"The Flowers of the Moon" (Short Story, Part 2/4)

Start at part 1 of this short story here:
https://steemit.com/writing/@whymonkey/the-flowers-of-the-moon-short-story-part-1-4

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The following day, they took the child to see Chan Sifu, the oldest man on the village and one of the few that could read. Chan was revered by all, not only for his age, but also for his wisdom.

"Oh my! Oh my! What have we here? Hmm...?", he said smilingly when he saw the baby arrive, cradled so protectively by a mantle in Sam's arms that only her face was exposed to the light early breeze.

As in every other morning, he was sitting on an old, weather-beaten wooden bench, sunbathing on the first morning light, enjoying the blue horizon where the River of the Peals finally kisses the ocean.

"Well, wasn't it time already, child? Although for the sake of me, I must be getting old, for I don't recall seeing you with a belly...", he said laughingly, before taking a puff from a long wooden pipe from which he forged a fleeting white cloud, quickly carried away by the morning breeze.

"She isn't our daughter, Chan Sifu ...", explained Sam, "she just appeared at our doorstep with nothing but this in her...", she nodded to Kim, who handed him the piece of paper.

Chan's eyes narrowed below a pair of thick white eyebrows as he concentrated on the writing.

"It's from an old tale", he explained, as he scratched the barren on the top of his head where only a few gristly white hairs remained ", called The Flowers of the Moon, if I am to remember correctly. Here it reads, 'The flower's roots sink into the ground and her hair soars to the sky, cut either and the flower shall die...' Very odd, very odd indeed... The full tale goes that, sometimes, at that instant just before the break of dawn or at those very last minutes of dusk, the Sun and the Moon brush in the skies for an instant and shards fall to Earth. With just enough moonlight these pieces grow into what the ancients used to call the 'Flowers of the Moon', little babies, born out of moonlight. They were known for having long silver hair, if I recall correctly, but this is all just bedtime stories that my grandma’s grandma used to tell, obviously, no one has ever really seen..."

Sam uncovered the head of the baby and the long mane of silver hair spilled to the floor.

For a moment Chan was speechless. "Well, there's something you don't see everyday...", he finally said, "she seems to belong to you now. The Moon brings us gifts and the moon brings us trials, they used to say... and what is a child if not both, hmm?", he stated with a loud long laugh that only had three teeth, then he took the pipe to his lips once more, exhaled another fleeting cloud of smoke and stood staring at the glimmering blue and gold horizon. "You have been chosen for a reason, maybe your prayers weren't falling into def hears after all, Sam? Hmm?"

They looked at the baby and for a second it seemed as if she was also smiling, but unlike Chan, her smile had no teeth, just two pinkish gums.

The couple took the baby home and it soon became as if she was a baby of their own. They named her Pui.

As the girl grew, they came to find that it was not only her silver hair the only singular trait, but the color of her eyes as well, the color of the ocean when trespassed by the searing mid-Summer Sun, a deep green smudged by the watery blue of the sky. These green eyes contrasted with her silver hair like a lotus flower stands out upon a dark pond. Her hair seemed to flutter gently on the night breeze and by the time she could walk, they had come to find that it stayed always the same length, it never grew so much as the width of a finger, so most of the time Sam tied it up like a crown around her head, except during night time, when Pui used to sneak outside to sleep beneath the moonlight. From the very first day, she never ate fish or meat or vegetables, but bathed in the moonbeams at nighttime which made her hair glitter.

For everyone's astonishment, the old tales were true.

Despite these strange traits, the girl grew happy and as carefree as a child can be, much loved by her parents as well as the rest of the village. She was a blessing to anyone she encountered, always smiling and always loving. Kim would take her fishing and he would tell others how the fish would bite easier whenever she was around. When she wasn't helping her parents with the family chores, she spent most of her time with her friend Lok, only a couple of months older than her, but a good foot taller. They would explore the forests, take baths in the sea, lay in the sun or doze beneath the shadow of the trees if the weather was too hot.

"How come your hairs are silver... and so so long?", Lok would ask her from time to time when the only sounds were those of the falling leaves rustling against the ground and the songs of the birds.

"Because, silly, they are moonbeams", she would answer, "have you never seen a moonbeam?", and she would giggle. Lok had never, in fact, seen one, but he never pressed on this matter, lest she keep making fun of him.

As they grew older, the friendship Lok had for her grew into something stronger, a tightening of his stomach every time she touched his hand or his dark hair, or when she sang in the forest when they were alone or when she snuggled against him when they would take a nap in the sand. But he wasn’t worthy of something as delicate as Pui. He wasn’t even a fisherman, he knitted fishing nets for the fishermen to take to the sea, how could he expect to compete with the audacious boys that braved the storms in wooden skiffs?

Keeping these feelings inside was like trying to hold the mighty Ocean inside his clenched fist. Nevertheless, day after day, he kept them contained, the waves endlessly breaking against the cliff of his resolve.

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(End of Part 2/4)

Continue to Part 3 here:
https://steemit.com/artzone/@whymonkey/the-flowers-of-the-moon-short-story-part-3-4