The Wandering God

8 Lucky Star on the Rise

福星高照
fúxīnggāozhào
Lucky star in the ascendant.
A lucky sign, a good omen.
*~*~*~*~*~*

Once I had bathed and washed my hair in the old wooden tub, the girl showed me how to wear the beautiful silks her family had lent me. They were even finer material than my own blue gown. I wondered briefly if my purse held enough coin to buy any of them, and then remembered my purse was empty.

I guess I could always steal them. Morally, it wouldn't be the worst thing I had done. After all, these people had tried to rob me a few hours earlier.

I left the bathing room and made my way to the kitchen, but before I could enter, something small and soft slid into my hand. I looked down to see Sangmi holding my hand and staring up at me.

"Wanna see my castle?" she asked, hopeful.

"Not really," I said, but she started tugging me toward the stairs regardless.

Reluctantly I followed her up four flights of stairs through the heart of the great house. On every floor, dried herbs hung, some for food and some for dye. Machines for spinning silk and then weaving it into cloth stood cobwebbed in the corners like old, forgotten relatives. It seemed like many people had lived and worked here once.

If I had learned one thing from my time in the human world, it was that change and humanity were inseparable. The humans grew and developed and innovated, and nothing within their reach stayed the same. It was inevitable, I knew, for even the good things to come to an end.

Still, I wondered what had led to this dereliction.

Once on the top floor, the the roof sloped steeply away to either side and I had to stoop everywhere but the center. Sangmi led me to the end, around a floor littered with carved wood and cloth toys, to the little round window with paper stars on it I had seen earlier from outside. She slid the paper screen open and pointed outside.

I looked out. The sun was setting, throwing long shadows of trees across rice fields and casting a warm glow on everything. People made their way home from the fields, laughing and joking, voices lively with anticipation of the evening's festival. The river was a red ribbon, reflecting the color of the sky.

"Nice castle," I said, but the girl had gotten distracted by some dolls at her feet, and was making them kiss each other. Or strangle each other, I wasn't sure.

When we returned to the kitchen the men had already left for the fields. "Oh, how wonderful you look," said Lao Bang's wife, clapping her hands together.

"I don't think I should wear this-" I began. Fine as the silk was, it was too fragile for my liking.

"Oh no, you must wear it. Most of the girls have gone to the city to work, and it'll do the men's hearts glad to see a pretty girl wearing our clothes." I recalled her lack of judgement earlier when she discovered I was a girl traveling alone with men, and wondered what kind of work the women from the village had gone to the city to do.

"She liked the castle," Sangmi said.

"I'm glad you showed her. That's where you'll be sleeping tonight," the old woman declared as she bustled around the kitchen with tray after tray of cakes. "And you must stay. It's too far to the nearest town to leave tonight, and the roads are dangerous."

"Because of bandits?" I asked, intending to humiliate her, but she only nodded agreement. I realized she had no idea what her husband and son had tried earlier, which made me suspect it had been their first attempt.

Hopefully it would be their last. They were terrible bandits.

I helped Sangmi and her grandmother prepare food for another half hour, easy tasks like sprinkling sesame seeds on top of cakes and packing it all into wooden boxes, so I wouldn't dirty the silks I wore. Then Sangmi and her grandmother also disappeared into the back room and emerged in brightly colored dresses similar to mine. Sangmi's hair had been braided into loops on either side her head with strips of colored silk.