Chapter
15: Like Mother, Like Daughter
Fa
retreated to a corner of the garden, sipping on a cup of hot water. After Ms.
Hunter』s gesture of kindness in the condolences line, Fa thought it only right
that the girls stay around for a bit, no matter how uncomfortably the looks
from the other townsfolk stung. She sunk into her corner, and her eyes appeared
glazed, as if she were looking far away.
She
had perfected this strategy for feeling comfortable in crowds from many years
ago, when she first came to America. She unfocused her eyes slightly, so that
the faces of people around her blurred and faded into each other, so that she
couldn』t see the points of their pupils staring, or the direction and twitch of
their mouths. It had been necessary during those first years, when she had
first arrived on the coast of California from Shanghai. She had remembered
thinking that her mother had been wrong, that America was not the beautiful
country of its name, that it was not more tolerant or acceptant of differences.
Perhaps the eyes of the American people were not as sharp as those of the
Chinese, but they were sharp enough to see that her skin was yellow, her hair
black, and that had been a curse in itself–worse than being a witch. In China,
even if tongues cut and eyes burned, she could at least step back and blend in.
In
San Francisco, Fa had wandered the streets for a week before she stumbled onto
an alleyway that reminded her of home. She convinced a small restaurant to hire
her as a waitress and then a cook, learning quickly that the surest way to
break down the white man』s wall was through his stomach. She settled in and
learned to find happiness–however roundabout it was–in the strange land.
And
then circumstances had forced her to Ambrose. For a moment, Fa』s vision cleared
and focused on the picture of Graham. A sharp intake of breath, and her eyes
clouded over again, this time with tears. As she floated in the memory of her
early years–the years before the girls, when she was a girl herself–she
realized suddenly how similar Mara』s circumstance was to her own. But wasn』t
that what she had been trying to protect them from, all these years? She
swallowed and shook her head. Like mother, like daughter. She should have known
it would be impossible to prevent her daughters from making the same mistakes.
She
had gone to San Francisco–spent a month swimming across the ocean–because of
the stories her mother had told her before she died. Stories that in the
beautiful land across the ocean, there were cities full of magical people,
people from all walks of life. In these cities, strangeness was embraced, and
people didn』t live in fear of being discovered. Though Fa did not find that
this was the case–there were more people who looked different, but they were
partitioned into different parts of the city, with all the Chinese in one part,
all the blacks in another, and so on–it was true that there was a large secret
network of witches in San Francisco. One day, Fa served a woman named Clara at
the restaurant. Clara started to talk to her–something that their white
customers almost never did–and soon they developed a friendship.
Clara
looked as young as Fa, but Fa soon discovered that she was in her middle years,
and that she even had a son who was near Fa』s age. One day, Clara asked Fa if
she was a witch. Amazingly, Fa was not surprised. 「Yes,」 she said, 「I am.」
From
that day on, Clara adopted Fa like a second child. Clara was a witch too,
living in secret from everyone, even her family. She felt isolated, since her
husband and son did not know, and had always longed for a daughter. Magic was
only passed on to women. It was hard to live alone, she told Fa. She knew.
Clara』s
son Turner became good friends with his mother』s new mentee, though he had no
idea about the nature of their relationship. Clara encouraged the friendship.
Eventually, they fell in love, and married.
For
many years Fa and Turner had a wonderful marriage. They had a beautiful
daughter, who they named Mara, and then two twin babies. Turner had green eyes
(like Mara), and marveled that all his daughters all had differently colored
eyes. Other than the bright eyes, the girls』 light milky skin was the only
thing they seemed to have inherited from their father. Otherwise, they looked
very much Chinese. Fa guessed that magic was in play somehow in the eye colors,
though she wasn』t sure how–even though Turner was not magical because he was a
man, his mother』s magical blood still ran through his veins. Fa–and Clara–knew
that their children would be especially powerful, with magic running in both
sides of the family. Together, Fa and Clara guessed that the eye colors were
most likely a result of the double magic combination.
In
later years, when Fa raised the girls alone, she would come to realize that the
eye colors signified each daughter』s propensity towards control of a certain
element. Mara, green, held a strong power over the Earth; Marie, blue, over
water; Morgan, brown, over fire; and Mina, she guessed, with gray eyes, would
one day hold the wind and air in her hands.
But
Clara would only see Mara start to develop her powers–by the time Marie and
Morgan were old enough, Fa had run far away.
It
started when Mara was just five. When she had tantrums, the ground would start
to tremble beneath her feet. Being in San Francisco, it wasn』t so odd to feel
tremors once in a while, but Turner, not a dull man, began to notice that the
epicenter of the quake seemed always to be in their home. He brought it up to
Fa, one day, casually, a little amused, a little worried.
Fa
trusted him. She had had three children with him, and another was on its way.
She talked with Clara, who encouraged her to disclose the truth. With three
daughters, it would be impossible to hide it from him forever. She told him. Of
course, he didn』t believe her at first. To prove herself, she lit her hand on
fire, and then extinguished the flame, all without touching a match.
The
next morning, Turner was gone, the drawers emptied of his clothes. Fa waited
for him, called Clara–she hadn』t told him about his mother–who told her to be
patient. It was surprising information, after all, and even a man like Turner
would have to process and adjust. Finally, two days later, there was a knock on
the door. Relieved, Fa ran down the stairs.
The
man who stood outside was not Turner. It was the police. They grabbed her,
cuffed her without explanation. 「A danger to your children,」 she heard,
「abduction, fraud.」 Nobody explained. She could only guess that Turner had gone
to them, turned her in as a lunatic and a freak.
Fa
had no choice. Smoke rose, fingers snapped, bodies dropped to the ground
unconscious. Fa fled, disappeared without a word, ran far away, with her
daughters in her arms and on her back and in her belly. She finally settled in
Ambrose, on the other coast of the vast country. She learned to use her strange
face as a mask for her strange abilities, deciding that xenophobia was a better
form of ostracism than fear of magic. She promised herself she would protect
her daughters from a similar fate.
The
fog in front of Fa』s eyes lifted. Her mind drifted back to the garden, where
Graham』s memorial service reception was dwindling to a close. The Grahams had
gone inside, and the crowd was thinning. Fa looked around to gather her daughters
to go home. That was when she realized, a furious panic rising in her chest:
the Switch sisters were nowhere in sight.