The next weekend found Song Feng alone in her room again, pacing the floor, glancing up at the clock every few moments.
It was utterly stupid. That’s what Feng kept telling herself anyway. Utterly and completely stupid. Still, she hadn’t been able to help herself. The letter said at the hour of the Dog. That was seven p.m., which was in five minutes. She had looked it up in a few different places just to be sure. The old Chinese system divided the day into twelve, so each old style ‘hour’ was two modern hours. The hour of the Dog was seven p.m., which was in now in four minutes. She glared at the jade comb and then at the silk.
The jade had been real and so was the silk. She had ended up testing the silk after all and the thread burned white “ real silk. Real jade and real silk meant that it wasn’t a trick. It probably wasn’t a trick anyway.
She had been over it a thousand times already. Either it was a trick or it was real. It was too stupid to be a trick and too unbelievable to be real. No one would play a trick with real silk and real jade, no one she knew anyway, and there was no reason someone she didn’t know would bother playing a trick on her. So, theoretically at least, the letter should be real. Except she had no idea what kind of school would send a letter on silk with a jade comb attached, with no address, no return address or postage! It didn’t make any sense.
What’s the worst that could happen, she tried to reason with herself, nothing. If she had to, she could even sell the comb. She might as well just do what the letter asked. Nothing would happen, she could get rid of the comb, and everything would go back to normal.
Her mind made up, she pulled her hair into a simple bun. With the force of years of practice, it was quite smooth and only took a few moments to put up. She glanced in a mirror out of habit, but it was fine. She held the comb in her right hand, then stubbornly stuck it in the bun to keep it together.
At first, nothing happened. She almost giggled out of the sheer stupidity of it. It was just a prank, nothing was happening. Her door was locked and she had checked the room twice. No one was there besides her. No one could get in the room and see her, looking like an idiot with her jeans and T-shirt and a jade comb stuck in her hair. She glanced over at the clock and watched the second hand tick on to the hour. It was seven p.m. exactly.
Suddenly, there was a loud crack.
A man suddenly appeared in her room. Song Feng blinked rapidly trying to take him in. He was old, with long white hair and a beard. He looked almost like he had stepped out of a picture of one of the Daoist Immortals, even his clothing style was old. She didn’t know how else to really describe it besides ‘old’, though in China that is an almost useless description, since for almost every time period, there is still something older. It was hanfu, she knew that much. It was traditional Han style clothing since before the Manchu arrived, other than that, she had no idea.
She noted that he carried a staff that was made of a dark wood. The staff was intricately carved and at the very top was a piece of jade. Somehow, the wood had been carved to just barely hold the jade in place, making it look like a natural extension of the wood, like some odd kind of tree.
He stared at her for a long moment before speaking. “Young Mistress Song, I presume?” he asked solemnly. His voice was grave.
She paused at that. Why on earth is he talking like that? She wasn’t sure she had ever heard that form of address outside of really historically accurate television series and novels. “Yes?” she managed to say, still trying to take in the entire ridiculous outfit and the staff.
“You read the letter.” In other circumstances, she would have described his voice as pleasant sounding, with an enjoyable resonance, but she had too many worries about the entire situation to think about it very much.
The girl nodded, picking up the letter and handing it to him.
He looked at the silk, frowning at the simplified script. She wondered what he was thinking. After just a moment, he handed the letter back to her politely. “Odd script...” he murmured to himself. Then he seemed to gather his thoughts. “As I wrote in the letter, my name is Zhu-ge Liang, the Headmaster of the Southern School of Magic, the Dragon Pearl.” He took a deep breath as if steeling himself. “Young Mistress Song, you are a witch.”
She wanted to burst out laughing, but it was wildly inappropriate, and, more importantly, Zhu-ge Liang’s tone was so serious that she couldn’t laugh at him. She managed to stifle a snicker. A witch?
“I realize that this will come as some surprise to you but it is the truth,” Zhu-ge Liang continued, completely misinterpreting her reaction. “There is a hidden, magical world. Witches and wizards live alongside Muggles, that is, non-magical people, but do not normally interact with them.” He spoke carefully, like he had memorized a script, or like he was trying very hard not to say something.
“So, why me?” Song Feng asked. “I’m a not-magical person too.”
“Young Mistress Song, I have just told you. You are a witch. You are magical and you have performed magic before. You have healed yourself, correct?”
She looked down towards her feet for a moment, digesting that information and ignoring his question. That would explain a lot about my ankle and my blisters... Then she lifted her head and fixed him with a glare. “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe magic exists.” She was about to just finish there but then realized something was amiss. “How did you even get in here?”
“There is…,” he paused, as if wondering how to phrase it properly. “There is a tracking spell on this comb. It allowed me to find you and Apparate to where you are. As for magic...” he stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Magic exists. It runs in your body like your blood. It is a natural force of the universe. There is no why, only its existence.”
She looked at him skeptically. “Like chi,” she said, referring to the Daoist concept of energy.
“It is chi,” he replied. She stared at him blankly. He sighed. “I do not want to go in-depth with magical theory right now but magic flows in the body and is a system of energy. Essentially, it is chi. Magic is controlled through using specific movements with specific words to gain specific results.”
She swallowed. The explanation sounded all too reasonable and all too rational. “You’ve got to be joking.”
“I very rarely joke and never about matters of great importance such as this.”
Song Feng waved that aside. She didn’t know him well enough to make a judgement call on his previous statement, for all she knew he was making fun of her already. “Okay, even if magic does exist, and I’m not saying it does, what does that have to do with me? Even if I am a witch, there have to be other people who can do magic, right? Who cares if I know how to use spells? It’s not like I’m hurting anyone, just healing myself once in awhile. It’s not like I’m using my magic to do anything bad.”
Zhu-ge Liang looked at her and she felt like she was fixed to the spot. “Not everyone can do magic. To be able to do so is a gift, particularly, if your parents do not have it. You have it. And since you have it, you need to go to school to learn how to use it. If you don’t know how to control it, you will abuse it.”
“No.” The word slipped from her lips before she had a chance to think about what the man had said much less figure out what all that nonsense about gifts and her parents meant, much less abusing magic.
Now it was the headmaster’s turn to look confused. “No?” he repeated as if he hadn’t heard her.
“I....” She wasn’t sure how to put it. “I’d have to leave to learn magic, right? I’d have to go to your school, wherever that is, and leave Beijing?” Leave the team, she added, silently. Leave behind everything that ever mattered to me.
“You do not learn magic, you learn to control it. Otherwise, it controls you.”
She lifted her chin stubbornly. The Headmaster was splitting hairs, and she refused to have it. “I would still have to leave Beijing, right?”
He sighed. “Yes. You would have to attend classes at the Southern School in Guilin.”
“Then, no,” she responded firmly. “I’m not leaving.”
He opened his mouth like he was going to scold her or maybe even scream at her. She gritted her teeth, smoothing her expression to neutrality like she was facing one of her coaches in a rage. He shut his mouth and when he reopened it, his voice was calm. “Why?”
She waved her hand around to indicate her surroundings. “I have everything that I could want right here.” Her voice was quiet but determined and her gaze was steely. She meant every word of it. She didn’t need anything that wasn’t here.
He looked around and she wondered what he saw. A room with four walls, a ceiling and a door, with four beds and four desks and two big closets. The TV positioned above a dresser, good luck symbols plastered on the walls, pictures of home and stuffed animals. He couldn’t see the years of hard work that went in to getting to this place, to having this place. She picked up her white tiger cub and hugged it absently, staring at him defiantly.
He looked at her pictures of home closely. She wondered what he thought of her village in Guangdong. “You are not from near here. Your home is in the South, is it not?”
“Yep. I’m from Hoipeng,” she said it in the village dialect, half-wondering if he would know it, half-wanting to make his life as difficult as possible.
When he waited for an explanation, she added, “Taishan, in the delta of the Pearl River.”
“Then you are very far from home, indeed.”
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the obvious statement or tell him exactly how many kilometers lie between Beijing and Taishan. “I’m on the national team.”
The two stared at each other in utter incomprehension, both feeling that their statement explained everything that needed to be said about their position and the situation.
Finally, the headmaster broke the silence. “What is the national team?”
He doesn’t seem to be the type that is used to asking questions. Well, he is a Headmaster, Feng thought. “Gymnastics,” she responded, shortly.
When he continued to look politely confused, she lost her temper. “I don’t need your training. I train almost every day, for hours on end! And I have since I was three years old. I’ve worked so hard to get here and I’m not leaving. I could be on the Olympic team! I could win a gold medal for China at home, in Beijing! I don’t want your magic, just leave me alone!”
She thrust her hands out instinctively, emphasizing his exit from her room, throwing all of her rage behind the gesture.
He leaned on his staff a little, face growing pale, like he was dizzy or like someone or something had struck him.
“That was a powerful spell for someone completely untaught,” he murmured, after a long moment while the color slowly returned to his face. “What would have happened if you had tried to do that to one of your friends? If you had tried to magically throw one of them from the room, they might have ended up at the bottom of the ocean or even on the Moon.”
Song Feng wasn’t even sure what she did. He said the word ‘spell’ but she hadn’t even done anything. She certainly hadn’t hit him or tried to throw him from the room. “I don’t want to hear anymore about magic. Just leave.”
He frowned. “You will have a completely fresh start and you will be able to go home again.”
She glared at him, not even bothering to figure out what he was trying to say. “This is my life. This is my destiny: the national team, the Olympics, representing the nation, winning a gold medal in front of the world. Three golds, actually. One for the bars, one for individual all-around and one for the team.” She counted each gold on her fingers, as if that would make them more real. If she did that, she would be a hero of the nation. All of her struggle would be worth it.
“Your destiny is what you make of it,” he responded sharply. “You can make a new destiny.” She fixed him with the iciest stare she could possibly manage with her nerves feeling ready to snap. She didn’t know what he meant, she didn’t want to know what he meant. He sighed. “I will come back and speak with you again.”
“Don’t bother,” she snapped at him.
He raised his staff like he was going to perform some kind of spell and disappear again, but then paused for a moment. “Do not forget, this conversation and that letter must remain secret, Young Mistress Song.”
“What difference does it make?” she shot back at him.
“Have you ever heard of the magical world before?” Before she had a chance to respond, he answered his own question. “No, of course you have not. The magical world has been kept secret from Muggles, from non-magical people, for centuries.”
Centuries? How was that even possible? There aren’t enough places in the world for people to hide for centuries.
“Young Mistress Song, you are a witch, you are one of our kind and you need to be trained. I will be back, but I will let you think about this for awhile.”
Then he vanished with another crack and she took a deep, shuddering breath.
She pulled the comb from her hair and for a brief moment considered throwing it at the wall. But it was jade and it was beautiful, and she was not in the habit of destroying beautiful things. She glared at it and then threw it in her jewelry chest, slamming the little drawer shut.
She was still trembling a little when she went to bed. It had been hours since Zhu-ge Liang had left and all her roommates had slowly drifted back to their room.
Magic. An entire new world that was somehow out there. She didn’t care. She didn’t want to care. I have everything I need right here: the national team, the Olympics in five years, a gold medal for my nation... flying on the bars. Three gold medals, she corrected herself. She had told Zhu-ge Liang that she would win three and she would. It’ll take a lot of work on the beam, she conceded, but I can do it.
This is everything I’ve ever hoped for, everything I’ve ever dreamed of. I don’t want to leave. Don’t I? She wanted to chew on something, but if she bit her nails then Chan Mei-ling would notice and be angry, and she couldn’t have a stick of gum or a piece of candy. I’ll be losing everything that I ever fought for, that I ever tried for, my entire life’s work. I can’t leave. I won’t leave. If I don’t have gymnastics then... she didn’t want to finish that thought.
“Birdie?” Li Fei asked. “Are you okay?”
“I’m just... stressed. I haven’t been doing that well lately.” She had never lied much before, she had never needed to. Now it seemed like she had to lie about everything, about magic, about the stupid letter, about the stupid Headmaster... stupid, stupid, stupid. She pounded her pillow a few times out of pure frustration.
Li Fei walked over and started rubbing the younger girl’s back, trying to soothe her. “You’ll be fine. You’ve got time. You just have to trust in yourself.”
“What would you do?” Song Feng asked, before she could stop herself.
“If what?”
She had said it now, there was no taking it back. “If you could get out. Would you leave?” Feng turned around to look at the older girl’s face.
“We’re free to leave if we want“” Fei started.
“What else could we do with ourselves?” the younger girl asked bitterly. “We’re barely literate. We’d be years behind our classmates in normal school.”
The older girl shrugged. “We were chosen for this. It’s... an honor that we just have to live up to.” Song Feng just sighed. “What brought this on?”
“I’m just wondering why we do this, I guess,” Feng said after a moment. “Why... why we try so hard and take so much. And in the end, it’s all for what? They choose maybe seven of us to go to the Olympics, to actually compete abroad? What are the rest of us supposed to do? We can’t even do anything else.” She sighed, heavily, clutching her knees to her chest. “I’ll be better after some sleep.”
With that finality, the younger girl settled into her bed, and pulled up the covers, turning her back to her friend. “Good night.”
“Good night,” Fei echoed a moment later.
The next day was worse. Feng actually fell off the beam at one point during her routine. Even worse, it was during a simple move, just a pirouette. She took her scolding as gracefully as she could manage, which was not well. Normally, she could take anything they gave her. This time, her whole body shook like she was about to cry and her cheeks burned bright red.
She had to excuse herself to get a drink of water and try to clear her head. I represent my people and my nation, she reminded herself. It’s not just about me. It was never just about me.
The rest of the week went by slowly and painfully. It was almost as if she was starting to learn gymnastics all over again. She just kept making stupid mistakes, even on the bars. She could have screamed with frustration, but she couldn’t even do that. Instead, she just worked until her hands blistered again and her coaches pulled her from the bars, her palms bleeding. She glared at her blisters, demanding that they heal, feeling them recede, feeling the skin knit itself back together. It gave her a kind of grim satisfaction to do magic intentionally. Now that she knew what it was, anyway.
When the weekend finally arrived, she didn’t even want to go out or do anything besides lie in bed in her room. It was all she could to keep herself from collapsing into a desperate heap.
She thought about calling home, but she knew that if she heard her parents’ voices, she would cry. The last thing she wanted was for her parents to worry about her. Everyone else had gone out. Li Fei was spending the weekend at home, with her parents. The older girl had invited her, but she had declined. She couldn’t face her own parents, she wasn’t going to be a burden to Li Fei’s.
It was all the fault of that stupid Zhu-ge Liang and his magic school. Until she received the letter, she was doing fine, great even. Now she was doing terribly. She couldn’t concentrate, she couldn’t do anything.
No one was around. She got up and locked the door, to make sure no one could come in either. She pulled the comb out from her jewelry chest. Then she pulled her hair into a barely neat enough bun and shoved the comb into it to keep it together.
At first nothing happened. “Zhu-ge Liang,” she snapped at the air. “Where are you? You said you would be back.”
After a moment and another small crack, the headmaster of the Southern School had reappeared in her room. Before he could say anything, she practically growled at him, “What did you do?”
He blinked, clearly surprised. “I did nothing.”
“You did something to me. I can’t concentrate during training. I’ve been messing up all week. It’s all your fault!” She spat out each word of the last sentence.
“I did not do anything to you,” Zhu-ge Liang said gently.
“I don’t believe you,” Song Feng snapped back at him.
They stared at each other for a moment, Song Feng still glaring daggers at him.
“I know that you do not believe me.” He sighed. “Would it help if I take you home for a short period?”
Feng’s eyes widened. “How are you going to do that? Is it even possible to take a short trip home?”
Zhu-ge Liang smiled, just a little. “I would like to say that with magic, anything is possible, but that is not quite true. It is true that we can go to your home and visit your parents.”
“And I’ll be back before the coaches notice that I’m gone and I get in trouble?”
“Yes.”
Feng tried to think of any other objection, but she couldn’t. “How does it work?”
Zhu-ge Liang extended a hand. “Take my hand.” Slowly, the girl took it. “Close your eyes. Think of your home. Think of where you want us to appear.”
Feng screwed her eyes shut. Home. Where her mother patched their clothes and cooked delicious food, where her father smoked and her brother did his homework. Her room that was somehow not her room. The room that was still hers, even if she was rarely there, with the pictures of her on the walls.
“That’s good,” he said quietly, not to break her concentration. He focused on the place she was creating in her mind and pushed more of his magic through her.
With a crack, they disappeared.