SECRET GARDEN AND LADY IN RED

THE SECRET GARDEN & LADY IN RED



Windhagard, July 2006



Chapter 1. A Lady



The old Basic Science Area is an enslosure with classroom buildings, lab buildings and a small two
story library. Turning right from the entrance and walking around the lab building, you will find a small garden between the lab building and the wall.

The garden has been a real one a long time ago. An old gardener planted roses and apple trees in it and after he died, the garden was deserted. Because a quarantined area for patients with tuberculosis is on the other side of the wall, people seldom came here. Weeds and wild thrubs then grew lavishly and occupied every corner of it. Wild hares, mosquitoes and dragon flies went there sometimes.

I was wandering in an early Sunday morning in the summer when I found this place. I was looking for a secluded place to recite a poem collection of Tagore that I just got. The deserted garden caught my eyes in an instance. The thrubs were so thick that you could not see through them five steps away. A small road cutting through the thrubs turned in the middle of the place and led to the other side. But you could not see anything on the opposite from this side because the thrubs were more than two stories tall. The weeds under the thrubs and along the small road were higher than my knees, with here and there a survived rose blooming blood-red and pink flowers. It was very quiet and I knew that nobody was there because nobody lived there and people were still sleeping.

"It is an ideal place for me", I think. Then I opened the book and walked along the road into the garden, and started to recite the poems.

With the first word coming out of my mouth there was a sudden murmuring around me, like something was awaken by my unexpected voice. Maybe it was just wind fluttering the leaves. Then that strange feeling that a lot of eyes were open around me, but when I looked around, I could only see the green leaves, small flower buds and sparkling dew drops on the leaves.

"Who is there?" I yelled, no answers.

"Of course. It"s just wind." answered myself.

I raised my book and lowered my head and started to read and recite. Tagore"s poems were so intriguing that I soon was immersed in it. At some moment when I was lost in my thoughts, very strangely, the feeling that eyes were open around me came back again. This time some were even peering over my shoulders to the book that I hold in my hand.

I was frightened and ran away.

I didn"t tell anyone about this because nobody would believe me. They would say that this was only my imagination.

After one week, I went back to there again, this time an early Monday morning. I really needed this quiet and unnoticed place to read and recite the Tagore poems. This time I didn"t have the strange feeling. Everything was normal and quiet. The garden was like a quietly flowing river softly embracing me and tenderly comforting my thirsty heart. Thus one month past. I almost finished the book and remembered a lot of the beautiful lines.

One night, at round eleven o"clock, when everybody had left the area, I decided to go to the garden to recite the poems that I remembered. I was in the middle when suddenly a stream of light fragrance got to my nose, it was like the fragrance of freshly opened roses and apple flowers. Then I felt that somebody, or something, was standing very close behind me. Startled, I turned around and in front of me, was an extremely beautiful lady. She stood there, smiling at me. She was so close to me that I could smell the sweet fragrance from her breath. She was in a blood-red skirt and her arms and necks exposed were so white that the moonlight seemed to be dancing on their surface. I had that strange feeling that she was very familiar to me, but I really could not remember who she was.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"I am Mei." She answered, smiling.

When she spoke, the sweet fragrance was even more strong.

"I didn't see you around here."

"How could you remember every face?" She was still smiling, with a blush on her face. "I have been here for a long time."

"I was here when this place was not like this." She said in a lowered voice, with a slight sadness passing through her beautiful face.

I don"t know how long that was until after half a year later.

But that sadness disappeared quickly, and she said delightfully, "Do you want to take a look at the garden when it was not deserted?"

"Yes, of course. But, how could we ..." I was not finished when she grabbed my hand and started running towards the turn of the small path, dragging me along with her.

Her hand, looked so beautiful, was so cold. I shivered and tried to get off, but my hand was so firmly locked that I could not. After just one second, a strange feeling of love and affection poured in from our hands like waves of ocean tides, and the feeling instantly flooded my heart. I stopped struggling and my steps became so light tthat we seemed to be gliding rather than running. "Yes, please, my lady, take me to anywhere" I thought. She turned her head and smiled at me so sweetly. Oh she was so beautiful.

It was such a strange scene: At almost mid-night, in a deserted garden, under a rising moon, a lady in red and a bewildered young man running in the dark thrubs. It was so quiet at that moment that I could hear my blood pounding in my ears. It was also a very beautiful night, with warm winds and fresh wet air, with feather-like clouds passing by in the high dark sky lazily, with every plant growing and every flower blooming, and with the giant trees watching with the eyes on their bark and smiling.


Chapter 2. The Secret Garden



I had never ventured out to the turn and to the other side of the path before. When we got to the turn, I saw that besides the path itself, there was an unnoticeable opening leading to the center of the garden. The opening was hidden behind an old apple tree that it could hardly be seen from the path. The thrubs were even more thick than other places.

We entered the opening and she started to slow down and we walked. The branches and leaves of the trees and thrubs rising from both sides formed a roof above us, with only stripes of moonlight piercing in. We walked and walked, I never realized that how come such a small garden could have so long a road. In fact, I really didn"t care at that time. I even hoped that time could stop so that I could hold her soft, cold hand forever.

"I like the poems of Tagore too." She murmured in my ears. "But I have not read them and have not heard anyone reciting them for a long time." Her breath tickled. I shuddered and forgot that I could speak. I stared into her eyes, with both my hands holding hers. She had such beautiful eyes, large and dark brown, like a bottomless lake, waiting for me to be drown. I started to feel a coldness rising in my body and felt extremely fatigue, but my heart was in such a happiness that I felt that wings started to grow on my back. I was immersed in this happiness and I pleaded in my hearted: Oh God, please let time stop here.

The feeling suddenly disappeared, and I realized that she had loosened my hands, and stood half a meter from me. She looked at me intensely.

"I am sorry," She said softly.
"For what?" I replied. In fact, how I hoped that I could hold her hands longer.

"Here," she said, and walked in front of me. Her red skirts fluttered with her swift steps, and I suddenly saw that she was not wearing any shoes. Her feets were slender and tiny, and as white as her hands and arms.

I followed, could not move my eyes from her feet. With the thrubs thinning, and another turn, we were there.

It was a small and clean rose garden. I couldn"t believe my eyes. In this deserted garden, unknown and couldn"t be seen from outside, there was this small secret garden.

The garden was circled by old apple trees and thrubs outside, and lightened by moonlight. On one side of it, under the elegently reaching branches of the apple trees, was a dark stone bench shining in the moonlight. The bench was rectangular and seemed very large, like a bed. She went there and sit down, seemed a little bit tired. Then she said: "Come here."

I went to the bench and sit on it, with my eyes looking into hers. The bench was smooth and cool.

"I couldn't run too much. My doctor told me that I should rest as much as I could." She said. "Oh, that was a long time ago. I am OK now, although I still couldn't venture out too much."

Totally lost, I said nothing.

The small secret garden had more than ten roses growing inside it, each one the height of a human. Numberous flowers were blooming on the branches, which moves gently in the breezes. Most of the flowers had the blood-red color, like the color of the lady's skirt. Their fragrance were very sweet and thick, like the smell of the lady's breath. However, the lady's breath also had a tint of apple flowers.

There we sitted, on the smooth and cool stone bench, in the moonlight, surrounded by trees and flowers and the smell of summer night, looking at each other in the eyes.

I said that she was a lady because she had such an elegance in her posture and steps and dresses that I had never seen on a girl of her age. She was totally different from the wildly running and yelling girls in the school, and there was not a single hint of affectation of that elegance. In fact, it looked like she was of my age.

With us staring at each other, she blushed again, with her cheeks so lovingly red. She smiled, and asked me "Which poem do you like the most?"

"Where the Mind is Without Fear."

"Really? Don't you think that one is boring?" She said.

"Boring? I never think of that."

Then I thought about the poem and why Tagore wrote it. "Yes, it is a little bit boring." I admitted.

"I don't like those topics. They are too heavy."

"of course." I thought. "Why should a beautiful girl like her be bothered with such topics."

She yarned and her large beautiful eyes, which were so dark and bright, looked tired.

"Do you mind me lying down?"

"oh, no. Please."

She stretched herself on the bench facing the sky, sighed. Then she turned her body and face me, lying on her side. With her fingers playing with a stripe of hair, she asked, "Can you bring me some candy next time?"

"Ye, ye, sure."

I could not but noticed her feet and lower legs not covered by her skirt. They were so slender and so gracefully curved that they drove a strong desire inside me to try to touch them. But her face and eyes were so pure that I instantly supressed the desire, thinking that I was too dirty in my mind.

"Who are you, really?"

Her fingers stopped moving and she looked into my eyes intensely for a whole minute without saying anything. I hoped that I have not asked the question. Is that really important?

Then she said softly, "Is that really important?"

"no." I decided at that moment that I would never ask the question again.

A bird with fluffy wings flied in from somewhere without a noise. It landed on one of the apple trees without a noise.

"It's too late. Maybe you should go back to sleep."

"Oh, no. Let me stay for some more time." I pleaded. But she has raised her body and with her hand holding my hand, she leads me into the dark alley winding out.

At the end of the ally she stopped. With both her hands grasping my hands, she said, "Don't forget me. Come back to me, would you?"

I nodded. Tears poured out of my eyes. How could she say this? How could I forget her?

"Oh, baby, don't cry. I know you will come back to me." She said softly.

It seemed that she was going to embrace me at a moment. But something in her mind stopped her. She loosened my hands, turned, and started to walk back. When she walked, she looked back to me, with something in her eyes, which I don't understand.

I was one o'clock in the morning when I got back to the dorm. The "grandpa" guarding the door was fast asleep in his small room beside the door and won't answer my knocking on the door. I walked around the building and climbed in from the broken window on the second floor. I entered my room. A guy was talking loudly in his sleep. I dropped into my bed without taking off my clothings and fell into sleep immediately, without even a dream.


Chapter 3. I Lost My Lady



The next morning I got up late. Bright sunlight from the window awakened me and I felt dizzy, tired but very relexed. I watched the window for a little while, and suddenly remembered last night. I jumped off the bed and ran to the back of the lab building. The thrubs were very thick at the turn of the small path. The old apple tree was deep in the thorned thrubs. And the secret entrance was nowhere to be found.

I suddenly realized that it might just be a dream. It must be a dream. I went back every night and the semester past quickly, without Mei appearing again.

I stayed in the school in the summer vacation and went to the garden day and night. The garden was dark green from the whole spring and early summer of good sunlight. Tiny white flowers dandling from the climbing ivies on the thrubs. Withered buds and flowers covered the small path. Bees were busy peeping around, and now and then, a large butterfly danced in the wind too. At night, there were lightbugs flying around, air was cool, smell of the unknown ivy flowers was stronger. But nowhere could I find Mei's sweet fragrance and her pretty face.

I bought a lot of candy bars and candies and put them in my drawer in the dorm room. But one night, a small mouse crept in and stole almost all of them.

I read Tagore's poems again and again, ardently hoping that my heart could find some comfort from the lines that we both loved. I started to worry a lot and got weaker day by day.

Then Fall semester came and people came back to school. One day, I changed my habit and went to the dining hall at normal time with other students. I was pushing through the swarms of students when my eyes caught the slender figure of a girl. She was standing beside a table, looking at the students pushing around.

I almost dropped my plate and run to her. "Mei", I shouted, in a strange voice out of excitement. The girl turned towards me. Oh that pretty face of hers, which has appeared in my dreams for so many times in this painfully lonely summer, seemed older too. Maybe it was because she missed me too, and painful expectations could make people become older very fast.

"Of course I should have came to the dining hall to find her." I thought. "What could I got from spending my whole day peeping into the wild thrubs in a desearted garden?"

"Mei," I shouted, panting, and stood in front of her. She looked at me, smiled. Oh that sweet smile. "Where have you been? I am looking for you this whole summer."

"Sorry," She said politely, still smiling, "but, do I know you?"

I was stunned.

Was she out of her mind? How could she forget me so quickly?

"Mei, you remember Tagore, in the garden? I bought you some candies ..."

"Hold on, " She interrupted me, "I am not Mei, I am Lan. Mei was my sister. Did you know my sister?"

"What?" I could not believe my ears. They looked so much alike each other.

I was embarrazed. But I was relieved because after so many days, I finally might be able to know where Mei was.

"Sorry. Do you know where Mei is?"

She paused for a moment, then big drops of tears started to form in her eyes and roll down her cheeks, "My sister Mei passed away two years ago."

My head suddenly became very heavy and my eyes couldn't see. I felt weak and supported myself by pressing on the dining table.

"What is happening?" I asked myself.

"Are you OK?" A worried voice besides me asked. I am familiar with the voice, but I know it is Lan, not Mei.

I don't want to answer, and slowly, I walked out of the dining hall, dragged my feet to the dorm, and sit on my bed, in shock.

I must look bad when I came back from the dining hall, since my roommates started to came to me and said someting to me. They took off my shoes and put me into the bed, and I lied there, without knowing anything, for a whole week.

I must have slept for a long time, becuase when I woke up in a sunny Monday morning, I felt headache. My roommates were all gone to the class and nobody was in the room except me. I started to cry, in a lowered voice and put my head in the blanket. She was dead? Then who was with me this early summer? How could she be dead, if she was so lovely with me, and asking me to go back to her? Is this whole thing a dream?

I got up and ate a piece of bun. One hour later, my roommate came back from the class and they were happy to see me sitting there.

"How are you doing?" One asked.
"You really frightened us." Another said.
Then, all of them, "What happend?"

I was thankful to them but I could not tell them what happened. I was tring to find some excuse when a guy living in an adjacent room dashed in, shouting to me "There is a bella waiting for you outside the dorm. "

All my roommates gasped exaggerately at the same time, and asked "the girl who came here everyday when he was sleeping?" "Yes, " The guy stared at me, with his eyes wide open like a bull's. She is hot." He said to my back when I stepped out of the room.

I went out. It was Lan. I could not help but noticing that she was pretty. It was already Fall and the air was cripy and clear. Foliage started to turn red and yellow, and falling leaves danced in the air.

She approached me, looking at me with caring.

"Are you better today?" Oh the sweet sweet voice of Mei's, spoken by her sister.

My heart ached, I could not look at her, so I turned my head down, and said "I am better, thank you."

"Do you mind taking a walk with me?" She asked.

"OK." I answered, don't know what she would say, but with so strong a hope that she could tell me what was happening.

"You must have seen Mei when she was in the quarantined area. I don't know that there is a person who cared so much about her."

"OK" I could not say anything.

"My sister was sick since she was very small. And she was sent to the hospital behind the Basic Science Area when she was ten years old. " I knew that she was talking about the hospital with tuberculosis patients.

"And she passed away when she was nineteen years old."

"She was such a good girl. Very sweet, very strong in her fought with the disease. " She could not hold her tears back again. Looking at her sobbing, I stood there, didn't know what to do.

She stopped crying. "That was when I came to this school to study medicine."

"She liked to read poems and she could always recite some beautiful lines that she remembered. Doctors and nurses and Students liked her very much." She paused and glanced at me quickly, and then continued,

"She had some good friends here. When she lost her battle, they were all very sorry for her. Some of them even cried. Oh, an old gardener of the school who lived in the Basic Science Area even send a huge bunch of roses to her bed when he knew that she was in her last moment."

My heart sank. "That is it, that is it. She was dead really."

"Do you know that there was a garden behind the lab building? People was afraid of contracting tuberculosis so they don't go there after the old gardener died. The garden was under Mei's second floor windows when Mei was there, and she liked to sit in front of the windows and read poems..."

But I could not hear anything anymore. I was lost in my thought, and before my eyes, a beautifully sad Spring, a pretty but sick girl, sitting in front of a second floor window overlooking a small but carefully attended rose garden, with a book in her hand, was deeply in her thought. Apple tree flowers are blooming, and rose petals are falling, in the warm sunlight, in the winding wind.

"I came back to teach here after graduate school." I could hear Lan's voice again. "What I could not understand is: How did you know her? It seems that you are still in your second grade. Have you been to the hospital before you came to the school?"

"No. I met her this summer."

She stopped, staring at me, with her lips trembling and face white. Her large beautiful eyes, that of Mei's, were full of tears again, and disbelief.

"Yes, I understand. " I thought.

Mei, my dear Mei, do I have a chance to see you again?

I walked away from Lan. She did not catch up.

We were at the end of the road between the Living Area and the Basic Science Area. There is a village with a zigzag alley and old crooked dates trees. I walked into the village. A dog ran up to me and smelt my legs and pockets. "What do you want, doggie?" I turned over my pockets. "nothing here." He looked up at me, hesitated, and ran away.

Was I crazy?

I didn't care. Mei had occupied my whole world. I saw her in the distant trees, I saw her in the passing clouds. I heard her soft voice in the wind, and in the bustling sound of the village and town. I hoped that I was crazy more so that I could be with her once again.

Fall past quickly. When leaves totally fell from trees, Winter came.

I saw Lan several times. She was extremely white and even thinner. She said "hello" politely when we past each other. Maybe she thought either I was crazy or I was mean and just made fun of her. I didn't know, and didn't care. But I could not resist the sweet feelings when I heard her voice, the voice of Mei.

One day, it was freezing cold. The sun was blocked by a thick layer of dark clouds. A strange red light glows between the sky and the world on the ground. At noon, snow started to fall, and at night, there was half a meter of snow.

The students were excited. They ran around in groups, laughing and and throwing snowballs at each other. I was in the classroom writing my diary when Lan came.

"Can you walk me to a place in town?"

I hesitated.

"I have to send a package to a relative today, and it was cold and dark outside. "

Oh her voice was so sweet. I looked at her. She even had Mei's eyes. She was wearing a thick black jacket, a pair of black jeans, and dark red leather boots. The clothing fit her figure well. Her long hairs was tied behind her head like a horse tail. Her cheeks were red from the warmth of the classroom, and her hands, agile and slender, looked bloodless from the coldness.

I closed my diary, put it back in my drawer and locked the drawer. Then I stood up, and a minute later, we were out into the dark streets of the town, with large flakes of snow falling from the sky and flying around us.

We walked on the streets, without talking to each other. Warm yellow lights glow from the windows along the street, and the white light from street lamps was blurred in the snow.

The snow was thick on the street, and walking was somewhat difficult. She slipped at a turn, and I grabbed her elbow to prevent her from falling. "Thank you. " She smiled at me. Her smile was so sweet too, like that of Mei's.

"Let me take the package." I said.

"No, no, I am OK, really." She stepped backwards to avoid my stretched hands. I looked at the package. It was an ordinary small brown box.

We walked past the stone bridge above the polluted Mengjiang River, through a square with a large building at the end, and into a small alley with some very old houses on both sides. She approached a door at the end of the alley and knocked on it.

"Who is it?" A girl's voice from inside the wood door.

"Lan."

The door ajared open with a cracking sound, a girl's head appeared and her eyes landed on Lan and her package. I noticed that the girl has Mei's eyes too.

"Got it?"

"Yes, just arrived. "

The girl took that package carefully and took a look at me. "Who is this?"

Lan put a hand on my arm and said. "A friend from the school. I asked him to walk me here. It is dark and cold and it is snowing."

"Yes, yes, I see. " The girl said, "You want to come in and get warm?"

"No, thanks. I have to go back to the school. " Lan replied.

"You sure?"

"Yes. And say hello to your mother. "

"OK, bye then. " The girl closed the door and Lan and I was on our way back.


Chapter 4. My Lady's Ghost

We were on our way back, when the snow stopped falling. The whole world was covered by a thick layer of snow that everything was lended a look of cleanness and softness. The air was fresh, without the usual smell of dust and exhaust. Everything was frozen in the coldness. A moment later, A big moon came out from behind the clouds, and its light was bright with the reflection of the snow.

It was very quiet. Nobody could be seen. The streets, looked so clean and beautiful from the snow and moonlight, seemed deserted.

"It"s eleven now, we"d better hurry." said I.

We stumbled forward in the snow, like wading in the water. With every step, there was the sound of snow being pressed under our feet. And two long lines of steps were left on the otherwise perfectly beautiful and smooth street.

We were almost at the bridge over the river, when I saw another person on it. It looked like a girl from a distance. I was walking with my head lowered so I didn"t know when she appeared, or how she appeared.

When we walked closer and closer, I suddenly realized that there was something wrong with her. She was wearing only a skirt. She stood on the other end of the bridge, facing us. Her face was dark in the shade of a nearby lampstand. When I looked at her, I suddenly felt a fierce pain in my heart, an ache that I was so familiar with in this half year. I stopped there, could not move.

I heard a gasp beside me. Looking aside, I saw Lan stood there, mouth wide open, staring at the figure without blinking. My heart started to race frantically. Almost at the same time, we ran on the bridge and towards the girl.

But she disappeared, as suddenly and quietly as she appeared, into the distant darkness. When we got to the end of the bridge, there was nobody that we could see, not even a foot step in the snow. We could noly hear the pounding of our heartbeat, and the sound of water trickling under the bridge, in the tender moonlight.

Lan turned her face and looked at me, tears flashing in her eyes, face whiter than the snow. I could not hold my own tears either.

"Is that my ..." said she, could not go on.

I nodded. We ran across the bridge, and started looking around in the nearby alleys and a vacant market place. We even dashed down the bridge. But nowhere could we saw the figure we saw a moment ago.

But what was going on? Mei was no longer in this world, wasn't she? Although I was with her once in this summer, I would rather think of it as a sweet dream now. And even if somehow she was still around us, why did she stand in the cold December night and in the snow with only a skirt? Was she cold? Was she lonely? Why did she disappear when she saw us?

I could not stand the painful feeling of thinking her being cold and lonely and with no one to comfort her and warm her. I sobbed.

Lan was deep in thought. Then she asked me "Where did you saw her this summer?"

"In the garden beside the wall." I replied.

"Let's go there, and hurry."

A flush of wind blew down from nearby trees, whistled the branches on its path, and cut our faces like knife. We ran to the school and to the garden, holding each other's hand. Her hand was warm and tender, but wet from sweating.

The gate of the Basic Science Department was locked already, and we had to squeeze ourselves throught the crack between the two doors one by one. Turning right, around the Lab Building, I stood there again, in the deserted garden, where once upon a time the red skirt flattered, the agile barefeet stepped, and the sweet words spoken and heard.

The garden was totally covered by the snow. In the bright moonlight, I could see that trees and thrubs have no leaves left on their branches, yet their branches were thick too that I still could not see through them. I led Lan to the turn of the small path where the old apple tree was deep in the thorned thrubs. The thrubs was thick like a grey wall.

I told her about the opening and the secret alley leading to the center of the garden. I told her about Mei's secret garden and the roses. Lan listened attentively, without a question. Then I told her the pains and ache when I missed Mei so much and when couldn't find her. Then I heard a sigh, very soft and very light. But I recognized the sound, the sound of Mei.

"Mei, Mei, it's Mei." I screamed, and tried to push into the thrubs. But they were not so fragile as they looked like, and the thorns punctured and tore into my hands.

Lan grabbed me back, with a strengh not imaginable with her slender look. She seemed to be frightened at first. When I calmed down a little bit, she loosed her hands. Tears came back again in her eyes, and in a tearful voice, she pleaded, facing the center of the garden where the sigh seemed to come from.

"Mei, my dear mei, my sweet small bird, this is Lan. If you are there, and you are listening, please listen to me. "

"We missed you so much. Since you left us, we have been missing you. The world has been so dark in those years without you."

"Where have you been in those years? Why don't you come to us? Why don't you even come to your sister?"

"Mei, little Mei, if you are there, please let us see you, even once. I worried about you, and I miss you. "

With her solitery words disppeared in the thrubs, the old apple tree moved forward, and there was an opening and an alley appeared hehind it, all in a blink of eye. Stand in the alley, under the roof of thrub branches, in the patches of moonlight, was Mei, my dear Mei.

She stood there in the depth of the alley, with her head lowered in the dark. I stumbled forward in ecstacy. She leaned her body towards me in a second too. But before I could reach her, she stepped backwards suddenly, like a straw swirling in a twisting wind.

She cried, "no, don"t let him get close to me."

Her voice was hoarse and exhausted, like that of a very tired person. I was startled, and stopped, Lan too.Then we saw her lowered her body and knelt in the snow, and started crying.

Lan approached her slowly, and said, "It"s OK, Mei, It"s me." Mei cried more intensely, her shoulders upheaving with her weeps.

Lan got down in the snow too. She embraced Mei"s shoulder. It must be very cold in the snow because I could see Lan"s body shivered violently. I saw that Lan was talking to Mei in a lowered voice. Mei shook her head, like refusing something, while Lan pleading in an ardent and fast voice. Half an hour past, Mei stopped crying, and Lan waved her hand to me, seemed very tired.

I walked up to them in numbness. Then I saw her face. It was very dreadful. She has lost her beauty. The once smooth and shining skin lost its color, her cheeks sank, and there were dark shades under her eyes. The eyes, once playful and clear, were now two spiritless wells, with no eyelashes left.

I almost fainted. A feeling of vast lost swelled in my heart. I suddenly felt sorrowful and angry.

"What happened? Who did this to you?"

"I did it myself. I should not forget the rule."
"Now you see me in this shape. You can go now." She said in a faltered, cold voice.


"come on, Mei, he doesn"t know what is happening. And I don"t know all either. Let"s find a place to sit down, you are not looking well." said Lan.

She took off her jacket and tried to wrap it around Mei. But Mei refused. She looked at her sister in a sorrowful smile: "Sister, do you think I am feeling the coldness?"

Lan"s tears dropped again.

We walked to the small secret garden and sit on the bench. The bench, which was cool at summer, was warm in the snow. The roses were covered in the snow, with numerous red rosehips protruding towards the sky.

And sitting there, Mei told us her story.




Chapter 5.Mei"s Story

"I wasn"t really dead. " said Mei.

"It was like a long long dream. I don"t know how long has past when one day, I woke up, and found myself lying on this bench in this small garden, wearing this red skirt. "

"In my dreams, a sound told me that I was spared from my fate because somebody has sacrificed his life for mine. However, in order for me to regain my full life, I have to fulfill what that person hasn"t accomplished in his life: that I have to successfully cultivate a new rose specy that he has spent his whole life trying to cultivate. "

"The old gardener?" Lan and I said simultaneously, looking at each other.

Lan looked back at us, drew a deep breath, paused, and then said "Yes, the old gardener. I remember him when I was in the hospital."

She continued, "And there was another price: that I was not allowed to love anybody or anything else until the rose was cultivated successfully, because only the whole heart and soul and the pure love of a human can accomplish the task."

My heart sank with the words.

"The old gardener was not pure, he loved a gardener"s daughter when he was young. That was why he was unsuccessful. He knew that and he knew that I was pure because I was in the hospital since I was small and I seemed to be fond of the garden and flowers he grew. That was why he gave his life for me. He gave up his life out of his love for the roses, not out of sympathy for a sick girl."

"That I have to contribute my whole love and my whole heart and soul into this business, and if I loved somebody or something else before it was done, I would be punished, cruelly. "

"I would lose what I was afraid to lose most, " She looked at me with her lashless, deep and wide eyes, and continued, with her eyes turned to the cold, dark and bottomless sky,

"then I would vanish, like a water bubble in the thin air." She lowered her head, seemed to be crying without a sound.

I couldn"t bear the pain hearing this. So she has lost her beauty, and they tried to make her lose her love by making her looking ugly, and then they are going to take her life.

"Who? Where are they?" I stood up,and tramped around. But Mei stopped me with a glance.

"I know that I don"t have too much time left. So I went back to the old houses to look at the my sweet home the last time, and that was when our aunt saw me, and asked you to get the spell paper from the famous wizard to try to bring me back. "

Only at this moment did I understand why Lan was so hurry sending the package, and what was in that ordinary-looking brown box.

"But that was useless. " Mei continued. "My situation is different. It won"t bring my life back. It was me who broke the rule, I have to be punished. Please tell our aunt to stop."

"I was unable to bear the pain losing you," said Mei, and looking at me again.

"So I followed you for a long time, only be careful not to let you know. Only in this last time when I saw you and Lan together, I was jealous and couldn"t hide myself in time when you saw me."

Lan was embarrased. She took a secret glance at me, and lowered her head.

"I am sorry Mei, I didn"t mean that." said Lan in a voice so low that the words could bearly be heard.

Mei didn"t say anything. She looked at her sister for a while, and smiled. "Lan, don"t be stupid. We know each other so well. You like him, don"t you?"

Lan was silent.

"Then please take care of him when I"m gone. I will be happy if you do that for me. and I am serious."

Lan broke into tears. "No, no. Mei, my sweetheart, There must be a way to bring you back. "
"No, there is no way." Mei said bruptly.

I was angry. There must be a way.

"There is a way." A voice came down to us from above. We were all startled and looking up and around, we found that an owl, the same owl that I saw when I was in the garden the first time, was standing on an apple tree branch, looking down to us with both his round eyes.

"No, please ..." Mei suddenly jumped up from the bench, "please don"t tell him."

"Mei, silly girl. Why are you always caring so much about others. " said the owl in contempt. Then he turned his dial-like face to me, "Hi, you. You can save her."

I stumbled to the apple tree in happiness and knelt down in the snow. With my face facing up to the owl, and raised my hands to him, pleading, "Owl, tell me what to do."

Chapter 6. A Happy Death, A marvelous Resurrection, and A Conclusion

"The only wayto saveher life is to contribute yourself. " Said the owl.

"Pay attention to my words, I sayContribute, not Sacrifice." He added.

"That you must let your spirit leave your body, that your spirit must work with her spirit together to bring the rose to this world. "

"But there are risks. The success is not garanteed, and if you fail, both of you will disappear forever."

"And there are rewards too. If you succeed, she will regain her beauty."

"How can I do that?"

"Easy, you just need to kill yourself in an non destructive way, like cutting your wrist. Oh, let somebody take care of your body well, or you won"t be able to return to it."

Thus finished our talking, and away the owl flied.

I went to the teachers" office the next morning to ask for a sick leave. "Half a year. I don"t know, maybe one year." I told them. They looked at me strangly. But I was such a good student, that they believed my excuse and let me go.

The family of Lan and Mei put my body in a coffin next to Mei"s. They didn"t open Mei"s coffin, afraiding that something could go wrong.

It was a happy death. When I lost my blood, I felt my head got heavy and my body got light. Just before I lost consciousness, I feltlike awakening from a dream, and I was with Mei, in the secret garden.

The world looked different with my spirit"s eyes. The small secret garden was like a garden home perfectly. The rose was not easy to cultivate but we tried hard. happily together.

Roses were watered, poems were written, loving words were exchanged, but no sex. Must be pure. Mei regained her beauty. But I didn"t care too much about that any more. After staying and working with her, I gradually felt that her mere existance besides me could make me happy enough.

Then one day, Wala, the rose was there, and we named it "Lady in Red".

The nigth the rose was alive, there wasa thunder storm. Our tomb was struck open that night and there was no body there.

The next morning, when people heard of this strange thing and gathered to watch, they found that butterflies were flying and very beautiful roses were growing on the small mount that was once a tomb for some time. There were rumors, but were quickly forgotten by the busy world.

I went back to school, weak but with good spirit. My classmates and teachers were happy to see me back.

I married Mei, and we were happy ever after. Lan went to the South to study towards a PHD. Later, she went to a far away place on the other side of the planet, and call us sometimes. She was lonely, she said on the phone, but was happy for us. She wishes to come back in 2008 when the Olympic Games were held in Beijing. We wish her good luck, and tell her not to put too much money on the stock market. And here ends our story.

$ THE END $