Dream is a peek-hole on the door of living, leading toward another life.
I woke up in a scream.
Even before I was fully awake, my throat smelled like something rusty and bloody as if the nightmare had carved itself in my soul. I pressed my eyes tight with stiff body against the supple pillow, waiting for my pulse to smooth, veins full of dread from that realistic dream.
That dream again! I’d not remembered how long it haunted me by repeating the same horrible story, and there was no way to trace the reason behind it. Also obviously, shoving it away into the vault of dreams was the very opposite of efficacious.
My mind struggled to become clearer. My fingers stretched out, seeking Ormosia’s warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress. That little fur must have been scared off and climbed somewhere else. Of course, he did. Today was Big Day.
“Damn it!” I cursed, propped myself up on one elbow.
There was enough light in the bedroom to see, but I barely get a look of my cat. Perhaps, he hated this day as well, I thought. Ormosia was a very mysterious creature; he looked some kind of cute even though with half tail missing. He was quiet whenever he moved or stayed, almost like a ghost, but he was warm, just like the feeling a cup of black tea .
I called his name, while swung my legs off the bed and slid into my boots. Supple leather that had molded to my feet. However, until I smoothed my collar against my neck, fidgeting with the tan sweater till it hung right over my jeans, there was no respond to me. I flew a swift look out the window. The thin, cottony snowflake veiled the sky.
It was weird to see snow in September. More incomprehensible Ormosia would go outside. He was usually cold to such weather. Where was he going in such cold morning?
I looked down off the vast expanse of whiteness, somehow a fit of dread throbbing across. My fingers flew up to press the place where it was lurching. What a suck day! I cursed inside. Swaying head, I looked around to find something to shake off the weight of nightmare right away, but only got half of cup of coffee I left yesterday. Another curse plus sigh. I took a large sip. The coldness bit every pore in my skin as the liquid trudged down my throat. I shivered. When the last drop was drained, a quiet clatter sent my heart thudding against my rib cage.
The door cracked open. The bottom of the glass bottle reflected an exquisite boy—lanky and messy haired—all the agitation dissolved as soon as I looked at his face, calm taking its place. I breathed a sigh of relief—nightmare’s fears seemed very foolish with him here.
Shawl wasn’t smiling at first—his face was alarm I’d seen so often. But then his expression lightened as he looked me over and he laughed. “Morning, kitty-ear,” chuckled Shawl.
The corner of my lip twisted up. My real name was Lulu Tao, but my sleepy-shaped hair seemed to be more iconic than what my name sounded when we first encountered. So kitty-ear became his strong preference.
Shawl walked slowly into the kitchen, snowflakes glistening like diamonds set into the bronze of his hair. When he passed me, his icy fingers abruptly ruffled my hair. I looked up, blank for a few seconds. He leaned closer and his stare turned wary.
“Bad dream again?” his voice had a little edge to it that was something. Sort of nervous, maybe a little suppressed angry. (But why angry? Was that my fault to have nightmare?)
I flinched his touch quietly, said in a pretended even voice. “No, I am just thinking.”
Shawl’s eyes tightened and he looked down as if he were trying to decide how to word something. I controlled my expression. To be honest, it was hard to hold such stare from him. Shawl was not so charming, but girls barely noticed that especially when were caught by his tend, rippling-green eyes. The liquid haze sloshed in the topmost shadow of that patch of emerald, witty, wicked and sharp. The odds to survive were never in my favor.
“You’re worrying about the Big Day?” he broke a smile. his fingers refused to stop rubbing my hair till it became a nest. “That’s not like you, kitty-ear!”
I shot him a dark eye while avoiding his talon.
“Come on, talk with me. What was harassing your little head?” he pulled my fingers away from his, breaking my hold with ease—he probably didn’t even realize that I was using all my strength. “Dancing?”
I winced. perhaps that would be a question several years ago, but now… my eyes lingered around, the familiar pressing ache of attachment swarm inside once more—just as strong as what I felt at that night ten years ago.
It was during the worst time. My mother had been killed in the car accident two months earlier in the bitterest January. The numbness of her loss had passed, and the pain would hit me out of nowhere, doubling me over, racking my body with sobs. I cried out in the silence. I cried out for her back. Of course, there was never any answer.
A small amount of money as compensation for her death reached us, enough to cover one month of grieving at which time my father should be take responsibility of the whole family. Only he didn’t. He didn’t do anything but sit propped up in the windowsill or, more often, huddled under the piles of wine bottles, eyes fixed on some point in the distance. Once in a while, he’d stirred, got up as if moved by some urgent purpose, only to then collapse back into numbness. No amount of pleading from me seemed to affect him.
At some moment, I was terrified by the horror that my father was locked in some dark world of sadness, and at one time, I would lose not only a mother, but a father as well. But It finally came as seven years old touched me. My father disappeared, leaving me behind as an orphan. His absence sank in my mind very slowly. I took over as head of the empty shell, pretending the family still remained intact. I plaited my hair, went to the school, bought out food at the market and cooked it as best as I could. I even polished my father’s shaving mirror each night with the innocent wish he might be come back soon. I did everything to tear the sadness off my face, hided the helplessness in my tightened shoulders because I saw them on the faces in the community home. I could never let it happen to me. I didn’t allow the community home dragged me out of this house, the only place full of their memory. So I kept my predicament as a secret.
But the money ran out and I was slowly starving to death. There’s no other way to put it. I kept telling myself if I could only hold out until tomorrow, father would come back with bundle of food. Only this tomorrow never came. I could well be dead by then.
On the afternoon of my encounter with Shawl, the rain was falling in the relentless icy sheets. I was wandering around the Pelycosaur Street, trying to trade some my painting in the public market, of course, there were no takers. Although I had been to the Phoenix Feather House on several occasions with my mother, I was too frightened to face that scared-face man alone. The rain had soaked through my sweater, leaving me chilled to the bone. For two days, I had nothing but boiled water with the crumbs of biscuits I’d dig from the bottom of the iron flask. By the time the market closed, I was shaking so hard I dropped my painting in a mud puddle. I tried to pick it up. But the stained warmth of family sketch stabbed my sight. I froze. Then I stumbled around.
I didn’t want to go home. Because it was barely impossible to pretend everything was okay anymore. My hands were empty of any hopes. The deserted house made me fear.
I found myself toddling along a muddy lane behind the stores that serve the ecdemic people. The merchants usually lived above their business, so I was essentially in their backyards. The outlines of the commodity standing behind the decrepit building projected the grim shadow, wrapping around me like a monster. A cold breeze whipped through the seam, swaying the canvas like something was moving through.
My knees buckled under me, and sobs built in my throat. I could felt the whisper oppressed in the dense rain. Feet sloshed toward me through the mud.
Fear pulsed through me automatically, an instinctive reaction to what ambushed in the dark. I knew it was stupid. What could be more horrible than starvation? Maybe the community home was the next? But my mind just couldn’t move past the unknown fear, the horror or the confusion. I couldn’t understand what my imagination shaped—it felt more like a face with hollow eyes.
I forced myself to scramble my feet, back away even though the rain brushed harmlessly past my face. Stumbling in horror, I turned and ran headlong into the depth of the alley.
The next few minutes or hours was agony. It took me three times as long to escape whatever it was. At first, I paid no attention to where I was headed, focused only on what I was running from. By the time I collected myself enough to remember the way, I was deep in the unfamiliar block. My feet were shaking so violently that I had to support myself with my back against the wall. Every few seconds, I would hear, the sound weren’t hidden behind the frantic squelching of my footsteps, the quiet whisper of unseen things moving somewhere like shadow. Then the smell of fresh bread attacked me. So overwhelming I felt dizzy. A gawky glance back revealed a golden glow spilling out an open kitchen door. I froze mesmerized by the heat and the luscious scent until the rain interfered, running its icy fingers down my back, forcing me back to life. The realization that I’d have nothing to take home had finally sunk in. My knees wobbled and I slid down in the nook in the junk. It was end. I was too sick and weak and tired. It was not so bad—died in the smell of the bread.
There was a clatter in the kitchen and I heard the sudden rush of a scream and the sound of a blow, and I vaguely saw a woman was yelling something to move on and how sick she was of having those wildcats from the street pawing through her trash. The words were dirty and I had no care because a soft, damp ball was thrown into my arms. My eyes slit a crack. A kitten, drowned fur against its slim body, covered with fresh wounds. There was nothing cute related to it, or it could be a little bit of ugly. But its reddish dark fur looked very like the cup of black tea in the winter. As if feeling what I thought, it turned its head slightly up at the sound of my gasp.
The kitten’s eyes were green, nearly like spring. It gazed at me for a fraction of a second, the deep eyes seeming too intelligent for a wild animal. Not real. But the heat of the kitten actually burned into my skin, so warm, so real. I clutched it tight, clinging to life.
The low growl in the distance caused kitten whip his head around, back toward the darkness. He was staring at the spot of the blackness with unconcealed threat hiss. The first I could understand. There was something somewhere. But I was stunned when, without warning, he leapt out of my cradle and spun. The slosh came to a halt several miles away. The Ormosia looked around, giving me a follow-up look.
I stared at the faded swiftness in disbelief, but followed. At last there was a break in the alley ahead. I came out onto the empty street a mile or so north of where I’d left the place. Exhausted as I was, I jogged up the lane until I got home.
I was calmer, but still a mess in the front of my house. The porch light was on and a silver van was parked in the driveway. As I examined the house, I saw the curtain twitch in the living room window, flashing a line of yellow light across the dark yard.
“DAD—”
I dashed onto the porch, and slammed the front door open, but what rushed into the sight froze my movement.
That was when I saw him. He would have been missed in the arms of the towering Old Feng. But it was difficult to ignore the tense stare from his porcelain face which was a calm mask that I recognized. I saw him in Phoenix Feather House. He was three-year-older than me, but I didn’t know his name. I’d passed the boy in the neighbor block; he was always with the pretty girls and didn’t give any glimpse to anyone else. But as I was collected and started for home several afternoons, I found him staring at me from across the community playground. Our eyes met for only a second, and then he turned his head away. I dropped my gaze, embarrassed, and that’s our story, but several eye-contacts like pass-by.
“Where’s your drunkard father?” Old Feng’s hoarse voice exploded over my head.
My pulse sped in instinct to the stress from him. I cleared the lump in my throat. “He’s…busy.”
“Yeah—busy enough to ignore his paternal duty and kept his daughter in the rain soaking?” Old Feng was abruptly in a rage, shouting the words.
He knew! He knew everything! I felt blood flood my face. Tear—tears of rage—filled my eyes finally. My teeth mashed together with an audible grinding sound. My lips opened but my voice faltered at the start because I realized as I was going to say the words that they were a lie. It was the one too weak to make up itself anymore. A brief flash of memory—an enormous gray coldness crouched to spring, baring its shadow at me—tightened my palms into fists with an echo of remembered panic.
He heard my heart accelerate and heaved the boy down. A sigh mused in the air. Then I was stunned by the confectionery he pulled out from his jacket. I watched as Feng took out a knife and sliced the pastry on the table. This man was the best friend of my mother, the merchant of Phoenix Feather House. Straight reddish brown hair, olive skin, but the right side of his face was scarred from hairline to chin by three thick, red lines, livid in color though they were long healed. One line pulled down the corner of his orange, almond-shaped right eye; another twisted the right side of his mouth into a permanent grimace. Maybe it was the reason that I refused to be close to him.
“Take it, I remember it’s your favorite.” His great-grandfather’s tone startled me.
I wanted to deny it, but my stomach rumbling betrayed. Suddenly my hand was curled by a warm palm. A brilliant look collapsed with my glance before I was shoved into the armchair. “Paranoid is the byproduct of being consistently hunger. Fortunately, I am learning at the knee of a paranoid.” The boy teased. His expression made me confuse if there was some additional joke I was missing. The corners of his mouth twitched, fighting a smile. “But I am kind of raw from a recent arrearage.”
Feng passed a plate of cake to me, introducing tersely. “This is Shawl, my nephew.”
I was basically not listening.
When Shawl threw me a withering look, I heard what I was dreadful every night.
“I’ve lost the connection with your dad for a while, I thought-it’s kind of not good to let you stay alone…” Feng grunted something that sounded more like a threat implicit, and I began to feel desperate.
“No, I’m fine, very…I—I will pay the rent. It’s just…” I shot on my feet again; the impact against the chair was too heavy to be necessary. The feet of chair clattered noisily to the floor. Feng didn’t even seem to notice.
My hands balling up into fists, and my whole frame shaking, I took a deep breath, trying to make my tone convincing. “I mean I need some time…to…collect…no, to call dad-back. He must be on the way home…I promise.”
“I thought you don’t need to bother that.” Shawl broke off my lies.
“I-I can do anything for the rent.” I gritted my teeth together so I wouldn’t start shouting. I couldn’t bear lose this house without even a try. “I can draw.”
Shawl sighed, and when he spoke, his voice was warm and velvet. “Hum, you’re not much of a painter, but I like this one.” Then a crumpled paper was withdrew out of his pocket and smoothed flat under my nose. A swift sneak surprised me that it was the one I left in the Pelycosaur Street.
“The color is warming heart. I thought it’s far enough to pay the rent, right. Uncle Feng?”
My head flew up.
“Forget those money things. It’s not the burden your shoulder should take.” His face was struggling to squeeze a kind smile. But it only looked creepier. I flinched. “Shawl will take care of your life for a while. And I will take a check when I am off the duty. Just enjoy your life, my little girl, don’t let your mum worry about you.”
My mind sucked in this dramatic change very, very slowly. I was terrified whether or not it was another kind of desperation. Feng was silent for a moment, staring out the window into the rain. Shawl waited, grimly triumphant, for me to find my voice.
To this day, I could never shake the connection between this boy, Shawl, and the house that gave me hope, meanwhile also reminded me of the line between us—landlord and tenant. More than once, I could catch his eyes trained on me, only to quickly flit away. It felt as warm and relieved as the summer sunlight. I was indulged in this unsought happiness of family and growing horror that l might be lose it again one day. This day was impending.
I took a long breath, trying to put some animation into my voice. “Dancing is glaringly outside my range of abilities, remember?”
“I see,” Shawl had been seated on the black leather sofa and patted the place next to him. I glowered for a second, but then sat. “Then, what are you annoyed with?”
I swayed head, quietly. The memory was still burning out as strong as it had flared and I’d calmed down enough to realize that I was making a kind of myself again.
Shawl leaned against the arm, and I was distantly aware that his eyes were on my face, but too preoccupied to what he saw there.
Something ice-cold abruptly curled around my neck, sending the wave of gooseflesh standing on the back at once.
My glance threw down.
A pock watch!
“Big Day’s present, I didn’t forget it,” Shawl’s voice explained, but joviality had barely risen up as I heard he said again. “It is -from your dad.”
I froze in the middle of gratification, totally forgot what I was entangled with.
The pendant of pock-watch in my hands slipped through my numb fingers. It took me a slow second to miss the muffled thud it should have made against my chest. For ten years, this was the word I tried to outrun. No matter how far or how fast I went to the end of the year and back again, his shadow was always just one step behind. At the bottom of my heart, there was still a place for him. But my instruction had stopped for the weak-hearted. I hadn’t been little girl, sitting on the threshold for his back, begging for his love. So his present was the last thing in my Big Day. I stripped the watch off, ready to throw it away. But Shawl was faster. His fingers curled around mine and forced it down tightly in his grip. “Don’t, it’s a family stuff.”
“Family is hell on my nerve, Shawl. I am kind of on my own here.” My voice sounded sarcastic, and he could hear that.
His eyebrows rolled together. “I still don’t know why you’ve judged yourself so harshly. Family demands forgiveness, and in every time there are those who find it too dear a price…”
“I will give it to you,” I shook my head. “When he wants to disappear, he really commits. You know, it was taken me one year, an embarrassing amount of hope for his back, and more time on the threshold that I ever dreamed my ass would.”
Shawl wasn’t smiling. His green eyes were critical of my words.
“Fine, I understand he made some mistakes. Guess he was new at a father. But the point isn’t that he was gone, trouble. It’s that you have a lot to be redeemed for, and he has a plan for you.”
“Redeem? By a watch? That’s funny. I guess years of elopement are hell on his social skills.”
“Before…he left everything behind, he went to me one night and entrusted me with family thing. This is the pendant dearest to your mom’s heart. Look, eschewed the recent trend of terse structure, it is made its way by vintage treatment processing to give a well-worn appearance. I heard it is also an engagement ring for your parent-” he stopped talking abruptly, as if he’d said something hadn’t meant to.
He was quiet for a moment, and the silence felt a little awkward. My intuition told me that I didn’t want to hear what he was thinking. I bit my lips, hesitated. “You never mentioned you knew my mom.”
His thought seemed to be still miles away from me. “It has been a little history. I saw her at the engagement ceremony and she just joked passing this watch as her kids as a family token.” he took a deep breath, composed himself. “Well, joke came true. I hope it will be the right time for you to inherit.”
I looked at his concerned, innocent expression for a while and was disoriented again by the force of his green-colored eyes.
With a deep sigh, I compromised. “Just today” I tore my hands out of his grip. But the chains slipped into his palms. I winced, shot a doubt stare. Ignoring my scold, Shawl flipped my hair up, and let the hasp secured around my neck. And then his fingers triggered the watch swiftly out of my coat, and zipped me in. A smile playing around the corners of his lips, he flinched inches back.
I felt neck bulky.
“Be honest, how weird do I look?” I asked.
He flinched another inches back and pursed his lips.
“That bad, huh?” I muttered.
“No,” he seemed to be struggling for the right word. “You look…cute.”
He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me against his chest. “You’re stubborn. I suppose that is part of your charm. Happy Big Day, kitty-ear.”