The breeze caresses my face, its gentle touch embodying my treasured pleasure. The dirt is hot beneath my bare feet, yet the feeling between my spaced toes fills me with vitality. I continue to run more quickly now, in desperate will that Gama does not return before me. The small hut’s door is ajar, and the small footprints in the dirt are fresh. “Meinue, where have you been?” I try to hide my parcel behind my dress, but the fabric is thin and reveals my deception. Late into her years, Gama still has the sharp bite of a dragon’s breath. “You are not a little girl anymore! You must learn to stop reading that storybook full of nonsense. Life does not work like that book. You must control yourself, otherwise no man will ever want you as his wife.” No words escape my mouth and Gama is content. I do not argue with tradition, but any smart Chinese girl knows that she must.

Gama’s furtive glances the successive morning bind me to my chair, and I realize that my daily escapes have been carried away with the tantalizing wind. The book is now guarded by her authority, but lucky for me, I pay no mind to such ephemeral rules. With the sun’s daily rays asleep for the night behind the mountains of rice fields, I look to its counterpart for assistance. The moon is much greedier and gives me less light to see by yet the faint symbols are still decipherable. A woman graces the page, her face contorted into unrecognizable emotion. She stands upon a platform held upright by the smallest feet in the entire village, perhaps even China. Her dress is stretched tight across her fecund body and men surround her as though she is the bud and they the petals of a lotus. Yet the men’s hungry gazes pay no mind to her beauty, and are enraptured only by the impossible feet. I worry that she might fall, with only her feet caught. “Beautiful isn’t she?” A woman stands in the doorway, covered by the clandestine night. “Her name was Yao-niang and they say she stole the emperor’s heart with only her toes”. The woman moves forward with the minced gait of a cripple, still half hidden in the darkness of the hut. “How is it possible for one to be born with stilts for feet?” I ask desperately, hungering for this mystery woman’s infinity of knowledge. “My child, my dear, dear child. One must cry a thousand buckets of water, before one can think of stealing hearts.”

The daylight of the next morning no longer enchants me as it did the day before. I am now a child of the night, searching for the secrets of another’s past. My mouth tastes of a dream and I wonder if the moon has tricked me. “Meinue, why are you still sleeping?! Today is your only chance at a fit husband and you are squandering your opportunity by lying in bed!” I have dreaded this day for most of my childhood, time and fear pushing the impending imminence into the far corners of my imagination. Fortunately, my mouth remained as silent as my heart.

We greeted one another formally and both grew unnaturally cold in the warm summer breeze. He had the stance of one who knew that money was his only attribute, yet his eyes spoke of kindness. We did not speak alone of course; Gama and my betrothed’s father were only feet away, pretending not to listen. “I have always admired you Meinue.” His confession took me suddenly, as we had been speaking of the weather. The whispered tone with which he spoke held the promise of a life of equality, and although we had never officially met, I realized that I had always admired him too. “Meet me tonight by the cherry blossom tree”, and with that, we parted once more.

The moon hung higher tonight amidst its children the stars, curious to see what might pass. I started along the familiar dirt path, taking pleasure once more in the grounding of each step. My mother had once made this same journey, but her heart led her to keep walking far past where I now halted. The long limber arms of the Cherry blossom hung heavily with the weight of its beauty. A figure moved decisively within the pink haze, and I followed suit. “I use to come here with Li Yu, he always told me the pink blossoms matched the souls of my feet.” The woman shifts forward into the starlight, and I startle myself with a sharp intake of breath. Her body is older now, her skin matching the bark of the tree. Yet the unmistakably tiny feet reveal her to me. “You’re, you’re the woman from the story book. But that’s impossible, that book is hundreds of years old. It has been in my family long before even Gama was born.” Her quiet choke of a laugh disconcerts me, as though it is out of practice. “My child, that book chooses it story based on what its reader most desperately needs”.
“And, what is it that I need?”
“These.” A long limber branch of a hand appears, holding a tiny pair of shoes. The shoes are no longer than a finger, and its red fabric is embellished with the intricate design of a beautiful golden lotus. I glance at my own feet, brown with the skin of the earth. “But Yao-niang, my feet are much too large. I will never dance like you.” A moon’s crescent lies on its back where her mouth should be, “Beauty can be found under a single rice patty, but first one must perspire in the sun checking under a million others.”
“I do not understand”
“If you bind your feet in cloth, each day wrapping tighter, then one day you will find your rice patty. But be warned, the heat of the sun is too much for some.”
The stars chatter in excitement and Yao-niang totters once again into the night. The moon slides past the stars, and I wait against the tree with only a binding cloth and the lotus shoes for company.
“I am sorry I took so long, I did not want to startle you. You looked so blissful surrounded by the pink blossoms.” He lays his arm gently in the soft earth and places his head upon it, close to my own. “When I was young, on my way to school, I use to see you reading a bound book. No other girls knew how to read, and I wondered if it was merely pictures. One night I snuck into your hut and took the book from beside your mat, intending to return it before you woke. But when I returned home and opened its pages, it was blank. That was the day I asked my father for our betrothal.”
My cheeks turned the color of the blossoms, at the suggestion I was specifically yearned for. “Do you not think me too wild?”
I raised myself onto my newly bound feet and moved my arms to the beat of the mountain breeze. The pain stabbed my feet relentlessly, yet the only struggle I felt was the barely controlled desire in my spectator’s eyes. The grace of the lotus overcame me, and I imagined myself the glowing bud content with my single petal.

The moon changed its raiment’s, and so did my feet. The clandestine exchanges continued each night, and I began to speak less and dance more until I collapsed at the waking of the sun. I bound my feet more tightly each morning as instructed, and as my wedding day neared, the pain became as familiar as Gama. My betrothed’s curiosity grew at the withering of my feet, until he could no longer restrain the inquisitive beast. “Why, your feet now are no bigger than my pinky finger. How do you dance with them?”
My lips part as if to speak, yet no semblance of human speech escapes. My thoughts bang violently in my head, but my mouth stays as tightly bound as my feet. “Fine. If you do not wish to answer me, then I will have to see for myself.” He nears where I have laid myself to take a moment’s respite, and his intent is reflected in the deeply set purpose of his almond shaped eyes. I attempt to protest, yet my words have abandoned me. The golden protection of the lotus shoes is removed and my feet are slowly unbound. In his eyes I see the moonlit reflected image of an unnatural hoof. My toes take cover under the high arches of my feet, as though molded by the clay earth I now rest upon. He bounds my feet again in hurried disgust, the beauty of the lotus no longer a mystery.

The graceful dancing of Yao-niang haunts my dreams even now. Her emperor entrapping movements, and her stilted feet no longer reflect my own. I walk with the minced gait of one who is crippled by vanity. Many sun rises later; I search each rice patty alone and cry more than the sky, for the vitality of the earth abandoned me when my words did.