Mulan’s parents had risen at the Healer’s entrance, their eyes full of hope and gratitude, but the Healer waved them back down again. He walked to Xiu’s bed and Auntie Ho lifted Xiu’s limp hand to him, showing him the wound. His glare darkened. The two small pinpricks would have been impossible to see, except that a viscous, honey-colored liquid slowly oozed from them.
“Do you have many spiders here?” the Healer asked, checking the pulse of Xiu’s left wrist and then her right.
“A few,” Auntie Ho said. “But just the usual.”
“Maybe not,” Mulan’s mother broke in. “Maybe there were more, or maybe something is strange about our spiders, after all. It would explain why Xiu has always been so afraid of them.”
“She’s been scared of spiders her whole life,” Mulan said when she saw the Healer’s eyebrows rise. Her mother’s eyebrows rose as well, and Mulan knew it was because she was speaking out of turn again—not what a young girl, quiet and obedient, should do. But this seemed important to the Healer, so Mulan pressed on. “Xiu always acted as if spiders were chasing or hunting her.” Then Mulan’s voice faltered. “I teased her about it.”
“Hunting her?” The Healer’s voice held only the faintest question. “Do you know for certain that it was a spider that bit her?”
“Well, she said so,” Mulan said, hesitating. “But maybe she just thought that because she’s so scared of them? She said it had nine legs, and I don’t think any spider—”
“Nine legs?” the Healer interrupted, dropping Xiu’s arm and standing. He towered over them, the glint reflecting from his eyes like lightning. “The spider had nine legs?”
Mulan stared up at him and nodded. “That’s what she said.”
The mournful howl of a restrained dog somewhere in the village drifted into the room. As her father limped unevenly over to the Healer, Mulan realized how upset he was. He usually hid the pains of his old war injuries. She remembered seeing him limp like that only once before, when she was a child and had accidentally chased a chicken onto the roof. She remembered his faltering, unsteady steps as he ran toward her, so afraid she would fall to her death.
“Tell me,” her father said. “This is not an ordinary spider bite, is it?”
The Healer hesitated. “No,” he said, finally. He reached into his bag and turned to Mulan. “Put these in hot water,” he said, handing her a small packet.
She took it to the kitchen and, as she suspected the Healer had given her this job so that he could talk to her parents and Auntie Ho in private, left the door open. When she opened the packet, she found a small bundle of dried, greyish-green herbs. They were so delicate, Mulan feared they would crumble before she could get the water heated.
She tended to the kettle, but could not help continuing to steal glances over her shoulder. She heard her parents recount Xiu’s scream, how she had clutched at them and cried about the spider, and then how she had suddenly wilted in Mulan’s arms. The Healer replied in low murmurs, and as Mulan gently placed the fragile plants in a bowl, she strained for the words. Poison…reaching vitals…destroying her chi…death.
Mulan felt an icy wind fly down her throat as the boiling kettle softly hissed, a thin snake of steam coiling from the spout. Slowly, she poured the water into the bowl.
The herbs seemed to dissolve into smoke, for as soon as the water touched them, Mulan saw a cloud billow up like the dust of swept ashes. She grabbed the bowl with both hands, hoping she had not accidentally done something wrong. The mist thickened, curving into her face and enveloping her. It grew into a heavy veil of fog that hid everything from view and dampened all sound. Suddenly, all was silent, and Mulan could only see whiteness. Her world had disappeared.
MULAN SHOOK her head wildly, her hair whipping at the mist. She blindly set down the bowl, hoping the table had remained in front of her. As she released it, the fog began to thin. She rubbed her eyes and slowly began to see the familiar kettle and stove.
But when she turned, she had to rub her eyes again. It was as if her world had become a still painting. Through the open door, she saw the Healer’s back and her parents’ faces looking up at him. But their mouths were open as if struck silent midsentence and their outstretched, pleading arms were frozen in the air. Auntie Ho stood static next to the bed, her hands still clutching a red cord as she waited with the hope of tying Xiu’s spirit back to her body. Everything seemed swathed with a soft silver light; even the scarlet robe of the Healer, which had been so brilliant before, was now the more muted color of a frosted hawthorn berry.
What had happened? Why was everything frozen? Mulan crept forward soundlessly, unwilling to disturb the suddenly hushed world. She was beginning to feel as if she had somehow slipped into a moonlit dream, where all—except her—slept.
But then, without warning, the Healer stirred. His arms dropped from his conversational gesture and, in a swift motion, he turned from Mulan and her parents, his robe swirling behind him. The sound of his boots echoed in the silence as he stalked out the door.
Mulan stared, openmouthed, and then stole out after him. Yet, the instant she stepped over the entryway, she stopped. Her mouth fell open even wider than before as she gazed, dumbfounded. Her parents were not the only ones suddenly still. All the villagers looked as if they had turned into statues. Big Wan held a dog by the scruff of its neck, the dog’s wide-open mouth revealing he had been silenced while detecting a foreign animal outside. Boys, frozen in play, stood on one leg—a ball impossibly balancing on one child’s toe. Above, a woman leaned over the balcony and a falling piece of her newly clean laundry floated just out of reach of her outstretched hand. Even the chickens stood tilted in their half-waddled steps.
The silver mist veiled everything, as if it were a sugared coating holding the world motionless. Mulan’s head slowly spun as she continued to gape. It was everyone and everything she knew, yet it was not. For they all seemed fixed in a real place and time, while she was wandering alone in this dream. And here, there was no sound, no movement…except for the flapping red robe of the Healer as he wove his way around the stationary villagers and out the door of Mulan’s village tulou.
MULAN DARTED around the frozen villagers, chasing the Healer’s fluttering red robe as if she were trying to catch a butterfly. The crimson silk flapped out of view through the tulou’s open entry and Mulan rushed forward, tripping over the doorway. Her arms splayed wildly and she fell, face-first, onto the ground.
As Mulan gasped into the dirt, she realized that outside her village, the sounds of the world were unchanged. Even as her feet had pounded on the floor of the tulou, the thuds had been muffled. Here, the wind’s gentle roar and the warbles of the dusk-singing birds filled her ears. As she raised her head, Mulan saw that all was still tinged with a muted light, but unlike inside her village, everything was moving and alive. The grass and trees swayed, and black silhouettes of birds flew against the amber-colored clouds.
She could still see the Healer. He was far ahead of her—he had crossed the village’s well-worn path and walked in the light-frosted grass toward the forest. His crimson cloak was streaming behind him like spilled wine, and with every step he took away from her, he seemed to grow smaller. Mulan squinted. No, the Healer did not seem to be growing smaller—he was growing smaller.