Outrun the Moon(45)

Her mouth is as relentless as a train. “She bribed my father to let her in by promising him business in Chinatown. Why do you think she knows how to do laundry?” Her eyes look half-wild, and blood from her nose drips into her gasping mouth. “Her father washes clothes for a living.”

Elodie’s words blow wind on my firebox, lighting up my face. I’m not ashamed of Ba, yet I can barely meet Francesca’s worried eyes. Katie and Harry look away, while Minnie Mae and Ruby search each other for the appropriate reaction.

“You mean, you’re not from China?” asks Ruby in a quiet voice.

I sag into my heels. “I never bribed anybody.”

Someone clears their throat, and all heads turn to the doorway.

Headmistress Crouch steps into the courtyard. She takes in Elodie’s bleeding nose with only mild interest. “Miss Foster, escort Miss Du Lac to the nurse. The rest of you will return to your rooms, except for Miss Wong.”

The girls flutter away. Francesca stops at the doorway to take one last look at me before ducking toward the exit.

I wilt under Headmistress Crouch’s stony gaze. She didn’t even need to wait for the correspondence to arrive. I hanged myself by being the rabble-rouser she expected me to be. There will be no taking the moral high ground out of here now that my dignity hangs in tatters.

I was supposed to be unsinkable. A businesswoman cannot wave her emotions around like dirty underthings.

“Who are you?” She looms close enough to stomp my toe with her cane.

I drop my Chinese accent. “Mercy Wong, as I told you. But, er, I am from Chinatown.”

“What exactly were you hoping to achieve by coming here, Miss Wong? It cannot be prospects, for someone like you would stand no chance of making a match here. There are laws against that kind of thing.” Her tone is unnervingly frank.

I nod, though the law prohibiting marriage between whites and “Mongolians” brings a fresh flood of humiliation. “I just want an education, ma’am. Monsieur Du Lac and I had an arrangement . . . he was giving me a chance.”

“You have made a mockery of our school, and of me. If it were my choice, I would eject you this instant. But Monsieur Du Lac is listed as your guardian, and despite his questionable judgment, it is for him to decide how best to dispatch you. I would not expect clemency from him, mind you. You did give his only daughter a thrashing.” I swear a smile plays around her mouth. As if sensing it, too, she stamps her cane and calcifies again. “You will not attend classes and shall take your meals in the scullery, where you shall be put to work until he returns. Go report to Mrs. Tingle.”

Headmistress Crouch’s gaze feels like a cattle prod as she watches me shuffle back to the main building. My shame licks flames around my collar, and the thought of facing my classmates makes me want to hightail it home. If it weren’t for the double shame of facing my family, I might do it.

I stop before the entryway, reluctant to accept my demotion just yet. Headmistress Crouch has disappeared, and the girls are back in their rooms.

In the morning’s first light, the garden feels tomb-like and cold, even more so than the cemetery. The blond bricks of St. Clare’s look like a fortress; everything drawn in severe lines, from the unadorned columns to the razor-straight eaves, the pieces perfectly locked like a jigsaw puzzle.

Guess I was wrong, Tom. I couldn’t do it after all.

A jangle of sharp cries directs my attention overhead. Blackbirds fly in crazed circles, fracturing the sunlight. Ba says birds congregate before storms, but the sky looks perfectly blue.

Another sound catches my attention, a blip, blip, shrr that raises all the hairs on my arms. Slowly, I pivot toward the fountain, dreading what I will see, but compelled just the same.

The goldfish are jumping, like flames from a roasting pit. Some have landed on the ledge, and others have jumped clear over to the cement, where they lie, spastic bits of orange aspic.

My soles begin to tremble.

Dear God, what is happening?





20



A LOUD BOOM CRACKS IN MY EAR, SO palpable it seems as if the air is ripping apart. For a moment, I wonder if I’m being struck down for my blasphemous thoughts, or lies, or deceit. But if that’s true, why take it out on the goldfish?

The trembling under my feet becomes a shudder, and then the entire ground shifts and slips, like a giant wave is passing under me. I land hard against the pavestones, and my breath whooshes out. The sound of glass breaking mingles with a chorus of screams.

I fear the end of the world is drawing near.

Are we are under attack? Has a meteorite fallen from the sky?

A madrone tree crashes down not two paces from me, throwing dirt in my face. I scream and claw the particles from my eyes. Before another tree falls, I try to get up, but it’s like standing on the back of a galloping horse. Bricks rain down in thunks. It seems the very ground is breathing.

Earthquake!

I do the only thing I can, which is cover my head and hope nothing lands on me. The smell of wet dirt mingles with the scent of my own fear. I cower, trying to make myself very small.

We’ve felt tremblers in Chinatown before, but never like this. The worst that ever happened was the incense falling off the altar. It may have caused an affront to the ancestors, but it was nothing an extra offering of millet wine couldn’t fix.

Ma believes earthquakes happen when the yam tiger, guardian of the people, challenges the yeung dragon, guardian of emperors who are thought to be descended from heaven. The tiger and the dragon keep each other in check, and if one grows too powerful, a fight will ensue until order is restored. Something terrible must have happened in heaven for a fight of this size.