybright,” the man said. It seemed to take great effort for him to speak so clearly to her. Each of his sentences was followed by the restless echo of hundreds of others. “Feed us. We have no relatives left to do so. And those who remain are too poor.”
    “But the Ghost Festival hasn’t started yet,” she said. They were a few days from the middle of the seventh moon, when