5

Mulan was miserable. Sitting on an uncomfortable stool, she tried not to move as her mother gathered her long black hair and tugged and pulled the strands into submission. Mulan winced as a few more tangled strands gave up their fight and were yanked painfully from her head.

She had anticipated the process of meeting the Matchmaker would be emotionally exhausting, but she had failed to consider the physical toll it would take on her body. Of course she couldn’t just arrive to be interviewed by the esteemed Matchmaker in just any old thing. No, no, no, her mother had said, disgusted by the mere idea of it when Mulan had mentioned it. “One must present herself to the Matchmaker as she would to her suitor—perfectly. We all must be perfect.” And then, as if Mulan didn’t know it already, her mother added, “Our family’s fortune rests on you, Mulan.”

Which was why Mulan now found herself being made up to look like a porcelain doll. Satisfied by the buns piled high on Mulan’s head, Li turned her attention to her daughter’s face. Bowls had been laid out on a nearby table, each filled with different powders and liquids. Dipping a thicker brush into the nearest bowl, Li stirred the white paste. Then she brushed it in smooth, even strokes over Mulan’s face. When the girl’s face was completely covered, Li moved on to the next bowl. Yellow powder was blown gently onto Mulan’s forehead, returning some color to her face and making Mulan wonder why they bothered painting it bright white in the first place. But before she could even open her mouth to ask, Li put down the yellow powder and picked up the blue ink. That was added above Mulan’s eyes, becoming long, thin “eyebrows” that tilted up at the ends so the girl seemed to be smiling even though her mouth was straight. Rouge was added to Mulan’s cheeks, red was painted on her lips, and finally Li pasted a golden ornament between her daughter’s eyes.

Her face addressed, Mulan was pulled off the chair and forced to stand while her mother dressed her. Mulan remained silent, though she felt more and more like screaming. Her mother hadn’t dressed her since she was a girl. She had never been forced to wear face paint and her head already hurt from the dozens of pins shoved into her hair to keep the buns in place. She felt like a doll her sister would have played with when she was a girl.

Mulan’s gaze shifted to the window on the far wall. Through it she could see Black Wind grazing. She wanted to burst free from her mother’s grasp and run outside, leap on her horse’s back, and race off. But she knew she could not. She had made her promise and she would not let her family down—again.

“Look.”

Her mother’s voice startled Mulan and she brought her gaze back into the room. She gasped as she saw her reflection in the mirror her mother held out. The face that stared back was that of a stranger. Her body, wrapped in a lilac-colored dress, looked strange: curves were visible that were usually hidden under loose clothing. Gingerly, Mulan lifted her head and touched the lotus flower comb her mother had placed in her hair. The comb was one of her mother’s most cherished possessions. Without saying anything, Li was reminding Mulan just how important today was.

Taking a deep breath, Mulan headed out of the house and into the courtyard. Her father stood waiting, also in his own formal attire. Seeing his eldest daughter, he smiled, but not before Mulan caught a flash of sadness in his eyes. At least she wasn’t the only one who felt she was hiding her real self under a pile of makeup.

As soon as Li and Xiu joined them, both also dressed up though neither looked quite as exquisite as Mulan, the family began to walk through the village. Passing by people she had known her entire life, Mulan felt their eyes on her and heard the surprised whispers as they walked by. Although Mulan felt unrecognizable, the villagers seemed to recognize her nonetheless.

Sensing his daughter’s discomfort, Zhou smiled warmly. He stopped and looked at his family. “I am truly blessed to be in the presence of such enchanting women,” he said. “I have no doubt that today will be a momentous day for the Hua fam—”

“Never mind that,” his wife said, cutting him off. “We must be on time.” To emphasize her words, she resumed walking, her pace quicker.

Behind her, Mulan struggled to keep up. Her dress was meant to look pretty; it was not meant to be jogged in. And her feet were bound in tight and uncomfortable shoes. She nearly toppled over and would have had her sister not reached out and steadied her. Then, as if on cue, Mulan’s stomach growled loudly.

“I’m starving,” she said, stating the obvious.

Li rolled her eyes impatiently. “I have already told you—you cannot eat. It will ruin your makeup.” “The fiercest winter storm could not destroy this makeup,” Mulan retorted under her breath. Turning to her sister, Mulan saw that her mother’s anxiety had rubbed off on Xiu. The younger girl was wringing her hands nervously. “Xiu,” Mulan said, trying to lighten the mood. She pointed to her face. “What am I feeling?”

Xiu looked at her, her eyes searching Mulan’s face for any trace of emotion. “I have no idea,” she said.

“Exactly,” Mulan answered. “This is my sad face.” The expression on her painted face did not change. “This is my curious face.” Still no change. “Now I am confused.” Once more, her face remained the same.

At last, a smile began to break over Xiu’s face. Mulan smiled back—even though her sister couldn’t tell. She hated to think that the cause of all this anxiety was her, but she knew that was the case. If it had been Xiu on her way to meet the Matchmaker, Li would have been practically skipping. Xiu gave her mother and family no reason to worry. Mulan gave her mother and family only reason to worry.

Luckily, Mulan didn’t have time to dwell on her insufficiencies. They had arrived at the Matchmaker’s house. Leaving Zhou to wait outside, the women approached the front door.

As befit a woman of status, the Matchmaker’s house stood alone. The sides were newly painted, and fresh flowers and herbs blossomed on either side of the door. The Matchmaker was one of the most important people in their small village. It was her connections that kept the young ladies and men matching and, in turn, the village thriving. Families spent a great deal of time trying to earn her approval, as favor from the Matchmaker inevitably meant a favorable match.

Despite the constant doting and the privilege that came with her position, the Matchmaker was a mean and nasty woman. When she left her house, which wasn’t often, she always wore a frown full of judgment. Mulan had, on more than one occasion, turned and walked the other way when she saw the Matchmaker in order to avoid a glare from the large woman. And Xiu, when she was younger and before she knew better, had once remarked how it wasn’t fair that such a beautiful house had such an ugly owner.

But it didn’t matter if the woman was mean and her frown ugly. She held Mulan’s future in her hands.

The Matchmaker, after introducing Mulan to Fong Lin, the mother of her prospective match, nodded for everyone to sit. Quickly, Mulan and her family sat. For one long moment, silence filled the small room and Mulan wished that she had a rag or something to wipe her sweaty palms on. She knew what she was supposed to do. Pour tea. Prove that she was worthy of Fong Lin’s son. It seemed easy in theory . . . if Mulan could stop her hands from shaking.

Be calm, she reminded herself. Remember what Xiu told you—picture doing something you like. Just get the tea in the cups. That’s all you have to do.

Slowly, Mulan reached out a hand and lifted the delicate porcelain teapot. As she began to pour the steaming liquid into the equally delicate cups—without spilling—she could almost hear her mother’s shoulders sag in relief.

Obviously pleased as well, the Matchmaker began to speak. “Quiet. Demure. Graceful,” she listed. “These are the qualities we see in a good wife.” She paused and looked directly at Fong Lin. The woman, whose quiet judgment Mulan had felt like daggers, did not move a muscle or blink. Her eyes bored into Mulan, watching every move with fierce attention to detail. “These are the qualities we see in Mulan.”

Be calm, Mulan repeated to herself. Calm . Be calm even though this woman seems terrible and therefore probably has a terrible son who is going to give you the same terrible look every time you do something you shouldn’t, which will be always . Because you are not, let’s face it, quiet, demure, or graceful. Stopping herself, Mulan put the teapot down and moved on to the sugar. She felt everyone’s eyes on her as she moved around the table, from cup to cup.

“They say,” the Matchmaker went on, not bothered or nonplussed by Fong Lin’s blank look, “that when a wife serves her husband, she must be silent. She must be invisible.” She stopped. Her eyes focused on Mulan, looking for the slightest hint of a tremor, the smallest exhale of breath. Mulan was silent.

As she put a final cube of sugar into the last cup, Mulan returned to her seat. She had done it. Not a drop spilled. Not a mess made. Still, she wouldn’t allow herself the chance to sigh in relief. Not yet.

“The Fong family honors the Hua family with this exquisite tea set,” the Matchmaker went on, a glimmer of approval in her eyes. “A gift from the Imperial Family.”

Mulan, Li, and Xiu bowed their heads in gratitude. While it was tradition for the Matchmaker to not reveal details to either family about the other family, there was always a way to glean a little bit. In this case, as Mulan stared at the beautiful teapot on the table in front of her, she knew that Fong Lin’s family was well-off, at least more so than hers. The Huas’ teapot was faded and their cups mismatched. This new one would stand out on their threadbare shelves. The pressure to be perfect felt even greater. Mulan’s family would benefit from her marriage to a successful man. She had to pull this off.

Mulan was just starting to believe she could get through the meeting when she looked over at Xiu. Her younger sister’s eyes were wide with fear. Following her gaze, Mulan saw a large spider slowly unspooling itself from the ceiling toward the table. Inch by inch it made its way down . . . right toward Xiu. It dropped onto the table, its long, hairy legs undulating beneath it.

Underneath her mask of white makeup, Mulan felt the color drain from her face. If the spider took even one step toward Xiu, the girl was certain to scream and the Matchmaker would be furious. Smoothly, and thankful for the mask her makeup provided, Mulan reached out and placed the teapot over the spider. Then she returned her hands to her lap. But not before shooting her sister a look.

The look, unfortunately, was not lost on the Matchmaker. Her own eyes narrowed. “Is something wrong?” she asked.

“No, Madam Matchmaker,” Mulan said in her most demure voice. “Thank you.”

The Matchmaker’s lips tightened in unspoken aggravation. Mulan met her gaze, her own expression revealing nothing. Finally, the Matchmaker nodded toward the teapot. “It is ideal,” she said, her tone dripping with condescension, “for the teapot to remain in the center of the table.”

“Yes,” Mulan agreed. “I understand. But I think the teapot should remain where it is.”

Instantly, the room grew icy. A sheen of sweat appeared on Li’s brow and Xiu’s breath stopped, her face growing as white as Mulan’s painted one. Fong Lin looked back and forth between the Matchmaker and Mulan, perplexed.

“Move the teapot, girl.” Each word shot out of the Matchmaker’s mouth like an arrow.

Mulan looked back and forth between the teapot and her sister, unsure what to do. If she moved the pot, the spider would move, too. But if she didn’t move the pot, then things wouldn’t end well anyway. She thought of her father, standing outside, waiting for her to keep her promise. She sighed. She had to do what the Matchmaker said.

Slowly, she lifted the teapot.

The spider, released from its makeshift prison, leapt—right into the lap of Fong Lin.

Letting out an ear-piercing shriek, Fong Lin jumped to her feet, brushing wildly at her lap and sending the spider flying. For one beat, the room grew still again as the women all looked to see where the spider had landed . . .

And then the Matchmaker let out a scream of her own as she looked down and saw the creature crawling across her chest. Terrified, she stumbled backward, her arms pinwheeling wildly. The momentum sent her tumbling into a chair. Her feet, kicking furiously, contacted the table, flipping it up. The teapot and teacups were sent flying, end over end, shooting hot water in every direction as they spun.

Watching as the room devolved into absolute chaos around her, Mulan stayed eerily still. Her eyes were the only thing that moved as they tracked the arc of the teapot and cups. Then, in a blur of motion, she reached up and pulled out the four long pins that held up her hair. Extending one of the pins, she caught a teacup. Then another. Clink. Clink. Clink . One by one, she snagged the other teapots out of midair, balancing them on the pins.

But the teapot was still falling. Looking over, Mulan saw it was mere inches from hitting the floor. Mulan didn’t stop to think. She just acted. Quick as lightning, she stuck out her foot. She grimaced as she heard her dress rip, but the handle of the pot snagged on her toe. It hung, dangling precariously as the teacups continued to swing on the pins.

For one long moment, the room was silent. Mulan felt the eyes of the four other women on her, their surprise mirroring her own. She had done it. She had averted disaster. The spider was gone and the tea set was in one piece.

And then, her long thick hair, freed from the pins that had kept it contained, began to escape its buns. Like water pouring from the top of a falls, it dropped down, the long strands covering Mulan’s face.

With her vision blocked, Mulan had nothing to focus on. Almost instantly, she lost her balance. The leg on the ground began to shake while the one in the air began to sway. Then her arms followed suit, moving up and down and side to side until, with a shout, Mulan fell.

Crash! Crash! Crash!

Piece by piece the tea set smashed to the ground, breaking into a thousand fragments.

Lying on the floor, Mulan heard Fong Lin’s shriek of rage and felt the look of disappointment coming from her own mother. Xiu was weeping quietly as she leaned down and tried to pick up the larger pieces of porcelain. But even the gentlest of touches broke the pieces still smaller, causing Fong Lin to scream again. A moment later, Mulan heard the front door open and then slam as the mother of her suitor—or rather, ex-suitor—stormed outside.

Mulan got to her feet, her head still bowed. She followed Fong Lin’s departure, her mother and sister joining her. None of them said a word. They walked in silence out the door, down the front stairs, and into the courtyard where Zhou waited.

But the Matchmaker was not nearly as quiet. Storming out from behind them, she lifted her arm and pointed an accusatory finger right at Mulan. “Dishonor to the Hua family!” she screamed, her voice bouncing off the walls of the nearby houses and catching the attention of the entire village. “They have failed to raise a good daughter!”

Each word was like a slap across Mulan’s face. The Matchmaker was right. She had failed her family. She would never bring them honor. How could she, now that the Matchmaker would never let her step foot in her house again?

Not daring to meet her father’s gaze, unable to face the disappointment she knew she would see, Mulan began to trudge across the courtyard and back to her own home. It was going to be the longest walk of her life with nothing but her sad thoughts and angry looks from her mother for company. In that second, Mulan wished for anything, anything at all, to take the attention from her.

As if on cue, the sound of drumbeats began to echo through the village.

Mulan and her family, along with the entire village, stopped in their tracks. All eyes turned toward the single-lane road that led into their small village. Normally it was empty, the dirt undisturbed. But now they could see billowing sand kicked into the air by what appeared to be a small parade of riders.

A few of the younger children raced ahead to see what was happening and turned around. “Soldiers!” they shouted as they ran back.

Mulan’s heart pounded in her chest as around her, the villagers began to murmur among themselves. It had been years since soldiers had appeared in their village. The last time had been when her own father had been taken off to fight for the Emperor. What could they be doing there now? Just then, the drumming stopped and the dust settled. There, standing in front of them, were a magistrate and six soldiers. The men looked at the villagers from atop their horses, their faces hidden by masks. With a signal from the magistrate, several of them jumped down and began to post pieces of paper to various houses.

“Citizens! Citizens!” the magistrate shouted, as if he hadn’t already gotten everyone’s attention. “We are under attack from northern invaders. Our land is at war! By edict of His Imperial Majesty the Son of Heaven, every family must contribute one man to fight! One man from every house!” He pulled out a scroll and unrolled it. From where she stood, Mulan could see that the writing on the scroll was a long list of names. “Wang family! Chin family!”

As the magistrate continued to read off the list of the families who lived in the tulou, Mulan realized her father had disappeared into the crowd. She rose on her tiptoes, trying to see where he had gone, but the village had devolved into chaos. Men were pushing their way through the crowd to get the paperwork that would conscript them into the army. Behind them, women old and young started to weep, some out of joy that one man from their family would be a hero, and others because they knew the consequences of war—both physically and mentally.

“Du family! Hua family!”

Mulan’s breath caught in her throat when she heard her family’s name called. She looked for her father, spotting him making his way through the crowd. He walked with his head held high and without the use of his cane. Mulan knew what he was about to do.

Approaching the magistrate and two of the soldiers who had remained on horseback, Zhou bowed. “I am Hua Zhou,” he said as he rose back up. “I served the Imperial Army in the last battle against the northern invaders.”

The magistrate looked down at Zhou. “Have you no son old enough to fight?” he asked.

“I am blessed with two daughters,” Mulan’s father answered. “I will fight.”

The magistrate considered the man before him. Mulan saw him eyeing her father’s graying hair and the lines at his eyes. She knew that to him, her father appeared a proud, but old, man. Finally, the magistrate nodded to the soldier nearest him. The young man reached into his bag and pulled out a set of papers that would mark Zhou for service. He held it out.

In what felt like slow motion, Mulan watched as her father reached out his own hand. His fingers brushed the parchment and were about to close around the paper when his leg gave out. He gave a muffled shout as he fell to the ground. Lying at the feet of the magistrate’s horse, Zhou’s eyes closed in horror. His waistcoat had fallen open, revealing the binding on his leg that now, due to the fall, was unraveling.

Looking at her father, Mulan’s heart broke. The man was utterly humiliated. Even the soldiers seemed embarrassed for him, stepping back and then averting their eyes. Spotting her father’s cane lying on the ground where he must have left it, Mulan moved to take it. But her mother put a hand on her shoulder, stopping her.

“You must not,” she whispered. “That will only humiliate him further.”

As the magistrate resumed reading the names of the tulou families, a younger soldier dismounted and offered his hand to Zhou. Zhou refused. Grasping his scroll tightly in his hand, he painfully pushed himself to his feet. Then he limped away, his head high.

Mulan watched him go. Her father was a good man, but he was a proud man. And that pride was going to get him killed if he went to war.