“SHE HAS still not tasted the honey!” Daji said in exasperation. The sharp beak of her bird shape had already melted away, and though she stood tall and beautiful again, her face was scowling. “What is wrong with this girl?”
Xianniang stretched herself into human form, her feathers disappearing into the smooth silk of her robes.
“And did you hear her?” Daji continued. “She said the Rabbit thinks another Immortal is helping them. Why? Who could it be?”
“I don’t know, Mistress,” Xianniang said, her bland voice belying her interest. For it was intriguing. Was there someone helping this girl? Was that why she had been able to defy Daji and her honey so far?
“At least now she knows about the peach,” Daji said, waving her hand as if trying to brush away her annoyance. “She will not be able to resist that.”
The peach. Xianniang remembered the peach, too. How it hung from the branch, rose-tinged, as if brushed with the light of the sunset. When she had reached for it, she had told herself it was for Bouyue. One bite would save him from the illness that was plaguing their village, something that all the herbs the Rabbit was collecting could not promise. It would save him and make her a hero, all the contempt for her transforming into admiration and acceptance.
She hadn’t realized that as soon as her fingers touched the soft velvet skin of that peach—as soon as the sweet, luscious smell drifted into her nose—she, just like Daji said, had not been able to resist. Without even thinking, she had brought the peach to her face and taken a bite.
That one sumptuous, exquisite bite had destroyed everything.
“But it would be best if they never reached the garden at all,” Daji said, tapping her slender finger on her cherry-red lips. Her white teeth glinted. “I shall have to be more forceful.”
“More forceful?” Xianniang said, only the slightest question in her voice.
“Yes,” Daji said, slowly. She flicked her sleeve with an imperious motion. A smile was forming on her face, a smile that Xianniang had seen many times before and knew meant mischief. “I think I shall rouse the bees.”
THE RABBIT and Mulan were soon traveling again, the land slowly fading from green to brown. Mulan was grateful for the bag of food that bounced against her leg, but her thoughts seemed to bump uncomfortably inside her head with the same rhythm. Your mother, no longer ashamed of you, Daji had said. Your father, no longer in despair over you. You could be the pride of your family. How had she known? It was as if Daji had seen Ma’s and Ba’s disappointed faces and grieved eyes and had heard the whispers of Mulan’s own heart during the darkness of the night. Had Daji come to help her? Then Mulan flushed. Was she so hopeless that she needed an Immortal? Mulan shook her head, trying to push the thoughts away.
When she had returned to the house with the dates, she had found, again, that she could not bring herself to tell the Rabbit about Daji. The flask of honey, which Mulan guiltily returned to her sleeve, also remained unmentioned.
It was strangely easy to keep secrets from the Rabbit. While he answered questions, he rarely asked them, and she noticed that he seemed to be spending more and more time sleeping. She often heard his snoring in her ear as they rode Black Wind, and he had recently taken to quickly retiring to bed after they had eaten in the evening.
So this time, it was Mulan who first noticed the danger. Underneath the Rabbit’s sighing sounds of sleep, Mulan heard a distant rumble. Not another storm, Mulan thought, and began scanning the horizon for shelter. The empty grassland stretched far into the sky, the vivid blue making the grey-browns of the earth seem more faded in comparison.
As the humming grew louder, Mulan glanced behind her. And then, stopping Black Wind, she stared.
Yes, there was a cloud in back of them. But what kind of cloud was it? It was the strangest cloud Mulan had ever seen. It seemed to be made of flickering shadows of tiny leaves, thin and filmy. It glittered and rippled, and the earth trembled with its buzzing.
Mulan nudged the Rabbit, who snorted awake.
“Hmm?” the Rabbit mumbled.
“Look,” Mulan said, pointing. “What is that?”
The Rabbit’s eyes widened. “GO!” he ordered, suddenly completely awake. “NOW!”
“GO! GO!” the Rabbit yelled louder than she had ever heard him speak before. Black Wind gave a loud neigh, and Mulan saw the whites of his eyes bulging and his nostrils flaring. Needing no more encouragement, Black Wind turned and flew into a gallop, the wind slapping Mulan’s face.
“What is it?!” Mulan shouted to the Rabbit, Black Wind’s crashing hooves and the hissing sky all but deafening her.
“Bees,” the Rabbit said into her ear.
“Bees?!” Mulan made a quizzical face.
“They’re swarming,” the Rabbit said, “and they’re swarming for us.”
Mulan looked behind her again and then felt as if she had sucked in a breath of cold air. The rising and falling cloud was made of bees! Thousands and thousands of insect wings were swelling toward them, thousands and thousands of pinprick eyes glinting. The air trembled with a sibilating wrath, and Mulan pinned herself to Black Wind’s neck, urging him even faster as he hurtled across the ground.
But the bees were relentless. They focused on the figures on the horse, gathering and bursting toward them like a shooting arrow. The buzzing was no longer an ominous murmur, but a rasping, grating shriek. Mulan looked desperately at the open plain ahead of them. There was no place to hide, no place to take cover. They could only run.
Mulan glanced over her shoulder and the terror squeezed in her chest, becoming a hot coal in her stomach. For the massive cluster of stinging insects was streaming toward them like an unstoppable, furious wave. There was no escape. Panic pushed Black Wind to a frenzy, and they raced frantically forward, pounding against the throbbing, empty earth.
“Mulan.” The Rabbit spoke urgently in her ear. He wrestled his leg free from the wrap and let it dangle. “Pull the hair from my leg and throw it at the bees.”
“What?” she gasped.
“Do it!” the Rabbit ordered.
The air vibrated with buzzing and Mulan felt as if her own blood were sizzling. With Black Wind’s galloping drumming in her ears, Mulan reached with one arm to grasp at the Rabbit’s leg and pull at the fur. To her surprise, the hair slid out easily, like newly sprouted grass, but she could feel it harden in her hand.
Then, in one fluid, forceful motion, she yanked Black Wind around, his mane whipping, as she turned to face the mob of raging bees. A deep, guttural roar burst from her throat as she felt a volcano of power erupt inside of her. With a strength she didn’t know she had, she threw the Rabbit’s hair at the swarm—her own hair and sleeve whirling and billowing like the tails of a wild kite. The thin hairs catapulted from her hand, flashing as they turned into thousands and thousands of sharp metal needles.
The needles soared at the mass of bees with a whistling keening, a high-pitched scream cutting through the rasping buzz of the sky. The tiny blades found their mark, and there was a swift, strange spitting noise, like a muffled popping of a thousand firecrackers.
And then…were the bees exploding? Each one seemed to be bursting into a blaze, but they were flames unlike any Mulan had ever seen before. The brilliant colors of a rainbow—purple, blue, gold—bloomed out from the insects. Their droning hum vanished, and the world was silenced to only the sound of Mulan’s panting breath.