“There’s a lady at the gates.”

Sut was looking at his feet as he spoke to Zaw.

“Well whose family is she? Why haven’t you taken her to the women’s hut? Find her some bedding?”

Sut knew whose family she was, but he didn’t want to be the first to say the name out loud. “She wants to speak to you, Zaw.”

Zaw frowned. Apart from Seng Nu, the only woman he knew was his mother, and he wasn’t expecting a visit, let alone one so late in the day. He slid on his shoes and walked to the gate where a young woman was standing. Her hair was tied up away into a bun and revealed a slim mango shaped face and two deep pitted eyes that Zaw remembered belonged to someone he had once known. Gunthaw’s daughter.

“Jin Bu?”

“Zaw!” she said and fell forward into his arms with relief. She then lifted her head up and brought her face close to his.

Zaw stepped back, but took her hands to make sure she did not fall over. She had tried to kiss him. Was she drunk? Was this some kind of trick?

He had known her as a childhood friend, but the way she had said his name seemed to imply a closeness that he had never known. Had Gunthaw sent her? Was this some kind of trick?

“Jin Bu, let me take you to the women’s hut. Someone there will help you find a bed. Then you can come open the gates with us later.”

Jin Bu felt herself on the brink of collapse. She had always expected that Zaw would find someone else after she left, the attempted kiss had been a mistake, but she had never imagined that he would not even meet her eyes, to pretend he didn’t know her. Hadn’t they shared things? Hadn’t they made things? She reached around and cradled the bundle that was strapped to her back. It was at that point that Zaw noticed the baby.

“I didn’t notice you had a child with you. Don’t worry we will find you a comfortable place to sleep. Do you need anything for him? Her?”

He was being so nice, just like the Zaw she knew. But it was the polite way he spoke to old ladies and teachers, not the way someone spoke to their love, to someone who had been his lover, even if that was over now. Was he drunk? Was this some kind of trick?

She had been sent away to The City by her father to stay with distant relatives of the clan. It was there that she had raised the child, Zaw’s child. She had not known how to contact him, so she had escaped from the house in the City, taking a pouch of jade leaves and leaving a note promising one day to pay them back. She had walked for miles, past the City gates and along the roads by the sweeping fields where she found rides on farmer’s carts, sat among the haybales and chickens. At night she found rooms at village inns, and if there wasn’t an inn she laid under the trees with Pansa wrapped into a linen blanket next to her. Along the way she heard whispers and rumour that Buttersweet camp was now under control of a forest witch who killed anyone who stood in her way. She did not believe it, but the closer she came to the forest she found confirmation that the camp was no longer under the owned by her father. This confirmed her decision not to go first to her family home in Blackstone. If there had been a dispute then surely he would forbid her from visiting the camp, whether his grandchild’s father lived there or not.

She had rehearsed what she would say to Zaw, how she would tell him about Pansa and imagined the different ways in which he would respond. But it had never gone like this in her head. In something of a daze she allowed him to lead her to one of the long tables and brought her a bowl of gourd leaf soup. She put the spoon to her mouth and it rested there as her mind tried to untangle what was going on Maybe her expectations had been too high? maybe she was the problem? Perhaps he was pretending for some reason, had her father threatened him?

///

“Is the father here?” said a woman sat across from her, motioning towards the sleeping bundle next to Jin Bu. There were deep lines in her face, and her hair was almost entirely silver, but her face was full of cheer and sunshine.

“I’m Jalin, my Dai works here, he brought me up from Whetstone village last week. I’m not going to lie and say that it’s comfortable but I’m sure it will be once the houses are built. I won’t be riding one of those beasts though!” she said and with a tilt of her head indicated the elephants who were munching their own breakfasts of bamboo and sugar cane.

Jalin carried on talking and Jin Bu nodded and assented but was also watching Zaw, who was at the cooking area, ladling out thick steaming soup. She also noticed there was a girl near him. She was very close to him, and sprinkling herbs on each bowl of soup before they were sent out and when there was a break in the service she would hug him, a blissful smile on her face. Her hair was the colour of embers. Jin Bu remembered the girl who had tended Zaw’s wounds a year ago.

She had heard of this girl on the road to Buttersweet. Seng Nu. The one they said could kill men with just a wink of her eye. Who could change the colour of the sky. The one who had her arm clasped around Zaw’s waist. Like a snake.

She picked up Pansa and moved quickly through the breakfast tables to the front of the house.

She looked at Zaw, her eyes confrontational “You don’t remember me, do you?” She was trying to keep her voice calm, but it wavered like the last leaf in a storm.

Zaw continued to spoon out spoonfuls of vine leaf soup “I do remember you Jin Bu. We were friends in Blackstone, we grew up together”. He was not attuned to her rhythm or current fragility. She was just a friend from that grey era of childhood, one that had confused some forgotten moment in the past for something more.

Pansa woke up and begun to make hungry sounds so Jin Bu rocked her in her arms, trying not to cry herself “Yes, we were friends Zaw, but we were more than that too. Don’t you remember? We told each other our secrets, we made plans together.”

Zaw was silent, as he felt it was the only polite thing to do in a situation where you are confronted by someone with a delusion so strong.

Jin Bu remained standing. “You still walk with a slight limp, don’t you remember how you got it? You saved me from an elephant in the forest.”

Zaw put the ladle down and raised his eyes to the sky as he remembered. Seng Nu had saved him, she had brought him back to the camp. But why was he in the forest searching for a rampaging elephant in the first place? It was like a faded dream.

Some people were grumbling about the hold up with the soup. Zaw did not hear them. Jin Bu had got his attention, but had not convinced him. How could he forget a person? Why would he forget a person? He did his best to smile at her with sympathy, but made sure there was no warmth in his face, so as not to encourage what was clearly a fiction. “Jin Bu, I’m sorry...”

“Don’t say sorry to me, apologise to your daughter” said Jin Bu, in a small voice that was almost drained of all hope. She lifted the sleeping child up to him, but he did not take her. So she turned and walked away, the only thing she could do in that moment to prevent her from a full collapse borne of frustration. She would go back to The City and raise Pansa herself. She could not reason with magic.

Zaw was stunned. It did not make sense. Seng Nu had been standing next to them the whole time and he turned to her to deny what had become an accusation. “Seng Nu, I don’t understand. You are the only one I have ever been with...” he said.

And then he noticed that her eyes were red.

“What’s going on?” he said, putting an arm around her, but she unwrapped it and stepped back, letting her arms slide down his until the fingers met and let go. “Go to her” she said. “Make sure she is alright.”

“I don’t understand Seng Nu, you don’t believe her do you? I knew her when we were children, I haven’t seen her in years. She is crazy.”

“Then go make sure she doesn’t hurt herself. Please Zaw.” Seng Nu did not make eye contact. She was keeping an earlier memory of Zaw’s face in her mind.

Zaw took his apron off and walked across the camp towards the women’s hut. Seng Nu watched him wondering why she had told him to follow her. She could have just agreed she was crazy and watched her walk out of their lives again.

20.

The door to the women’s hut was closed and Zaw gave a hesitant knock. There was no answer, but he could hear sobbing from inside. He spoke to the door. “Look, is there anything I can do? I’m sorry I don’t remember you...are you sure you haven’t confused me with someone else?”

The door swung open and Jin Bu was there, her eyes fierce and red. “No I haven’t confused you with someone else!” Pansa, who had been napping on a bed behind her. woke up startled and began sucking in the nearby air in preparation to bawl.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

A young woman named Pita who was staying in the hut too, picked her up. She had the same coarse straw hair as he brother Sut. “Come on little one, let’s go look at the Elephants with all their fancy bows on tonight!” she said and then glanced at Jin Bu, who nodded her permission.

Zaw was still standing awkwardly by the door as walked past him with Pansa in her arms.

Jin Bu frowned and then looked around the room to check they were alone. “Is my father threatening you? You can tell me the truth now.”

Zaw did not react to that so she changed course, speaking softly and reaching out a hand to place on his chest. She looked up at him, hoping to catch him in her eyes which were wide and hopeful and smoked like new embers. It was a last desperate attempt to make him remember. “Don’t you remember our last day? You told me I tasted like bananas” Jin Bu even allowed herself a faint smile at the memory that was still clear to her.

Zaw twitched as Jin Bu’s fingers traced a slow line down his stomach.

“Don’t you remember Tairu Zaw? That was the day we made love in the forest. I would have told you, but I didn’t know until I was in the city. I brought Pansa here to see you. She’s your daughter Zaw”.

“She’s not my daughter.” Zaw stepped back pushing her hands away. He had a look not of anger, but of pity. For he was sure that this young mother had lost her mind.

Jin Bu saw that look and the softness in her washed away. She screamed at Zaw, which did nothing to dissuade him from his conclusion. Sadness wrapped in anger came flying out her body in loud anguished sounds. She swung her hands and whatever they touched she picked up and threw. Zaw did not leave, but simply stood there with his hands raised, apologetically batting away the pillows, bags and chair legs that came flying towards him.

“What has she done to you!?” yelled Jin Bu, finally finding words for her anger and accusation. Now she had reached a bookshelf and she launched books at Zaw from across the room, their pages fluttering open like birds taking off.

Seng Nu was leaning against the outer porch of the house. The sun was setting in the west and while they waited for the full moon to appear over the eastern mountains, lanterns were lit. In front of her the camp was buzzing with anticipation for the Gates. Some of the children had already taken their bells out from their pockets and bags and their was a smattering of ringing and chiming as the more impatient of the younglings tested out the sound. Cheers went up as the carpenters brought out the huge wooden chimes to be attached around the elephant’s necks and Pinkwetha was pushing his way to the front of the line to be the first to get a bell.

The lanterns became shimmering rivers of gold as Seng Nu began to silently cry.

Her stomach was like a knot tying and untying itself. What would she tell him? Would he remember? Would he still love her? Would he leave her now? She should never have agreed to the memory spell. It had been foolish impatience. Zaw would have grown to love her in his own time. But their love was born in a lie, even if it was his wish at the time. She had the strong urge to run to him, to apologize, to beg him for forgiveness. He would take her back, wouldn’t he? But there was a child now. And that child’s father didn’t even recognise himself. She felt envy, saw it in her mind like spiked thorns, unnaturally green.

“You are thinking of the baby” said Kon, interrupting her thoughts. He was speaking in a quiet voice so only the two of them could hear. “You want her to meet her father at least once before she goes.”

Seng Nu gave a small nod “Will she go?” she said, knowing that neither of them knew the answer.

“Gunthaw’s daughter.” Said Kon. “Zaw went into the forest to save her. And now, he doesn’t even know her.” He looked at Seng Nu, but she could not read his face.

“He asked me to do it”. Said Seng Nu, in a voice that was equal parts protest and regret.

“I don’t doubt that.” Said Kon. “but now you feel guilty.”

“Are you going to tell him?”

Kon paused. He knew Seng Nu was not threatening him. He looked in her eyes and saw only the forlorn little sparrow that had arrived at the camp a year previously.

“No.” he said.

“Why did my mother leave me?” asked Seng Nu.

Kon took a breath and looked out to the east.

xxxx

Something small and red spilled out onto the floor as a book bounced off Zaw’s forearm. There was nothing left to throw and Jin Bu was now sobbing on the floor. Zaw knelt down and picked up the red thing.

It was a flower, preserved and flattened between the pages of the book. He had put it there a year ago, folded between the sheets of paper. He remembered that. A red jasmine. Blood red. Her blood. Jin Bu.

“You were here?” His mind was like a hand in a basket of grain, pushing and searching in the dark for another to hold. “When I was injured, you were here with me?”

Jin Bu lifted her hands, her palms facing Zaw. There was a faint pink scar running across each one. “I was holding so tight to the tree that day. And then I held your hand just as tight when I thought you might leave.”

She walked over to him and took the red jasmine in her fingers. “You always brought me flowers.”

He remembers the blood jasmine flowers and the enchantment they were used for. He pulls on the vine and the canopy comes crashing down around him.

He remembers the feel of her hand in a basket of grain. He remembers the scent of the morning cut jasmine he would leave by her window, then the days in the forest by the apple tree near the patches of gourd leaf that was sweet in the spring. He remembers looking into her eyes, and her looking into his. Just like she was doing now.

“You’re not a dream are you” it was more a statement than a question, He felt his own blood rushing around his body. “I’m so sorry.” He looked at Jin Bu and his eyes spoke the language of love, their love.

Jin Bu smiled wider than she had in a full year She stood up on her tiptoes and kissed him. “It’s fine. You were under the spell of that girl. It wasn’t your fault. She tricked you.”

But Zaw also remembered that it was he who had asked Seng Nu to make him forget. He would tell her that later. He loved Jin Bu, but he loved Seng Nu too. He hugged Jin Bu and breathed her in.

“You still smell like bananas you know. Is that all you eat?” he said with a smile he wore only for her.

xxx

Kon did not think to question how Seng Nu knew that he knew these things, but instead set his mind on the task of how to tell her in the most gentle way possible. “She did not abandon you Seng Nu. No. She left after you were born.” He looked to the mountains in the east where a white halo was forming.

“Where did she go?” said Seng Nu.

“She did not go anywhere. She left. I’m sorry.” Kon was unwilling to speak more clearly and he cursed himself for his cowardice.

Seng Nu understood. The tiny candle of hope that had flickered inside her went out. Her skin prickled and itched. “And my father?”

Kon still could not look Seng Nu in the eyes. He had spent the last eighteen years trying to forget what had happened on the Mountain. He did not want to retell it, not least to the one person who was still unscarred by it. Knowing who her father was would not make her stronger. He had let Seng Nu down before. At the Battle of the Gate, he had watched while she killed those men. He had done nothing but watch as she killed those men and saved Buttersweet for everyone. It wasn’t fair that one girl had to carry that burden.

“I do not know.”

She knew Kon knew more. She would keep asking until he told her the truth. That was all she wanted. The truth would not hurt her. She knew he was struggling against something, something that was holding her back, as if he was trying to protect her. But she didn’t need protection. She was strong enough for anything. She took a breath.

How could she ask for the truth when she herself would not give it to Zaw and Jin Bu?

Zaw asked you.

He had wanted it. He asked for it, followed her through the rain to receive it.

Only after you told him you could.

A tear ran down Seng Nu’s cheek and her hands balled up into fists that fell apart as soon as she had made them. What she had with Zaw was love. And love does not wash away like dust into the river. Not that quickly.

But she knew it would have to eventually.

“Seng Nu!”

She wiped her tears and made her face rigid before she turned around to face the world.

“Seng Nu!”

Sut was running to her from the southern gate. Even from far away she could see his eyes were wide and panicked.

///

Jin Bu playfully hit Zaw “..and you smell like a sweaty kitchen! I can’t believe you became a cook, Zaw! I thought you wanted to be an oozie?”

Zaw shrugged “My leg...”

“I’m sorry...I guess it was my fault in a way, getting in the way of that elephant”

“No it was my fault for thinking I could outrun Pinkwetha. I enjoy cooking, we’re planting a vegetable garden next to the house...”

Zaw’s words trailed as he realised that the house in question was the one he shared with Seng Nu. He would have to leave her. Would he? He thought about Seng Nu, growing old by herself. But then he thought about Jin Bu, growing old too.

Jin Bu had a child who would look after her. Did that mean he should choose Seng Nu instead? What about the baby? His baby. The hairs on the back of his neck quivered.

“My daughter...”

“Her name is Pansa. She has a big nose like you” Said Jin Bu and gripped Zaw’s nose between her thumb and forefinger. “Shall I introduce you?”

“I would love that” said Zaw. And right there he had made up his mind. He felt guilt to abandon Seng Nu, and that feeling was itself proof that he truly loved her. But he could not love two at once just as a river cannot go split into two and claim to be the same river.

Somewhere there was another Zaw, who was a river that ran on the other side of that fork. But it was not here and not then. He embraced Jin Bu.

He let go, haunted by an old ghost.“Your father....”

Jin Bu answered in the manner of someone who had rehearsed. “I have just made my way here from the City on foot, nursing a baby. I can deal with him. If he doesn’t like us, then we will leave him and form our own clan! Our future does not belong to him. We are like birds now Zaw.”

And they looked in each others eyes again, because for each moment that they did, time slowed down until it almost seemed to stop.

There was a whistling sound in the air above the hut.