Garden of Empress Cassia Read Online Free Page B

like Mum says we all are, I hope you come back and live close by. Maybe you can give me some kind of sign. Goodbye Uncle Ting.’
    Mimi dressed quickly and went outside.
Good, just enough morning light to start.
She knelt on the footpath outside Vic’s Greengrocery. Even though her mind was empty she felt as though there was something huge inside her heart – something very special wanting to come out. She opened the lid of the pastels. In an instant, a magnificent garden formed like a dream before her eyes. Mimi took a deep breath, chose a pastel the colour of an autumn day and began to draw the Garden of Empress Cassia.
    The twelve o’clock tram clattered down Rumba Street when Mimi drew the final stroke on the footpath. The drawing was complete. She stood up to get a bird’s eye view. The garden was so beautiful even Mimi herself was taken completely by surprise. Every tiny detail was exact and the colours as brilliant as if the garden was alive. Suddenly there was a loud shriek from behind her.
    â€˜Watch out!’ someone hollered.
    Mimi collided with a big, bulky body coming in the opposite direction. She fell to the ground, painfully landing on her knees – the wind knocked out of her. It took a few moments to catch her breath – then her eyes focused on a walking stick, a pair of familiar black shoes and two pillar-like legs. It was the dreaded Miss Sternhop.
    â€˜Miss Stir-em-up . . . I mean Sternhop . . . I’m sorry.’
    Mimi felt the Sternhop glare piercing her head and zapping her brain cells.
    â€˜Stupid child, why don’t you look where you’re going and what’s this graffiti on the footpath?’ Miss Sternhop’s voice sliced the air like broken pieces of glass.
    Mimi’s heart beat wildly in her chest as she replied, ‘It’s a g . . . garden – the Garden of Empress Cassia.’
    â€˜And what’s this?’ Miss Sternhop tapped at some words with her walking stick, then read slowly.
    â€˜
Under your feet the journey begins. In the palm of your hand the journey ends. Come, enter the space between Heaven and Earth.
What space?
What
journey?
What rubbish, child!
’ She began rubbing away the words with her foot.
    â€˜Miss Sternhop don’t!’ cried Mimi, suddenly fearful. But it was too late. Miss Sternhop was slowly being sucked into the garden!
    â€˜Oh dear what’s happening.
HHHEEELLLLLPPP
!’ The frightened voice grew fainter and fainter.
    â€˜Hold on, Miss Sternhop, I’m coming,’ Mimi yelled, jumping in after her.
    Miss Sternhop landed on her back with a soft
flumph,
her feet and arms waving in the air like an overturned turtle. Mimi went to help her up.
    â€˜Oh my, what a beautiful place,’ Miss Sternhop said in an unusually soft and sweet voice.
    â€˜It’s the Lake of Secret Dreams,’ said Mimi. Even though she knew every detailed stroke of the garden, this was the first time she had been inside one of her own drawings. She looked about her in wonder. It was so real.
    All along the shore, willow trees dipped their long green plaits into the lake, while lazy goldfish kissed the underside of the water looking for insects. Miss Sternhop sat down on a rock and gazed across the garden to the mountains in the distance. Her body melted into each hole and crevice. No longer was she the stiff, stern lady Mimi once knew.
    â€˜Would you like to explore the garden?’ asked Mimi.
    â€˜Yes indeed,’ replied Miss Sternhop.
    The garden was vast, like a kingdom unto itself with tall mountain peaks, delicate pavilions and bridges crisscrossing the lake. Mimi and Miss Sternhop wandered through the Forest of Gentle Ghosts and explored Laughing Hole Grotto. Then they climbed up a thousand and sixty-five steps to where Crimson Cloud Temple stood carved into the side of a steep mountain cliff. There they rested on the terrace, while shiny-headed monks in