To Luhua, spring was an invisible guest. "Mom, what does spring look like?" Luhua asked, tilting her head. Her…
To Luhua, spring was an invisible guest.
"Mom, what does spring look like?" Luhua asked, tilting her head.
Her mother paused, her hands frozen beet-red as she fed handfuls of reeds into the fire. The crackling flames cast a crimson glow upon her face. "When the ice thaws," her mother said, "when fish leap from the water, birds return, and the reeds turn green, then spring will be here."
She could see birds soaring across the sky. She could see fish flicking their tails beneath the surface. She could see those seeds billowing like wave after wave in the wind as well.
But what did spring actually look like? Her mother still hadn't said.
Thus, in Luhua's heart, spring was like a guest from afar, one who only paid a quiet visit when the air turned warm. Bringing fish, birds, and an entire marsh of lush green reeds, enough to soothe her mother's cough and leave her own belly empty a few less times.
"If only this guest would stay just a little longer,"
Luhua thought to herself, huddling by the fire and nuzzling into the dog's scruffy fur.
For winter was truly, terribly cold.
It was the "tiny mouths" splitting open on her hands that bit her; the way her fingers stung at the slightest bend when she rowed. It was the "tears" that fell from her nose; the clothes frozen stiff as boards, and the house that shivered right along with them when night fell.
When she told her mother this, she would smile and say that in her own childhood, winter meant only white mountains and black waters, colder and harder to endure than this. But "it'll be fine once we pull through... when the ice thaws, the river will bring spring with it."
Only this year, winter seemed to stretch longer than any before.
First, the birds departed. In formation after formation, they rose from the water, circling the reedbeds a few times before plunging into the distant, ashen sky.
Luhua tugged at her mother's sleeve: "Mom, where are they going?"
"To a warmer place," her mother said, her gaze drifting away with them across the sky, only returning after a long silence. "They'll be back next spring."
Then, the people departed as well.
She watched as the villagers, like the birds, left in one group after another, boats laden with their belongings. When someone passed the reedbeds and shouted a few words to them from afar, her mother would only shake her head.
"Mom, where are they going?" Luhua asked.
"To a warmer place," her mother replied as before, though her voice had grown hoarse.
Later still, the river froze over.
Lying prone upon the riverbank, she peered down, seeing only a leaden expanse of grey beneath the ice. The fish had vanished. Each time she hauled up her net, it was empty, save for shards of ice and the frozen, stiffened roots of reeds.
"Have the fish gone to a warmer place as well?"
This time, there was no one to answer Luhua's question; only the wind whistled through the reeds. For Mother had gone out, and she had not yet returned.
Crack. A fissure split the icy surface of the river.
Plop. Something like a fish leapt from the water, only to vanish instantly into the shadows.
Was it spring returning? Was it that invisible guest, arriving at last along the river's flow? Had it brought Mother back along with it? Luhua did not know.
But she knew this: so long as one weathers the winter, spring will always be there, waiting.