Chang'e and the Cold Bright Castle

Long ago, when the world was younger, ten suns rose at once.

They came up together over the eastern hills, one after another, like brothers climbing a hill to see who could be first. The people shaded their eyes and stared. Then the fields began to smoke.

Hou Yi the archer stood on the roof of his house and counted them. “Ten,” he said. “Ten suns. Who gave them leave?”

Nobody answered. The wheat curled brown in the heat, and the river ran low and warm, and the leaves on the peach trees turned crisp as paper. Even the birds were quiet.

Hou Yi took down his bow. It was old wood, dark with oil and use, and it hummed when he bent it.

“You can’t shoot the suns,” said his wife Chang’e. “They are the sky’s own children.”

“Watch me,” said Hou Yi, and he drew the string back until the bow creaked.

The first arrow went up and up, and the first sun went out with a sound like a lamp being pinched. The second arrow flew, and the second sun fell. Then the third, and the fourth, and the fifth.

The people came out of their houses and watched, their mouths open. Children climbed onto shoulders. Old women forgot their fear and began to count aloud.

“Six,” they said. “Seven. Eight.”

Down in the dust went eight suns, and the world began to cool. A breeze moved across the wheat.

Hou Yi drew his bow one last time. The ninth arrow flew, and the ninth sun dropped away. One sun was left, the true one, the one that had always been enough. It hung in the sky and trembled.

“Enough,” said Chang’e, putting her hand on his arm. “One is all we need. Leave it to warm us.”

Hou Yi lowered the bow. His arms shook, and he laughed a little, and the people cheered so loudly that the rooftops rang.

***

A few days later a messenger came to the door. She wore blue robes with silver at the hem, and she smelled of salt.

“The Queen-Mother of the Jasper Sea asks for the archer,” she said. “Come as you are.”

Hou Yi went with her, down to the shore, out along a stone path into the water. The sea was glassy and green. At the end of the path stood an old woman with hair like white foam, feeding small fish from her hand.

“You burned nine suns,” she said, without looking up. “The world was growing too hot. I thank you.”

“It was only a bow,” said Hou Yi.

“It was courage,” she said. “I give you a gift.” She held out a small white herb, folded in a leaf. “This is the herb of immortality. Eat it and you will never grow old or die. Keep it safe. It is the only one.”

Hou Yi held it carefully, as if it might spill. “Thank you,” he said. “But I won’t eat it yet. I want to grow old with my wife first.”

The Queen-Mother smiled. “Then keep it well hidden.”

At home, Hou Yi put the herb in a lacquer box, black as a beetle’s back, and set it on the high shelf.

“What is that?” Chang’e asked.

“A gift,” he said. “The Queen-Mother’s own. Never touch it, Chang’e. It is the only one in the world.”

“I won’t,” she said.

He went out to the fields. Chang’e looked at the box a long time, and touched the lid once with one finger, and went back to her work.

Dusk came slowly, the way it does after a long hot day. Chang’e swept the courtyard and set the rice to steam. Then she heard a sound at the wall — a foot on loose stone, quick and careful.

A man climbed over. He was thin, and his eyes went straight to the high shelf.

“Where is it?” he said. “The herb. Everyone in the village knows.”

“There is nothing here for you,” said Chang’e. Her hands were shaking, so she held them still against her apron.

He stepped closer. “The box. Give it to me.”

Chang’e thought of the Queen-Mother’s words. The only one in the world. She thought of Hou Yi in the far fields, too far to call.

Then she jumped for the shelf. Her fingers closed on the black lacquer box and she pulled it down. The thief lunged, and there was no time left, no cleverness, no other way.

She opened the lid. The white herb lay in its leaf like a small moon. She put it in her mouth and swallowed.

The thief stopped. “What did you do?”

Chang’e could not answer. Something was happening in her chest, a cool bright fizzing, like snow melting on her tongue. Her feet felt strange. The floor seemed to be pressing her away.

“What did you do?” he said again, and his voice went small.

She looked down at her own hands. They were pale. They were getting paler. The rice steam curled past her and did not touch her.

“I kept it safe,” she said, and her voice sounded far away, like someone calling from a hilltop.

She tried to step toward the door. Her feet left the ground. Just a little, the width of a grasshopper’s hop, and then a little more.

The thief turned and ran, and she never saw him again.

***

Up she went, past the shelf, past the rafters, and the window was open because it was summer, and she drifted through it like a seed on the wind.

“Hou Yi!” she called. The fields were dark and far below. “Hou Yi!”

But the air was taking her, cool and steady, and the village shrank to a scatter of lamps. She passed the hill where the nine suns had fallen. She passed a cloud and it was cold and wet and then gone.

“I did not want this,” she said to nobody. “I only wanted to keep it safe.”

The sky went darker. The stars came out around her like small white stones. Still she rose, and could not stop, because the herb had made her light and the light knew only one direction.

Then the moon grew large. It was not a lamp anymore. It was a place, grey and white and wide, with hills like folded cloth.

Her feet touched down. The ground was soft and cold as new snow.

Before her stood a castle, and it was made of crystal, clear as ice and taller than any tree. She walked to the gate. It opened without a sound.

Inside, the halls were full of pale light. Nothing grew. Nothing moved. Her own footsteps were the only noise, and even they were hushed.

“Is anyone here?” she said.

No answer came back. The cold rooms held her voice and gave it nothing in return. Chang’e sat down on a crystal step and wrapped her arms around her knees. Far below, the world turned, small and warm and out of reach.

For a long while she sat and listened to the cold. Then a sound came, small and steady, from somewhere behind the castle.

Chang’e stood and followed it. Down a hall of cloudy glass, out through an arch, into a courtyard open to the black sky. In the middle grew a tree. Its leaves were green as summer, and its trunk was thick and round.

A man stood beside it with an axe. He lifted the axe, and struck, and a chip of wood flew off. Then he stopped. He did not look at her. He waited, very still.

“What are you doing?” Chang’e asked.

The man said nothing. He raised the axe again and struck the tree in the same place. Another chip fell. Then he rested the blade on his shoulder and waited once more.

Chang’e stepped closer. Where the chips had fallen, the wood was mending. The notch closed over, slow and sure, like a hand folding shut. In a breath or two the trunk was whole again.

“It grows back,” she said. “So why keep chopping?”

The man turned his head at last. His face was calm and tired, and he looked at her as if he had been expecting someone for a very long time. He opened his mouth, but only a breath came out. Then he nodded toward the tree, and lifted the axe again.

So she understood. This was his work, and it did not end, and he did not need her to fix it. Chang’e sat on the courtyard wall and watched him. Strike, wait, heal. Strike, wait, heal. The rhythm was like breathing. The rhythm was like a heart.

“I will stay a while,” she said.

The man gave a small nod, and the axe came down again. After that, the moon did not feel so empty. It had one tree that would not die, one man who would not stop, and one woman who had learned to keep still.

***

Seasons passed below in the little warm world. Chang’e learned the moon’s quiet hours. She learned where the light pooled in the crystal halls and where it went grey. She learned to watch the turning earth and to name the shapes of clouds she would never touch again.

One night the world below glowed with small fires. It was mid-autumn, and the fields were gold, and the moon hung round and full above them.

From her courtyard wall, Chang’e saw people come out of their houses. They carried tables into the open. On the tables they set out fruit, round as the moon, and cakes stamped with patterns. Children ran between the tables. Someone laughed, and the sound came up faint and thin, like a bell far off.

“They are looking at us,” Chang’e said.

She turned, half expecting the man to answer. He set down his axe and stood beside her. For once, he did not lift it again. He looked down at the fires, and then at her, and his tired face softened.

A small girl below pointed straight up at the moon. Her mother lifted her so she could see better, and the child waved, though she could not have known anyone was watching.

Chang’e raised her hand and waved back. The gesture felt strange at first, then easy, then good.

“They remember me,” she said softly. “They set a place, and they look up, and they remember.”

The man nodded once. It was the most he had ever said.

So Chang’e stayed in her castle of clear cold light. She kept the moon bright, and watched the warm world below, and every autumn the tables were laid again under the full moon. She was no longer a woman who had risen and could not come down. She was the lady in the moon, and she had a window, and a tree, and a quiet friend, and all those small fires to keep her company.