The woman stared at them as if looking through thick ice. She shook her head and, without a word, went back into her house.

Yishan made the request again and again, and the response was the same each time. Even the young children, some of whom Pinmei recognized from her past visits, were strangely silent, gaping at them with hollowed eyes.

Finally, an old man spoke to them. “You had better come to my house,” he said, sighing. “After the visit from the emperor’s soldiers, no one else in this village has any hospitality left.”

He led the way down the winding street to a humble stone house, the grayed wooden door cracked and warped. A woman, her hair tightly knotted, stopped gluing paper on the broken windows to look at them.

“Children?” the woman said in dismay. “Old Sai, I send you for firewood and you come back with children?”

“We just want a place to sleep for the night,” Yishan spoke quickly. “We aren’t staying.”

“A place is easy,” the woman said with bitterness. “There are all the men’s empty beds in this village. And empty horse stalls, pigpens, and chicken houses! The emperor’s men took everything and left the villagers shells for their tears.”

“Come, Suya,” said Old Sai. “We are the luckiest people in the village right now. Could you have said that two days ago? This too may become a blessing.”

The woman sighed again and waved them in, the ripped paper of the window flapping with more vigor than her hand. Pinmei and Yishan stepped through the doorway, the stone walls protecting them from the wind even as the cold seeped through the lattice windows.

“Auntie Suya! Old Sai!” a voice called from behind a plain wood screen. “Who’s there?”

It was a man’s voice. Curious, Pinmei and Yishan peeked around the screen. There, lying in bed, was a young man, obviously injured. As Pinmei came closer, she could see he was more of a boy than a man, perhaps only a handful of years older than Yishan.

“Hello,” he said as he motioned them closer. His black eyes burned in the paleness of his face, and both of his legs were wrapped in bandages. But it was the tightness of his jaw that told of his constant pain.

“Did the soldiers do this to you?” Yishan asked.

“No,” the man said, “though I have no doubt they could have easily. I watched them take Feng Fu, the mightiest man in the village. Feng swung an ax at a soldier, and it bounced right off the soldier’s green sleeve as if it were a pebble hitting a turtle shell.”

A soldier in green? Pinmei shivered and looked at Yishan, who was remembering his own encounter.

“I know that soldier,” Yishan said. “He threw me with one hand as if I were a bug.”

“He threw Feng Fu the same way,” said the man, his eyes bulging at the memory. “With one hand. Huge Feng Fu! The man who strangled an ox with his bare hands! The emperor’s soldiers must have special powers. They are invincible.”

Soldiers, or just that soldier? Pinmei thought. She clasped Amah’s bracelet, the cool stone warmer than her fingers.

“Well, if the emperor’s soldiers didn’t do this to you,” said Yishan, nodding at the man’s injuries, “who did?”

“My horse,” the man said, and laughed.

“I don’t see what’s so funny about that,” Yishan said.

“Well,” the man said, “about a month ago, our mare ran away, and I cursed our bad luck until Old Sai said, ‘You don’t know. This may become a blessing.’ ”

“And I was right,” Old Sai said, pulling up some chairs.

“Yes, you were,” said the man. “Because a few weeks later, the horse returned—bringing back with it a splendid stallion. I was pleased with our good luck, but Old Sai said—”

“I said, ‘You don’t know. This may become a disaster,’ ” Old Sai finished, setting a small table close to the bed.

“And he was right,” the man said. “Because a few days ago, when I was riding the stallion, it threw me and I broke both my legs. Again, I bemoaned my misfortune.”

“And again,” Old Sai said, sitting down, “I said, ‘You don’t know. This may become a blessing.’ ”

“And again you were right,” Suya said, bringing in the tea. As she handed the young man his cup, she tenderly straightened his hair in a motherly gesture as she propped up his head. “For when the soldiers came, they rounded up all the men of the village. When they saw Sifen like this, they said he would be useless and left him.”

“But all the other men were taken?” Yishan asked.

“All the other young men,” Old Sai said, nodding. “They only wanted those who would be useful for work. They didn’t take anyone old like me.”

“Except for Amah,” Pinmei said. Her voice had been faint, but they had still heard her. She felt their curious gazes as she whispered, “He took my grandmother.”

A piece of tattered paper from the window blew into the room, floating for a moment between Pinmei and the others. It fell to the floor like a white flower petal.

“From the mountain,” Old Sai said, slowly nodding. “Then, you are the Storyteller’s granddaughter. I should have realized.”

Storyteller, Pinmei thought. That’s what the soldier called Amah as well. Her finger slowly circled the bracelet around her wrist, and she held it as close to herself as possible.

CHAPTER

13

“I hope you were not expecting dinner,” the woman said. “We’re poor people and we don’t have food to spare.”

“Suya,” Sifen admonished. “These children are guests.”

Suya flushed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to be so stingy. It’s just that the emperor’s men seized everything. We would have nothing at all to eat if I hadn’t managed to hide this.”

With those words, Suya bent to the floor and pushed aside the blankets on Sifen’s bed, revealing a wood plank on the floor. As she lifted the plank, Pinmei saw a stone had been removed from the floor to create a hiding space for a small jar. Everyone leaned in as Suya opened the jar and the uncooked rice began to fall from it like beads from a broken necklace.

“Oh!” Suya cried, and she quickly began to pick up the spilled rice. Pinmei knelt down to help her. Their eyes met and Pinmei felt a sudden kinship. She knew what it was like to be worried about rice in a jar.