She stood up and her knees ached, as though she had been in the kneeling position for a long time. She also felt gangly, taller than normal. She pulled up the hem of her robe and saw long legs and wide feet that were not her own! When she looked at her hands, she saw the long slender fingers of a woman, not the small delicate fingers of a child. She nearly burst into tears. What was happening?
She heard someone shouting from through the doorway. The other people looked up and began to murmur amongst each other. The sound of a gunshot ricocheted through the room, followed by a scream. Everyone in the room began to panic. There was no way out!
Through the doorway, a tall, yellow-hair foreign man entered, followed by several other white men. The worshipers froze. The foreigner took aim at a man at random and shot him in the chest.
At that, everyone in the room screamed and started running. But there was nowhere to go. The foreigners fired their guns, and Sparrow stood frozen.
“It’s just a dream. It’s just a dream!” she cried. A man stomped up to her, lowered his gun to her face, and pulled the trigger.
The gun only clicked. He was out of bullets. He snarled and then punched Sparrow in the face, sending her to her knees. He then kicked her in the stomach. She doubled over in pain and began to weep.
“W-w-why?” she asked, but the man had already moved on to brutalizing another woman, slapping her across the face.
The first man, the one with the yellow hair, walked up to the jade monkey and slipped it into a bag.
“No!” one of the male worshipers cried out. He was already bleeding from the stomach, but he still reached toward the man in a futile attempt to stop him. But the yellow-haired man kicked the injured worshiper in the face and then shot him between the eyes.
The yellow-haired man said something to his men, and they all left the room, along with the sack that held the jade monkey. They closed the door behind them, and Sparrow heard a clanking sound. There were more gunshots, but they were coming from farther away. The men were gone.
Everyone was groaning and crying, trying to understand what had happened and what they should do next. One woman limped her way over to the door and tried to open it.
“It’s locked!” she said. The people began to murmur about what this could mean for a moment. But when they smelled the smoke, they knew.
Orange flames began to flick under the door and the room grew hot. Everyone cried and held each other. One woman even took Sparrow into her arms. As the smoke grew thicker, Sparrow knew she was going to die, she only wished she knew why.
Sparrow gasped as she opened her eyes, as though she had been holding her breath underwater for a very long time. Her head ached and felt dizzy, her whole body sore. But as her vision cleared, she realized she was back in the room in the house in the foreign legation. Above her, still on its pedestal, was the jade monkey with the ruby eyes. She sat up and looked around. It had been a dream. She was safe. She was alive! But why had she passed out? She looked at the monkey wearily and knew she needed to get as far away from it as possible.
Sparrow jumped to her feet and ran to the door of the room. She turned the handle, throwing the door open without thinking. There in the hallway was the foreign man with the yellow hair. The man exclaimed something she couldn’t understand and stomped toward her. Sparrow screamed and slammed the door, but she couldn’t figure out the locking mechanism. The man pushed the door open and she fell to her backside. He yelled at her, again with words she couldn’t comprehend, and she began to cry as she tried to scramble to her feet to get away. The man grabbed her by her long plaited hair and pulled her out of the room. He shook her by the arms, yelling at her, asking things, but she couldn’t respond.
A foreign woman, also with yellow hair, stepped out from behind one of the closed doors. She yelled at the man, which seemed to calm him slightly. He at least stopped shaking Sparrow. The two foreigners spoke for a minute, then the man released Sparrow completely. The woman beckoned for Sparrow to come to her, and Sparrow did. Anyone was better than that terrible yellow-haired man. The one who had killed all those people. The one who had stolen the jade monkey.
The woman held Sparrow in her arms and shushed her, patting her hair and holding her tight. She then kneeled down to Sparrow’s level.
“Are you injured?” the woman asked in Chinese, much to Sparrow’s shock. Sparrow shook her head.
“And you didn’t steal anything, did you?” the woman asked. Again, Sparrow shook her head. The woman then stood up and spoke to the man in her native language again.
Sparrow felt a little calmer now and was able to get a better look at the man and woman. They must have been related, for they looked similar, but the woman was much younger. His daughter, perhaps.
“Do you work for another family in the legation?” the woman asked Sparrow.
“N-n-no,” Sparrow sputtered. “I…I was lost…Afraid to get caught.”
The woman smiled and nodded. She wiped Sparrow’s cheeks and then took her by the hand. “Then let’s get you out of here, okay?”
Sparrow nodded and wiped her snotty nose on her sleeve. The woman took Sparrow downstairs. A Chinese servant helped the woman don a warm cape and hat. The woman then took Sparrow’s hand again and led her out of the house and down the street toward the gate of the legation.
“Now,” the woman said, “are you going to tell me what you were really doing in my father’s treasure room?”
Sparrow shook her head.
“Very well,” the woman said. “You are just lucky I was there. Father is not a kind man when it comes to you natives.”
Sparrow said nothing. She had seen firsthand just how brutal the man could be. Or had she? It had only been a dream. A very strange dream. He hadn’t really murdered all those people, had he? But it hadn’t felt like a dream. It had been so real.
As they neared the gate and Sparrow saw all the ruckus of the people leaving and the looters carrying off the discarded goods, she remembered why she had come here in the first place. And now she was leaving empty-handed.
“Are you leaving China?” Sparrow asked the woman.
“Not yet,” she said. “Father rather likes it here.” She then let go of Sparrow’s hand and motioned toward the gate. “I trust you can get home from here.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Sparrow said.
“Here.” The woman held something out to Sparrow. Sparrow opened her hand, and several silver coins fell into it. Sparrow gasped. The woman chuckled. “Your reward for failing in your attempt to steal from us.”
Sparrow felt her face go red. “I…I’m sorry,” she said as she looked to the ground.
“Never you mind,” the woman said as she nudged Sparrow toward the gate. “Go on.”
Sparrow shoved the coins into a hidden pocket inside her robe. As a thief, she knew the best ways to keep from being robbed herself. At the gate, she turned back to the woman. The woman waved and then turned away to walk back to her home. Sparrow ran through the crowd of people and carts and horses and crossed the street where she was thankful to find Dove still waiting for her.
“What took so long?” Dove asked her.
“I was nearly caught,” Sparrow said. Dove gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. “But don’t tell Mama! She’ll be angry.” Dove nodded. Sparrow grabbed her sister’s arm and moved away from the legation where they could find a cart to ride home in.