Where The Mountain Meets The Moon Part 10

"Well, every night there is a moon," the girl said. "That is why we call it Moon Rain."

"And you don't know why?" Minli asked. Even though she was tired, she could not help being curious.

Both children shook their heads and before Minli could ask more questions the boy pointed. Minli followed his hand and saw crimson gate doors painted with a cheerful greeting.

"We're here!" he cried. "Come on, we're home!"

CHAPTER 35.

After the great storm, Ma and Ba worried that vast damage had been done to the village. And when the sun shone in the morning, the village looked as if it was in ruins. Large tree branches had fallen and a clutter of leaves and roof tiles and dust and dirt littered the ground. Yet, when the villagers began to clean, the storm had not harmed them as much as they had feared.

"At least no homes were destroyed," the villagers said to each other, "and we know everyone is safe."

Well, everyone except for Minli, they added silently. they added silently.

Ma and Ba said nothing when their neighbors paused awkwardly. They helped pick up the broken branches, swept broken bits of pottery and tiles from the street, and nailed shutters. At night, they quietly sat together at the table with the goldfish. Though Ma had heard nothing, Ba remembered the fish's words about the fear in the wind. It filled him with worry and he waited for the fish to speak again. However, it remained oddly silent.

Finally, when Ma was busy helping a neighbor, Ba tried to question the fish.

"During the storm you said there was fear in the wind," Ba said to the fish. "Whose fear was it? Was it Minli's? Was she afraid of something?"

The fish stared at Ba with its round eyes and made no sound.

"Please tell me," Ba said, his hands around the bowl.

The fish swam noiselessly in the water.

Ba was puzzled. Had the fish stopped speaking? Or was he now unable to understand? Or perhaps the fish had never spoken and it had all been his imagination?

Ba placed his ear close to the water. Was that faint bubbling a whisper? He strained closer, his ear beginning to dip into the water...

"What are you doing?" Ma asked as she came into the room.

Ba jerked his head up, his ear dripping with water.

"Uh, nothing," he said sheepishly.

"Were you cleaning your ear in the fishbowl?" Ma said, slightly appalled.

"Not exactly," Ba said awkwardly.

A cross look streaked across Ma's face, but as she looked at Ba, rubbing his ear shamefacedly, she did something she hadn't done in years. She laughed.

"You look so silly! If Minli were here now," Ma said, "she would laugh at you."

"Yes, she would," Ba said, and he too began to laugh. "She would laugh until she cried."

Their laughter intertwined but when they looked at each other, they could see the tears forming were not from joy.

CHAPTER 36.

Minli was so tired that she could barely remember what happened when they entered the village. She hardly remembered the clamor of people gathering around them and the loud cheers as Da-A-Fu told about the destruction of the Green Tiger. And she vaguely remembered the big, soft hug of an elderly woman who pushed her inside a welcoming house. But she did remember the cozy, lovely feeling of falling into a bed, like holding a warm steamed bun on an icy day. And then Minli closed her eyes and slept.

When she woke up, three round faces peered above her like plump peaches. They were Da-Fu, A-Fu, and Amah, their grandmother. Each of the children, dressed in their red wadded-cotton outfits (the rip in Da-Fu's pants was now patched), had little moveable stoves with them. With the heaters and all of them crowded in the room, Minli felt as if she were in a warm oven of kindness. She smiled.

"Good morning!" Amah said.

The children giggled. "Good night!" Da-Fu said. "You slept the whole day! Pretty soon it'll be time to go to bed again!"

"Now Da-A-Fu, don't tease the girl," Amah said. "Obviously, she was very tired. Here, Minli, drink this."

Amah poured some tea from a pot and handed Minli a cup. Minli sipped it gratefully. The steaming liquid slipped down her throat smoothly, and seemed to fill every part of her with a fresh energy. She took another sip of tea and breathed in the tangy fragrance, which smelled familiar.

"This is nice tea," Minli said. "Thank you."

"It's not tea!" A-Fu said. "It's the medicine that cures the tiger's poison."

"It is tea as well," Amah said. "It is good whether you have been touched by the Green Tiger or not."

Minli stopped drinking. "Is there enough of this for the dragon?" Minli asked, remembering how A-Gong had asked them to bring more medicine. "Maybe we should take this to him."

Da-A-Fu laughed again. "Don't worry," they said, "we have a lot of it! It's made from the leaves of the flowering trees."

"And Da-A-Fu already brought a large pot to your dragon friend," Amah said, her wrinkled face looking kindly at Minli.

"Yes," A-Fu said. "Your dragon is doing fine. He and A-Gong were talking to each other when I brought the pot, and he even said thank you for saving him from the Green Tiger's poison."

Minli sat back, relieved and cheered by their words. "What was the Green Tiger? Da-A-Fu said something about a magistrate?" she asked. "And how did you know this tea cured the tiger's poison?"

"We found that out by accident," Amah said.

THE STORY OF.

THE GREEN TIGER AND THE TEA.

When the Green Tiger discovered us four moons ago, we quickly learned he was not an ordinary tiger. It was not his color or his size, it was the anger he had for us. First, he attacked our livestock - the sheep, the pigs, the chickens - but not to eat, just to kill. He taunted us with his evil, leaving the dying animals in a row outside our door. Whatever animals he did not kill outright, died within an hour or so from the vile poison of the tiger's touch.

We knew it was just a matter of time before he caught one of us. We kept the children and whatever animals we had left inside. A-Gong, my husband, studied furiously, trying to find out more about this powerful monster who tormented us.

We were running out of food, when A-Gong finally discovered what the Green Tiger was. When A-Gong was a young man, he had made a journey to the city south of here and bought an old book of history. That book, with our ancestors' ancient texts, was how A-Gong discovered that the Green Tiger was the spirit of the magistrate our ancestors had tried to give the secret of happiness to, but had angered instead. During his life, the magistrate had filled his spirit with so much rage that when his body left, his spirit could not rest and instead turned into the Green Tiger. A-Gong learned that the Green Tiger searched for all those he felt had wronged him - the tiger would punish us for his imagined offense and then, when he felt the punishment was complete, destroy us; afterward he would find others who had wronged him and punish and destroy them as well. Who knows how many people he hurt before he came to us; perhaps we were lucky he only found us four moons ago.

In desperation, the men decided to form a hunting party to try to kill the tiger. But the Green Tiger was too powerful for us. Our swords and staffs were shattered by him. The hunting party returned, half of the men carried by the other half and almost all injured. The women and children, we tried to nurse the injured but they kept getting sicker and sicker from the tiger's poison and I began to despair.

Though it had not worked on any of the animals in the past, I thought perhaps hot water could wash away the poison from the wounds. So even though it was dangerous, I left the house to get water from the well. Just as I returned I saw the tiger!

He was standing in front of our gate, doing something peculiar. He seemed to be arranging things. I kept a far distance, behind the trunk of a flowering tree. He soon finished and left, not noticing me.

As soon as he left I carefully rushed to the gate. The tiger had left a strange array of objects. There was a piece of a broken vase with a moon on it, a mangled child's jacket, and two deep claw marks scratched into the stone. I knew it was a message, but what did it say? The only person who would know would be A-Gong. But he was sick and dying from the tiger's poison. My eyes filled with tears as I rushed inside.

It was hard for me to keep from crying and I was blinded by my own tears. So, it was only when the fragrance filled the air that I realized that the water I was boiling had leaves from the flowering trees in it. They must have fallen in while I was hiding from the Green Tiger. It was too dangerous to go and get more water - everyone was horrified that I had gone at all - so I used the hot leaf water to clean A-Gong's wound.

And like magic, the poison began to melt away. I couldn't believe it. I gave A-Gong some leaf water tea to drink, and immediately his hoa.r.s.e breathing was soothed and his face relaxed. Quickly, we used the tea on all the men and by the time the last injured man was given the tea, A-Gong was sitting up in his bed with Da-A-Fu at his side.

"I was a fool," he said to us, "I should have known we could not fight the Green Tiger with more anger. We just add to his power that way. His anger is his strength, but it can also be his weakness. His anger can blind him, and that is when he is vulnerable. Maybe if I can find who angered the magistrate the most, I can..."

"You are definitely recovering." I had to smile. "Already you are making plans. But why don't you rest for now?"

"No," A-Gong waved away my concerns, "I must learn more, immediately, before the Green Tiger does more damage."

I knew then that A-Gong needed to see the Green Tiger's message right away. Da-A-Fu and I wrapped him in blankets and supported him as he hobbled to the gate. A-Gong looked grave as he examined the objects. Just as I thought, he knew right away what it meant.

"What is the Green Tiger saying?"A-Fu asked.

"It says if we give him two children every month, he will leave us in peace," A-Gong said. "This is the start of his punishment for us - the way we are to pay penance for our ancestors."

"How does it say that?" Da-Fu asked.

"Two claw marks next to a child's clothes means he wants two children, and the vase is a symbol of peace, the moon on it means every month. So he offers us a month of peace for two children," A-Gong said.

"It matters not, we will not sacrifice even a baby pig to him."

"But A-Fu and I had other ideas," Da-Fu said, interrupting. "After A-Gong found out that the person who angered the Green Tiger the most was his own son - he was a king and he banished the Tiger Magistrate from the kingdom - we made a plan!"

"Yes," A-Fu said proudly, "we decided we would trick the Green Tiger into getting so angry that he would destroy himself in the well. And our plan worked!"

"It was also a plan that we did not approve of or agree to," Amah said, shaking her head at them, even though she could not help smiling affectionately. "But now young Minli, you have heard our story but we have not heard yours. We know your name and that you are friends with a dragon and we can guess you are far from home. Why don't you tell us the rest?"

So Minli told them about Ma and Ba, their struggles in the muddy fields, the goldfish man and the goldfish. She told them about meeting the dragon that could not fly and the monkeys and the buffalo boy. She told them about the King of the City of Bright Moonlight and the borrowed lines. She told them about her whole journey.

And as she spoke, Da-A-Fu and their grandmother laughed and gasped and stared in wonder. Sometimes Amah shook her head, sometimes Da-A-Fu would look at each other in disbelief. But they did not interrupt once.

"So all of this is to get to Never-Ending Mountain," Da-Fu said, finally. "We know where that is."

"You do?" Minli exclaimed, sitting up in excitement. "Really?"

"Yes, Never-Ending Mountain is nearby," A-Fu said. "About a day's journey."

Minli looked at them in shock and no words could come out of her mouth. A day's journey! After all their days of traveling, Minli couldn't believe they were so close.

"As soon as your dragon friend is well," Amah said, "Da-A-Fu will take you there. And then you can return to your parents."

Minli smiled gratefully, but as she looked at their comfortable, round, pink faces - how both A-Fu and Da-Fu leaned against their grandmother with devotion and how she rested her hands on their heads with tenderness - Minli suddenly thought of Ma and Ba. A wave of longing washed through her and a dryness caught in her throat that the tea could not moisten.

CHAPTER 37.

The next morning, Da-A-Fu shook Minli awake.

"Wake up, sleepy!" Da-Fu said, pulling her up. "Come on! We want to show you something."

"Yes," A-Fu said, "hurry!"

Minli followed them out of the house and through the streets. It was almost as if there was a parade, for all the family were coming out of their houses and following. Minli hadn't realized Da-A-Fu's family was so large. There were aunts, uncles, cousins - the home behind the red gate doors was really a village of relatives. As Minli ran around through the open doors, she stopped and grinned. Because there, waiting out on the stone ground, was Dragon!

He was strong and smiling, sitting straight and alert. There was no daze in his eyes and no foul blackness on his body - in fact, except for four pale raised scars on his arm, he looked exactly as he did before they met the Green Tiger. "You're okay!" Minli said as she hugged him.

"Of course," Dragon said to her, grinning with happiness. "I told you that dragons heal quickly."

"Yes, they do," A-Gong said from beside her. "After the poison left him, his wounds healed almost immediately."

Minli was so happy to see the dragon that she didn't notice that most of Da-A-Fu's family were surrounding them in awe.

"A dragon," she heard one small boy whisper, "a real one."

"We told you so," Da-A-Fu murmured to their cousins. "See!"

"Unfortunately, friend dragon," A-Gong said loudly so that all could hear, "you are too large for us to show you proper hospitality inside our home."

"That's okay. We should leave soon, anyway," Minli said and turned to Da-A-Fu, "if you will still show us the way to Never-Ending Mountain?"

"Of course." They grinned and Amah said, "Yes, you should leave as soon as you can. The sooner you leave, the sooner you can return to your parents. That would be for the best."

A-Gong nodded when he heard Amah's words. "Breakfast, then," he said, "and then we will see our new friends off."

So even though the rocky land was cold and windy, the family brought their breakfasts of warm rice porridge out to eat. No one wanted to miss a moment of looking at a real dragon.

Amah led a large iron pot, rolled in on a rough wood platform by two of Da-A-Fu's uncles, in front of the dragon. The pot was steaming and full, and Minli recognized it as the medicine tea. An aunt carried cups of the tea on two trays balanced on her shoulders with a stick for anyone to take. Minli carefully reached for a cup; the fragrant aroma was too tempting to let pa.s.s.

"We should not call this drink medicine," an uncle said. "It is too delicious and now that there is no more Green Tiger, there is nothing for it to cure."