Fiction: Hong Dao Chan, Wei Wei's last night telling stories.

Wei Wei told Michael and Chin stories and then waited for them to fall asleep. It was like playing house. She had felt like an only child for so long when she was in China, and felt so lonely, that when the family moved to the States and had her mom had her brothers, she was actually really excited at being the older sister... she kind of felt like she was a mother. Except she only did the fun parts.

In some ways she was very responsible because she helped out around the house like this. But it's true what her father said about school. She wasn't stupid. She was actually pretty smart. So she got average grades just by showing up (most of the time).

In fact she spent hours at school scribbling in her notebook. It's just that her scribbling had very little to do with what was going on in class. She would write short stories. Fairy tales. Romance for teens. She had submitted one to a contest. She hadn't won, but she had got 1.3 million subscribers. That turned her father's head. But then she didn't follow through with it.

She didn't do that well in English class, because her writing wasn't fancy. And she didn't have a lot of friends to hang out with. She had friends, but they were starting to get into boyfriends  and hanging out late... or maybe they were getting really into academics or sports. It didn't seem like Wei Wei was really into anything at all on the outside. Because what she was into was stories. Not for grades not for money... just for the stories themselves.


She thought about this as she lay awake staring at the ceiling. The boys were breathing deeply already. She started to silently cry because  she knew, that at 16, she had to grow up. That is move past this stage of childhood. People saw her as a young woman. She was a young woman. People saw her taking care of the children as motherly... but that's not why she did it. She wanted to crawl into a small ball and shrink her body up to be little again and skip and be silly and roll in the mud. Nothing was stopping her from doing all these things except people looking at her strangely.... but for her that was enough to stop that behavior dead.


Suddenly there was a tap at the window.

Wei Wei shook with fright and peered over to see a young boy looking in. He must have been 8 years old, and up so high! He pulled out a knife, no bigger than a knife, but not quite a sword. The blade glowed and flickered like a flame. He cut the window do that it bent. It was almost as if he cut the space between the window's atoms and bent it back so that he could step through. A blue bird that glowed like a hot flame came through as well. And then the eight year old boy closed the space between the window folding it back and sealing it with the sword. It was like zipping up a coat. And like that he was in the room.

Wei Wei tried not to move. Maybe if she didn't move he would go away. She wasn't quite afraid of him. She felt like she knew him had played with him when she was smaller than he was and then when she was the same size, and now he was half her size and age, but she knew he was the same person. A playmate from her dreams.

He reached for something and then knocked over a stack of textbooks. He tried to put those back and then knocked over a chair. Then he started going through Wei Wei's drawers. Her private things were in there!

Things a young boy had no business touching. Wei Wei's 16 year old self was awakened with annoyance and she stood up to become that towering angry older sister that visited Michael and Chun every so often like a crochety second aunt.

"What the hell are you doing!" Wei Wei whispered angrily.

"What's it to you?" Hong waved her off. Ignored her. Ignoring HER in her own room. The nerve! But Hong was full of nerve. He filled whole centuries with it.


"I lost my ghost shadow."

"What's a ghost shadow?"

"It's like a shadow... but I sent it to do something, away from my body. I sent it on an errand. And now I need to find it."

"Why.. How would you do that."

"My ghost shadow doesn't hold my face and can change shape. So it can do things that are bad and I won't get in trouble. That way I can play in the other worlds while my ghost shadow earns a living here."

"What does you shadow do?"

"Mostly sells drugs."

"What?'

"Just certain kinds though. Like fly agaric mushrooms. He picks them himself. That way he doesn't have to deal with gangsters. Just sells directly to people. And that way, whenever I come to Chinatown, I have plenty of money to spend. But now my ghost shadow says it's no fair. That I'm abusing him But he's my ghost shadow."


Wei Wei thought for a moment. "That does sound like your using him."

"He's a shadow!"

"Here, let's sit down together." Hong, and Wei Wei now knew that's exactly who he was, suddenly listened to Wei Wei like a good little eight year old.

They sat together cross legged and held hands.

"What's going on?" whispered Michael. Chun was up to.


"Okay everyone get into a circle." Wei Wei said, making up this exercise as she went along, "We're all in a circle now and we're going to do three magic breaths." They did. "Now let's do three more." Wei Wei said. "And then three more for good measure." WHen they were finished Hong opened his eyes. Michael and Chun burst out laughing rolling on the floor for no apparent reason. But Hong moved his legs and realized that his shadow wasn't a ghost shadow anymore, but was attached like a normal shadow again.

"Hey that was pretty cool How'd you do that?" Hong asked.

Wei Wei shrugged and smiled.

"Okay since you helped me, I'll help you. He pulled out his fire knife and cut through the air in the room. A slit in space time opened up and they looked out into a magical sunny paradise. A garden and jungle and beach all in one. Hong grabbed Wei Wei's hand, "C'mon, let's have some fun!"

"What about my brothers?"

"Bring them too there's plenty of room... oh yeah wait Nia, spary them.

Nia, the little blue bird, flapped her wings and the blue air that touched them made them feel lighter.

Wei Wei suddenly felt nervous. "Everyone hold hands." They did and they stepped through the cut which Hong sealed back as he stepped through with his fire knife again. He did so cockily like a child painting. The cut closed but totally not all the way. Wei Wei wondered if that was important. But then she noticed they were running effortlessly over the air. Michael and Chun giggled and let go of hands even though they knew they shouldn't, and they all sped ahead toward the mountains as fast as their minds would carry them.