“If the bone is not evil,” he said, his jaw squaring and a fire flaring from his eyes, “then it must be you. Tell me, why is it you care so much for this bone? Why is it that the only words I have heard from you are to tell me to keep working? Why is it that I have a silver beard and you are still young and unchanged?”
He pushed her away from him, and as she fell, a white fox tail poked out from underneath her robe.
“A fox spirit!” the Scholar exclaimed. “You are not my wife! I want nothing to do with you or this bone!”
And in his outrage, he crushed the crumbling bone in his hand and threw the dust at the woman on the ground. She snarled, all her loveliness replaced with a malevolent look of fury. He strode to the doorway and threw open the door. But as he stepped out, his feet took on a sudden heaviness.
He glanced down and, in shock, saw they had turned to stone! He felt the cold pressure grow up his legs and realized all of him was turning to numb, hard rock. He opened his mouth to call out, but no sound came from his lips, which had already turned hard and cold. All he could do before losing himself as an unfeeling statue was stare out into the green-blue sea around the island he had never left and yearn for the sight of his real wife.
“The White Fox turned the Scholar into stone!” Mulan gasped. “That’s cruel!”
“She is not one who cares for more than herself,” the Rabbit said. “To be discovered and thwarted by the Scholar must have enraged her past the point of reason. And since he had eaten a great deal of her poison over the years, she was able to punish him with her most malicious of powers. Luckily, she has been too busy chasing your sister all these years to do that again.”
“All these years…” Mulan trailed off. “The White Fox has been after Xiu for years?”
“The White Fox can change not only into a woman. She can change into any beast or bird or insect,” the Rabbit said. He looked at Mulan pointedly. “Even a spider.”
“The spider!” Mulan said. She felt as if a firecracker had burst inside of her. “With nine legs! The White Fox was the spider that bit Xiu!”
“Yes.” The Rabbit nodded. “No doubt, she has been trying for quite a while to get your sister.”
“Years…” Mulan said again. Xiu, and her fear of spiders! Mulan felt a flash of guilt. How she had teased Xiu about it! She had laughed and joked, while Xiu had truly been tormented by them.
“You couldn’t have known,” the Rabbit said, reading Mulan’s anguished face. “No one would have guessed how the White Fox was trying to thwart the prophecy.”
The prophecy. Mulan’s mind spun like a yo-yo.
“Are we the prophecy?” Mulan asked. “Our family name is Hua—so are we the Family of Flower? Are Xiu and I buds?”
“So it would seem,” the Rabbit said.
“And then…the tenth moon of the Rabbit,” Mulan continued, slowly, frowning with concentration. “That must mean the tenth moon of the Year of the Rabbit. It’s the ninth moon of the Year of the Rabbit now. That means by the next moon, a bud will…Does the prophecy mean one of us will grow up to save the Emperor?”
“That is a logical conclusion,” the Rabbit said, “and the White Fox knows better than to add legs to a snake.”
“Xiu!” Mulan cried out. “That’s why we need the medicine by the new moon, right? Xiu needs to live past the new moon so she can grow up and save the Emperor!”
“That seems to be how the White Fox has interpreted it,” the Rabbit said, his face expressionless. Then he looked directly at Mulan. “The White Fox probably also knows that if we have the Essence of Heavenly Majesty in our hands by the night of the new moon, the prophecy will be set.”
Xiu’s prophecy, Mulan thought. For, of course, it was about Xiu. She was the perfect daughter—conscientious, attentive, and obedient. Not like herself, so careless and headstrong. Mulan felt a rueful pang as she thought about the numerous scoldings and sighs she received, how worried Ba’s eyes were when he looked at her. Mulan again felt that wistful shame, the air around her suddenly as heavy as rocks.
But as she thought of Xiu’s ready, gentle smile and kind heart, the weight lightened. A pride began to fill her. Her little sister would save the Emperor! What honor she would bring! What service to their country! Mulan knew Xiu must fulfill her destiny.
“We can’t let the White Fox get her way,” Mulan said, raising her chin. She jumped up and began twisting her blanket into the Rabbit’s carrier. “We need to get both those plants and save Xiu.”
“I agree,” the Rabbit said, and as she placed him in the pouch, he looked at her with an odd expression.
“What is it?” Mulan asked, even though she knew the more proper response would be to say nothing.
“Nothing important,” the Rabbit said. “I was just thinking how you do not give up easily.”
Mulan flushed. “You can never give up, can you?” Ma had said to her so long ago, right after the chicken-chasing mishap. “Must you be as stubborn as a stone?”
“That will work well for us,” the Rabbit continued.
“It will?” Mulan said, surprised. For once, could something about her be helpful? She pushed herself up onto Black Wind, now unhampered by any bags or supplies.
“Yes,” the Rabbit replied. She could no longer see his face, but she could hear the amusement return to his voice. But the levity disappeared with his next words. “Let’s go.”
XIANNIANG HELD a robe—that girl’s robe—and rubbed her fingers against the rough texture of the cloth. She used to wear clothes like this. Plain, homemade, humble. These days, with her magic, she could wear rich silk and jewels just by willing it. Strange how little that seemed to matter to her now. In fact, right now, her soft, delicate robe felt as heavy as iron armor.
“Destroy it,” Daji ordered. Daji herself was crushing the Rabbit’s dried herbs to a powder, scattering it like the ashes of the dead.
So Xianniang grasped the robe in her fists and—RII-IIIP!—tore it in two. The hundreds of broken threads trembled from the force of the split, and she found herself thinking of the hands that had woven it. Most likely it was the girl herself who had made it. Hours and hours of sitting in front of a loom. She remembered doing that, making cloth not only for herself but her sisters and brothers, resenting each of them as they wore their robes.
Well, maybe not Bouyue. Her youngest brother was the only one of her siblings that did not look at her with disdain. Perhaps because he was so young and had not yet learned how to scorn her. But it was also his nature. With childlike generosity, he would drop his bamboo shoots into her bowl with his grubby hand. And once, when she was being yelled at, he placed one hand over his own ear and the other over hers.
This girl reminded her of Bouyue, she realized. They were different ages, of course, but when the girl looked back at Daji with that clear, earnest gaze of sincerity—those had been Bouyue’s eyes. Xianniang felt an odd twinge inside her, something she had not felt in a long time.
“The honey wasn’t in the bags,” Daji said. “That means the girl has it.”