Serpentine by Cindy Pon Read Free Book Online Page B

the gates of the underworld were supposed to open for the ghosts to visit the living. The Yuan manor was already beginning to prepare elaborate feasts in remembrance of ancestors, to pay respect and symbolically feed the dead.
    We escaped, followed, pushed through. Wanting. Hunger.
    “There was a breach between the realms,” the man said. “We escaped the underworld early.”
    Skybright’s skin crawled, fearful for the first time in this exchange with the dead.
    “But why did you seek me out?”
    Us. See you. Are us.
    Their crackling chants shivered across her.
    “Because you’re the only one who can see us,” he said, his voice almost gentle. “Hear us.”
    “The only one … ” she repeated.
    He paused. “The other one is too well protected.”
    “I will. I’ll feed you and burn incense in your memory. I promise.” Skybright’s eyes swept past the hundreds of glimmering ghosts floating before her in the empty road, to the indistinct forms crouched beneath the shadows of the plum trees. “But who’s the other one?”
    The man grinned, though the flesh dissolved from his mouth and chin, exposing yellow, jagged teeth. He didn’t answer her question. Instead, the spirits hissed in delight, as if in acknowledgement of who she was—what she was. One of us , they had said. Could they see the monstrous side of her so easily? As easily as she could see them, she realized. They whirled until the pins fell from her hair, freeing her locks.
    Then, the air stilled, as sudden as when it erupted.
    A cat yowled in terror in the distance.
    She was alone.
    Something bounced against the cobblestone and rolled into her bare foot. Skybright stooped to pick it up. A copper coin, hundreds of years old, tinged green with age.
    A token of gratitude.
     
     

     
     
    Skybright hurried toward Zhen Ni’s quarters with the small coin clenched in her hand, and made it back right as the roosters began to crow. She almost bumped into her mistress when she entered the reception hall. The tall girl had a lavender silk robe drawn about her.
    “I was just coming to find you.” It was clear Zhen Ni was concerned, but she withheld her reprimand.
    “I needed fresh air, mistress.”
    “Look at you, wandering like a wild animal in your bare feet. Really, Sky! Do you not want to get better?”
    Skybright smiled, glad that her mistress had reprimanded her after all. It meant things were returning to normal between them. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
    Zhen Ni pulled her into her bedchamber, and Skybright lit the giant pearl lanterns in each corner. Skybright’s arms shook, and she did her best to steady them.
    “Are you feeling better?” Zhen Ni asked.
    In truth, she felt drained and wanted more than anything to crawl back into bed. Too much was happening to her at once, all inexplicable and strange. Instead she said, “I am. And you?” She had been a poor handmaid these past few days, and it was the only normal aspect of her life now, reassuring in its rituals and cadence.
    Her mistress unconsciously pressed a palm to her abdomen. “The worst of it is over now … until the next moon.”
    “How long do you plan on keeping this from your mother?”
    “Forever,” Zhen Ni said vehemently.
    Skybright’s mouth dropped, but she clamped it shut when her mistress shot her a challenging glare.
    “My parents already have two grandsons and a granddaughter! And another on the way. Why must I be married off as well? It’s not fair!”
    Skybright stared at her fists. Her mistress sounded like a petulant child. There was nothing fair or unfair in the way things were. Was there any point in challenging them, when in the end, a girl such as Zhen Ni must accept her fate, no matter what? Just as Skybright must accept her own? Memories of herself in serpent form filled her mind—how alive she had felt. She shoved them aside. There was no place for that here.
    “You’ll help me, Sky? Hide the truth from Mama?”
    She led Zhen Ni to the vanity