Beware the Little White Rabbit Read online

  “Are you off to do your homework?” Betsy asks. I have one more lie to tell before I leave, but this time I only nod it. And while I carry the dishes to the sink, I wish I could clear the impure air of falseness around me. It’s against my nature to not tell the truth.

  In my room, I open my notebook, but only to sketch an image of the rabbit. His ears stood straight, his eyes were the color of the sky, and his nose a tiny pink button. I use short, slanted strokes to give his fur depth, then add a few brisk lines to create his whiskers.

  I almost think he twitches those whiskers at me. “Silly Yanyu.”

  Under my drawing I make the character 兔. It sounds like Tù and means rabbit in my language.

  When I look up from my picture, the moon is full and hangs low at my window. I stare up at it, and there’s a pull of something familiar. Something that comes to me from when I was just learning to walk. For a moment I feel a soft woven carpet under my feet and silk against my skin.

  How strange.

  When Betsy and Mark came for me, I wore thin cotton clothes, mended and stained. The house had bare wood-planked floors. Where did the memory of a woven carpet and silk come from?

  And now in the moon’s light and within that memory of fine things, there’s a story and a voice that sings it to me. The story is a legend of Houyi, the immortal archer who saved the world with his bow and arrows. But in saving the world, he angered the Jade Emperor who reduced Houyi to a mortal and forbid him to return to heaven.

  There’s more. I think. And it has to do with that moon.

  “Speak to me, moon. What is the part I can’t remember?” But it continues its upward journey in silence.

  “Climb, moon. Shine on me now and on my mother when you reach the other side of the world.”

  I’m suddenly tired. Tired of feeling confused. Tired of not fitting anywhere. Tired of the guilt I hold for not loving Betsy and Mark the way they would like.

  There’s a knock at my door, and Betsy pokes her head inside. “Just wanted to say goodnight. Sleep tight.”

  This is her usual end-of-the-day ritual with me. She would like to come in to talk. She would like me to tell her what I’m thinking and feeling. But I can’t. Because I’d have to tell her I’m longing for my real mother and my real home. That would make her very sad, and I don’t want to do that.

  At lunch the next day, I escape eating alone by going straight to the library. The rest of the Houyi legend still hides from me, so I find a computer and log on to do a search.

  At the next desk a boy leans back in his chair and studies me. “You’re new.”

  How should I answer that? I don’t think it’s a question, so I agree with a silent nod.

  “You got a name?” he asks.

  “Sing…Alice.”

  He laughs. “Sing Alice. That’s cool.” He reaches across, grabs my hand as if I’ve extended it to him, and shakes it. “Dan.”

  Before I think, I say, “You don’t look like that name.” He doesn’t. He looks like a boy from China. His name should be something like Chang Enlai. “Sorry. I meant – ”

  “I know what you meant, but I was born in Chicago, so were my mom and dad. Therefore” – he points to his chest – “Dan.”

  Again, what I see in this new place doesn’t make sense. When I meet people who look like they’ve come from all over the world, I think they should talk and act as if they’re from Africa or South America or China, but they don’t. They’re the same as Betsy and Mark even though they look different.

  “Sorry,” Dan says. “But if I’d said I was from Bejing, you’d make me speak Chinese. I can’t do that.”

  I laugh at that thought. A Chinese boy who can’t speak Chinese. The sound of my laughter surprises me. It has been a while since I’ve heard it.

  “Well, Sing Alice, it’s great to meet you. See you around.” He’s up and, with a few long strides, gone.

  Dan’s the first boy I’ve talked to in Kansas. He’s the first boy to touch me here. I hold out my hand and look at it.

  Somewhere at the back of the library, a book thuds to the floor, and I’m reminded of why I came. In a few minutes I peck out the name Houyi, and many choices roll down the screen. I click on one and the rest of the legend is there. I switch the site to read it in my own language.

  As the story spreads across the screen in elegant strokes of characters I know so well, my mother’s voice is strong in my ears again, and my heart blossoms like the lotus. She sounds sweet, and that makes me content. I remember how she once sang this ancient tale to me, and the story is as sad as my small self thought it was those many years ago.

  Poor Houyi had one last chance to restore his immortality, but his beautiful wife, Chang’e, made a mistake and took the whole pill of immortality, not leaving half for her husband. She flew away to the moon, leaving him behind, and now she’s forever there with only one companion, a white rabbit who stirs the elixir of life.

  That night, the moon, still fat and new, fills my room with light. I open my window and lean far out, stretching my fingers to touch the great circle. It seems to pause on its journey into the sky as if it’s waiting for me. I see Chang’e, but her face is my mother’s. She looks down from her white palace, and next to her the white rabbit patiently stirs and stirs.

  He was sent to guide me to my mother. I’m sure of it.

  As I lie on my bed, I feel, more than hear, the whisper. “Yanyu. Yanyu. Yanyu.”

  It’s my mother calling to me, and for the first time in years, I’m filled with joy and purpose. I must leave Betsy and Mark. I must find a way back to my mother. She’s waiting.

  The next morning I tuck extra food and a jacket in my backpack. I have some money that Betsy says I should keep for emergencies. It’s only twenty dollars, but I will find a way.

  Betsy drops me at school, and when I say good-bye, I’m of two hearts. One has regret for what I’m about to do to her and Mark. The other has excitement for my journey home.

  I’m about to walk away when Dan comes straight toward me, smiling. “Sing Alice! Where you headed?”

  “I have to…I have to meet my…mother.”

  “No school then?”

  “Not today.”

  “See you tomorrow,” he says and squeezes my arm before he walks away. His fingers leave a tingling feeling. I keep him in sight until he goes inside the school. Then I cross the street and turn onto the next block where I remember the bus depot is located.

  The rain is a surprise. I should have brought the jacket with a hood, but it’s too late to think of that now. I walk faster, and then as the rain becomes heavier, I run until I reach the overhang of the bus depot and huddle against the wall.

  The day has grown dark with clouds. My socks are already damp, and I have no extra shoes.

  And then I see him. The rabbit. He’s in the park across the street, waiting under a low bush.

  Without looking, I dash into the street. For one second, I hurt. My head. My back. My legs. And as a cloud descends to bundle me inside its belly, the rabbit comes sniffing near my ear.

  “This way,” he says, leaping ahead, leading me through the trees and to the edge of the park where grass ends and sky begins. The darkness is complete, as if night has fallen, and it must have because I’m staring at the moon, and then I’m floating toward it. Chang’e reaches out her hand, a hand of long, tapered fingers, a hand so like my mother’s. I grasp it, and soon I’m at her side with the rabbit offering me tea.

  “How did I come to be here?” I ask my beautiful goddess of the moon.

  Her smile is warm, and her eyes cradle me inside them just as my mother’s did when I was small. “I have been watching you suffer in your loneliness. Such a terrible thing. I know. I thought that if you wanted, you could come to live with me, and we could be company for each other.”

  The tea stops in my throat, and I choke.

  “Did I startle you, Yanyu?” She leans toward me and strokes my hair.

  I close my eye
s, remembering how my mother used to stroke my hair.

  Madness has stolen my mind. I’m sure of that now.

  “No, you are not mad,” she tells me as if I’ve said those words aloud. “But you are sick with missing someone.”

  “You! I miss you, Mother. I want to return to you.”

  “You know that is impossible, don’t you? I was taken by the fever.”

  “No!” I clap my hands over my ears. “I won’t hear that.” But it’s too late. A tide of memory rises around me, and I’ve already returned to the day my life as Sing Yanyu ended. The day my mother died. Her pale face, still and staring up at me yet not seeing me anymore is there in my mind again. My father pulling me from the room. My cries. My struggle to return to her.

  In a blur of time, our house was sold. My father vanished, his eyes empty, his ears closed to my sobbing. Auntie, who was old and not loving to me, took me to a place where I walked on a cold wood-planked floor. There the woman called Mistress took away the silk dresses my mother had sewn and gave me clothes made of cotton. Old. Stained. I first heard the name, Alice, from Mistress’s lips.

  Then there was that day I stood in a line with other girls like me, and the door opened, and tall people with pale faces and colorful clothes strode in. That was the first time I saw Betsy and Mark. Her hair was the color of fire, and I stared at her with rude wide eyes and gaping mouth.

  She knelt in front of me while Mark stood at her back with his lips pressed together. This woman with fiery hair said many things I couldn’t understand. Mistress scurried to my side and told me the woman had said she was pleased to meet me at last. Mistress said I was lucky anyone wanted to take me to live with them because I was too old and not very pretty. She said I must be sweet or they might change their minds.

  As I uncover my ears, Chang’e – my mother – repeats her question. “You know it’s impossible to be with me, don’t you?”

  “But I must not say that,” I tell her. “Once I do, I will lose hope of ever seeing you again.”

  “Ah, but you will with each full moon. Imagine how I will be with you here.” She touches my chest with the palm of her hand, and its warmth spreads through me and deep into that place I hide fear and longing. “Unless you choose to stay on the moon.”

  “And if I remain with you,” I say, “what will we do together?”

  “Why, we will talk of the great mysteries, of I Ching and destinies. We will divine the fate of those mortals trapped by the whim of tides and seasons and stars.”

  “But I’m mortal.” When she doesn’t say anything, I ask, “Aren’t I? Because I no longer know who I really am. Alice. Sing Yanyu? Mortal? Immortal?”

  “You are mortal for the moment. But Tù has the elixir prepared, and when you sip it, you will join me in immortality.” She spreads her arms wide, and their long shadows stretch as far as the edge of the white circle. “Here.” Then she folds her hands in her lap and waits for my answer.

  The idea of being in yet another foreign place saddens and confuses me more than ever. I close my eyes to think very hard about this choice Chang’e – my mother – has offered. If I become immortal I can be forever with her. But forever on the moon.

  I would miss the earth. The house of Betsy and Mark. My new school and the Chinese boy, Dan, who can’t speak Chinese and who made me laugh.

  “I can’t. I can’t stay,” I tell my mother, and a tear trails from the corner of my eye and down my cheek. Then a finger brushes that tear away. My mind churns in thought. The finger doesn’t belong to me, and my mother’s hands are folded in her lap. The rabbit stirs and stirs.

  With each rotation of his spoon, a pain gnaws its way across my chest, down my arm, and along my cheek where the tear trickled just a moment before. Where does this pain come from?

  When I open my eyes, things are blurred. I blink and bring the shapes into focus. Betsy hovers over me. Mark is at her back, and both of their faces are drawn into heartache.

  I seek my mother, but she’s not here. Nor is Tù.

  I flex one hand. The other I can’t move. It’s heavy and rigid, and one leg’s suspended from a pulley.

  “Betsy?”

  Her hand grips mine, and she presses it to her lips. “I’m here.”

  If Betsy is here, I am safe. I fall into sleep.

  It takes six weeks before my bones knit enough so I can return to school. The driver that hit me wasn’t to blame. I darted out, and the woman at the wheel couldn’t stop. What a crazy Chinese girl I am, chasing a rabbit in the rain. That’s what Dan says when I return to school. Well, he doesn’t say anything about a rabbit because he’d think I was…totally weird if I told him about that, but he talks about my being crazy and running into the street in the rain.

  “So Sing Alice, how’s it hanging?”

  “That’s idiom, right? Because I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You need some lessons by Dan. Want to go to the dance with me next week? You know, one sort of Chinese guy out with a real Chinese girl. We can talk about Chinese stuff.”

  “You don’t know anything about China, do you?”

  “You have crushed me to the core, Sing Alice.” He runs his hands through his spiky, gelled hair, and I think how nice it would be to touch it. “But you can make it up, okay?”

  I understand he’s joking with me. I’ve had time to watch a lot of American TV while I recovered from the accident, so I’m on to joking. “Okay. I’ll go out with you.”

  When he takes my hand this time, the tingly feeling goes all the way up my arm. He steps closer, keeping my hand captured in his. “I think learning about China is going to take a while, but it’ll be fun.”

  I stare up into his beautiful eyes. They are of the two cultures I know, ancient China and the new North American one I’m fitting myself into.

  At dinner that night, the talk is the same. Chopsticks. Mark’s job. Betsy’s volunteer work at the cultural center. My day at school. But now I have no lies.

  “A boy named Dan asked me to the school dance. I’d like to go.”

  Betsy sips her wine.

  Mark scratches his nose.

  They shift their eyes to meet mine.

  I hold out my hands like I’ve seen teens do on TV. “Well?”

  They both laugh. And I laugh, too. The music we make together is beautiful.

  Then Betsy says, “I want to meet this Dan.”

  Now I have a choice. I can roll my eyes and be all like an American girl. Or I can nod and say “Yes. Of course” and be Sing Yanyu.

  I go for in-between. I don’t roll my eyes, and I don’t nod with obedience, but I do look at them both and say, “He will like meeting you before our date.”

  It works. It works for me, and it works for my…family.

  When I think of that word, it comes to me twice. It comes to me as 家庭 and, at the same time, in English sounds.

  That night as I’m shutting down my computer and climbing into bed, Betsy comes in and says, “Just wanted to say goodnight. Sleep tight.”

  “Betsy, can you stay a while?”

  There’s only a sliver of a moon, but my room is bright with her smile. She sits on the edge of my bed. The shimmer of her red hair is so fiery, so vibrant. Freckles dance across her nose. Her skin is not like mine at all, but lovely.

  We are quiet for a moment. Then she says, “What can I do to make you happy, Alice? Ask, and, if I can, I’ll make it happen.”

  How lucky I am she cares for me this deeply. How lucky I am to have her as my second mother.

  “Two things. First, I would like not to drink Jasmine tea.”

  She laughs, and it is like wind chimes high in tree branches. “Done.”

  “And” – I wait for a moment to be sure I say this in the right way – “I would like a new name. Alice is okay, but not big enough. Sing Yanyu is beautiful, but not big enough. I would like a name that says I belong in America, but I am a child of China.”

  Her face becomes serious, but it’s not a
face drawn into lines of worry; it’s a face filled with thought. Then her expression softens, and she says, “I’ve always loved the name Mia.”

  I test that on my tongue. It’s almost right.

  “Mia Lee,” I say, and there’s music in the name we’ve made together. My ears rejoice to hear it.

  Author Note: To those who know the myth of Chang'e and her companion, the rabbit, I’ve taken some liberties with it and played with the idea of another girl named Alice on a fantastic adventure. This Alice has been born into a century with global and space travel, so her Rabbit Hole doesn’t take her into the earth, but around it and far from it.

  There are several versions of Chang’e’s story. Now there’s one more.

  There came a crack like thunder.

  A rabbit hole, launched from its orbital warren, streaked down through the clouds. It hung in the air like a frozen fork of lightning. Beneath the helmet that Hatter had made for her, Alice felt the root ends of her hair tingle from the electrical change that accompanied its arrival. What appeared to be a stuffed white rabbit tumbled earthward. Payload delivered, the hole rapidly lost its integrity and dissolved into a glimmering fragment that dissipated on the wind.

  Alice crouched low amongst the ruins as the rabbit sniffed the air, internal sensors trying to get a fix on her location. She clutched her vorpal sword. The pistons on the rabbit’s spring-loaded flanks gave a venomous hiss as it launched itself into a powerful leap.

  It landed not far from her on an ivy-strangled hillock of fallen masonry, infrared eyes glowing red as it scanned for signs of body heat. Above its white head, on what was left of a concrete wall, a faded and tattered poster depicted a bottle of amber liquid, alongside the legendary – Drink Mead®.

  The rabbit’s long ears stood suddenly erect, deciphering the sonar signals bouncing back to it from all corners of the derelict building. Alice could hear the mechanical workings grinding in its neck as the big white head juddered this way and that, trying to get a fix on her. The hunt was on. But Alice was not one to be hunted. She was firmly of the view that the best way to handle a problem was to confront it head on.