Boys whistled cheerfully, an unfamiliar tune. They swung their arms and moved easily through the undergrowth blocking around hockshop. It revealed a gray yard with piles of junks, leading to a rinky-dink construction. The inhabitants of Pelycosaur still called it ‘Phoenix Feather House, even though it had been many years since the Feng sept had lived there. It stood on the end of the street guarding the blocks, some of its windows boarded, tiles missing from its roof, and ivy spreading unchecked over its face. Once a fine-looking manor, and easily the grandest building for miles around, the Phoenix Feather House was now damp, derelict. The little kids in Pelycosaur all agreed that the old house was ‘creepy’.
I paused at the mouth of the dirt road, staring at the dense wall of green. Where the rusty doorplate should have embedded, and now it was drown in the layer of Boston ivies. My stomach reacted nervously. It had not been a long time since I took my last shift here, and less attention had barely been paid on this place, the one that nourished me as one part of its own. My fingers moved, even before I noted, to pluck the green away. The coldness of the iron tickled my fingertips. I groped the characters. That’s it.
The whistle was silent for a minute. Then, from the corner of my eyes, I saw Garlo was about ten feet ahead, he was stopping to wait for me. “Hey, don’t take your anger on the ivies!”
“I am doing you’re a favor.” When the last fist of leaves was pulled out, “Phoenix Feather Hockshop”, three askew characters were exposed. “You never clean your yard?”
“What exactly about your gap year?” he frowned, when I was halfway across the yard, catching up to me and grabbing my arm.
“Like what you hear, take a break and have a look.” I said absently, shaking off his grip.
“Booshit—” He roared, causing several ones turning around for a look. He took a long pace, forced me to face him. “I am asking why you want leave.”
“Everybody will leave.” I muttered. “…sooner or later.”
Garlo’s stare went tense. Obviously, I irritated him as well. I suddenly had a feeling that I was like a hedgehog, hurting everyone close to me.
Somebody called us in the distance. Garlo ignored. “You don’t need to…you know our houses is open for you anytime. If you get bored, want to hang around, I don’t allow you delete me out of your list.”
The playful tone colored his words as usual, but I heard a hint of pleading behind it. I would leave. The determination was not stirred. And there was no invitation for anyone. I didn’t need one. But facing such serious Garlo that was very strange to me threw me on the horns of a dilemma.
As I was hesitated, I heard he asked again. “Did Shawl know about that?”
“No, I have not a chance to tell him.” I swayed my head. Once at the thought of that, I felt a surge of ache from stomach. Shawl was much more difficult to fool than him.
“Ha, I can’t wait to see his expression when you tell him that.” Somehow he was lightened. “I need to grab a picture for that. Oh, call me when you’re ready.”
My lips twisted. For such a dramatic turn, I had no comment. Someone called us again. Garlo caught my wrist, dragged me toward the group. His stride was long and I had to run to keep up with him. When we melt with them, I felt a discordant air wrapped them. Boys and girls gathered in twos and threes, muttering under the breath.
“Garlo, here!” I recognized it was Garlo’s buddy, who was waving at him.
“Go!” I pushed him slightly, forcing my mouth pulling up at the corners. That smile must not be very good.
He laughed, and turned around. As I thought he was gone, he suddenly lowered his height close to my ear. “The 36th latticework in the closet,” he murmured silkily. “Take a look, trouble.”
His breath blew my skin, hot. When I looked up, he had waddled into his group, put his arm around Shawl’s shoulder, and joked with each one. I thought of his words for a while, but couldn’t figure out his meaning.
The conversation had turned into today’s theme—Big Day. A scrubby girl, the organizer of this party, was yelling toward the twittering groups about the game, the rules, and the dancing mate. Obviously the last topic floated their boat most. When she roared the prize, thrill waved through the faces. They roared back like hungry beast for grey, so loud that the organizer gave up to explain the detail at last.
Swaying with the excited hi-people, I had to fight against the others with all my strength, cursing that party organizer inside. As I pushed his stretched-out arms aside, a little boy even felt funny and knocked me hardly forward. My feet were tangled pathetically under me. I felt I was flung away. As fast as I would hit the body wall before, a blurring hand shot out, scooped me up just in an instance.
Everything happened so fast. When I was heaved to the ground, I was still in shock.
“Watch your way, little thing. It’s pity to smash such precious watch!” a sissy voice breathed behind my neck.
Startled, I jerked around, but the fingers around my waist was gone. I had only a split of moment to catch an eye of “voice”: it was a woman in gauzy white robe, much of ancient, foppish air, full of embroidered butterflies. Perhaps the light trick played, I thought I saw the delicate pattern flipping once with her movement. I rubbed my eyes, trying to make sure whether it was hallucination. She cast a smile before she turned, drown by the group.
The last look contained something that I didn’t know. I shrugged at her receding figure and walked into the house. There was a small wrangle at the front. I saw Chouli snickered, kicking her high-heeled shoes forward. Garlo cursed and followed, and the other people gallop into Phoenix Feather House, boys laughing and whistling, girls smiling and intent. The clop-clop kicked up showers of ashes as we went.
I didn’t try to follow anyone. My pace could not keep up. Several thought passed cross my mind as I zigzagged staircases which led toward the farthest end of the second floor. It was hard to mistake even when the staircase was too complicated. The sound of people’s laughter receded, and the corridor grew silent.
I thought of Garlo’s remind, then lift my feet across one door. But when I switched the light on, I paused in confusion. Had I picked the wrong door?
I blinked.
It was the same room, I realize quickly; the construction had just been rearranged. Oh, my god, how could I forget Old Feng was a mania for fitment? The closet was pushed to the north wall and the counter was elevated into a shelf—to make the room for the colossal Buttonwood tree root that now dominated the central space. The next thing I saw was Feather, a flaming mynah, Old Feng’s toy pet. She was sitting in her branch, staring at me with his tiny amber eyes, and clicking her beak in the way that meant she was annoyed about something.
I groaned; circled around the root, speechless for appetite of his family, before reached the closet to open the 36th latticework, where lay a worn book. A book—the question had barely built itself up when exactly what was annoying Feather became apparent almost at once.
“OUCH!” cried I.
What appeared to be a small, pink, feathery tennis ball had just collided with the back of my head. I massaged my head furiously, looking up to see what had hit me, and saw a minute mocking jay, small enough to fill into the palm of my hand, jigging arduously to drop a piece of note. Then, I realized that it must be clipped in the book. I bent down, took it away from his beak, and recognized Garlo’s handwriting. Abruptly the weight of the note was felt like ten pounds as I scrutinized. I seemed to hear the words in his voice:
Guess what Peach found in this trip? Your mother’s maiden novel—Mock Moon—Surprise? Happy Big Day, trouble!
I stared at the word ‘Peach’, then looked up at the tiny mocking-jay now zooming around the branches on the ceiling. Speechless again, seemed Feng’s family was not good at pick name.
“Thanks, peach.” I smiled, as the small mocking jay flew low over my head, twittering madly with what I could only assume was pride at having showing the note to the right person. I looked down, and my fingers traced the pages, which were made of old parchment and covered in ink drawings of neat handwritten blocks—Mock Moon. The family signature below sent a wave of wistfulness through me. A thousand memories spun in my head, tangling together—a pirate ship made of plastic bottle, warm salad for lunch, a tiny room with three-foot desk. The smile in her deep-set black eyes, the warmth of her fingers around mine, the perfume of her hair against her tanned skin—I allowed myself lost miles away for a while until a grotesque mask picture pulled me back. My hands shook,
A gush of nausea washed through me, instinctive and strong. That was the nastiest paint I’d ever seen. The longer you stared at it, the more feeling that your soul seemed to be absorbed away you would have. Why did mum want to put it on the cover? Was it a horror fiction? I tore my eyes away from the book, breathing. But why did I feel it looked so familiar…as if I saw it somewhere before…where…
I kneaded my forehead with my knuckles. The action was too violent to be necessary and it pulled the weight in the chest into a sway. And then the solution came to me. My head snapped down as my grip caught the watch—for the first time, I got a good look at it. It was as if someone fashioned a ghost face, 3/4 of which was attached around the case. Despite years of erosion had blurred most details of this dark piece, it was not so hard to tell—it was identical as what was on the book. I suddenly thought whether it was something like heraldry. Was it? It came from dad’s side…as the thought floated to me. My emotion degraded. A family gift couldn’t buy my trust. And some small gnarled place inside me hated him for his weakness, for his neglect, for the years he left me as an orphan. Shawl might forgive him, so did Garlo, but I had taken a step back from him, put up a wall to protect myself from needing him, and nothing was ever the same between us again.
