Late that evening in Empress Yū Miko's inner chambers.
~
"Ylang, did you find him? You must make him go!"
Every time Su Li heard what seemed like a step outside, her blood stood still in her veins for a moment.
"Why are you the lookout? I don't want to be cursed."
Su Li rolled her eyes. "Foolish girl, stop talking nonsense! The curse doesn't exist."
"So many servants have gone missing. I heard some had their hearts—"
"Enough! Servants come and go… we are disposable. Such is our fate if we displease the Imperial Family. And we will be the next ones to be sent away! So-check-again! Her Majesty will be here soon!"
"Su Li… I swear, I have searched every corner… I think he is gone."
"You think? This will not end well for both of us if he happens to spring upon Her Majesty at any moment. I swear Ylang if—"
"Su Li!… here… behind the curtains!"
The two palace attendants out-manoeuvred by a fat ginger cat and positively frightened—one of the Empress's wrath, the other of the curse—were on the point to chase after him when Su Li, crouched upon her knees so as to let the smallest portion of her head appeared above the window sill, saw the two maids, each with a lantern on a post, walking ahead of the Empress and her retinue.
"Quick, Her Majesty is back!" Urged Su Li through the partition-door.
The growing glow of the lanterns approaching the forecourt sent Su Li's nerves tingling. "So? Do you have him?"
But Ylang, half dazed, stared at the curtains, unable to move. "What if the curse is real…" Her voice had a thin weak sound, quite unreal.
"Ylang?… Ylang!"
Su Li opened the sliding doors with ornamental paper screens, and rushed in. Before her panic-stricken eyes, a nightmarish scene unravelled. By a series of leaps and bounds from the table to the cabinet, the ginger cat flung onto the floor the bowls of dried persimmons and candied fruits, also the cosmetic boxes. The Empress's coloured eye pencils and many cosmetic powders scattered all over the floor! And the paws dipped in rouge imprinted on the rugs and on the curtains.
"Ylang! Damn it! Foolish girl!" Su Li whimpered. Filled with panic and fear, she frantically pursued the cat around the room. "Don't stand there! Help me!"
A scream of terror was heard and it took Su Li a second to realise that it was coming from no other than the Empress Dowager! The cold sharpness of her scream sent goosebumps down each and every maid.
Transfixed with horror, the Empress stared at the ginger cat. All the ladies from her retinue instantly jumped up from their feet and chased after the cat while the Empress watched with terrified wide-open eyes.
The cat brushed past the layers of her gown, hissing and swatting his claws at her. Now the Empress suddenly fell down in a faint.
Amidst the general confusion some ladies were attending to the distraught Empress and helping her to her feet while others went to fetch the imperial physician and the guardsmen.
… … …
The Empress had sent for her son. Taizong found his mother lying on the divan, surrounded by her ladies in waiting. She had dishevelled hair and her face ashen as death.
She was weeping and still struggling laboriously for breath. The knuckles on her hands were white for clenching hard the fabric of her gown too lengthy a time. However, no amount of clenching could stop the incessant shaking of her body.
As she saw her son she stretched forth both hands and broke into a loud sobbing, "Son, is it done?"
Taizong held both her cold hands in his palms and implored her not too excite herself too much—"doctor's orders." And his reassuring account of the cat being caught and killed caused the sobbing to ease off a little.
"Did they cut off the head? Otherwise his ghost will come back to haunt me."
"Mother, the guards always do so and I check on it myself. Do not worry, as we speak the cat's remains are being cremated."
The candles in the room burned dimly and the fragrant incense in the golden censors was palling to ash.
Taizong waved his hand, and there was a shuffle of withdrawing feet.
Empress Yū Miko scrambled into the bed. She looked at her son with bloodshot eyes, her voice thin and with real anguish, "She is after me… she said she will rip my heart out… stop the hunt… let your brother be…" and she hid her head under the sheets.
She looked distressed, exhausted and as though she were about to give in after a long mental struggle.
Taizong believed that this alleged curse she tormented herself with was a moral residue from the guilt for murdering Royal Consort Soyong.
Guilt—something hard to remove, the indelible stain on her mind which came to haunt her in the manifestation of a nekomata cat. And so, year after year, cat after cat… this scene and those words rewound.
The guilt sat not on her chest but inside her brain, hence the hallucinations and alarms of lunacy. The feverishness of her mind proved this, if nothing else.
At some point the tears stopped and sleep began. As Taizong watched his mother, now he knew for sure that her weakness was her insanity, and he possessed this incredible tool to wield if she would not curb her ambition in governing the country in his stead by rendering him an useless puppet.
.
.
.
Something tug at her, something with an icy grip. Someone was beside her, breathing hard. Yū Miko felt a weight on her chest. Her ebony lashes fluttered. Her son Taizong must have had fallen asleep by her side, she thought.
Then she heard a voice as lonely as a tomb say very faintly something about, "leave him alone or I'll carve your heart out."
The weight on top of her chest moved. Then a face thrusted itself forward so close to her own that she could almost feel her lips touching it. So scared was she that her eyelids refused to open.
The pressure on her chest deepened. She couldn't breath, it felt as if someone was choking her.
Her heart was racing and all over her body the skin moved as if crawling silkworms covered it.
She hesitated but opened her eyes, and behold! A face with yellow savage leonine eyes and alive with intense aggressive emotion and malevolence—the face of a nekomata cat!
In a moment of uncontrollable terror she made no sound and her eyes remained tightly shut. She stayed for a few moments silent as if if in secret prayer. "Wake up... wake up… this is not real… this is a bad dream… this is not real…" she repeated aloud quickly.
She opened one eye. The black cat with the golden paw had gone, dissolved into the darkness. She breathed deeply, what a relief! She opened the other eye—this time around it was only a nightmare.
She sat against the brocade headboard of the bed and with some great difficulty she composed herself.
In this ghostly hour of the night, there was more light than before in the room for the bright harvest moon had travelled to the lattice shutters.
The Empress saw her night attendant dutifully standing in the corner of the room. She greatly needed to calm her tingling nerves so she ordered her to run to the kitchen and bring a pot of valerian and chamomile tea.
But all she did was stand in the corner. How dare she made this Empress reiterate her command? "If you do not obey this instant, you will receive double the lashes you are already owed."
When she looked back at her, the servant got closer and closer until she got caught within the moonbeams that had been cast like long tentacles across the room… it wasn't the night attendant… Yū Miko blinked… then when she looked back again the creature was back in the corner. Then it started again... just... staring at her… amber eyes, like the gates to hell, glowed.
The creature's bony hand with nails like a sabre tooth tiger beckoned to her, and almost instantly the candles flickered. Her inhuman voice whispered: "I warned you…" then she glided closer and closer. "Leave my son be..."
The Empress felt her spine suddenly become hollow and filling up with particles of ice. A choked cry for help forced itself up her throat, but no one came to save her, no one was there. It seemed as if this was the end of the road for her.
A voice, a shrill voice suddenly sounded in her ear: "Your Majesty! Your Majesty! Wake up!" She opened her eyes and found herself curled up like a shrimp.
The arrival of her night attendant inspired her such comfort that she instantly hugged the dumbfounded maid. The wretched dream had vanished!
The night attendant knotted her brows. "Your Majesty is injured. I shall send for the imperial physician right away."
Empress Yū Miko felt something wet trickling from her forehead in her left eye…
Fresh blood.
Within the bedsheets she found…
A gilded long nail.
The nightmare had vanished.
Yet, it had left behind an impression of a strong unusual and frightened reality.