The Paper Daughters of Chinatown - Heather B. Moore Page 0,99

abused child made her hasty and terrified flight . . . from her angry pursuers. Our warfare against the wickedness and cruelty . . . is sometimes a discouraging conflict, yet as we look back over the past year we are thankful to see that much good has been done, and many victories gained.”

—Donaldina Cameron, mission home report

1904

Mei Lien didn’t know exactly where she was, but it wasn’t San Francisco. Despite the numb stupor she’d been in for days, she remembered the smell of the ocean, the sting of the salt, the cry of the gulls, then finally the motion of a boat. She had been taken on a boat, or a ferry, and now she sat in a small, windowless room.

How many days had passed, she wasn’t sure. In the small room she now existed in, she’d been fed and allowed water, so she knew they didn’t want her dead . . . yet.

Zhang Wei. He was behind all of this. Did that mean Ah-Peen Oie was involved too? Of course she was. It was the only thing that made sense.

The slave owners would get their investment from Mei Lien yet. Keep her fed, keep her strong, then either sell her again or force her into the trade at a new location.

Footsteps sounded on the hardwood floor outside her room, and she tensed as the door unlocked, then opened. It was Wang Foo, the man who had first sold her to Ah-Peen Oie. She cringed at the sight of his wide-set eyes and stocky face.

The hardness in his eyes made her stomach flip. He carried no food, and she could only guess what his purpose was. Likely the same purpose of other men who had visited her small room. Or was he here to punish her in a different way?

“Get up,” he said. “We need to hide you. Fahn Quai is here, looking for any paper daughters.”

Mei Lien scrambled to the far corner and drew herself into a tight ball.

Wang Foo grunted, then entered the room.

“No,” Mei Lien whispered in a hoarse voice. “I’d rather face the white devil than go anywhere with you.”

“You have no choice.” Wang Foo grasped both her arms and wrenched her to her feet.

Yes, Mei Lien had been fed in this prison, but she was also weak and exhausted. Wang Foo had an easy time of it carrying her from the room. She didn’t try to get away, she didn’t scream, she didn’t yell.

Wang Foo carried her along a narrow corridor with other doors. The dimness was broken only by a light at the end of the hallway. He paused before a door, then fumbled with the lock before getting the door open. The room’s stale atmosphere made Mei Lien’s throat feel scratchy. It was as if years of dust had accumulated and been trapped in here.

“Don’t make a sound,” Wang Foo said. “If the devil gets ahold of you, she will use you to cast spells, and then your ancestors will return from the dead and haunt you until you die a terrible death. Then Zhang Wei will send orders across the ocean to have your mother pay in your name.”

The threat was old, but it never failed to wedge Mei Lien’s fear even deeper into her soul. She crouched without a word of protest and moved inside the cupboard Wang Foo held open.

He shut the door and latched it closed.

In the new darkness, Mei Lien didn’t even bother to look around. She couldn’t see anything anyway. Beneath her hands, small pellets indicated the presence of mice. Old or new, she didn’t know. The space was warm and musty, and she held back more than one sneeze.

Listening, she could hear voices, doors opening, footsteps echoing.

She guessed there to be more than one person with the white devil. How many devils were there? The footsteps grew louder, then an argument broke out.

Wang Foo said, “There’s no one in there.”

“You should dust more, sir,” a woman said in Chinese.

Another woman spoke in English, but Mei Lien didn’t recognize any of the words.

The door opened, and footsteps grew closer.

Mei Lien couldn’t be any quieter or make herself any smaller. She hoped they wouldn’t open the cupboard because she had no doubt that Wang Foo would tell Zhang Wei it was her fault she had been discovered.

The creak of the latch on the cupboard caused the hairs on her arms to raise, and suddenly, the air shifted and cooled.

Candlelight flickered, and Mei Lien had to close her