Dreams of the Red Phoenix Read Online Free Page A

the way a candle sucks down heat before flaring upward into light.
    â€œI’m quite certain that my husband gave that old thing away years ago,” she continued, her voice growing stronger. “Or if I do still have it, I have no idea where it is.”
    â€œDon’t be foolish, my dear,” Kathryn whispered, her pret ty cheeks flushed. “Give the man what he wants. These people don’t mess around.”
    The officer marched up the steps and placed himself before them. “Madam,” he said to Shirley, “bring radio to me.”
    She had spotted his saber in its hilt at his side, his revolver tucked into the leather case on his belt, and knew she was sup posed to be impressed by them and by his crisp uniform and shiny boots, but the fact that she literally towered over the man seemed to contradict all that. She turned and strode into her house, call ing back over her shoulder, “I shall return in a moment.”
    Kathryn clasped her hands together and looked off at the courtyard and then up at the black and starless sky, anywhere but into the stony faces of the officer and his two soldiers, who remained like sentries blocking the bottom step. “Reverend Car son died quite recently, you see. Mrs. Carson really isn’t herself.”
    The major did not respond or acknowledge Kathryn’s words, and she wondered if perhaps his English was rudimentary. She was about to try the local Chinese dialect when the screen door flung open again and Shirley reappeared in a flurry, her black satin mourning skirt swishing and her arms upraised. She had a broom in one hand. With a dramatic gesture, she placed it on the floorboards and began sweeping. As she did, she sang an off-key, airy tune: “Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me. Anyone else but me. Anyone else but me.”
    As Shirley continued to sweep and sing, Kathryn’s jaw slack ened. The broom whisked right up to the edge of the major’s polished boots and kept going, as if they were merely annoying debris that had fallen onto the otherwise tidy porch.
    Major Hattori shuffled back. “American woman most imper tinent. She and son must be punished!”
    Kathryn reached for the broom and tried to pull it away, but Shirley held on and surprised them both with her strength. She thought she must have been storing it up all those pointless, pain ful weeks since Caleb’s death, when she had repeatedly come to the conclusion that there was no reason to go on living. For, as she yanked the broom back from Kathryn, she remembered her husband’s words: Face the foe , he had said. A silly phrase he had heard from British military passing through. He had meant it tongue-in-cheek, spoken in a teasing and irreverent manner, but Shirley had known that at heart, he had meant it. Caleb had wanted her to be brave.
    She planted the broom and announced, “You may go now, Major Hattori. Good evening.”
    Kathryn rocked back on her heels, and the major let out a growl.
    â€œI will return,” he said and hurried down the steps. His sol diers followed closely at his heels as he strode across the court yard and was gone.
    Shirley let the broom fall from her hand, and Kathryn caught it. Shirley’s arms trembled, and she felt perspiration snake down her sides. She leaned against the carved post and gripped the railing.
    â€œGood heavens, who ever knew I had that in me?”
    Kathryn offered no congratulations and no reassurances. She simply stared at Shirley with a concerned expression. Shirley didn’t expect her friend to understand. Kathryn had not endured the hollow sensation that coursed through Shirley’s veins all the time now, its meaning only beginning to come clear to her.

Three
    T he screen door wheezed shut, and Shirley paused in the front hall, her pulse still thrumming in her ears and her thoughts addled. One of the thick muslin curtains in the dining room wafted, though there