River Scroll ~ excerpted from Millie's novels
Yangtze River, 1895
Beneath the sleeping village of Fengshan rushed the Great Long River, its dark waters glowing like oiled mahogany. Here and there among turbulent swirls, huge foam shapes appeared for a moment, then disappeared.
They look like ghostly temple gods, Mei-lee thought, peering down at the River as she staggered along on painful bound feet.
Once past the village, the River flowed with swiftness to a bend in its course. There it briefly became a lake, encircled by shadowy mountain peaks jutting majestically upwards. Because it was night, no junks swept by, no boatmen shouted. Only stillness and moonlight kept the River company through the gorge.
Ai! If only I had been a male, I might have gone to school. Mei-lee thought as she paused to gaze and ease her gasps. I might have learned to brush on scrolls this scene that soothes my despair.
She clutched the infant asleep in her arms and crept on.
Soon she reached the sacred willow tree standing guard between the dwellings of her village and the River. She longed to sit on the smooth earth but ached from giving birth – and from her husband’s beating. Instead, she leaned on her cane to rest beneath the ancient tree.
Her friend since childhood, the tree became her confidant the day her husband first struck her. That was the day she displeased him by asking to spend her fifteenth birthday at her ancestral home. She leaned painfully against her friend’s familiar trunk. As always, its strength calmed her.
“See,” she said softly to its leafy branches, “here is my precious second baby."
. 
