From the Ashes of Love

Chapter 4

Li-Hua awoke suddenly. The golden light of the late afternoon sun gilded the tops of the surrounding Osmanthus bushes, which cast long shadows on the ground.

"Oh, no!" she thought. "Mother is going to be so angry with me!" She had overslept.

Hurriedly she pulled the cuttings out of the rooting solution, and stuck them in to the pots of soil waiting next to them. However, something seemed odd. The number of pots was uneven. She could have sworn she had an equal number of soil and solution pots. Also one of the solution pots didn't have a cutting soaking in it.

"Was I that tired?" she asked herself in confusion.

There was no time to dwell on this mystery, if she was going to make it home before dark. Rushing to add clean water to all of her pots, she slopped it all over herself in the process. She was practically running when she loaded the pots up into the cart.

She strained against the cart handle to get it moving, and then took off down the road at a light trot. On her journey, she was disconcerted to hear what sounded like hooves clip-clopping along behind her.

"Is someone coming up on horseback?" she wondered.

She looked around and the noise stopped.

"Huh" she said out loud.

As she turned back around she heard the noise again.

"Who is there?" she asked loudly.

The noise stopped. This was getting creepy. She looked at the sun, it was only two fingers above the horizon. She had maybe half an hour of daylight left. If she was being haunted in the daylight, how much worse could it be after dark?

She took off again, this time running faster with the cart. She could hear the hoof beats pick up behind her, but at this point she decided not to stop until she made it home.

She finally rolled in to her front garden right after dusk had fallen. She was winded and red-faced. Her hair and clothing dirty, sweat-stained and disheveled. The contents of the cart were in absolute disarray. Pots had fallen over, spilling soil and water and rooting solution everywhere.

"Looks like I know what I'm doing tomorrow" she said under her breath.

Mother came running out of the front door.

"WHERE have you been?" she demanded loudly. "LOOK at the sight of you!"

"Sorry Mother! I thought a ghost was chasing me" Li-Hua explained as she tried to steer Mother back into the house. She really did not want Mother to see the cart right now.

"If you were being chased by a ghost, it serves you right!" scolded her Mother. "You should have been home hours ago!" Mother continued. "Thank goodness a kind spirit found you and chased you home. I was so worried!"

Mother put her hands together above her head and shook them in all directions while bowing her head.

"Thank you, Spirits, for bringing home my daughter" she prayed. "I will leave out a dish of rice especially for you tonight" she continued "and a sweet bean curd bun tomorrow. I am eternally grateful for your help. Please continue to watch over my daughter. Thank you, Spirits."

Then Mother looked back at her daughter and shook her head.

"Go wash up before you eat, I have your dinner saved" she said. "Then you can explain to me where you were, and it better not have anything to do with that Storyteller" she threatened.

Outside the small house a vivid green snake with horns on his head slithered up a support post on the side, easing himself under the eaves, and then arching his long body to climb onto the roof. Burrowing into the thatch of the roof, the snake soon found an opening that would take him inside the structure, coiling his body around the joist at the roof's apex.

Mother set out dinner for her daughter, and then spooned up an extra bowl of rice to set out for the good spirits as promised. She stuck a pair of chopsticks in the rice, standing straight up, and then placed it on the altar in the corner where she usually left offerings for her deceased husband and parents on their respective birthdays. Once more she shook her hands prayerfully above her head in all directions. Then she sat down at the table and waited for her daughter, busying her hands with red silk thread which she tied into love knots. They always sold well during wedding season.

Li-Hua sat down timidly across from her mother and guiltily began eating.

"Li-er" Mother said gently. "You are almost a woman now. After the Spring Festival you will be of marriageable age."

Li-Hua looked up from her rice and cabbage.

"I know that Mother. I am sorry for being late. I just fell asleep in the grove while I was waiting for the rooting solution to take effect. I was tired from not sleeping last night. I didn't even see the Storyteller anywhere."

"Li-er" Mother said firmly this time. "A young woman of 17 should not be sleeping outside the house for any reason. It's bad luck. Don't jeapordize your future marriage" she warned.

"Yes, Mother" Li-Hua agreed.

"Go to bed now girl, I'll clean up" said Mother "You still look very tired."

Li-Hua yawned hugely, nodding her head in agreement.

Gratefully, she crawled into bed and quickly fell asleep. Mother rinsed out the dirty bowl and then retired to her bed.

Neither of them heard the clip-clopping hooves of the Yan Beast as he roamed about the small house. He sampled the rice Mother had left for him, but it wasn't what he really hungered for. Soon he would eat his fill of of the Dreams of both women.

From the rafters above, the vivid green snake watched over all of them.