Her Paper Dragon

“What is it?”

They were perched on a hilltop in the evening fog, five miles or so from the remains of Hengqin. Below, a curious collection of ramshackled buildings lay sprawled – trailing precariously toward to the sea. There were wooden stalls and stone houses; great, crumpled tents and odd tracks that seemed to circle in on themselves, leading nowhere. In the distance, the skeleton of an aged wheel with carriages lurked, reaching up from the fog as though in silent lament. The children were perplexed. Yet, there was little time for wonder. It was getting dark, and soon it would be darker still to see. They needed to find shelter. And fast.

Squinting his eyes, Qiang shot a discerning gaze into the swirling whiteness. “I don’t know,” he said, carefully. “Whatever would they do with a wheel like that? Maybe it’s to pump water from the sea.”

Beside him, he felt Zhen bristle with curiosity. Perhaps, on a clearer day – in more familiar surroundings – they could afford this. But he needed her full attention now. He needed her to look, to listen. The mist could hide them from prying eyes, to an extent. But what lay hidden in the mist?

“Yeah!” whispered Zhen. “Maybe it’s some kind of factory.” Much to his alarm, she rose to her feet and began to pick her way down the hillside, thin hands reaching out to clutch the long grass as she descended. “Maybe there’ll even be food!”

“What are you doing?” Qiang whispered urgently. “You don’t know what’s out there – who’s out there.”

Zhen turned and shrugged. “It’ll just be other kids. It’s always other kids. Besides, you’re bigger than everyone else, now.” She paused, there – her dark eyes lingering on Qiang for a moment, before she continued onwards down the hill.

Qiang followed reluctantly behind, feeling that familiar knot in his stomach. It was true. He was thirteen, now. Nearly fourteen. The disease that wiped out adults was swift and cruel and merciless. They hadn’t met anyone that had lived past the age of sixteen. How many days did he have left? Was it really that long at all? He sighed. There was never time enough to worry – not with Zhen to look after, not after his promise to Mama. There were still too many dangers in this dying world; still too much at stake. Inwardly shaking himself, the young boy set off at a trot, following in the steps of his sister. Herself only eight, she was all that remained of his family. He wasn’t going to let her out of his sight.

At length, they worked their way down the hillside. It was a quiet evening, with only the rustling of the grass and the patter of their bare feet against the ground to accompany them. Zhen wanted to sing as they walked. She always did (“Mama always sang!” she would cry out, but of course she had no memories of Mama to cling to – she’d been an infant when both their parents had passed, succumbing to The American Virus). As always, Qiang hushed her – though he hadn’t the heart to destroy her ghost of a memory. Singing was too risky – but they needed every scrap of hope and joy they could salvage.

By the time they were amongst the mysterious buildings, it had begun to rain, gently – small droplets tapping delicately against the mossy ground. Qiang was glad of it; the days had been hot and long and gruelling. Yet the rain was not only thing to greet them. Zhen froze as she heard it, reaching out to grasp for Qiang’s sleeve with trembling fingers. The children had never heard anything quite like it. An eerie melody drifted to them through the misted twilight, waxing and waning with deep sorrow. A woman. A woman was singing, somewhere. Not a girl, not a child, but a woman.

Zhen quivered lightly, transfixed. The voice, whoever’s it was, didn’t sound angry or vicious or wicked. It sung of fleeting sunrises, of transient bursts of light and sunsets that did not linger. It sung of the wind and fire and earth all around that did not survive completely, but changed and shifted and faded over time. It sung of illusions, and shadows, and visions. It sung of taking each moment as it came, for no moments lasted any more than just that – a moment. It was a mournful song. Yet, a whisper of hope lurked within the notes; a sense of hesitant anticipation, reaching out through the shadowy dusk.

Before Qiang could reach out and seize her, Zhen squealed – dashing out into the fog, racing towards the voice. “Mama!” She called out. “Mama!”

Cursing, Qiang lunged forward – not spotting the tangled web of vines and branches before him and stumbling heavily to the ground. Dazed, he rose several seconds later, cursing again. Zhen! Where was she? Heart thumping, he called out for her, sprinting headfirst through the swirling whiteness all around. “Zhen!” he called. “Zhen, Zhen!”

He followed her voice – oh, how distant it seemed! – to the most curious building, catching a glimpse of her dirt-stained white dress as she hurried inside. It was a tall and dizzyingly lopsided building, tilting so far to one side that Qiang was quite sure it could topple over any moment. Hurtling past the door, he caught glimpse of a sign he could barely read:

镜子迷宫

M I R R O R M A Z E

Into a rickety lobby he rushed, carpeted floor run amuck. He glanced about frantically: an aged ticket machine, an empty kiosk. No Zhen, yet somehow there was light. Was that a gas lamp? He had no time to think. Where was she? As Zhen’s voice seemed to fade, the woman’s seemed only to grow: her words replaced by a symphony of strange whistles. He leapt through an open doorway and found himself momentarily perplexed. There was Zhen! But oh, so many of her! Hundreds of Zhens, dashing frantically away from him. Panicked, he sprung forwards and cried out in pain, cursing again for a third time. Mirrors. Mirrors everywhere! For several long, confused minutes he fumbled through corridor after corridor, calling out her name in terror. “Zhen! Zhen!” But the reflections of her ran only faster and faster, Qiang panting and pinging against mirror after mirror until –

He nearly knocked her – and himself – hurtling into the room. But oh, what a room! Qiang’s eyes widened as he took it in. They seemed to have reached the centre of the maze: a hexagon of a room, lined with mirrors that distorted them both in the most unusual ways. Yet stranger still, the room held the most magnificent trove of paper treasures. Littered about the place were dozens upon dozens of beautifully decorated paper dragons, majestic paper swans, intricate paper cats and dogs. Too, there were paper aeroplanes and paper boats: elegant paper cars and paper carriages, drawn by regal paper horses. Qiang wished the paper food he saw was real, for there must have been hundreds of paper dumplings, paper candies, paper cakes. Yet strangest of all was the woman that lurked amongst it all, nestled deep within her paper kingdom.

“So, the whistling worked. What kind of ghosts have wandered in here?” said the woman, turning.

She was a short woman, perhaps no taller than Zhen. White-haired and pale-lipped, two shrewd black eyes peered out at them. Qiang gawked. Her skin was lined and greyed and sprinkled with patches of darkness. Yet here was an odd, fascinating beauty to her aged skin – each wrinkle holding stories, the lines of her face speaking of the hardship and the sorrow of her years, but also of the joy and the goodness and the humour. The two children stood quietly humbled, scarcely able to conceive of the creature that stood before them. Was she truly real? Qiang barely remembered what a living adult looked like. Zhen surely had no memory of them whatsoever.

“How are you alive?” said Qiang, finally. Zhen reached out to grip his hand. Confused and frightened, she had begun to cry.

The woman sighed, gently. “I won’t be for long...” Qiang was unsure what to say at this, but it seemed the woman hadn’t quite finished. “Hush, now, Bao.” She said, slowly approaching Zhen and wiping away at her tears with a silken cloth. “It’s all okay, now.” Zhen simply stood trembling and clutching at her elder brother, glancing from Qiang to the woman and back.

“Why are you here?” said Qiang. “What is this place?”

“Long ago,” the woman said, “my grandmother told me that she saw a ghost in a mirror – so I thought of this place. A place I visited long ago. I thought I might see her, here. My little Bao. But she’s not here.” Her voice faltered, but she went on: “She’s not anywhere.”

There was a long pause. It occurred to Qiang that the woman was thinking, feeling, seeing things that were beyond his comprehension. She turned from them again and began carefully adjusting one of her paper masterpieces. “Who is Bao?” he asked, cautiously.

Again, a long pause. “Bao,” said the woman, sorrowfully. “My dear Bao. Just a girl, she was. Barely seven.” The stranger had been crafting what appeared to be a paper pear, but stopped abruptly, and began to fumble at her neck and chest. Qiang found his cheeks warm with embarrassment, and turned away. She’s mad, he found himself thinking. She’s taking off her clothes – she’s mad! But barely a second later she approached them quite fully clothed, clutching the most beautiful heart-shaped locket and thrusting it towards Zhen. “Take it,” she said, urgently. “Please.”

Zhen, eyes blurry from tears, examined it solemnly. Coppery in colour, it gleamed gently in the strange light that pervaded the place. Placing the locket in Zhen’s outstretched hand, the peculiar woman then turned to Qiang – unfolding a very different kind of paper for him to inspect. He peered down at it, mystified. It was a childish drawing on a piece of worn white paper, showing a colourful but rather lopsided dragon drawn in crayon.

“I –” Qiang began.

The woman shook her head through tear-stained eyes, pressing the drawing frantically into his hands. “Take it, please.”

“What is it?” Zhen said, overcoming her fear.

“The last thing she drew,” the woman said. “Her paper dragon.”

“We can’t possibly –” Qiang began. But again, the woman shook her head – silencing him.

“I’m sending everything else, tonight. But this is the last of her. You look after her – and you go, now. You understand, boy?”

There was such fierce determination and finality in the woman’s eyes that Qiang simply nodded, and bowed – and then he knew it was time to turn and run, again. Run, run, run. Gripping Zhen’s hand tight, he pocketed the picture and the two children ran on their bare feet through the mirrored corridors and out into the misty night, not stopping until they were far away – up on a hill, towards the sea. The scent of smoke soon mingled with the sea air and at last they turned, panting, to peer from their viewpoint at the edge of their misty world. The mirror maze, within its topsy, lopsided building, was burning. The paper kingdom was alight.

Suddenly the wind rose up from below and a great ball of fire drifted up into the darkness towards the sea, slowly losing itself to the half-misted air – until only a trail of golden embers were left, streaking through the night sky.

“What is it?” Zhen asked, staring out in wonder.

Qiang paused, tightening his grip on his sister’s hand. Perhaps he didn’t have long, but he had this moment. He had every moment they’d shared together, wandering through the uncertain twilight of their world. Ignoring the heaviness in his chest and the tears that had begun to blur his vision, he smiled and said: “Her paper dragon.”