I open my eyes to a fluorescent light, painfully bright. A curtain is drawn halfway round my bed. The pillow smells faintly of disinfectant. I don’t mind. I bury my face in it and breathe in, then breathe in again.
How did I get here?
Dark clouds hang over the buildings opposite. Down below, a few car lights creep along the street. I can’t make out a sign or recognise the road. Which hospital is this?
I push the covers down. No mud on my arms. Even my nails are clean. Bits of it come back: the broken stone, the foxes, the masked person. A dream that went on far too long and hasn’t quite cleared out of my head.
The Tower too?
I settle into the pillow. My shoulders loosen. Of course. Nobody gets swept into the sky by the sea and lives through everything that happened afterwards.
Mum’s bag isn’t beside the bed. Dad isn’t here either. I crane my neck to see beyond the curtain. They’ve probably gone to buy food. Jun Hao will be with them. Any minute he’ll come running in and climb onto the bed to steal my pillow.
I shift the covers over to make room for him.
Someone is crying behind the curtain. I stop.
A little gasp, then another sob. She seems to be trying to hold it in. Each time she goes quiet, she gets half a breath before it catches in her throat again. Rain begins tapping on the window. I wait, but I can still hear her.
I sit up and swing my feet out of bed. The floor is cold. Beyond the curtain, another empty chair. A girl is curled up on the other bed. Long silver-white hair spills over her shoulders onto the sheet. Both hands clutch her clothes. Each sob shakes her thin shoulders.
I move closer, where she can see me. She doesn’t lift her head. Her fingers tighten until the knuckles go white.
Should I get a nurse? I can’t find the bell beside her bed. She can barely breathe. I don’t dare leave.
Jun Hao does this when he cries really hard. Holds a breath for ages before it finally comes out. I have to hug him first and let him wipe his tears and snot all over me. Then I can complain.
But the last time I saw him, I didn’t get to hold him.
His hand was still reaching towards me. Mum’s mouth was open. There was so much wind and rain I couldn’t hear a word.
I grip the edge of the bed. My palm is suddenly damp.
Was that really a dream?
The girl bends her head further. I lean down and put my arms round her shoulders, trying to draw her close.
My hands meet.
Nothing between them.
I pitch forward and catch myself on the mattress. She’s still right there. Her hair lies across the back of my hand, but I can’t feel it.
I must have missed her.
I draw back a little and look carefully at her shoulder. Slowly this time. Find the sleeve first. Then hold on.
My fingers pass straight through.
I can touch the bed. I can touch the sheet. I reach for the hands clenched in her clothes. She doesn’t look at me. Her shaking fingers are inside my palm and I can’t hold them.
My nose stings. I look down. I don’t know where else to put my hands.
Suddenly she tips her head back and draws a huge breath. Her lips tremble. For a moment she holds it, and then it breaks into a loud, open cry.
Wind hits the window. Rain hammers down so thickly that the buildings disappear. The frame rattles. I tighten my grip on the bed and see the water on the glass stop running down.
It starts to climb.
One streak. Another. All the rain is sweeping upwards.
The car lights below are moving too. A car rises at an angle, its wheels still turning. Another flips over. They smash together and sweep past our window in the water. I hunch my shoulders and watch them rise into the black clouds.
The girl is crying at the top of her lungs, her chest heaving. The window frame bends inwards. I try to pull her away from it.
My hands are still empty.
The whole pane bursts.
Glass and water rush in. Her silver hair whips up; the curtain slaps across my face. I shut my eyes, but lightning fills even the backs of my eyelids with white.
White light turns to firelight.
I breathe in wood smoke and cough myself upright. Straw prickles underneath me. No hospital bed. No storm outside a window. Just water dripping, dripping from the mouth of a cave.
But I can still hear the girl crying in my head.
I turn to look for her. A stone wall. A twig snaps in the fire. Water drips at the entrance. That’s all. I wipe my face with the back of my hand. It’s wet. Which is weird. I’m not her. I don’t even know who she is.
A bowl of warm water appears in front of me.
‘The water is a suitable temperature. You have slept since last night. You have no injuries, internal or external.’
Morning light catches a face made of metal chrysanthemum petals. The person who carried me out of the Tower. The one who kept calling me a princess.
So I’m still here.
The scrape from the blade is still on her arm. I touched it last night. Then I fell asleep.
‘Is your arm all right?’
‘It does not hinder movement.’
She holds the bowl closer. I take it, my fingertips against the warm sides, and sip. My throat hurts. Only when I swallow do I realise how thirsty I am.
I pull the blanket from my waist back round my shoulders. It still holds the warmth of the fire. My shoes are beside the straw. My backpack leans against the wall, zip still undone. I hook a finger through a strap and drag it close.
She lays a dry cloth on my lap, then turns to feed the fire. A little steam rises from the damp wood. She turns its dry side towards the flame without looking back at me.
I wipe my face, then my neck. Morning light falls across the wet tracks on the wall. Water trickles down the cracks and past the straw towards the cave entrance. She’s put my bedding on the higher ground.
I’ve slept a whole night. She even found a dry place for me.
‘Thank you.’
It nearly disappears beneath the dripping. She turns and puts the water jug within reach.
‘There is more if you are still thirsty.’
I cup the bowl. My fingers aren’t so cold now.
‘I’m not a princess.’ My voice sounds as though I’ve cried all night. Great. That helps.
‘I remember.’ She sits beside the fire. ‘You have not told me what I should call you.’
‘I’m Tao Xiyi. Everyone calls me Peach.’ I fold the cloth. ‘You?’
‘Zuobituo.’
I wait for the rest. A surname, a first name, a ‘You can call me…’ Nothing. Even a Bluetooth device gives you more of an introduction.
‘Okay, Zuobituo.’
I take another sip.
‘Does anyone live round here?’
‘There is a town called Liudu below the mountain. We are still in the Heartland of Shen.’
I get my phone out of the bag. In the family chat, the photo of the Tower still has that little unsent mark beside it. I pull down to refresh. Let go. Try again.
No new messages.
‘Do you know how to get to Earth? Where I live. Taiwan, Taipei…’
I open my photos and turn the screen towards her. The coast. A road through the mountains. The city from high up, rows of buildings packed together into the distance.
‘These are all in Taiwan. This one’s Taipei.’
She watches the screen and waits for me to swipe.
Shops along a street. A sports ground. A junction. Then our lane, scooters parked at crooked angles. Mum is carrying a bag of vegetables, Dad beside her. Jun Hao walks ahead.
‘This is where I live.’
I zoom in to show her the way along the lane. My finger stops on Mum and Dad’s backs instead. Zoomed in like this, I can only see half of Jun Hao’s face. I drag the picture sideways a little more.
Sixty-two per cent in the corner of the screen. It’s only been one night.
She looks at it for a while.
‘I am sorry. I do not know a route to any of those places.’
I wait. Sixty-one per cent. Down again. I switch off the screen.
‘Grandfather Moon said to find you when I got here.’
Her face turns a little towards me.
‘The Moon Primordial?’
‘Yes. White hair, long beard. He showed me Shen…’
I nearly say it all fell apart. Water rocks towards the edge of the bowl. I steady it and put the phone back in my bag.
‘Anyway, he’s the one who sent me. He told me to find you. He didn’t say what to do after that.’
‘The Moon Primordial’s wisdom runs deep. Everyone in the celestial heavens holds him in respect. But I do not know his purpose in bringing us together.’
I pick at the zip with my thumb. Last night I was too busy escaping to ask. Now I finally can, and she doesn’t know either.
‘Where are you going next, then?’
‘Now that I have woken again, I must seek the five Celestial Princesses. The Earth Princess of the Heartland first.’
A corner of the old book sticks out of my bag. Those five. It gets as far as their disappearance, and the pages after that are blank.
‘If we find them, can I ask them how to get home?’
‘The Celestial Princesses may have the power to find an answer. I do not.’
‘May?’
‘Yes. We have travelled together for millions of years, to many places. Yet I have never heard of your homeland.’
She pushes a stick back into the fire before it can burn past the edge, and says nothing more.
At least there’s somewhere else to ask.
I lift the bowl to my mouth, then lower it without drinking. All five Princesses are missing. Where do we even start? What if we can’t find them? How long can Mum and Jun Hao wait?
‘The Earth Princess…’
A dog starts barking below the mountain.
One. Then another. Then they’re all barking. Zuobituo turns towards the cave entrance. The wind carries scraps of voices through the rain. Too far away to make out what anyone is saying. Then one cry reaches us clearly.
‘Help me—!’
I turn towards the entrance. Beyond the falling drops, a muddy path disappears into grass and trees. I can’t see anyone.
Zuobituo gets slowly to her feet. She looks at me, waiting.
The water is still warm. In the dream I couldn’t touch anything. Now I’m holding the bowl.
I put it down, pull off the blanket and reach with my foot for the shoes beside the straw.
‘What are we waiting for?’