When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain (The Singing Hills Cycle, #2)

by Nghi Vo

“Aren’t you meant to have a little recorder bird with you?” asked Si-yu,

“Yes, my neixin, Almost Brilliant,” Chih said with a sigh. “She’s sitting a clutch of eggs right now, and this cold would be too much for her anyway.”

The mammoths in the frozen paddock were the lesser breed, smaller, slender-legged and with shorter trunks than their royal cousins. This lot mostly belonged to a breeder who was bringing them east to one of the outposts there, and they were largely russet-hued, some with a white foot or a splash of white on the topknot of fur sitting over their brow.

Not long after Dieu skirted the Battle of Kirshan—where General Peirong was killed by a raging bull that went on to become the king of Kirshan

Dieu swallowed hard, and then something came to her. She no longer had Songs of Everlasting Sorrow, but it had been her favorite, and it lived in her mind and in her heart still. “From the deepest part of the Yellow Springs, my dear husband, I call to you . . .” “I’m right here,” said the second Cheng son in surprise, and the tiger growled. “No one was talking to you,” she said. “My eyes are open for always, my mouth is empty for always, and always will my soul reach for yours. In the land of the dead, there are only blackbirds, and I send this one to you, in the hopes that you remember me still. Light me a stick of incense, and so long as it burns, let me sit in the chamber outside your bedroom again. Until it goes out . . .” “Let me stay and be for you,” said the tiger, and she rose and drove away the ghosts of the Cheng mansion.

“I like this one better,” said, of all people, Si-yu. “I don’t care for food that flatters,” said Sinh Loan coolly, but Si-yu shook her head. “And I don’t care about poetry. It’s nice, but . . . the first bite of every meal that Dieu eats? That’s good. That’s how the old warriors who don’t like to use words like love talk. My grandfather still says I will always give you the first bite of my dinner, you terrible woman, to my grandmother. I didn’t know that tigers said it too.”

Chih paused. “If Dieu was meant to offer the first bites of her food to Ho Thi Thao, I suppose it makes sense that Ho Thi Thao never suspected her . . .” To their surprise, Sinh Loan was watching her with a nearly indulgent expression on her face.

Does Vo here use the pronoun "her" for Chih? If not, who is the "her" that Sinh Loan was watching?

When Dieu finally came to the Hall of Ferocious Jade, she felt like she was entering the mouth of a tiger’s cave, and it did not escape her awareness that she had done just that without this amount of fear and nerves.

“Listen,” said Dieu more softly, and she locked eyes with the tiger, always a dangerous thing to do. “Only listen. My love has gone from me, and I will never again laugh. My love has gone from me and she has taken all light with her.” The tiger was silent, glaring from the cage, and the sailors looked skeptical. “I sit in the moon-viewing pavilion, the hem of my sleeves wet from tears, and I cannot see for the grief has stolen my eyes, and I cannot speak for the grief has stolen my tongue.” The tiger growled, a deep and resonant sound, and Dieu went closer. She was aware of the sailors on the dock, of the clangor of the city behind her, but nothing mattered more than the caged beast in front of her. “I sit, weeping, eyeless, tongueless, without laughter and absent from light. I sit, and I wait for the answer that only my wife could give.” Finally, the tiger spoke, and her words were soft as a summer wind, as gentle and smooth as Dieu’s own. “I am yours, and so I will be your light and your laughter. I am yours, so open your eyes to look at me, and open your mouth so that I may kiss it. I am yours, I am yours, and nevermore will I leave.”

NGHI VO was born in central Illinois, and she retains a healthy respect of and love for corn mazes, scarecrows, and fifty-year floods. These days, she lives on the shores of Lake Michigan, which is less a lake than an inland sea that she is sure is just biding its time.

Nghi mostly writes about food, death, and family, but sometimes detours into blood, love, and rhetoric. She believes in the ritual of lipstick, the power of stories, and the right to change your mind.