two fics
Our Bodies and Our Souls @ the fic journal, and my thegameison_sh entry for February...
Yao Soo-Lin, (whose family name means ‘mother-of-pearl,’ and whose first name means nothing at all,) is blessed with one thousand memories, each one round and smooth within her shell of her mind. The one which glows brightest is from when she is seven years old, and it glows like this:
She is curled into a knot of dark skin and black hair at the bottom of her mother’s laundry bucket. Hot water steams around her, and more is boiling on the stove. Nearby her mother stands, one teapot in each hand, a concerned expression on her face.
Soo-Lin has a head cold that is stubbornly refusing to go away.
“Do you feel better?” her mother asks her.
Soo-Lin shakes her head, flings water everywhere. Her mother walks over slowly and kneels, before tipping one teapot so that it pours over the other, amber liquid dribbling into the laundry bucket.
“Mò-lì-huā,” she says. “Jasmine.” The aroma rises and clears Soo-Lin’s sinuses, brightens her eyes. She feels the ache leave her temples and leans back with a smile.
At the door, her brother stands, curious.
“Wait outside,” their mother orders.
Later, Soo-Lin rises from her tea bath, a few stray jasmine flowers stuck to her skin. Her mother drapes a blanket over her bony shoulders, and Soo-Lin pads out to find her brother seated in the kitchen, poking at spiders with a stick.
“Are you alright?” he murmurs, eyes fixed on his prey and their webs.
“I’m alright,” she says, pulling a flower from her arm and sticking it to her brother’s cheek.
--
Their mother dies when Soo-Lin is fifteen and her brother is twelve, and they end up on the streets. Work isn’t hard to find for girls, but Soo-Lin is too strong of will and refuses. There are other ways. She keeps her hands on her brother’s shoulders and continues to search.
The Tong recruits them within a two-month. Children are small and quick; children see what others don’t; children are told what others aren’t. The bosses like the look of Soo-Lin-she is pretty with a sweet tilt to her eyes and lips-but they don’t like her brother.
“His hands are too small-what can he carry?” they say.
“If he goes, I go,” she replies.
That night she and her brother sleep in a bed for the first time in weeks, her nose buried in his hair.
“I won’t ever leave you,” she promises.
“Good,” he says, spreading his fingers out against the sheets, willing them to grow.
--
She loses her use in a matter of years, when her bosses want her to take more than just drugs. Stolen artifacts, pinched from graves-jade jewelery, bone combs. Soo-Lin feels like she is handing her children away.
“Just things,” her brother says. He is still short, his hands still small, but these things no longer work against him. He is their acrobat, their spider. He comes home only once a week, smelling of a women and alcohol. He wants fast cars, clothes from Europe, shoes from America.
The bosses now want Soo-Lin to stop smuggling. They want her to be their pet, to bed her and pay her trinkets. And so, one evening, when she is eighteen, Soo-Lin brings one last package over the border to Hong Kong-a small crate of antique teapots. She keeps two, wraps them carefully, leaving the rest at the dropoff.
Then she disappears, and breaks her promise.
--
The pots she stole pay her way to England. She feels guilty about it, the memory hard and painful, even works in the museum to fix what she has broken, her days unchanging, her labor one of love.
Her brother comes on a rainy night in winter. He is older, with many lines on his face, the sight of him both welcome and terrifying. He asks her what he has come to ask her in the voice of a stranger.
“No,” she says.
After he leaves, she makes herself jasmine tea in a pot of plain, white porcelain. She drinks and watches the rain come down, her memories spinning within her head like pearls alongside her brother’s words.
“You left me. You betrayed me.”
Soo-Lin replied, “Still, I love you,” even though she has done both these things.
--
The night she dies, Soo-Lin leaves the basement door unbolted for a reason. Her brother crawls in like a spider, or a ghost, or a memory.
She goes with his gun to her head, and her hand on his cheek.
Congratulations to shrewreader and irisbleufic for doing a fabulous job and getting the team into first. <3
Yao Soo-Lin, (whose family name means ‘mother-of-pearl,’ and whose first name means nothing at all,) is blessed with one thousand memories, each one round and smooth within her shell of her mind. The one which glows brightest is from when she is seven years old, and it glows like this:
She is curled into a knot of dark skin and black hair at the bottom of her mother’s laundry bucket. Hot water steams around her, and more is boiling on the stove. Nearby her mother stands, one teapot in each hand, a concerned expression on her face.
Soo-Lin has a head cold that is stubbornly refusing to go away.
“Do you feel better?” her mother asks her.
Soo-Lin shakes her head, flings water everywhere. Her mother walks over slowly and kneels, before tipping one teapot so that it pours over the other, amber liquid dribbling into the laundry bucket.
“Mò-lì-huā,” she says. “Jasmine.” The aroma rises and clears Soo-Lin’s sinuses, brightens her eyes. She feels the ache leave her temples and leans back with a smile.
At the door, her brother stands, curious.
“Wait outside,” their mother orders.
Later, Soo-Lin rises from her tea bath, a few stray jasmine flowers stuck to her skin. Her mother drapes a blanket over her bony shoulders, and Soo-Lin pads out to find her brother seated in the kitchen, poking at spiders with a stick.
“Are you alright?” he murmurs, eyes fixed on his prey and their webs.
“I’m alright,” she says, pulling a flower from her arm and sticking it to her brother’s cheek.
--
Their mother dies when Soo-Lin is fifteen and her brother is twelve, and they end up on the streets. Work isn’t hard to find for girls, but Soo-Lin is too strong of will and refuses. There are other ways. She keeps her hands on her brother’s shoulders and continues to search.
The Tong recruits them within a two-month. Children are small and quick; children see what others don’t; children are told what others aren’t. The bosses like the look of Soo-Lin-she is pretty with a sweet tilt to her eyes and lips-but they don’t like her brother.
“His hands are too small-what can he carry?” they say.
“If he goes, I go,” she replies.
That night she and her brother sleep in a bed for the first time in weeks, her nose buried in his hair.
“I won’t ever leave you,” she promises.
“Good,” he says, spreading his fingers out against the sheets, willing them to grow.
--
She loses her use in a matter of years, when her bosses want her to take more than just drugs. Stolen artifacts, pinched from graves-jade jewelery, bone combs. Soo-Lin feels like she is handing her children away.
“Just things,” her brother says. He is still short, his hands still small, but these things no longer work against him. He is their acrobat, their spider. He comes home only once a week, smelling of a women and alcohol. He wants fast cars, clothes from Europe, shoes from America.
The bosses now want Soo-Lin to stop smuggling. They want her to be their pet, to bed her and pay her trinkets. And so, one evening, when she is eighteen, Soo-Lin brings one last package over the border to Hong Kong-a small crate of antique teapots. She keeps two, wraps them carefully, leaving the rest at the dropoff.
Then she disappears, and breaks her promise.
--
The pots she stole pay her way to England. She feels guilty about it, the memory hard and painful, even works in the museum to fix what she has broken, her days unchanging, her labor one of love.
Her brother comes on a rainy night in winter. He is older, with many lines on his face, the sight of him both welcome and terrifying. He asks her what he has come to ask her in the voice of a stranger.
“No,” she says.
After he leaves, she makes herself jasmine tea in a pot of plain, white porcelain. She drinks and watches the rain come down, her memories spinning within her head like pearls alongside her brother’s words.
“You left me. You betrayed me.”
Soo-Lin replied, “Still, I love you,” even though she has done both these things.
--
The night she dies, Soo-Lin leaves the basement door unbolted for a reason. Her brother crawls in like a spider, or a ghost, or a memory.
She goes with his gun to her head, and her hand on his cheek.
Congratulations to shrewreader and irisbleufic for doing a fabulous job and getting the team into first. <3