Serpentine by Cindy Pon Page B

in the main courtyard, and neighbors were invited to attend.
    The girls kept within the manor all day and planned no secret adventures. Even servants, when they had tasks that took them outside the manor, went in pairs or more. No one from the Yuan manor besides Skybright had seen anything unusual since the Ghost Festival began, but they all took the abbot’s warning seriously. For that, Skybright was relieved. She didn’t encounter any more hungry ghosts, although at night, she’d sometimes catch the murmur of hundreds of voices upon the wind or glimpse shimmering light in her peripheral vision. But if the hungry ghosts feasted, they did so without bothering her.
    Her relationship with Zhen Ni slowly returned to normal, even if Skybright remained more reserved than before. If her mistress noticed, she didn’t comment on it. She watched as Zhen Ni and Lan fell back into their close friendship, laughing together, their cheeks blooming again with color. Zhen Ni tried to include Skybright in all her conversations and pastimes with Lan, but Skybright felt awkward around the quiet girl, less refined. She was keenly aware that she was unable to read the simple women’s language that had been taught to both girls, couldn’t grasp the literary and poetic allusions they referred to in conversation. But least penetrable of all was the closeness that bound the two girls, affection, desire, and … something more that Skybright could neither pinpoint nor describe. It was as if Zhen Ni and Lan existed in their own world, communicated in their own language. She saw it in their sidelong glances, the way their fingers would linger on each other when they passed the embroidery, how they each unconsciously leaned toward the other, like two orchid stalks on the verge of twining.
    Skybright’s thoughts would then turn to Kai Sen and wonder how he was. She’d say a prayer for him every time she imagined him fighting against those towering demons. Choosing to heed his warning, she remained within the manor. Skybright wanted to be a better handmaid to Zhen Ni. She still had time alone with her mistress in the mornings and before bedtime, as she prepared Zhen Ni, when they could gossip and laugh as they did before Lan had come. But after eight days had passed and still no word from Kai Sen, she began to worry. She’d started the habit of lighting the final incense stick for the hungry ghosts in the narrow alley, then pacing the length of it until she became too weary, hoping that he would come to see her.
    He never did.
     
     

     
     
    Zhen Ni was lying across her large platform bed with a deep purple cushion beneath her elbows. Her eyebrows knitted together as she studied the black and white stones on the board in front of her. She was playing her usual afternoon game of Go, but Lan had taken the place of Skybright as her partner. Skybright tried not to dwell on the fact that her mistress had not asked her to play since Lan had arrived. It made things easier for her, Skybright reasoned. Let Lan face the repercussions if she were foolish enough to win a game over Zhen Ni!
    Skybright wiped the jade jars and boxes on Zhen Ni’s vanity, arranging then rearranging them perfectly on the rose wood table. She didn’t sing while she worked, her mood too heavy after over a week of not seeing Kai Sen and worrying for him. And from never knowing exactly how she should act in front of Lan, always feeling as if she were intruding. Always feeling awkward and irrelevant. She knew deep down that she was truly an outsider now, different than everyone. Skybright could never marry, but neither would she ever get her monthly letting, a passage into womanhood that was so fraught with meaning for other girls.
    Zhen Ni and Lan whispered behind her on the bed, their fingers entwined.
    Skybright had opened every lattice window in the large bedchamber, and a soft summer breeze stirred, bringing the subtle fragrance of orange blossoms. Afternoon sunlight cast